Cyber war against Estonia?

This New York Times story, "Estonia Computers Blitzed, Possibly by the Russians," strikes me as pregnant with implications that reach far beyond the Russo-Estonian dispute over the removal of a Soviet monument commemorating the "Great Patriotic War."

The Times reports that Estonian officials have blamed Russia for a series of attacks on its government websites, although the Russian government has denied involvement.

I found this statement striking, however: "'If you have a missile attack against, let’s say, an airport, it is an act of war,' a spokesman for the Estonian Defense Ministry, Madis Mikko, said Friday in a telephone interview. 'If the same result is caused by computers, then how else do you describe that kind of attack?'"

What is the value of an alliance like NATO, designed to protect the people and physical infrastructure of an alliance member from attack, in an age when threats may increasingly be of the sort described in this story, attacks on the virtual infrastructure that are increasingly the source of prosperity for countries like Estonia?

If NATO — and other standing alliances among democracies, like the US-Japan alliance — are incapable of deterring new, unconventional threats that target a country's vehicles of wealth creation in ways short of what is recognized as war, can those alliances survive without substantial change?

While the details of the campaign against Estonia have yet to be elucidated, this incident strikes me as a harbinger of something with which all developed countries will have to contend: as the risks of interstate conventional warfare diminish, states will have to contend with new ways for states to flex their muscles in disputes with other states. Are existing alliances and international organizations up to the task?

The future of the Japanese RMA

The Yomiuri Shimbun reported today on the release of a report by the Japanese Defense Ministry's Technical Research and Development Institute providing a medium- to long-term technology estimate, essentially outlining the future of the Japanese variant of the revolution in military affairs.

The question is, essentially, how will technology impact Japanese force structure and doctrine.

I have only skimmed the executive brief, but several things jumped out at me.

First, the Defense Ministry expects that restricted defense budgets will continue into the future, even as the security environment changes and the JSDF undertakes more peacekeeping and humanitarian missions abroad, in accordance with "overseas activities" becoming one of the primary missions of the JSDF late last year (at the same time the JDA was elevated to ministry status).

Second, there is a heavy emphasis on robotics and unmanned vehicles (not just aerial drones).

Third, the emphasis is on technology that will strengthen Japanese defensive capabilities, especially against unconventional threats.

As such, the shape of the Japanese RMA, rather than facilitating Japan's becoming a more independent military power, will support military cooperation in the US-Japan alliance. The Defense Ministry is not planning on the development of technology that will undergird an independent Japanese deterrent (conventional or nuclear). Instead, there is a heavy emphasis on advanced sensors and other technologies that will create "systems of systems" among units in a given battlespace.

In any case, it's worth a look.

Alliance-changing technology?

The image above comes courtesy of this article at Defense Industry Daily.

It illustrates the workings of Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC), a system of pooling radar and sensor data among warships and other platforms to provide a more complete image of the battlespace:

The Cooperative Engagement Transmission Processing Set (CETPS) AN/USG-2 coordinates all task force Anti-Air Warfare (AAW) sensors into a single real time, fire control quality composite track picture which significantly improves battle force AAW defense. The CETPS distributes sensor data from each Cooperating Unit (CU) to all other CUs utilizing a real time, high data rate, line of sight (LOS), fire control quality sensor and engagement data distribution network. This CETPS is extremely jam resistant and provides very accurate gridlocking between units. The data is then combined into a common track picture by employing high capacity, parallel processing and advanced algorithms.

Of course, the first thing I thought of when reading this article was the prospective impact of such a system on the US-Japan alliance. Perhaps not profound in and of itself -- Japan has already struggled with the question of whether its Aegis cruisers operating in the Indian Ocean can participate in "collective defense" if a threat against coalition warships was detected, not to mention its ongoing struggle with the collective defense implications of missile defense -- CEC would be another element pushing Japan to interact with allies on a reciprocal basis.

At this point, every little bit helps.