*** India's Real Military Problem (And It's Not Pakistan or China)

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Daniel Darling

The Indian government has unveiled its budget estimates for the coming fiscal year, with defense once again in line for a 10 percent year-on-year nominal increase. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley delivered the budget 2017 speech on February 1, with the defense outlay estimated at 2.74 trillion rupees ($40.4 billion), minus pensions, which is up from the 2.49 trillion rupees ($36.8 billion) revised allocation for its current fiscal year. India's new fiscal year begins on April 1, 2017, and runs through March 31, 2018.

On its face, the bump in year-to-year defense investment appears a welcoming sign for Indian military modernization, but once the budget estimate curtain is pulled back, the actual picture indicates something more complex.

From a broad perspective, India's military modernization plan reaches across the service spectrum, requiring major capital investments in new hardware for the air, land, sea, surveillance and electronics spheres. It spans from new assault rifles for infantrymen to tactical transport aircraft and landing platform docks. The price tag for all the rearmament requirements under the Ministry of Defence's “Long-Term Integrated Perspective Plan,” which runs through 2027, is more than $230 billion.

*** Surgical strike a copybook execution of precise planning

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Surendra Singh

The Army gave an account of the combat operation and the raw courage displayed by them in the citations of the gallantry award. 

Planning to execute the surgical strike on the terror infrastructure in PoK started soon after the Uri terror attack in J&K. 

NEW DELHI: "You don't get a maroon beret, you have to earn it," this is said about all those men who aspire to join Parachute Regiment, the Army's premier airborne strike force. The September 29 surgical strike on terror launch pads+ across LoC was the latest feat of daredevilry by the men from this elite force. But the government had refused to divulge the details of the operation in which 19 Para soldiers took part.

It was only while bestowing medals to these bravehearts+ on the 68th Republic Day, the Army gave an account of the combat operation and the raw courage displayed by them in the citations of the gallantry awards, accessed by TOI. While scores of Army personnel might have been involved in the planning and execution of the cross-LoC operation, the 19 para soldiers were integral part of the surgical strike, the citations say.

One Colonel, five Majors, two Captains, one Subedar, two Naib Subedars, three Havildars, one Lance Naik and four Paratroopers of the 4th and 9th battalions of the Para Regiment took part in the surgical strike.

*** India’s Trade Policy Dilemma and the Role of Domestic Reform

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HARDEEP S. PURI 

India faces significant challenges in the area of trade policy— the global economic slowdown, increasing protectionism, the stalled mega-trade deals that could in time be revived, and perhaps more important, its own domestic preoccupations. For India to achieve its policy objectives, the government and industry, particularly the manufacturing sector, must prepare for opportunities and greater engagement in an evolving multilateral trade arena. India’s priorities should include taking policy measures to conform to global standards and supporting the World Trade Organization (WTO) to relaunch multilateral negotiations.

The Goal 

India’s Foreign Trade Policy aims to (1) increase the country’s share of global trade from the current 2.1 percent to 3.5 percent and (2) double its exports to $900 billion by 2020. 

However, India faces myriad obstacles: lack of full understanding of trade policy and its potential benefits, a poorly developed manufacturing sector, unsatisfactory results from regional trade agreements, and constrained relationships, including with its main trading partners. 

India’s trade policy framework must be supported by economic reforms that result in an open, competitive, and technologically innovative Indian economy. 

The share of manufacturing in the gross domestic product needs to rise through efficient implementation of schemes such as the Make in India initiative. 

** A Glimpse Of Warfare’s Future, Today

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By COLIN CLARK

WASHINGTON: Building seamless ties between US and allied forces is a dream long held and oft delayed. Allowing a friendly foreign commander to call in pinpoint US airstrikes simply, reliably and quickly with a phone is exactly the kind of military miracle science fiction and military visionaries have dreamt of since at least the late 1990s.

The current edition of PRISM, the official publication of the National Defense University’s Center for Complex Operations offers this intriguing example of what will doubtless become the future of warfare, for us, our enemies and our competitors:

“The Iraqi Special Operations Forces (ISOF) Ground Force Commander surveys the farmland in front of him. His unit of ISOF soldiers has just captured two ISIL Commanders (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) at a house 50 kilometers from Baghdad—far enough away to put this unit in danger of being overrun if ISIL fighters respond quickly. He knows that his enemies must have received the call to arms only minutes ago, and are on the way to his location.

“He commands his soldiers to be prepared for contact at any moment while he pulls out his cell phone. As cell phones go, this is a good one. He holds one of the newest Samsung Galaxy Note phones, but it is more than just a phone for this Commander—his device is securely linked back to U.S. special operations advisors. He quickly pulls up the MyTrax application and types out a quick message to his Operations Center: ‘Jackpot,’ he has captured his high value targets for this mission. As soon as he hits ‘send,’ he hears the staccato pop of gunfire to his left.

** The case against weaponising water

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PREETY BHOGAL

KATARZYNA KASZUBSKA 

With growing water scarcity across many parts of the world, competition over access to this vital resource has been known to spark conflict. Following the September 2016 Uri attack in India, the government made plans to retaliate against its neighbour by exercising its right to use water of the western rivers—allocated to Pakistan under the Indus Waters Treaty—by building dams, canals and reservoirs. This paper aims to address the legal, economic and social implications of this policy decision. It concludes with an observation that any project India decides to conduct on the transboundary rivers must not only be economically and environmentally feasible, but also comply with India’s obligations under customary international law.

Introduction

‘Whisky is for drinking; water is for fighting over’. This maxim, popularly attributed to Mark Twain, can be rightly put into context of the current discussions around water resources. The scarcity of water around the world has resulted in competition among its users, and the history of conflicts over freshwaters is long and distressing. The US-based Pacific Institute has documented various incidents of tensions emerging over water from across the globe. These cases include those where water had been used for political goals or as a weapon during military actions. Water reservoirs have been made targets of terrorist attacks, and have become the subject of disputes in the context of economic and social development projects. The Institute’s Water Conflict Chronology List includes nearly 400 known water conflicts[i]from the 3rd century BC till 2015.[ii] Table 1 shows the growth in reported water conflicts between 1980 and 2015.

Why Kashmir’s Mainstream Parties And Separatists Are Uniting Against General Bipin Rawat

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Hari Om Mahajan

By taking a stand in support of stone-pelters, the “mainstream Kashmiri leaders have only added fuel to the fire and further aggravated the situation”.

One can only hope that good sense would finally prevail and the people of Kashmir would stay away from the encounter sites.

This would help the Army and paramilitary forces in conducting anti-insurgency operation in an effective manner and restore peace and normality.

The 15 February warning to stone-pelters in Kashmir that those who would attack security forces during anti-insurgency operations would be considered terrorists and dealt with accordingly, has not gone down too well with both the separatists and the so-called mainstream political parties.

On the other hand, Army Chief Bipin Rawat’s warning got fullest support from the Union Home Ministry and the Director General of Police (DGP), Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju defended the Army Chief and said there should be action against stone-pelters as “national interest is supreme”. The J&K DGP warned that stone-pelters would be “destroyed if they refused to stay away from the encounter sites. It happened for the first time after years that the Army Chief, the Union Home Ministry and the J&K DGP spoke in one voice and it was quite understandable as the provocation was very, very grave.

Giving shape to Modi's dream of 'electricity for all'

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'REC will be the premier power sector financing and development enterprise by the end of 2020.'

'About Rs 10 lakh crore is required for generation and distribution during the period 2017-22.'

Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) has reported a 28 per cent increase in its profit after tax for the quarter ended December 31, 2016, at Rs 1,754 crore. In an interview with Sanjay Jog, REC chairman and managing director P V Ramesh, bottom, left, talks of the growth strategy and the company’s plan to ride the transformation wave in the power sector.

What is REC’s growth strategy?

We are working with state governments and utilities to see how we can support them consistently. REC has signed an agreement with the Andhra Pradesh government for a loan worth Rs 61,000 crore (Rs 610 billion) and a deal with the Karnataka government for Rs 45,000 crore (Rs 450 billion).

We will soon sign a similar deal with the Jharkhand government for a loan of Rs 30,000 crore (Rs 300 billion). We have finalised agreements with Bihar and Maharashtra for loans of more than Rs 25,000 crore (Rs 250 billion). We are looking at a five-year horizon.

On the precipice

By: C Uday Bhaskar

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India remians the inflexible bête-noir for Pakistan, yet there are few books by Indian authors that have sought to interpret the prodigal neighbour in a holistic, informed and empathetic manner.

A history student who later joined the cabinet secretariat (the external intelligence services), Devasher focused on the Indian neighbourhood, and what was a childhood fascination became a professional calling.

India remians the inflexible bête-noir for Pakistan, yet there are few books by Indian authors that have sought to interpret the prodigal neighbour in a holistic, informed and empathetic manner. Tilak Devasher is the exception to this norm, and his 392-page book is valuable addition to the literature on the subject.

In his introduction, the author refers to his ‘fascination’ with Pakistan, which began with childhood stories he heard from his father, who served in the Royal Indian Air Force in undivided India and had fought in World War II with colleagues who later went on to ‘head the Pakistan Air Force’.

2 Maps That Show The US’ Strategy In Asia-Pacific

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BY GEORGE FRIEDMAN AND JACOB L. SHAPIRO

Secretary of Defense James Mattis recently wrapped up his first international trip whose purpose was to “listen to the concerns of South Korean and Japanese leaders.”

The two countries are crucial US allies in Asia, and both face serious threats in their near abroad.

Discussing security threats, though, wasn’t the main goal of Mattis’s trip. He was there to assure both countries that the Trump administration will not abandon the US alliance structure in the Pacific.

The War That Made Asia: How the Opium War Crushed China

Sebastien Roblin

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It’s hard to over-emphasize the impact of the Opium Wars on modern China. Domestically, it’s led to the ultimate collapse of the centuries-old Qing Dynasty, and with it more than two millennia of dynastic rule. It convinced China that it had to modernize and industrialize.

Today, the First Opium War is taught in Chinese schools as being the beginning of the “Century of Humiliation” — the end of that “century” coming in 1949 with the reunification of China under Mao. While Americans are routinely assured they are exceptional and the greatest country on Earth by their politicians, Chinese schools teach students that their country was humiliated by greedy and technologically superior Western imperialists.

The Opium Wars made it clear China had fallen gravely behind the West — not just militarily, but economically and politically. Every Chinese government since — even the ill-fated Qing Dynasty, which began the “Self-Strengthening Movement” after the Second Opium War — has made modernization an explicit goal, citing the need to catch up with the West.

In 1839, England went to war with China because it was upset that Chinese officials had shut down its drug trafficking racket and confiscated its dope.

Stating the historical record so plainly is shocking — but it’s true, and the consequences of that act are still being felt today.

Panel to HASC: Fighting Islamic State, Al Qaeda Could Take 15 More Years

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By: John Grady

Al Qaeda and the Islamic State could reconcile their differences to present a different but persistent security challenge to the United States for the foreseeable future, three experts in counterterrorism told theHOUSE ARMED SERVICES Committee Tuesday.

One goal of both groups, Bruce Hoffman, director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University, is locking the United States “in an enervating war of attribution.”

“We’re going to have to do [counter jihadist terrorism] for the next 15 years, at least,” he said. In answer to a question about al Qaeda, he added its leaders “never moved away from [launching] a massive attack on the U.S,” Michael Sheehan, distinguished chair at the Combating Terrorism Center at the Military Academy said. He included the use of weapons of mass destruction in that assessment. The big attack “is part of their DNA.”

But “we can’t expend all our efforts on this,” noting threats from Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, he said.

Hoffman added al Qaeda has sent some of its senior leaders to Syria, known as the Khorasan Group, to strengthen its hand and also launched a major recruiting effort on the India subcontinent to extend its influence there.

Syria is a world war without a solution Seth J Frantzman

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Seth J Frantzman

The Afghans on the road in Serbia were wet from the rain. They were trying to hitch a ride into the border town of Presevo to make the way north to Hungary. Later I saw them sitting next to a train station drying their socks. Did they fear for the future? ‘This is nothing, we came from Syria,’ one of them said. That was in 2015 at the height of the refugee crisis as more than a million people sought refuge in the EU. Many of them had fled the conflict in Syria. But the traffic of people was not all in the same direction: Afghans, Lebanese, Tunisians, Uighurs from China, Hazaras from Pakistan, British, French, Germans and Chechens have all come to Syria in the last six years to fight in the war. What began with the Arab spring is often called a ‘civil war’ or a rebellion, but it is time to acknowledge that it is actually a world war.

From Russia to the US, Saudi Arabia and France, the world is not only involved in Syria, but proxy forces, militias, jihadists and foreign fighters form the kaleidoscope of participants. As with the history of the Thirty Years War in Europe it has also become the graveyard for nations and an epic cauldron of suffering from which nearly five million people have fled and where hundreds of thousands have been killed. Ancient cities have been destroyed, and their modern suburbs gutted. 

A Strategy to Counter ISIL as a Transregional Threat

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by Lynn E. Davis, Jeffrey Martini, Kim Cragin

PDF file 0.4 MB 

The debate in the past over counter-ISIL strategies has tended to focus on rather stark alternatives that are based on different ways to employ U.S. military forces: disengagement, containment, and aggressive rollback using combat forces. Our strategy seeks to broaden the focus to policies beyond the military dimension. Even though U.S. leverage is limited to affect the political situations in Iraq and Syria, the United States should focus on removing the underlying conditions sustaining ISIL and other violent jihadist groups, i.e., the lack of security, justice, and political representation. In addition, the United States needs to re-evaluate how to balance the aims of the counter-ISIL campaign with future territorial and political ambitions of the Kurds, given the risk of violence between Shia and Kurds in Iraq and Turkey and the YPG in Syria. In the absence of commitments on the part of the Kurds to limit their territorial ambitions, and to avoid fueling conflict across the region, the United States should be cautious in the ways it supports the YPG and peshmerga in its counter-ISIL military campaign.

Israel's Walls Do They Work?

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By Amos Harel

On January 28, in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to construct a wall on the U.S.–Mexican border, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted: “President Trump is right. I built a wall along Israel’s southern border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea.” Netanyahu was right. Although it is hard to say whether Trump’s plan for a wall along the U.S.–Mexican border is viable, Israel’s border-security projects were both popular and successful at achieving most of their stated aims.

Israel has built three major barriers over the past 15 years, and despite provoking heated debate and international criticism, its experience with them has been mostly positive. The first, a separation barrier between Israel and the Palestinian-controlled West Bank, helped contain a Palestinian suicide bombing campaign in the mid-2000s. The second, a border fence on the Egyptian–Israeli border finished in 2013 (which Netanyahu referred to in his tweet as a “wall”), completely put a stop to unauthorized African immigration. And a third fence, hardly noticed by the international community, secured Israel’s border with Syria after the latter descended into a devastating civil war.

SHARON'S GAMBLE

Each of Israel’s three barriers was built at a different time in response to a different threat. The most important of the three, because it directly helped to stop a deadly terror campaign, is the West Bank barrier. Israel began considering the possibility of building a fence along the “Green Line” (which marks Israel’s borders up until 1967, excluding East Jerusalem, Gaza, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights) in the 1990s. At the time, the Oslo Accords, which promised peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, were in the process of being implemented, but groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad had begun to send suicide bombers from the Palestinian territories into Israeli cities. No actual construction work on the fence was done, however, because Israeli governments feared that doing so would be perceived.

BRING EUROPEAN FINANCE MINISTRIES KICKING AND SCREAMING INTO GEOPOLITICS

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HENRIK Ø. BREITENBAUCH

The issue of burden-sharing will be a hot topic at the Munich Security Conference, a major annual event that kicks off this week. Surely, many attendees will have the recent words of Secretary of Defense James Mattis ringing in their heads. At this week’s NATO defense ministerial, he warned that if European NATO countries do not, this year, present concrete plans for increasing their defense budgets, the United States will moderate its commitment to the alliance. Burden-sharing is back with a vengeance in the transatlantic relationship. More allied contributions to the common defense is at the heart of President Donald Trump’s most poignant critique of America’s traditional role in the world. In the simplest way, it is about money: They do not pay what they have promised, but they are getting American protection anyway. While the president has held these views for a long time, he is not the first U.S. leader to voice strong concerns over allied free-riding and burden-sharing. These critiques are as old as the alliance and were voiced not long ago by former President Barack Obama. But Trump is the first to openly call the current arrangement obsolete, leading to Mattis’ characteristically direct warning in Brussels.

In Europe, however, the political mechanics of defense budget hikes work differently. In the United States, it is Congress that holds the purse strings, but across the Atlantic, it is the ministries of finance that play the central role in controlling budgets — defense and otherwise. This means that real progress on raising European defense spending will require convincing the finance ministers and their top civil servants of the new realities of European geopolitics and the direct utility of defense spending.

Why a Travel Restriction Won't Stop Terrorism at Home

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by Brian Michael Jenkins

President Trump's executive order restricting immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries won't shield the United States from terrorism. America's jihadist terrorists are not imported from abroad. They are mostly homegrown.

The principal terrorist threat faced by the United States comes from residents who radicalize themselves and plot to carry out local attacks. Fortunately, their numbers have been relatively few. Despite constant exhortations from jihadist organizations abroad, their violent extremist ideology has gained little traction among America's Muslims.

The president's executive order is intended to protect the United States against spillover from the violent conflicts going on in six countries engulfed in blood civil wars: Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Somalia and Sudan. Washington has long considered Iran, the seventh country on the list, to be a top state sponsor of terrorism.

It's not unreasonable to seek a review of immigration, and refugee-vetting procedures make sense. Jihadist terrorists pose a multilayered threat. Improved intelligence, greater international cooperation and continuing military operations have made it more difficult to carry out ambitious, centrally directed strategic terrorist strikes like the 9/11 attacks.

A lesson on UN peacekeeping – from Haiti

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FEBRUARY 15, 2017 —The Trump administration promises big changes at the United Nations, especially in its peacekeeping missions, which are now in 16 countries. But before the United States moves too fast, it should take note of the news this week that UN forces in Haiti will likely be withdrawn soon, a result of progress in reducing violence on the Caribbean island.

The head of UN peacekeeping, Hervé Ladsous, said Haiti has made so much progress that he would recommend the Security Council pull out the nearly 5,000 multinational troops and police. “Security is not perfect, but I think it is much better,” he said. One sign of progress: A more professional police force was able to help keep a relative peace during an election in November that brought a new president, Jovenel Moïse, to power.

UN peacekeepers were sent to Haiti in 2004 following an uprising that toppled then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. They have been controversial, mainly for inadvertently introducing cholera. But they have also been important for a new approach at countering armed gangs and kidnappers.

Known as “community violence reduction,” the approach has since been used in many other world trouble spots. Rather than rely on “tough” policing, it looks first at ways to bring hope to each neighborhood, such as providing jobs or sports to at-risk youth and providing seed money for women to become entrepreneurs. One critical step is to confront gang members, offering them alternatives to their criminal activities – embracing rather than jailing them.

2017 Global Forecast

Global Forecast is an annual collection of essays by CSIS experts focused on the critical issues facing the U.S. and the world in the year ahead. 

1. WHAT ARE THE MAIN NATIONAL SECURITY CHALLENGES FACING THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION?

John J. Hamre 

2. IS THE FOUNDATION OF THE U.S.-LED ORDER CRUMBLING?

Michael J. Green 

3. WHAT GLOBAL ECONOMIC RISKS DO WE FACE?

A conversation with Heather A. Conley, Matthew P. Goodman, and Scott Miller 

4. WILL RUSSIA CONTINUE TO PLAY THE ROLE OF SPOILER?

Olga Oliker 

5. HOW SHOULD WE VIEW CHINA’S RISE?

A conversation with Christopher K. Johnson, Victor Cha, and Amy Searight 

6. CAN AMERICA STILL RELY ON ITS ALLIES?

Andrew Shearer 

Rethinking Civil-Military Relations

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DON SNIDER

Compared to most of his proposed cabinet, President Donald Trump's pick of retired Marine Corps General James Mattis for Secretary of Defense has been one of the least controversial. However, due to his recent retirement from the military, Mattis needed - and received - a waiver from Congress to serve; the first Secretary of Defense to receive such a waiver since General George C. Marshall 70 years ago. Looking at Secretary Mattis, and the many other former military officers serving in Trump's cabinet, The Cipher Brief asked Don Snider, a professor at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, how civilian control over the military works in practice, and what might change under the Trump administration.

The Cipher Brief: What does the appointment of James Mattis – a recently retired General – as Secretary of Defense mean for civil-military relations and Pentagon culture?

Don Snider: I think it’s too early to tell exactly what effect Mattis’ appointment will have, and I think many people are going about this debate the wrong way.

The first issue I would establish is that much of the talk in the literature about civilian control of the military is poorly articulated. The issue is not control. The issue of control is a red herring. The real issue is whether the military defers to the supremacy of civilian values. This is the way that the founders saw it. They wanted a military that was deferential to the civilian values of the republic. If the military is always deferential to those values, then there is no issue of control to be concerned about.

A Glimpse Of Warfare’s Future, Today

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By COLIN CLARK

WASHINGTON: Building seamless ties between US and allied forces is a dream long held and oft delayed. Allowing a friendly foreign commander to call in pinpoint US airstrikes simply, reliably and quickly with a phone is exactly the kind of military miracle science fiction and military visionaries have dreamt of since at least the late 1990s.

The current edition of PRISM, the official publication of the National Defense University’s Center for Complex Operations offers this intriguing example of what will doubtless become the future of warfare, for us, our enemies and our competitors:

“The Iraqi Special Operations Forces (ISOF) Ground Force Commander surveys the farmland in front of him. His unit of ISOF soldiers has just captured two ISIL Commanders (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) at a house 50 kilometers from Baghdad—far enough away to put this unit in danger of being overrun if ISIL fighters respond quickly. He knows that his enemies must have received the call to arms only minutes ago, and are on the way to his location.

“He commands his soldiers to be prepared for contact at any moment while he pulls out his cell phone. As cell phones go, this is a good one. He holds one of the newest Samsung Galaxy Note phones, but it is more than just a phone for this Commander—his device is securely linked back to U.S. special operations advisors. He quickly pulls up the MyTrax application and types out a quick message to his Operations Center: ‘Jackpot,’ he has captured his high value targets for this mission. As soon as he hits ‘send,’ he hears the staccato pop of gunfire to his left.

Investigating A Cyberwar

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By Juliana Ruhfus 

Editor’s Note: As the Syrian civil war has played out on the battlefields with gunshots and mortars, a parallel conflict has been fought online. The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), a pro-Assad government group of hackers, has wielded bytes and malware to obtain crucial information from opponents of the Assad regime. The extracted information has led to arrests and torture of dissidents. In this interview, GIJN’s Eunice Au talks to Al Jazeera’s Juliana Ruhfus about the methodology and challenges of her investigation into the SEA and the process of transforming the story into an online game. 

How did the idea for a documentary on the SEA come about? Who was part of your investigative team and how long did it take? 

I had the idea for the film when I came across a report called “Behind Syria’s Digital Frontline,” published by a company called FireEye, cybersecurity analysts who had come across a cache of 30,000 Skype conversations that pro-Assad hackers had stolen from anti-Assad fighters. The hack provided a unique insight into the strategic intelligence that had been obtained from the Skype conversations, including Google images plans that outlined the battle at Khirbet Ghazaleh and images of missiles which the rebels were trying to purchase. 

The fascinating thing was, it also shed light on how the hack was carried out. Pro-Assad hackers had created female avatars who befriended fighters on the front line by telling them how much they admired them and eventually asked to exchange photos. These images were infected with malware which proved devastating once downloaded. Computers in the field are shared by many fighters, allowing the hackers to spy on a large number of targets at once. 

Pentagon Cyber Spies Seek Better Tools to Sort Intelligence Data

Nafeesa Syeed 

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Pentagon spies trying to get ahead of mounting cyberthreats from North Korea to Russia are seeking new technologies to help winnow down the flood of data they receive, according to a senior Defense Department intelligence official.

With an exponential increase in data flows, there’s been a significant shift in the type of intelligence top Pentagon officials demand, said Ron Carback, defense intelligence officer for cyber at the Defense Intelligence Agency. Three years ago, officials would have asked for “every indicator or compromise and every report that comes out” about cyberthreats, said Carback.

But now “they don’t want to see a hundred pages of reports in the morning,” Carback, who has spent more than two decades at intelligence agencies including the National Security Agency, said in an interview in San Francisco. “They want to see one or two that say, ‘Oh, this is why they’re coming after me, these are things we have to consider the risk on.”’

The requirement for DIA analysts to quickly synthesize intelligence becomes even more challenging with a dearth of people who have cyber expertise. Carback said that’s where his “matchmaking” comes in. At the RSA cybersecurity conference in San Francisco this week, Carback was scoping out emerging technology and telling companies about his agency’s needs. Big data analysis and automation tools “would help our analysts move up into more of the critical thinking,” he said.

How can nation states win the unfolding cyberwar?

Jane McCallion

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Hawkishness and 'Swiss' neutrality go head-to-head at RSA Conference 2017

Nation state hacking is putting democracy and civilian welfare at risk, but there is little consensus on how to deal with this issue.

In two contrasting talks at RSA Conference 2017, Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee in the US, and Brad Smith, Microsoft chief legal officer, struck markedly different tones when discussing how to approach these issues.

In his keynote, McCaul said: "It's clear to me that our adversaries are turning digital breakthroughs into digital bombs ... our cyber rivals are overtaking our defences."

"The combatants are everywhere – and the phones in your pockets are the battle space," McCaul continued. "Our democracy itself is at risk. Last year, there's no doubt in my mind that the Russian government tried to undermine and influence our elections.

"The crisis was the biggest wakeup call yet that cyber intrusions have the potential to jeopardise the very fabric of our republic."

McCaul pointed to several issues making things harder for those trying to defend against attacks, including a lack of resources.

Norms aren’t substitute for international law in cyberspace

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Mark Pomerleau

The international community is still grappling with how to create a framework for normative behaviors, or norms, for how states should act and use cyber.

The current track has been to apply the rules of war, conflict and international law to a domain that by its very nature enables a great deal of confusion and obfuscation.

One of the key efforts in crafting internationally recognized norms in cyberspace has been the Tallinn Manual project, which recently celebrated the release of “Tallinn Manual 2.0 on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Operations.” Tallinn 2.0 follows the first Tallinn Manual, released in 2013, which focused on cyber operations that violate the prohibition of the use of force in international relations, where one state must not coerce another state with regard to things reserved to that state.

The genesis for the Tallinn project was in part due to what happened in Estonia in 2007 and the cyber operations as part of the armed conflict in between Russia and Georgia in 2008, Liis Vihul, project manger and managing editor of the Tallinn Manual Process, said at the Tallinn 2.0 rollout event at the Atlantic Council Feb. 8 in Washington. Those cyber operations made legal analysts and policy folks ask whether those operations were acceptable as a matter of international law or if they should be regarded as unlawful, she said.

A Chip Flaw Strips Away Hacking Protections for Millions of Devices

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FOR THE LAST decade or so, hackers have faced a daunting challenge when they try to break into a computer: Even when they get malicious code running on a victim’s machine, they have to figure out where in the computer’s memory that code has ended up. That’s because a security protection used in Windows, Android, and every other modern operating system randomizes where programs run in a device’s memory. It turns the process of digital intrusion into something like an attempt to burglarize a house in total darkness.

But now a team of Dutch researchers has found a technique that undermines that so-called address space layout randomization, creating the You Are Here arrow that hackers need to orient themselves inside a stranger’s computer. That means any of the common memory corruption bugs found in software applications on a daily basis could lead to a much deeper takeover of a target PC or smartphone. And because the attack exploits not software but hardware, it leaves millions of devices at risk regardless of their operating system—and it can’t be fully fixed with any mere software update.

Back in the ASLR

“Bugs are everywhere, but ASLR is a mitigation that makes bugs hard to exploit,” says Ben Gras, a researcher at the Free University of Amsterdam who developed the attack along with his colleague Kaveh Razavi. “This technique makes bugs that weren’t exploitable exploitable again. In some sense, it takes us back to the ’90s in terms of security.”