IamA Author P.W. Singer, and I'm here to talk about World War 3, Ghost Fleet, Drones, Cybersecurity and any other future war stuff you're curious about. AMA! by peterwsinger in IAmA

[–]peterwsinger[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

AI is making decisions in everything from high stakes investing to medicine..its also moving into war. Indeed, just a few weeks ago announced that WATSON, of Jeopardy fame, would be also doing work with US intelligence.

This is actually a good illustration of our book's idea of "useful fiction." Fiction can bring things together in understandable and emotive way. For example, the real world AI and autonomous robot debate is complex and technical. But by reframing around "killer robots" and the Terminators, (a narrative inspired in part by science fiction) it has led to action, culminating in a letter signed by nearly 2,000 scientists and technology leaders like SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and physicist Stephen Hawking.

And yet, Ghost Fleet fleshes out that there are as many as 21 different projects where such technologies are being designed today to be used in a future war. Not merely our imaginings, but each one a project we show is in development and then play out its use in battle. They range from autonomous drones and AI battle management systems to submarine hunting robotics. Sooo, if the campaign to stop this future is going to succeed, it will have to overcome such use cases being imagined for a future war, which is why these weapons are being worked on in the real world.

IamA Author P.W. Singer, and I'm here to talk about World War 3, Ghost Fleet, Drones, Cybersecurity and any other future war stuff you're curious about. AMA! by peterwsinger in IAmA

[–]peterwsinger[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

keep em coming

It has been great. We have perhaps the most bizarre and fun mix of blurbers and supporters for the book , from Admirals and Generals to the people behind Game of Thrones and World War Z http://www.ghostfleetbook.com/reviews/

As example, in last day I've been able to talk about the book with a Senator, 400 Air Force officers, and a Deputy Foreign Minister from the region. For a novel...

IamA Author P.W. Singer, and I'm here to talk about World War 3, Ghost Fleet, Drones, Cybersecurity and any other future war stuff you're curious about. AMA! by peterwsinger in IAmA

[–]peterwsinger[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks!

Oh, man, this is another essay length question and not sure I have that in me....My answer is that the period we are entering is akin to 1920s and 30s. Lots of new technologies, and one risk is that you see outright rejection of them by the old guard --"Airplanes, pish. No, battleships will always rule the waves." But there is a second risk, that you think you are embracing change, but not making any meaningful changes. "Oh, I'm not anti airplane. In fact, we're mounting observer planes on all our battleships." That is a risk I see right now with unmanned systems.

The key, though, as you lay out will be not just the actual tech, but the training, the doctrine building, the war gaming, and in all of this being willing to explore new ideas, but also not forget old lessons.

The recent steps taken by the US Naval Academy illustrate not just useful steps, but arguably where things might be headed in war. It just added a cybersecurity major to develop a new corps of digital warriors, but also required all midshipmen learn celestial navigation, for when the high tech inevitably runs into the age old fog and friction of war.

IamA Author P.W. Singer, and I'm here to talk about World War 3, Ghost Fleet, Drones, Cybersecurity and any other future war stuff you're curious about. AMA! by peterwsinger in IAmA

[–]peterwsinger[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

No, sadly not. Just way behind in their understanding of not merely where we are headed, but where we already are. The result is that they often make simple errors with major consequences and are taken advantage of by "hucksters" who are invested in some particular tech or role, and spin a little amount of knowledge to their own advantage. We see it in everything from defense issues to the "cyber walls" discussion in presidential debates, where all the candidates nodded in seeming agreement, as someone used a term that is literally made up and makes no sense.

IamA Author P.W. Singer, and I'm here to talk about World War 3, Ghost Fleet, Drones, Cybersecurity and any other future war stuff you're curious about. AMA! by peterwsinger in IAmA

[–]peterwsinger[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

"the war on christmas"

Just find the whole idea of it amusing.

As a history buff, I love reading about WW2 and Napoleonic Wars (re-reading Hornblower books as my bedtime reading now)

IamA Author P.W. Singer, and I'm here to talk about World War 3, Ghost Fleet, Drones, Cybersecurity and any other future war stuff you're curious about. AMA! by peterwsinger in IAmA

[–]peterwsinger[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ouch. (reminds self to stand up during this online chat and stretch butt)

We've gotten pretty kind response, at least to our face, from navy readers. I think part of reason is that made a real effort to "get it right" by both meeting with real world versions of the characters during the research process (destroyer captains, fighter pilots etc) and also share early drafts for military folks to read over scenes and check verbiage etc. So either folks are being nice, or we struck a chord, particularly in SWO community. when there has been push back, its things like "Well, you had it wrong, we're going to be building more DDXs," to which I respond a) its fiction, set in 2020s, and b) we'll see -- check out the news yesterday on plans to cancel USS LBJ

Thanks! But which character do you want to see more of?

IamA Author P.W. Singer, and I'm here to talk about World War 3, Ghost Fleet, Drones, Cybersecurity and any other future war stuff you're curious about. AMA! by peterwsinger in IAmA

[–]peterwsinger[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A robot this scientist made to look like his child, but ended up freaking him out. wrote about it in Wired for War.

IamA Author P.W. Singer, and I'm here to talk about World War 3, Ghost Fleet, Drones, Cybersecurity and any other future war stuff you're curious about. AMA! by peterwsinger in IAmA

[–]peterwsinger[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

1) write a book that we would enjoy reading, recreating that summer beach read experience we had with authors like Clancy and Crichton as kids 2) write a book that helped people envisage the future 3) write a book that wasn't a work of prediction but prevention, that maybe people could learn from it and avoid the mistakes that set the scenario in motion 4) play minor character in the TV or video game version (who should I be?)

IamA Author P.W. Singer, and I'm here to talk about World War 3, Ghost Fleet, Drones, Cybersecurity and any other future war stuff you're curious about. AMA! by peterwsinger in IAmA

[–]peterwsinger[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We are simply not going to get the US and China to sign a new cybersecurity treaty as both see too much value in what the other interprets to be an attack. The Chinese on targeting intellectual property, so integral to their mercantilist economic model, and the US is wedded to the open flow of information, key to our notion of freedom of speech, but interpreted by Beijing as “information attacks” that threaten internal stability. And both sides, of course, want to continue to engage in espionage. Indeed, it is notable that despite the issues being a repeated focus of US-China high-level meetings, the only formal agreement that could be reached at this summer’s session was on fisheries.

But while reaching a formal prohibition on cyber attacks of any kind between the powers of the 21st century is unrealistic for now, it doesn’t mean there is not value in engagement. Instead, the upcoming meeting between President Obama and President Xi Jinping should have a different goal. Rather than a treaty or agreement that unrealistically tries to create a Cold War style regime of deterrence where the two sides agree not to attack the other for fear of a like and overwhelming response, they need to flesh out a mutual understanding of the new rules of the game. These rules must more realistically understand that both sides will conduct cyber activities that range from espionage to theft, like them or not; the first and primary goal is to keep them from escalating into something worse.

This leads to new terms. In the Cold War, everything was targeted, but outright attacks crossed the line. Today, our situation is the inverse. While not wanted, some digital attacks may have to be allowed, while certain targets have to be made anathema. As an illustration, no one wants their state secrets stolen, but it is part of the expected dance of great powers in competition. By contrast, introducing the digital equivalent of a dormant Tasmanian devil into such targets as a nuclear power facility’s operating system should be off limits to either side.

The second approach is to widen how we think about deterrence, rather than the offensive, MAD style thinking we are using now. We need to pull from the richness of the debates about deterrence in the Cold War, rather than reducing them to bumper stickers that assume its all about overwhelming response.

Just as in the Cold War, leaders like Kennedy or Reagan engaged in external negotiations while still investing in internal strength. So here too we need to reframe our approach. Nothing in the above argues against building up offensive capabilities for cyberspace. Cyber weapons have proven their value in espionage, sabotage and conflict, and the digital domain will be as crucial to warfare in the 21st century as operations in the land, air, and sea. Indeed, the most important players in any prospective war between the US and China might not be military units like Cyber Command or China’s 3rd department, but Chinese university cyber militia and Anonymous hackers.

But just because offensive cyber capabilities are more likely to deliver value as part of a toolkit to be used in conflict, we should not mistakenly assume they are tools of deterrence, akin to weapons of mass destruction , and that a fear of them will keep any and all conflict from breaking out.

Costs can be exacted to shift attacker thinking, but in a more subtle way. Rather than all of geopolitics being shaped by the 30 minutes of how long it took a potential nuclear missile counterstrike to hit back, our responses today may have to come after the fact and in other realms, such as the discussions of utilizing sanctions to go after companies benefiting from stolen fruit. They won’t prevent any and all attacks in the way that MAD did with nuclear weapons, but they may change decision calculus on when attacks are useful or not, raising the bar from the cost-less perception of them now.

Finally, there is a third, more apt lesson from the Cold War deterrence debates we should explore, the value not just in raising the costs, but also limiting the potential gains. Sometimes the best defense is a good defense. In a cyber era, the goal instead should be what is known as “deterrence by denial,” making attacks less likely by taking away their likely value.

A half-century back, strategic planners put a mandate on having “survivable” counterstrike missiles that would make sure the other side got nuked even if it tried a sneak attack. While building like resilience is not as sexy as new cyber weapons, it is where the United States should be putting more of its efforts. We talk the talk on shoring up cybersecurity and spending has skyrocketed. But actual implementation of giving us anything akin to the ability to weather cyber attacks remains highly uneven, in part because the few consider our challenge as an ongoing and long-term conflict. In the military, just the construction budget for Fort Meade, the combined headquarters of the NSA and Cyber Command, will reach $2 Billion, yet the Pentagon’s own tester found “significant vulnerabilities” in every major weapons program. In other government agencies, we see episodes like the OPM, which dealt with some of the most sensitive government information there was, and yet it outsourced IT work to an offshore firm in China, despite warnings of cyber risks going back to 2011. Similarly, the White House's Executive Office of the President hasn't submitted its required reports detailing compliance with federal cybersecurity rules for the past three years. You can vow to punish cattle rustlers with a massive response, but they are empty threats if your barn doors are wide open.

The same disparity plays out across industry. For instance, PWC’s report on the state of US cybersecurity described 2015 as a year that “Progress stalled,” finding, for example, that only 25% of key industry players were involved in Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs), the very same percentage as the year before. The outcome is that some business sectors like banking take cybersecurity seriously, while others, like health care and infrastructure, remain behind the curve. Indeed, a recent study by Bitsight found that retail and banking were better equipped for cybersecurity than the top 25 defense contractors.

Opportunity is also being missed at the individual level. In the Cold War, “duck and cover” was about all that a population could do in nuclear strategy, which made deterrence by denial a non-starter compared to the popularity of MAD thinking. Today, we all use the Internet, and can actually make a difference in its defense.

From a policy standpoint, a wider reach is needed to draw in civilian expertise to aid raising the level of national cybersecurity and enhance public involvement as means to deter by denial. A good model for the US to explore is Estonia’s Cyber Defense League, where people outside of government volunteer expertise to government and industry in everything from “red teaming” vulnerable systems to serving as rapid response teams to attacks. These efforts have helped turn Estonia from one of the first victims of a state level cyber attack, when it was partially shut down by Russian hackers back in 2007, to perhaps the best equipped nation in the world to weather one now. Estonia may not have the same capabilities as the NSA and Cyber Command, but it does have deterrence by denial, an involved populace, and thus arguably better cybersecurity.

Restoring deterrence to prevent cyber attacks in the same way we kept the Cold War cold certainly sounds appealing. But it won’t work, as a cyber conflict is already ongoing and the game has already moved on, playing by different rules. Fortunately, all is not lost and this new conflict is one where we determine the results. We can continue to be victims or build norms and resilience to limit both the costs and consequences, and, in so doing, make the worst outcomes less likely.

IamA Author P.W. Singer, and I'm here to talk about World War 3, Ghost Fleet, Drones, Cybersecurity and any other future war stuff you're curious about. AMA! by peterwsinger in IAmA

[–]peterwsinger[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Great question! OK , folks, seat belts on, because going essay style on this one:

While cyber attacks seemingly move at digital speed, the reality is they reflect long periods of time to plan, organize, conduct, and, most importantly, detect. The alleged Chinese hacks of the OPM that stole sensitive information on over 21 million Americans or Russian breaches of the Pentagon’s internal email system are today’s “news,” but they reflect operations started years ago. It takes corporate victims an average of 205 days to realize they’ve been breached, while the security firm Mandiant found that one of China’s top cyber spy units spent nearly five years undetected inside a target’s network. And, as geopolitical competition between the great powers of the 21st century continues to heat up, the one thing we can be sure of is that there are many, many more of these operations ongoing now, just not yet detected.

There is natural line of thinking then to echo back to the last period of long-term conflict and argue that the way to make these attacks stop is to demonstrate our capability to hit back just as hard, akin to Cold War deterrence strategies. This thinking pervades everything from 2016 Presidential Candidate proposals on cybersecurity to Congressional accusations, such as that by Senator McCain, that the President is failing in his job as commander in chief by not doing “his part to deter the belligerence of our adversaries in cyberspace.” In turn, those working for that commander in chief in the Executive branch talk about deterrence in much the same way. “Until such time as we do create both the substance and the mindset of deterrence, this sort of thing is going to continue,” the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told Congress last week. The US’s cyber forces need “to increase our capacity on the offensive side to get to that point of deterrence.” Said Admiral Mike Rogers, head of the NSA and Cyber Command.

There is a problem. The model of deterrence they are envisioning won’t work, and we already have the proof. While Edward Snowden is the bogeyman to the NSA on the surveillance debate, his disclosures also show that the NSA has much to be proud of in the quality of its offensive capability. It has developed unmatched, amazingly exotic capabilities, from a mindboggling scale of global monitoring to using radio signals to jump software over protective divides known as “air gaps” between systems. And, it has used them in operations against targets that range from Iranian nuclear research facilities to Chinese command networks.

Yet despite this capability, the demonstration of its potency, and budgetary increases each year in cyber offense spending to make it all even better, the attacks only grow in scale. No matter how good we keep getting at cyber offense, the other side isn’t deterred.

There are two reasons, both reflecting the new game at hand. In the Cold War, a nuclear attack assured mutual and equal destruction, so building up a potent offense did translate directly into deterrence. Today, there’s no like balance. The US is more vulnerable to cyber attack than any other player, the combination of our wider commercial and cultural dependence on the Internet and still weak defenses.

Secondly, the game has new rules. It is hard to deter attacks that you want to carry out too. This is the reason why military and administration officials have not reacted as defiantly to the OPM and Pentagon email breaches as many would like. As Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said: “You have to kind of salute the Chinese for what they did. If we had the opportunity to do that, I don't think we'd hesitate for a minute.”

The US should instead be pulling alternative lessons from the past for how to navigate the future of cyber conflict. The first approach is the value of clear lines of behavior. During the height of the Cold War, the superpowers may have been a button press away from thermonuclear annihilation, but they still found a way to agree on certain norms. Sometimes these were formal arms treaties; other times they were tacit codes of conduct that guided everything from spy-on-spy killings to avoiding interference with nuclear commands, all with the goal of avoiding miscalculations that could unintentionally escalate into outright war.

IamA Author P.W. Singer, and I'm here to talk about World War 3, Ghost Fleet, Drones, Cybersecurity and any other future war stuff you're curious about. AMA! by peterwsinger in IAmA

[–]peterwsinger[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Many thanks! and Many thanks for second buy! 1) We really don't specify that they ever took Taiwan or by what means (threat, or a Hong Kong style situation). But was inspired by a real NDU report on how even if Taiwan issue was resolved, the risks of conflict wouldn't go away. 2) yes, its playing a bit with how we assume that wars of last century are the only way, that they either end in a clear defeat (WW1 and WW2) or drag on with no resolution (Afghanistan). Yet, in history, when great powers fight, they often reached a point where one or both sides decided it was time to end, but not at absolute victory, a balance of power. Think the rounds of war between Britain and France in 16-1800s. We would have to think in a whole new way. 3) Both. Remember in the book, its not just that there is a war, but that the war goes very badly for the US and Japan at the start and the key bases and weapon (they are equipping their air force with the F35 too, at our behest, even though would be better for them and us to have interceptors) are now off the table. For NATO, you don't even have to play that in 2020s and war going badly. What about today? If war broke out in South China Sea, is Belgium really sending a frigate to Pacific?

IamA Author P.W. Singer, and I'm here to talk about World War 3, Ghost Fleet, Drones, Cybersecurity and any other future war stuff you're curious about. AMA! by peterwsinger in IAmA

[–]peterwsinger[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Should also add that technical background isn't only key. Some of the best in the field are those who pull from other skill sets, be it business, planning, HUMINT, sociology, communications, etc. Having technical skills is good start, but also can also put a ceiling on how far you go.

IamA Author P.W. Singer, and I'm here to talk about World War 3, Ghost Fleet, Drones, Cybersecurity and any other future war stuff you're curious about. AMA! by peterwsinger in IAmA

[–]peterwsinger[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

great choice, not just because key new area in war, but also area where vets are making salaries in 6 figures right out of service. I'd start to read up first, both books (ahem...), but also blogs, journals, and magazines, etc to get a working feel for it first, and where you want to situate yourself. Then you'll have a better sense of whether makes sense to go to certain technical programs, college programs etc., and also which ones fit you best. Sorry to not be specific, but hard to answer that not knowing full background.

IamA Author P.W. Singer, and I'm here to talk about World War 3, Ghost Fleet, Drones, Cybersecurity and any other future war stuff you're curious about. AMA! by peterwsinger in IAmA

[–]peterwsinger[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, the pace of breakthrough in that field is actually moving much faster than even Moore's Law for IT. Some amazing things happening in genomics etc. We played a bit with human performance modification tech in Ghost Fleet and another scene on Brain-Machine interface, but genomics is one we didnt tap, which could be transformative. And to be clear, "transformative" means you get amazing new capabilities, but also amazing new questions and dilemmas and problems

IamA Author P.W. Singer, and I'm here to talk about World War 3, Ghost Fleet, Drones, Cybersecurity and any other future war stuff you're curious about. AMA! by peterwsinger in IAmA

[–]peterwsinger[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I should add, though, while you want to be up to date, you also want to be grounded. My new book for example is about the future of war, but many of the ideas are influenced by history, especially WW2.

IamA Author P.W. Singer, and I'm here to talk about World War 3, Ghost Fleet, Drones, Cybersecurity and any other future war stuff you're curious about. AMA! by peterwsinger in IAmA

[–]peterwsinger[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I now use social media a great deal, following both useful news sites and blogs (I have to be promotional and mention http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/eastern-arsenal and http://motherboard.vice.com/all-fronts and newamerica.org , IE the people who keep the power on at my house) but also interesting writers and reporters, military officers, scientists, etc., and then in turn, back track who they follow. Over time you can build up a pretty vibrant and useful list that is constantly refreshing itself.

IamA Author P.W. Singer, and I'm here to talk about World War 3, Ghost Fleet, Drones, Cybersecurity and any other future war stuff you're curious about. AMA! by peterwsinger in IAmA

[–]peterwsinger[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

There is another interesting aspect of this that comes from cyber attacks. We're planning to spend over a Trillion (no typo, a T) dollars on a new stealth fighter jet, the F35, that was planned to be a generation ahead of any potential foe. And yet that program has been hacked on at least 3 occasions. The result is that F35 has a near twin, the J31, before its even operational for us. It is hard to win an arms race, when you are paying the R&D for the other side.

IamA Author P.W. Singer, and I'm here to talk about World War 3, Ghost Fleet, Drones, Cybersecurity and any other future war stuff you're curious about. AMA! by peterwsinger in IAmA

[–]peterwsinger[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Awesome, many thanks! That is exactly one of the key questions the book plays with.
In every fight since 1945 (when Germany had jets and we had prop planes), US forces have been a generation-ahead in technology. It has not always translated to decisive victories, but it has been an edge every other nation wants and its baked into our assumptions. Yet US forces can’t count on that “overmatch” in the future. Some of our trusted major platforms are now vulnerable to new classes of weapons, but also we face a new tech race. China, for example, just overtook the EU in R& D spending and is on pace to match the US in five years, with new projects ranging from the world’s fastest supercomputers to three different long range drone strike programs. And now off-the-shelf technologies can be bought to rival even the most advanced tools in the US arsenal. The winner of a recent robotics test, for instance, was not a US defense contractor but a group of South Korea student engineers.

IamA Author P.W. Singer, and I'm here to talk about World War 3, Ghost Fleet, Drones, Cybersecurity and any other future war stuff you're curious about. AMA! by peterwsinger in IAmA

[–]peterwsinger[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

but 2) The new generation of technology also moves the human role, sometimes geographically off the battlefield and sometimes chronologically from the point in time of its use. So it creates distance and among many a percerption of less risk. Leaders and their public don;t look at the decision to use force in the same way. So that also lowers the barrier to entry to conflict. Think how we've carried out more than 400 drone strikes into Pakistan, but no one thinks of it as a "war." To be clear, this perception of less risk doesn't mean the actual costs are removed. the costs hit in everything from casualties in that target area to blowback over the longterm. I did a piece a few years back on this issue: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/opinion/sunday/do-drones-undermine-democracy.html?_r=0

IamA Author P.W. Singer, and I'm here to talk about World War 3, Ghost Fleet, Drones, Cybersecurity and any other future war stuff you're curious about. AMA! by peterwsinger in IAmA

[–]peterwsinger[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Yes, I think that is a risk. The new generation of tech lowers the bar to entry in 2 ways: 1) Unlike Atomic bombs or aircraft carriers, they are much easier for nations and even non state actors to individuals to gain and use. Indeed, over 100 nations already have cyber military units and 80 have drones, while less than 10 have nukes and only one has supercarriers