Next week the Hudson Institute is holding a seminar on the future of the US defence industry. Before you stifle a yawn take a look at one of the scenarios they will be considering:
‘…hypothetical Chinese aggression towards Taiwan provokes a Sino-U.S. military confrontation. Initially, the technologically superior and network-centric American military is quickly devastated by the Chinese’ ability to activate imbedded programming in small electronic connectors. This process effectively neutralizes the defense, attack, and navigation capabilities within every system on U.S. warships, submarines, and aircraft. Because Beijing controls two-thirds of the world’s supply of these seemingly harmless connective devices, the Chinese are able to deliberately and strategically infiltrate the U.S. military and industrial base and target four of the military’s primary weapons systems programs…
Got your imagination? The invitation goes onto say that the purpose of this scenario is to expose flaws and weaknesses within the current U.S. national security apparatus but I think we can safely say that this is not solely a US problem… our global connectivity presents all of us with issues of system vulnerability (highlighted by the damage to five undersea cables recently).
