Locust Invasion in India

Maj Gen P K Mallick, VSM (Retd), Consultant, VIF

It has been a double whammy. As the nation is reeling under the effects of COVID-19 pandemic, India has to fight another menace: locust invasion. Massive swarms of desert locusts have devoured crops across seven states of western and central India including Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. The locust population might grow 400 times larger by end June 2020 and spread to new areas without action. It would be disrupting food supply, upending livelihoods and require considerable resources to address. India is facing its worst desert locust invasion in nearly 30 years.

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The Failure of India’s “Strategic Autonomy”

Lindsay Hughes

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Background

The Non-Aligned Movement came into being in the aftermath of the Asian-African Conference, which was held in Bandung, Indonesia, from 18-24 April 1955. Twenty-nine leaders of ex-colonial countries gathered for that conference to devise and pursue strategies that would benefit their countries singly and collectively. Among them were Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Ahmed Sukarno of Indonesia and Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia. True to the name of the Movement, Article 6(A) of the “Ten Principles of Bandung” stated that member countries would adhere to the ‘Non-use of collective defence pacts to benefit the specific interests of any of the great powers’. They would, in other words, not align themselves with either of the great powers which were by then engaged in the Cold War of competing ideologies.

That was not quite the case with India. It turned increasingly towards the Soviet Union, first as a security partner and then also for trade, for several reasons. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and recognising that its successor state, Russia, was preoccupied with its failing economy, India opened up its economy. That strategy brought it increasingly into contact with the United States. The India-US relationship thawed quickly and even warmed to the extent that Washington is now a major supplier of India’s defence systems and around a million Indian professionals work in the US information technology sector.

The Bloody China-India Border Fight Is a Lot Like the Last One

BY MICHAEL ROWAND
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Chinese and Indian troops killing each other in the thin air of the Himalayas. America torn by violent confrontations between police and protesters. Rumors of leadership turmoil in Beijing. It’s not 2020. It’s 1967.

The last time there was an incident as deadly as Monday’s along the China-India border, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi were both teenagers. In 1967, in the Himalayas far to the southeast of the location of the present violence, several deadly encounters between the world’s two most populous countries left dozens of Indians and Chinese dead. Coming only five years after their 1962 war, and with China’s Cultural Revolution at its most chaotic point, many feared the conflict could escalate regionally.

After its loss to China in 1962, India initiated an extensive military expansion. The total size of the Indian military doubled. Intelligence agencies took note. The CIA argued in August 1967 that the Indian military could be expected to repulse a Chinese attack without relinquishing substantial territory.

At the time, the area in which the skirmishes took place, Sikkim, was a semi-independent kingdom and protectorate of India. The Chinese Communist Party government encouraged Sikkim’s population to break from India decisively and declare independence. (Eventually, in 1975, it did the opposite and voted in a referendum to join India as a state.)

U.S. Troops in Afghanistan Reduced to 8,600, General Says

By Mujib Mashal

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KABUL, Afghanistan — The United States has reduced the number of troops it has in Afghanistan to 8,600 in accordance with a preliminary peace deal with the Taliban, a top American general said on Thursday, even as other aspects of the plan to end the war have faced setbacks and delays.

At the peak of the nearly two-decade war, there were more than 100,000 American troops in Afghanistan, along with tens of thousands from about 40 nations in the United States-led NATO coalition. That number has dropped in recent years, as all sides admitted the war could not be won militarily. The United States shifted to a strategy of seeking a political settlement, which has proved to be halting and complicated.

The signing of the deal with the Taliban in February initiated a phased withdrawal of the roughly 12,000 American military personnel who were still in the country. The agreement also included a prisoner exchange and direct negotiations between the Taliban and Afghanistan’s government over the country’s political future.

American officials said they also had an understanding with the Taliban that violence levels would be reduced by 80 percent, though that wasn’t spelled out in the deal.

China’s Post-Coronavirus Aggression Is Reshaping Asia

BY LINDSEY W. FORD, JULIAN GEWIRTZ
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The gloves—or masks—are off in Asia. China’s coronavirus mask diplomacy has given way to bare-knuckled geopolitical fistfights with a growing array of its neighbors. In the past few months alone, it clashed with India in one of the worst border flare-ups in decades, escalated standoffs with Vietnam and Malaysia in the South China Sea, pressured Taiwan with nighttime drills in the Taiwan Strait, and threatened Australia with boycotts of wine, beef, barley, and Chinese students. Meanwhile, China’s “wolf warrior” diplomats—a moniker taken from a particularly nationalistic Rambo-esque movie—are engaging in a vigorous cybercampaign to defend Communist Party interests and offer thinly veiled threats if countries stray from the “correct stance” on important issues.

Beijing’s blatant aggressiveness is accelerating long-standing debates about the underlying costs of reliance on China and spurring support for closer coordination between other Indo-Pacific partners. The governments of India, Japan, Malaysia, and Australia have all taken steps to reduce their economic exposure to Beijing, exploring new efforts to restrict foreign investment rules or shift manufacturing capabilities away from the Chinese mainland. India and Australia recently inked a new military logistics agreement at the “virtual summit” between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, with a similar agreement between Delhi and Tokyo likely to follow. In spite of Beijing’s objections, many regional governments have praised Taiwan’s highly successful COVID-19 response and offered support for restoring its observer status in the World Health Assembly. The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between Australia, India, Japan, and the United States is growing stronger and even expanding—with a new “Indo-Pacific Coordination Group” that involves weekly calls between these countries as well as New Zealand, South Korea, and Vietnam.

Chinese President Xi asks PLA to improve strategic management of armed forces

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Xi, who heads the country's military “made the important instruction at a teleconference on strategic management training of the armed forces”, Xinhua news agency reported. His comments on military modernisation came amid heightened tensions with India along the Line of Actual Control and a range of differences with the United States, including on Beijing's flexing of muscles in the strategic South and East China seas.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has asked the military to improve its management practices to promote high-quality development of the armed forces, the official media reported on Thursday. Xi, who heads the country's military "made the important instruction at a teleconference on strategic management training of the armed forces", Xinhua news agency reported.

His comments on military modernization came amid heightened tensions with India along the Line of Actual Control and a range of differences with the United States, including on Beijing's flexing of muscles in the strategic South and East China seas. Noting the significance for the armed forces to hold strategic management training, Xi, also the General Secretary of the ruling Communist Party of China, said that efforts should be focused on objectives, problems, and results to update the management concept and improve the system and mechanism of strategic management.

WATER POWER, WATER WORRIES: CHINA’S GOALS AND CHALLENGES AS THE BRAHMAPUTRA’S UPPERMOST RIPARIAN

By JOEL WUTHNOW 

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In September 2016, China announced that it would temporarily divert the Xiabuqu, a tributary of the Brahmaputra located on the Tibetan Plateau, to begin the construction of two major hydroelectric dams. The purpose of the dams, according to Chinese state media, was to increase electricity production and to contribute to a rising standard of living in the Tibet Autonomous Region, one of China’s 34 provincial-level administrative units and one of its most impoverished. The announcement, however, immediately sparked concerns among Indian analysts who suspected Beijing of harboring ulterior geopolitical motives and asserted that the diversion could have negative environmental consequences, including reducing the flow of water into India. China responded by reaffirming its benign intentions and denying that the diversion would result in a significant loss of water for its down stream neighbor.[1]

The episode was a microcosm of the larger dilemma China faces with the Brahmaputra. On the one hand, the river offers potential hydropower resources that can provide electricity for Tibet and its neighboring provinces. Building hydroelectric dams along the river also play a role in Beijing’s broader efforts to develop clean energy resources. China has already built one hydroelectric dam on the Brahmaputra and plans to construct several more. On the other hand, the Brahmaputra also has created two types of challenges for Sino-Indian relations. First, Beijing has had to reassure New Delhi that its dam-building activities are non-threatening, responding to concerns by some in India that China could use these facilities to disrupt the flow of water in a future Sino-Indian conflict. Second, China is concerned that Indian dam-building activities downstream could firm up New Delhi’s “actual control” over Arunachal Pradesh, or what China regards as “southern Tibet.” This could complicate border negotiations and further reduce Beijing’s hopes of recovering this territory.

Pompeo Quietly Meets Chinese Counterpart Amid Mounting Tensions

BY ROBBIE GRAMER, JACK DETSCH, DAN HAVERTY 
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Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Security Brief. What’s on tap today: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is under fire amid a Hawaii trip, tensions rise on the Korean peninsula, and the United States green-lights new weapons for Ukraine.

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A New Diplomatic Channel Between Washington and Beijing 

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to Hawaii this week for private meetings with his Chinese counterpart that were shrouded in secrecy—opening a new diplomatic channel between two countries that have been at loggerheads for months over the coronavirus pandemic, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

Pompeo met with China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, on Tuesday and Wednesday, though there are few details about what was discussed. A State Department readout said they spoke about the need for “fully reciprocal” deals on security and trade issues, and that Pompeo stressed the need for “full transparency and information sharing” on the pandemic.

Why the U.S. Can’t Get Israel to Break Up With China

BY JOSHUA MITNICK
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After years of blooming Israeli-Chinese commercial relations and the awarding of a string of port and mass transit projects to Chinese building conglomerates, Israel must tread warily or risk cooperation with its most important ally, he said in an Israeli television interview last month.

“We don’t want the Chinese Communist Party to have access to Israeli infrastructure, Israeli communication networks,” he said, “the kind of things that endanger the Israeli people and the ability of the U.S. to cooperate with Israel.”

Two weeks later, Israel’s government passed on a bid by the Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison to build a $1.5 billion water desalination plant.

But despite the bow to U.S. warnings, Israel appears to be pressing ahead on other deals—highlighting a substantial gap in the positions of the two countries on whether commerce with China poses a security threat. Washington’s trade war with Beijing is making the tensions even more acute.

U.S.-Aligned Countries in Asia Are Under Pressure From China

BY TOM O'CONNOR 

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China is turning up the pressure on U.S.-aligned countries in Asia in an attempt to capitalize on Washington's triple domestic crises and Beijing's own perceived position of strength, pressing forward with a series of assertive moves across disputed territory that could reshape the region.

The U.S. crises—the coronavirus pandemic, the recession sparked by the illness and the protests triggered by the police killing of George Floyd—have created unique conditions for China to take advantage of its worldwide geopolitical expansion, already accelerated by Chinese President Xi Jinping's Belt and Road Initiative.

For the United States, it comes at an inopportune time, as Ali Wyne, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a nonresident fellow at the Modern War Institute, told Newsweek. The country's series of overlapping woes at home "blurs its strategic vision and undercuts its diplomatic bandwidth at an unusually fraught moment in Asian-Pacific geopolitics."

"For the first time in its modern history, China is in a position to dictate the terms of its relationship with the rest of the world," Allen Carlson, associate professor in Cornell University's Government Department, told Newsweek.

Congress Hears of Fresh Cyberthreats to US Financial Firms

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U.S. financial institutions are vulnerable to a new array of attacks from cybercriminals and nation-state hackers as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, experts told a Congressional panel this week at a virtual hearing.

The Tuesday testimony before the House Financial Services' Committee's National Security, International Development and Monetary Policy subcommittee came as Democratic and Republican lawmakers introduced a series of legislative proposals to deal with the challenges facing financial institutions.

In their testimony, experts warned that banks and other financial institutions are not equipped to mitigate the latest cyberthreats - including sophisticated hacking campaigns, ransomware attacks, cryptojacking, intellectual property theft and business email compromise schemes - that have surged during the COVID-19 crisis.

The shift to a remote workforce has led many firms to change their approach to cybersecurity at a time when attacks are increasing, experts testified (see: Rethinking Risk for the Remote Workforce).

"America is grappling with a cyber insurgency, and our financial sector is the number one target," said Tom Kellermann, the head of cybersecurity strategy at VMware who served as a cybersecurity adviser to former President Barack Obama.

The dangers of tech-driven solutions to COVID-19

Julie E. Cohen, Woodrow Hartzog, and Laura Moy
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Imagine a world in which governments and tech firms collaborate seamlessly and benevolently to fight the spread of COVID-19. Public-health officials use automated proximity-detection systems to help them with contact tracing, and they carefully protect people’s personal data in order to build and maintain public trust. Social media platforms facilitate the widespread release of government public service announcements, which include clear information about the virus, the disease, and recommended mitigation strategies, and public officials reinforce that information with appropriate responses.

Now consider the world we have, in which governments and firms are responding to the pandemic in a less coordinated, more self-interested fashion. Although few sensible people have anything good to say about the federal government response, reactions to tools for managing the pandemic designed by tech firms have been more mixed, with many concluding that such tools can minimize the privacy and human rights risks posed by tight coordination between governments and tech firms. Contact tracing done wrong threatens privacy and invites mission creep into adjacent fields, including policing. Government actors might (and do) distort and corrupt public-health messaging to serve their own interests. Automated policing and content control raise the prospect of a slide into authoritarianism. 

America Gave Up On Coronavirus — Now the Worst-Case Scenario’s Coming True

umair haque

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The nation with the world’s highest Coronavirus death toll — where the first wave hasn’t even plateaued or slowed yet — reopening already. Seeing new spikes across half its states. What the?

America is about to show the world what a worst-case scenario for Coronavirus looks like.

The Trump administration has bungled Coronavirus unbelievably badly. Drinking bleach, it turns out, isn’t a cure. But it’s about to get so, so much worse.

In America, Coronavirus hasn’t slowed one bit. See that line above? In Europe, it’s flattened out. But in America, the worst case scenario is now about to come true. Since states are reopening, since the government has no plan, and as a nation, America seems to simply have… given up on it…Coronavirus is going to do three things. One, explode, just like it is in states like Arizona, Texas, and Florida, to name just a few. Two, go on rising for far, far longer than elsewhere, or than it needed to. And three, it will take much, much longer to flatten out, too.

RE OPEN ING THE WORLD

Leave it to the Germans to come up with a sinuous, unpronounceable, and entirely perfect word to describe the slew of debates over how and when to reopen economies locked down due to the coronavirus: Öffnungsdiskussionsorgien, or opening discussion orgies. These orgies have been unfolding in just about every country that has shut restaurants and schools, grounded flights, and required citizens to stay home. 

Despite general agreement with lockdown decisions, there are now heated debates about what the new normal should be—and how to get there. That debate varies, of course, with the progress of the virus. China, where the outbreak originated, has slowly reopened Wuhan. New Zealand says the virus is “currently eliminated” there and is talking about resuming flights to Australia. Brazil locked down its first major cities this week, while other countries, such as Canada, Japan, and Sri Lanka, also tightened rules. And Africa, which was largely spared during the initial wave, is now facing a rising number of cases with only limited medical resources.

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Europe After Coronavirus: The EU and a New Political Economy

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The COVID-19 crisis could lead to a wider rethink of Europe’s political economy. This paper explores what such a model might look like, and what it would mean for the governance of the European Union.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a health and economic crisis without modern parallel. The scale of its effects could prompt a far-reaching re-evaluation of the role of the state in relation to the market in Europe. This paper is a thought experiment examining the consequences of a change in Europe’s political economy and the potential implications for the European project.

The current form of the European Union, centred on the single market and the single currency, evolved during a period of economic liberalization. If the COVID-19 crisis leads to a larger role for the state and a move away from market-oriented policies, the EU will face a challenge in accommodating that change.

Colin Gray: The Strategist’s Strategist

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In February of this year, Colin S. Gray, the most consequential Anglo-American strategist of our time, died after a decades-long struggle with cancer. He was the teacher of two generations of U.S. and British defense experts. He was my friend and mentor.

Educated at Oxford and the University of Manchester, Colin worked in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in both government and academia. Among other posts, he served from 1982 until 1987 in the Reagan administration’s General Advisory Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament. He taught at the Universities of Hull, Lancaster, and York, in the UK and at the Universities of Toronto and British Columbia in Canada. He retired most recently from the University of Reading. Over his fruitful career, he authored some 30 books and countless articles on strategy, arms control, nuclear policy, and geopolitics.

Gray’s somewhat Victorian style of writing was not to everyone’s taste. His prose could be dense. But close attention to his arguments yielded vast rewards because of the quality of his insights, especially in the areas of international relations, geopolitics, strategy and strategic thinking, and strategic culture.

The Scourge of “Strategic Happy Talk”

Air University

Air Force Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs, Spring 2020, v. 3, no. 2

Terrorism in the Indo-Pacific

Comparing Space Sectors Down Under

Chasing the Chimera of the Indigenous Jet Fighter

A Footprint of Unfreedom

China’s Rising Missile and Naval Capabilities in the Indo-Pacific Region

Caught in the Middle

Exporting Nuclear Norms

Chinese Communist Party Information Warfare

Kashmir

Why cutting American forces in Germany will harm this alliance

Michael E. O’Hanlon

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President Trump has approved a plan, hatched more by his ambassador in Berlin than by the Pentagon, to further downsize the United States military presence in Germany, according to some recent reports. The change was disturbingly motivated out of his spite at Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The 35,000 American troops in Germany would be reduced by 10,000, as some would come home and some would possibly head to Poland. While there is nothing wrong with increasing the modest United States military presence in Poland, this must not be at the expense of a strong foothold in Germany, where American forces stood in the hundreds of thousands amid the Cold War and have been reduced in the last few decades.

American forces in Germany are mostly Army and Air Force units. They include an armored brigade and a fighter wing, then logistics, supports, and headquarters capabilities that facilitate any massive reinforcements that could be needed to defend the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in war. If there were a crisis in the Baltic region, the United States would be unlikely to send most of its forces directly to Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania. These small exposed countries have only a few major ports and airfields between them, and are all dangerously close to Russian firepower.

Can Middle Powers Lead the World Out of the Pandemic?

By Bruce Jone

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In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, much of the world looked anxiously to Washington to see if it would provide the kind of leadership that was once expected of the United States during major crises. But instead of marshaling a unified global response, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump resisted international health cooperation and announced that the United States would withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO). Domestically, it orchestrated an astonishing display of denial, distraction, and delay that allowed the virus to overwhelm the country.

The question then became: Would China fill the leadership void? Beijing initially sought to cover up the outbreak, but it moved aggressively to lock down entire cities and provinces once the crisis could no longer be denied. By early March, China had mostly halted the spread of the virus within its borders, allowing it to turn to helping other countries overcome shortages of protective gear. China’s “mask diplomacy” has been more effective than is generally acknowledged in the West. In Italy, for instance, opinion polls reveal that more people trust China to contain the virus than trust the United States to do so. And in parts of Southeast Asia, Chinese medical and financial assistance has been similarly well received. But China has not lived down its initial missteps, and its aggressive use of propaganda—including conspiracy theories intended to sow doubt about the virus’s origins—have undercut its claims to global health leadership. When Australia called for an independent investigation into the source of the outbreak and the early response to the pandemic at the World Health Assembly, more than 100 countries supported the motion. Not even Russia stood with China in opposing the investigation.

The Free World’s Leader Isn’t Free Anymore

BY JAMES TRAUB
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Virtually everything good, and everything bad, that American leaders have done in the world over the last century—both the establishment of the liberal order after World War II and the prosecution of ruinous wars in Vietnam and Iraq—has been carried out in the name of a mission to promote America’s liberal and democratic values. “American exceptionalism,” as that faith was once known, in turn presupposed that the nation was uniquely endowed with those values.

Critics on the left always regarded that claim as evidence of national hubris. Yet 20 years ago it was still possible to say, as Secretary of State Madeleine Albright did, that “we stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future.” After the events of the last four months, however, that premise has tipped over into the laughable. America plainly does not see further. The national response to the coronavirus pandemic has been short-sighted and incoherent; in the face of crisis the nation has become more polarized rather than less. And now the killing of George Floyd and the violent response to the subsequent demonstrations have shown that American policing is shot through with racism and brutality. President Donald Trump is determined to pour salt into every fresh wound. America now seems exceptional almost entirely in a pejorative sense.

Leading Pentagon Official Exits After White House Axes Nomination

BY JACK DETSCH
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Aleading U.S. Defense Department policy official resigned Thursday after the Trump administration passed over her nomination for another top defense job, as the White House continued its efforts to fill the Pentagon with loyalists to President Donald Trump.

Kathryn Wheelbarger—who performed the duties of assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, a top Pentagon policy job that oversees Defense Department strategy in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East—is resigning with an effective date of July 4, a person familiar with the matter told Foreign Policy.

The decision comes as the Pentagon’s revolving door appears to be sending out more professional candidates in favor of new officials loyal to Trump. Wheelbarger’s planned departure occurred just two days after Elaine McCusker resigned as the Pentagon’s acting comptroller after questioning Trump’s decision to freeze military aid to Ukraine last summer. The White House recently rescinded McCusker’s nomination to be the Pentagon’s permanent comptroller after she questioned the aid freeze on Ukraine that had prompted Trump’s impeachment in the House.

Can Putin Change Russia’s Role From Spoiler to Global Power?

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Russia occupies an unusual position on the world stage. Under President Vladimir Putin, Moscow has repeatedly demonstrated that it has the capacity to destabilize the international order, but not the capacity to fill the vacuum it is creating. While Russia lacks the military strength to challenge U.S. supremacy, no one—particularly not the NATO alliance—is ignoring its capabilities. Moscow’s use of arms sales and military engagements to build ties to countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and especially the Middle East has also attracted attention. And its massive, and growing, exports of fossil fuels to Europe offers Russia additional leverage.

Even as Moscow maintains an outsized influence on the global stage, discontent is brewing at home. Putin has dominated the Russian political scene for more than two decades, but his popularity is waning amid a slowing economy and following a deeply unpopular pension reform effort. That didn’t stop him from engineering a way to hold onto power after his current presidential term ends in 2024, despite a constitutional term limit. But it may open space for Putin’s long-suffering political opponents to call attention to the corruption and violence that have marked his tenure.

What Cyber Command’s ISIS operations means for the future of information warfare

Mark Pomerleau

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The Defense Department’s information warfare leaders want to know what they can learn from U.S. Cyber Command’s online offensive against the ISIS.

Defense officials have been applying lessons learned in combat to the hotly contested information space. To date, this process has involved a variety of reorganization efforts across the services, but the approach is changing. One starting point includes Joint Task Force-Ares — U.S. Cyber Command’s online offensive against the Islamic State group — and its Operation Glowing Symphony, the command’s largest and most complex operation.

That operation targeted ISIS media and online operations, taking out infrastructure and preventing ISIS members from communicating and posting propaganda.

New documents received via the Freedom of Information Act reveal new details regarding Operation Glowing Symphony, Cyber Command's largest operation to date.

Mark Pomerleau

The task force’s former director of plans and strategy, Col. Brian Russell, is now leading II Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group, or MIG, one of the Marine Corps’ new information warfare units.

The Cyber Revolution – akin to the Industrial Revolution

By TALIA LEVIN, ALAN ROSENBAUM
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We did not need the latest Iranian cyberattack on Israeli sites or their attempt a few weeks ago to attack the water supply to understand that the next front would begin not on the ground, but on the Internet.

The world of cyber affects not only warfare and hackers, but every area of our lives. Anyone who was skeptical about this has learned over the last two months during the corona crisis that life could continue in another dimension. Did we say cyber?

With excellent timing, this month, the Jerusalem Post Group is launching a new Internet initiative – a cross-platform collaboration with Cybertech, the content-producing firm. The goal is to create content on the area of cyber on digital media, podcasts and pre-recorded broadcasts that will focus on the topic, together with The Jerusalem Post. The content will appear on the new Cybertech News section that will be part of the Jerusalem Post website. The section is intended not only for the general public that is interested in cyber issues, but also for those who only now have come to the realization that soon cyber will be an integral part of daily life.

Australia cyber attacks: PM Morrison warns of 'sophisticated' state hack

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Australia's government and institutions are being targeted by ongoing sophisticated state-based cyber hacks, Prime Minister Scott Morrison says.

Mr Morrison said the cyber attacks were widespread, covering "all levels of government" as well as essential services and businesses.

He declined to identify a specific state actor and said no major personal data breaches had been made.

The attacks have happened over many months and are increasing, he said.

The prime minister said his announcement on Friday was intended to raise public awareness and to urge businesses to improve their defences.

But he stressed that "malicious" activity was also being seen globally, making it not unique to Australia.

Who has been targeted?

Cybersecurity Expert Discusses DOD's Role in National Security

BY DAVID VERGUN

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The Defense Department is involved in its own cybersecurity efforts at every level, and DOD also assists other government agencies, the intelligence community and international partners, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy said.

Thomas C. Wingfield spoke yesterday via remote video at the Defense One Tech Summit.

There are many reasons DOD is helping other government agencies such as the State and Justice departments and the Department of Homeland Security, he said. For example, theft of intellectual property through hacking isn't just an economic problem, because some intellectual property supports defense capabilities, he noted.

Wingfield also said DOD monitors election interference on an enduring basis, working with the FBI and DHS on this issue. "It's not just an annoyance or nuisance, but can undermine faith in our democratic system, so we view this as actual threats," he said.