Inside Cyber Warfare - Jeffrey Carr [162]
By 1996, the US government clarified some of the lingering questions surrounding its right to launch both physical and cyber counter attacks against cyber aggressors who compromised the ability of US-owned cyber systems. On September 14, 1996, President Clinton signed Presidential Decision Directive/National Science and Technology Council-8, defining US national space policy. The policy identified key space activities to be conducted in the interest of US national security, including offensive action to protect US space assets.[221] Following the creation of the National Space Policy, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen issued Department of Defense Directive 3100.10, identifying policies relating to military space control and stating, “Purposeful interference with US space systems will be viewed as an infringement on US sovereign rights. The US may take all appropriate self-defense measures, including . . . the use of force, to respond to such an infringement on US rights.”[222] Similarly, in 2010, the Department of Defense in its Quadrennial Defense Review document made it clear that in order to operate effectively in cyberspace, the United States needs “improved capabilities to counter threats in cyberspace,” including actively defending its own networks.[223]
In July 2011, the Department of Defense released its Cyber Strategy, which underscored the United States’ right to conduct cyber counterattacks against aggressors.[224] An example of this type of active defense was shown in the 2006 US cyber attack against the Al Qaeda network of jihadist websites.[225] The United States is not alone in supporting the use of counter cyber attacks. There have been reports that the UK may have taken down Inspire, a terrorist website.[226] The Israelis have also conducted “denial of service” attacks against Palestinian National Authority websites.[227]
Cold War fears of communist world conquest have been replaced by concerns about the dangers to international peace and security from worldwide jihadism, the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by rogue states and nonstate actors, and the emergence of a new breed of cyber warriors willing to provide their services to states and nonstate actors. With the emergence of terrorism, the proliferation of WMD, and, more recently, cyber warriors with international ramifications as new sources of threats to national security, the United States, like other nations, has been forced to contemplate and develop new strategies and tactics for its national defense. The US intelligence community continues to play an important role in that regard, and today it must do so by supporting the broader US defense efforts against these new threats. The rest of this chapter focuses on the use of covert action as one method for deterring those who would conduct cyber attacks against the United States and its critical assets.
Covert Action
In 1996, in its final report, the Aspin-Brown Commission emphasized the need for a continuing covert action capability—even after the end of the Cold War. It stated, “in 1975, the Rockefeller Commission investigated alleged abuses in certain covert action programmes and concluded that there were ‘many risks and dangers associated with covert action, but we must live in the world we find, not the world we might wish. Covert action cannot be abandoned, but should be employed only where clearly essential to vital US purposes and then only after a careful process of high level review’.” In an age of proliferated threats, states are no longer the only adversaries and there is no certain target for attribution, covert action may prove to be even more important to the United States’ ability to protect national security.
By law, covert actions are those activities of the US government to influence political, economic, or military conditions abroad, where it is intended that the role of