Forwarded from: Dan Verton <Dan_Vertonat_private> <<It wasn't the bombs themselves that caused the downfall of the Soviets, but the threat of their use that did it. One has to step back and see the forest, not just the trees or the twigs.>> John Ellingson, CEO, Edentification, Inc.>> John, I would argue that even today, in an age of cyber warfare tactics (i.e. Kosovo, to a certain extent Desert Storm, Bosnia, and unconfirmed reports that cyber tactics are being planned against networked air defense systems in Afghanistan) that deterrence is still measured in Curise Missiles, not bits and bytes. One of the things that has been missed in studies of 20th century U.S. military and foreign policy has been the subtle changes that have taken place in the effectiveness of the U.S. power projection -- a key element of our foreign policy. That shift has been the need in recent years to actually go the one step further and take action, whereas in the past it was almost always enough to send an aircraft carrier to a region to convince country XYZ that we meant business. Despite the overwhelming advantgae that we enjoy in conventional (non-cyber) capabilities, our adversaries are increasingly opting to force us to act. And that most often means physical destruction, men on the ground. If you know how to draw a line in the sand with a mouse that will stop a determined army, let me know. I could use the money from that patent. :-) Dan Verton - ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org To unsubscribe email majordomoat_private with 'unsubscribe isn' in the BODY of the mail.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon Dec 03 2001 - 01:19:26 PST