Nothing Found

Provocative quotes from the Emir of Qatar that recently appeared on a Qatar government website have been attributed to a Russian cyber attack. The comments, which expressed support for Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood have been removed but ended up being one of many reasons already for this week’s diplomatic fracas. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and even Libya have suspended diplomatic relations with Qatar, cut sea, air and land connections, and expelled Qatari visitors and residents. The move isn’t a bolt-from-the-blue, coming as the latest and most extreme escalation in a string of disagreements—neighbouring countries have long rebuked Qatar for its support for Islamists and violent extremists in the region, including Islamic State, and previously had recalled diplomats over an eight month period in 2014.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Minister Assisting the PM for Cyber Security Dan Tehan held a roundtable with major telco and internet companies last Wednesday to discuss strategies to protect Australians from cyber attacks. The roundtable echoed Tehan’s remarks at ASPI’s launch event for its review of the government’s Cyber Security Strategy, where he suggested that telcos could play an expanded gatekeeper role for Australia’s networks.

The Shadow Brokers—the group behind recent leaks of NSA hacking tools used in WannaCry—have announced they’re open for business, revealing details about their new monthly data dump service. For the bargain price of the cryptocurrency equivalent of USD$23,251, potential subscribers will receive a data dump, which will reportedly have something for everyone, from exploits and tools, banking data, and nuclear weapons and missile program data. Given the value subscribing could have in mitigating the next major cyber attack, companies and governments  are facing ethical and legal dilemmas about whether to subscribe or not.

On the other hand, the question of money might prove to be irrelevant, as it’s been suggested by commentators, including Edward Snowden, that the group is a front for Russian Intelligence, and that the solicitations for money are a distraction from the organisation’s goals in collecting foreign intelligence and burning the NSA’s toolsets and capability. Previous attempts to sell exploits have been characterised as clumsy and poorly thought out. Moreover, some “creative” acronym analysis seems to support the Russian intelligence theory.

Hillary Clinton has come out firing, dissecting the role that disinformation had in her defeat during the 2016 presidential election. She pins the blame squarely on a number of Russian agents using cutting edge analytics, marketing and machine learning to algorithmically generate fake news and influence voters through social media. More importantly, it’s likely only the beginning of an information war that’ll characterise elections to come, and an issue that will continue to dog Facebook.

In response to the recent attack in London, British Prime Minister Theresa May has come out strongly against the inaction that internet companies have demonstrated on the issue of extremist communications, stating that there is ‘far too much tolerance of extremism in our country’. The PM also suggested that Britain’s counterterrorism strategy needs to be reviewed to increase the powers of police and security services. Similar comments have come from Malcolm Turnbull, who has called out social media messaging companies as not doing enough to provide security agencies with access to encrypted communications.

A defamation case in Switzerland also demonstrates the increasing scrutiny social media is facing. In what seems to be a world first, a Zurich man who ‘liked’ defamatory social media posts has been fined 4,000 Swiss Francs (USD$4,100). The man liked a post that (falsely) accused a third party of antisemitism, racism, and fascism—the trifecta! It’s unclear whether the charges will stick through the appeals process. However, in the meantime, avid Tweeters who rely on the disclaimer ‘retweet doesn’t equal endorsement’ might want to be more cautious.

Sydney-based ticketing start-up Qnect has been grappling with a perplexing security incident this week, with hackers directly SMSing individual Qnect users with a warning that their personal data (e-mails, credit card information) has been stolen and will be released online unless a ransom is paid. It’s likely that the names, e-mails and phone numbers were gathered by exploiting an autocomplete function that tends to overshare. As a result, the founders are reassuring customers that financial data hasn’t been exposed and that the threats are just a bluff.

Lastly, for those readers playing ASPI Bingo, you can mark ‘cybersecurity’ and ‘submarines’ off your sheet: the British and American Security Information Council has released a report finding that Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarines (the ones armed with world-ending nukes) remain vulnerable to catastrophic cyber attack.

The recent Taliban attack on an Afghan army post outside Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan—the deadliest-ever by the Taliban on a military base, killing some 150 recruits—underscores the terrorist group’s growing strength more than 15 years after they were ousted from power. The attack confirms yet again that Afghanistan still has a major security problem, and it’s not about to be resolved.

There are still some 13,500 NATO troops which are part of the Resolute Support Mission which mentors and trains the Afghan security forces. An additional 1,500 US troops are involved in counterterrorism operations, hunting down al-Qaeda and Islamic State terrorists.

However, even with these troops still in place and the US having spent some $1 trillion in war and reconstruction since 2001, the Taliban controls more territory today than it has since being ousted from power in 2001. According to US Central Command, the Afghan government controls less than 60% of the territory, the Taliban about 10% and the remainder is contested.

Unfortunately, the situation could get worse.

General John Nicholson, the top US Commander in Afghanistan, stated at a recent Congressional hearing that the Russians were providing military support to the Taliban. Russia has vehemently refuted those accusations, insisting that Moscow’s interaction with the Taliban is limited to convincing them to join negotiations. The Taliban has also rejected those claims but no one believes them.

Notwithstanding those denials, Moscow has nevertheless been engaging the group, believing that a strong relationship with the Taliban is essential for maintaining political stability in Afghanistan. In December 2015 President Putin’s special representative to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, acknowledged that ‘Taliban interests objectively coincide with ours’.

Russian authorities claim that the Taliban is the only bulwark against the greater threat, the Islamic State in Khorasan, as IS is known in Afghanistan and Pakistan (ISIS-K). However, there’s no evidence to support the claim that ISIS-K is a credible threat. Compared to the Taliban, which number in the thousands or tens of thousands, ISIS-K remains an insignificant force. Even at its height in 2015, ISIS-K was estimated to only have about 600 to 800 fighters. The Islamic State will have been further weakened with the recent announcement by US forces in Afghanistan that its leader, Abdul Hasib, had been killed by Afghan and US forces in late April.

Russia potentially arming the Taliban further complicates an already intractable situation and, as General Nicholson stated recently, ‘is not the best way forward for a peaceful reconciliation’ in Afghanistan. But that will hardly deter President Putin from deepening Russia’s relationship with the Taliban if he decides it’s in Russia’s interests.

President Trump has asked National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster to review US strategy in Afghanistan. General Nicholson has recommended that the US military commitment in Afghanistan be increased by some 3,000 troops. While the Trump administration hasn’t indicated whether it will support such a recommendation, a majority of those residing in the Pentagon’s upper echelons support an increase in troop levels. The review should be finalised soon.

Kabul’s neighbours will have mixed feelings about Russia’s deepening involvement in Afghanistan. Iran, which has also been accused of arming and providing battlefield advice to the Taliban, will welcome Russia. In a continuation of their anti-Western strategic alliance in Syria, Moscow and Tehran have been working together to accelerate the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

On the other hand, China won’t be pleased. Moscow’s increased meddling complicates Beijing’s drive to increase its presence in Central Asia, including in Afghanistan, especially through its multi-faceted ‘One Belt, One Road’ project. Moreover, the Taliban has links with the Uighur-dominated East Turkestan Islamic Movement which regularly attacks Chinese authorities in western China. But Moscow isn’t about to cede that strategic space—Russia’s backyard since the 19th century—to China.

India, which traditionally supports Afghanistan’s non-Pushtun ethnic groups, also won’t welcome Russia’s increased activity in Afghanistan, particularly its support for the Pushtun-dominated Taliban. But what should really worry the Indians is Moscow’s increasing cosiness with Islamabad, particularly in the military sphere, and what that will mean for the future of India’s long-standing bilateral relationship with Russia.

As such, it’s not surprising that Islamabad welcomes Moscow’s increased involvement in Afghanistan. As a matter of fact it recently asked the Russian government ‘to lead the process of stabilization’ in Afghanistan. It remains to be seen what that actually means.

However, Islamabad should be wary of Moscow’s military support for the Taliban. In the long-term, a political victory for the Taliban in Afghanistan wouldn’t be good news for Pakistan. A Taliban-dominated government in Kabul would give the Pakistan Taliban (the TTP as it’s called)—a close military and political ally of the Afghan Taliban—a real psychological and military fillip in their fight against Islamabad. Importantly, a Taliban-dominated Afghanistan would give the TTP a safe springboard from which it could launch attacks back into Pakistan.

Similarly, is it really in Moscow’s interest to eventually see the Taliban back in power in Kabul? The return of the Taliban would signal to Moscow’s restive extremists in the Caucasus—Russia’s soft underbelly—that jihad against the established order pays off. In sum, by trying to get even with the West in the short-term, Putin’s playing a very dangerous game, one that may well come back to haunt him in the long-term.

2016 was a tumultuous year in cyber security. But there were three stories in particular that will likely have implications for events this year.

The first is Russia’s cyber influence campaign that helped Donald Trump win the 2016 US Presidential election. The Obama administration responded with targeted sanctions, the expulsion of 35 Russian embassy officials, and denying access to two Russian government owned compounds on US soil. Additionally, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security released a Joint Analysis Report containing technical information to help network defenders identify and detect malicious Russian cyber activities.

But those actions were too little, too late, and the benefits to Putin—Trump’s election—vastly outweigh the costs that were imposed on Russia. Similarly, the initial technical information released to aid network defenders was described as worse than useless. The second report released last month was vastly more helpful. The US has since indicted a number of Russian hackers and their associates for criminal cyber activities.

Revealing this type of technical information will impose a real cost on Russian intelligence as they’ll have to retool to some degree. Such releases should form one element of a broader deterrence strategy, but it does come with costs to US intelligence. There’s a real risk of losing visibility of the cyber actors conducting these attacks, and it clearly took some time for the intelligence community to come to grips with publishing this further technical detail. But they need to be prepared to do this more regularly, with greater speed, and ideally in a way that maximises deterrence and minimises loss of capability.

But the broader question for 2017 is whether future cyber influence operations will be deterred? Have norms against cyber interference in democratic elections been established? Upcoming elections in France in April and Germany in September will be a litmus test. WikiLeaks, Russian intelligence’s preferred publisher, is already involved in the French election and has released material on Presidential candidates François Fillon, Emmanuel Macron, and Marine Le Pen, although it’s not yet clear that new or hacked material is being released. I expect we’ll see further Russian interference in these two elections and that an earlier and more robust response is needed for successful deterrence.

The second significant cyber story in 2016 was the use of Internet of Things (IoT) botnets in Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. First, let’s explain the jargon. IoT devices are everyday objects, like fridges, toasters and light bulbs, which have built-in internet connectivity. They often contain sensors and smarts that provide some real and genuine conveniences, but if poorly secured such devices present a massive opportunity for malicious actors. A botnet is a collection of internet-connected devices that can be controlled to conduct various tasks, typically without the knowledge of the devices’ legitimate owner. And a DDoS attack is a technique to take down a website by overwhelming it with fake traffic from many sources across the internet. The scale and distributed nature of these attacks (as seen with the Mirai botnet) makes them hard to deal with, and if directed at the wrong infrastructure, they would constitute a critical cyber threat.

The real significance of these large IoT botnets, however, is that they create vast overlap in the capabilities of state and non-state actors, and that gives rise to the potential for misattribution, misunderstandings between states, and potential escalation into state conflict. Individuals or small groups can generate powerful attacks that can be perceived as the work of a nation state. Bruce Schneier, a respected internet security commentator, has speculated that some DDoS attacks over the last year are the work of a nation state learning how to disrupt the internet. On the other hand Brian Krebs, an internet security journalist, thinks that the Mirai botnet was the work of a single individual. Developing cyber norms will be very difficult if we (and other states) can’t definitively identify what is, and isn’t, state behaviour.

Reducing the risk from poorly secured IoT devices is a large collective action problem that will require effort from governments, ISPs, device manufacturers, internet governance organisations and other stakeholders. It’s a space where government leadership could contribute positively. The signs that I hope to see this year are:

• US or European regulation that encourages the production of secure IoT devices;
• device makers taking responsibility and issuing recalls for insecure devices;
• ISPs implementing standards that make DDoS attacks more difficult; and
• security improvements in the protocols that underpin the internet.

I expect, however, that the threat of IoT botnets will get worse before it gets better, and that we’ll see many larger and more damaging DDoS attacks before the internet’s collective antibodies are roused to action.

And finally, the third significant story that will continue to unfold in 2017 was among the most underreported news of 2016: the success of the US–China agreement to not conduct economic cyber espionage, which Obama and Xi signed up to in September 2016. It appears that Chinese industrial hacking declined well before the formal meeting and announcement, so I expect that’ll be maintained.

What we should look for, however, is where that hacking activity went. It’s possible that Chinese state-sponsored cyber operators are now unemployed, in which case I’d have expect an observable rise in Chinese cybercrime. But I suspect that they’ve just been redeployed. Are they now conducting stealthier operations that we’ve yet to identify and attribute? Are they hacking countries other than the US? Or are they now focused solely on “legitimate” espionage targets?

Given the fluid nature of cyberspace, no doubt we’ll see some novel new malicious activity this year, but I don’t think we’ve yet reached the end of the road when it comes to the trends that started in 2016.

In a game of chess, the queen is the ultimate power on the board. It can move in any direction and is a looming figure that any opponent should be wary of. If we’re to look at a tactical battlefield with a variety of high-tech weaponry (tanks, artillery, mortars and guided munitions, etc), we’d be remiss if we didn’t factor in the looming figure of tactical nuclear weapons. With a variable explosive yield and the ability to eliminate a division or airfield in the blink of an eye, it’s crucial that military commanders and national leaders alike don’t disregard that threat.

In his recent piece, Rod Lyon discusses ‘the concept of the great-power nuclear balance’ in regard to strategic nuclear weapons. His piece clearly illustrates how the US–Russia nuclear balance is important to global stability. But it’s clear that this isn’t the case when we look at the non-strategic or tactical nuclear arsenals of the US and Russia.

The US currently has approximately 500 B-61 gravity bombs in its arsenal with around 150 deployed in Europe. Those tactical nuclear weapons possess a powerful yield but need to be delivered to their target by aircraft. That’s no easy task if we look at the gauntlet of surface-to-air missiles that the aircraft would have to navigate in order to reach its target area. Even if deployed on the stealthy F-35, the aircraft would still potentially need to navigate through advanced air defences. Stealth technology is by no means an impervious invisibility cloak.

On the other hand it’s estimated that Russia has approximately 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons that can be deployed on a variety of platforms including ballistic missiles and sea-based cruise missiles. The rationale behind maintaining that relatively large and diverse tactical nuclear arsenal is believed to be in order to offset the superior conventional military forces of NATO.

While the B-61 tactical nuclear bomb is deployed by the US in Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Turkey, it’s clear that Russia possesses a superior tactical nuclear force. That mightn’t appear to be a significant issue, especially when one looks at the quantitative and qualitative superiority of NATO’s military over Russia’s. But if tactical nuclear weapons were to be deployed in a battlefield scenario, it’s obvious that there’s a clear imbalance not only in accumulated yield but the ability of the nuclear weapon to reach its target.

Let’s look at the chess analogy again. Russia recently moved Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad. Although it’s unknown if those missiles are currently fitted with nuclear warheads, they certainly have that capability. Even with a significant conventional superiority, the potential value of nuclear capable Iskander missiles on a tactical battlefield is a game changer, much like the power of a queen when the opponent no longer possesses one. In addition to the Iskander missiles, Russia also has the capability to launch nuclear capable cruise missiles from submarines. That’s an extremely formidable force if used in any conflict.

Mutually Assured Destruction is a well-known concept for analysing parity and stabilisation when discussing strategic nuclear weapons such as ICBMs and SLBMs, but what of tactical nuclear weapons? The possibility that one side may use a low-yield tactical nuclear weapon in a battlefield scenario much like any other weapon mustn’t be ignored and discounted. If one side in a conflict or potential conflict has an overwhelming superiority in the capability of delivering those incomparable weapons it’s a matter that must be addressed.

Trump has made no secret of his wish to improve relations with Russia. Perhaps now is the time to renew arms control discussions regarding tactical nuclear weapons and the platforms by which they’re deployed. Failure to come to some form of agreement or focus primarily on strategic nuclear weapons parity while ignoring the tactical nuclear weapons imbalance may have devastating consequences. They may include possible escalation to nuclear use in the event of a conflict or proliferation of tactical nuclear weapons if nations believe that their security is at risk. In the current climate of growing uncertainty, a renewed arms control agreement that reduces the risk of a conflict involving nuclear weapons could only be a good thing.

Russia is once again at the center of policy debates in many Western capitals. And for the third time in a row, a new US president will start his administration with ambitions to improve bilateral relations. To understand why achieving this goal has been so difficult, it helps to take a longer historical view of the Russian state.

It is now a quarter-century since the Soviet Union disintegrated; and 2017 will mark the centennial of the Russian Revolution, which toppled the teetering, centuries-old czarist empire. As it happens, there are telling similarities between the periods that followed each of these imperial denouements.

Russia’s history has been characterized by continuous expansion over the Eurasian continent. The czars’ eastward push into Siberia mirrored America’s westward push during the nineteenth century, and Russia’s expansion into Central Asia coincided with the European powers’ colonization of Africa.

But as Imperial Russia expanded westward and southward, it always encountered opposition, and had to use force to keep newly acquired territories within its domain. After the 1917 revolution, many of these areas—from Tashkent to Tbilisi, and Kyiv to Helsinki—sought independence from Muscovy’s yoke.

At first, Vladimir Lenin seemed amenable to these demands; but he soon deployed the new Red Army to impose Soviet power across the former Russian Empire. It succeeded in Ukraine, the southern Caucasus, and Central Asia. But it failed in Finland and the Baltic states, and it suffered a crucial defeat outside Warsaw in 1920. This allowed a string of independent states to emerge from the former Russian Empire’s western flank.

But then Stalin came to power. Using terror and forced industrialization to try to make Russia great again, he sought to reassert imperial control over its former territories. Stalin found an opportunity in secret talks with Adolf Hitler, where he demanded the return of what had been lost after 1917, including the Baltic states, Finland, and part of Poland.

He eventually got it. After Hitler’s Reich collapsed, not least owing to the sacrifices of the Red Army, Stalin had carte blanche to extend Soviet power deep into the heart of Europe. Only Finland preserved its independence—miraculously, and by force of arms. The Baltic countries were brutally brought back into the Soviet fold, and Poland and others were reduced to satellite states.

In 1976, a top US State Department adviser to Henry Kissinger controversially argued that Russia had failed to establish ‘organic’ relationships with these countries. True enough, as the Soviet Union collapsed, the satellite states hastened its demise by reasserting their sovereignty; in short order, almost every non-Russian republic in the former USSR demanded, and secured, independence. With Ukraine and countries in the South Caucasus achieving statehood, Russia controlled even less territory than it did after the 1917 revolution.

Vladimir Putin, like Lenin a century ago, is intent on changing that. Since coming to power following Russia’s tumultuous attempts at liberal and democratic reform in the 1990s, it has become increasingly clear that Putin aspires to make Russia great again, both economically and geopolitically. Despite some obvious differences between the founding of the Soviet Union and now, the historical parallel is too obvious to ignore.

Under Putin, Russia has invaded and occupied parts of Georgia, annexed Crimea from Ukraine, and militarily propped up two sham ‘republics’ in Eastern Ukraine. Russia has also tried—so far unsuccessfully—to establish a Novorossiya across Southern Ukraine.

Step by step, whenever opportunities present themselves, the Kremlin is ready to use all means at its disposal to regain what it considers its own. Putin may not have a firm or comprehensive plan for imperial restoration, but he undoubtedly has an abiding inclination to make imperial advances whenever the risk is bearable, as in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014.

So, what lessons can we take from the past? For starters, Russian imperialism has thrived when Europe and the West have been divided. This was the case when Hitler and Stalin entered into their non-aggression pact in 1939, and when Napoleon and Tsar Alexander entered into theirs in 1807. And we certainly should not forget the Yalta Conference in 1945.

Expanding both NATO and the European Union to include the Central European and Baltic countries has been essential to European security. In any other scenario, we would probably already be locked in a profoundly dangerous power struggle with a revanchist Russia reclaiming what it had lost.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the Russian Revolution in 1917 reshaped regional and global politics. In the immediate aftermath of each event, Russia demonstrated its historic inability to build harmonious relations with the countries along its periphery; and in the intermediate periods, it acted on its imperial ambitions at these countries’ expense.

But Russia will come to terms with itself only if the West firmly supports these countries’ independence over a prolonged period of time. Eventually, Russia will realize that it is in its own long-term interest to break its historical pattern, concentrate on its domestic development, and build peaceful and respectful relations with its neighbors.

We are certainly not there yet, but that’s no reason to throw in the towel—or throw out the lessons of history. We need a stable, prosperous, and peaceful Russia. And that can be achieved only with determined support for the independence and sovereignty of all of its neighbors.