Abstract
In April–May 2007, Estonia experienced several weeks of coordinated cyberattacks against its financial and sociopolitical institutions. Although the origin of these attacks cannot be definitively named, it is widely believed in Estonia and among many analysts that Moscow was behind these attacks. Certainly these attacks represented the culmination of plans set in motion a year earlier to attack the Estonian government and society for their supposedly anti-Russian policies. And the accompanying demonstrations in Tallinn at this time also represented well-worn Soviet techniques used in earlier coups in Eastern Europe. Ultimately the advent of such new forms of military operations confirms a threat assessment by which any one operation on land, sea, air, underwater, or space can target anyone in any of these dimensions and raises provocative issues for both analysts of war and government officials.
Introduction
In April–May 2007, Europe experienced its first information war (IW). Because Estonia defied Russian threats and removed the so-called Bronze Soldier, the monument to the Red Army in Tallinn that memorializes the Soviet liberation of Estonia in World War II from the city center, Estonia soon experienced a full-scale information war directed against much of its critical telecommunications infrastructure. These attacks included denial of service, botnets, and hacking. 1 This “war” lasted from April 26, 2007 until mid-May 2007, a period of several weeks. Although some have argued that the sources of these attacks cannot be conclusively traced to Russia, the Estonian government insisted from the start that Moscow was behind it. Indeed, it originally claimed to trace the source of some of these attacks to Russian governmental addresses. 2
It is impossible to conclusively charge Russia with orchestrating the attack because of the use of botnets, short for robot networks. According to James Hughes, botnets are the newest fad in cybercrime. In a botnet attack a cybercriminal or attacker takes control of a foreign computer by surreptitiously loading software on it without the consumer's awareness that the computer has been compromised. Moreover, some botnets are huge, embracing tens of thousands of computers across the world so that attacks can seem, as in this case, to be coming from everywhere. As Hughes points out, this does not prove Moscow's innocence as its agents could have used chat rooms and e-mail to incite patriotic Russian hackers, of which there are plenty, as well as cybercriminals to attack Estonian targets. Nevertheless, the nature of the attacks described below, and the fact that Moscow has continued to maintain sanctions on Estonia since then, demand revision of its laws concerning its Russian minorities, and to call Estonia a Fascist or pro-Fascist regime suggests Moscow's hand behind this attack. 3 Also of interest is the fact that, in a 2006 article, Russian scientists forecast the exact nature of the use of botnets to achieve denial of service in targeted computers. 4 And of course Estonian officials staunchly believe it as well.
Besides these computer and cyber attacks, Moscow organized violent demonstrations in Tallinn among the Russian diaspora there and among its homegrown youth organization in Russia, Nashi (Ours), in Moscow against the Estonian embassy. Nashi, the main Russian youth organization is, like the other such youth groups in Russia, a creation of the Putin regime. And these groups all espouse a strongly nationalistic pro-Russian and pro-Putin attitude almost to the point of xenophobia. Their attitudes, behavior, and governmental support make them a kind of legatee of the tactics of the Komsomol; Mao's youth gangs during the Cultural Revolution of 1966–69; the Hitler Jugend; and Fascist Squadristi. Moscow has also employed Nashi and other groups against other foreign embassies and domestic dissidents, 5 and intermittently imposed various ongoing forms of economic warfare such as interference with trade and transport and energy cutoffs, upon Estonia (and on other Baltic states that have defied its requests) ever since the 1990s, when Estonia and the other Baltic states gained their independence from the Soviet Union.
Thus this information war, the first in European history, has been combined with Russian attempts to incite domestic violence in Estonia, attack Estonia's embassy in Moscow through violent demonstrations there orchestrated by Nashi, an ongoing public diplomacy campaign targeting both domestic Russian and Western audiences to label Estonia's regime as Fascistic and ongoing economic warfare. 6 Accordingly, it seems clear that the computer attacks, or information operation (IO), and the other steps taken by Moscow against Estonia were acts sanctioned by high policy and reflected a coordinated strategy devised in advance of the removal of the Bronze Soldier from its original pedestal. Certainly Estonia's authorities' investigation of the April–May incidents revealed that Russian planning for the demonstrations in Tallinn began a year earlier, or well before any sign that the monument would be removed. 7 More to the point, we see a longstanding Russian strategy for asymmetric war or conflict developing here. The elements of this strategy are cyber war, economic sanctions, a domestic and international public information campaign against Estonia, the manipulation of youth organizations or gangs, and ongoing Russian efforts to penetrate key sectors of the Estonian economy and subvert politicians. The means by which such penetration and subversion are accomplished include connections with the energy industry or through intelligence penetration, and the links between Russian organized crime and Baltic elites in general. This strategy and any or all of its elements obviously need not be confined to the Baltic or Eastern Europe or only to Russian use. 8
This strategy usually involves the collaboration of Russia's energy firms (largely state owned), intelligence agencies, organized crime, and embassies in an effort to spend money buying up key businesses in targeted states, to donate money to political movements and politicians thereby compromising them, and in general to exercise a covert influence on local politics there. Manifestations of this strategy pervade Russian policy from the Baltic to the Black Sea. 9 For example, in 2004 Roman Giertych, deputy chairman of the commission that investigated the notorious Orlen scandal in Poland, concluded in his report that,
The commission has evidence that a certain kind of conspiracy functioned “within the background of the State Treasury Ministry, the Prime Ministerial Chancellery, the Presidential Chancellery, and big business,” which was supposed to bring about the sale of the Polish energy sector into the hands of Russian firms. 10
More recently the Lithuanian businessman Rimandas Stonys, President of Dujotekana, Lithuania's Gazprom intermediary, who has close ties to Russian and Lithuanian officials and has extensive investments in Lithuania's energy and transit sectors, has been brought under investigation by Lithuania's parliament. These investigative reports charge that he used his ties to Russian intelligence and other Lithuanian political connections to advance personal and Russian interests in Lithuania's energy sector. Dujotekana is reputed to be a front for Russian intelligence services already entwined with Gazprom. A counterintelligence probe into a foreign citizen's efforts to recruit senior Lithuanian Intelligence (VSD) officers led to the firm, which also recruited government officials. Key executives of Dujotekana are apparently also KGB alumni. 11 Similar charges are also raised in regard to Stonys's and his firm's influence in Lithuania's transit sector, large contributions to politicians and media, and influence over political appointments. 12 In previous years, attempts were made to compromise Lithuanian politics by using such figures as Viktor Uspaskich, founder of the Labor Party, who is trying to make a comeback, and the disgraced ex-president, Rolandas Paksas. 13 Likewise, in Estonia the 2006 annual report of the Security Police noted that the Constitution Party is financed partly from Moscow. 14
Therefore, the strategy involved here goes beyond Russia's tense relations with its state neighbors, Baltic or otherwise, to encompass global potentials for waging such war against hostile governments, as part of an insurgency within a state or a takeover from within. Cyberattacks may play a role as needed in implementing such a strategy or may be a self-standing operation in its own right that can be endlessly repeated and turned on and off.
Indeed, the cyberattacks occurred within this context of Russia's unyielding pressure to exploit energy dependencies in all three Baltic states and to use the combination of energy monies, bought and subverted politicians, intelligence penetration—often through firms influenced or owned by Russian or pro-Russian personages with shadowy connections to Moscow—and organized criminal syndicates as a constant means of pressure upon the Baltic and East European states. 15 Such criminal and political penetration or subversion, as we have seen above, is a longstanding tactic that has also been reported in Poland, if not throughout all of Eastern Europe. These acts often involve as well attempts by linked Russian intelligence, energy, and criminal elements operating in tandem to take over key energy firms and to gain key positions in political parties or economic influence over political organizations in these countries. 16
For these reasons and the evidence presented here, it is safe to argue that these cyberattacks appear to have been strategic in choice of targets and political objectives, part of a larger long-term strategy, and therefore long planned. They aimed at accomplishing certain goals, disrupting and possibly unhinging the Estonian government and society, and demonstrating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) inability to protect Estonia against this novel form of attack Undoubtedly this operation aimed to compel Estonia to take Russian interests into account; in other words it had a classically Clausewitzian character of compelling the enemy to do Russia's will even though it was a bloodless, nonviolent attack. In this case, as perhaps in Georgia's case, this attack not only may have reflected an effort to correct Estonia's behavior or influence its orientation, but also a desire to punish it and deter others from following suit by holding it up as an example of a warning to anyone who crosses Russia. 17
Certainly, as noted above, these demonstrations were not spontaneously generated by people outraged at the removal of the Bronze Soldier, and chances are that same principle applies to the cyberattacks. Estonian authorities have reported that their investigations and courts found that planning for the demonstrations in Tallinn began a year in advance of their occurrence. Second, they recorded the presence of Russian Special Forces in civilian clothes (it is not clear which of the many different kinds of the Russian Special Forces they meant) at the demonstrations. 18 As noted below, this tactic turned up in the Russian-organized demonstrations in the Crimea against NATO in 2005. 19 In this respect, the demonstrations in Tallinn resembled earlier tactics and efforts by Soviet and Russian Federation authorities to destabilize or even unseat governments deemed insufficiently friendly or obedient, similar to tactics employed by Soviet authorities against the governments of Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria in 1948. 20 Indeed, these authorities cited these cases. Though essentially bloodless, these attacks nonetheless represent war as defined by Clausewitz—a clash of wills where one side attempts to compel the other side to do its will—although it is not fully clear what Moscow concretely wants other than to assert its hegemonic status in the Baltic.
Estonian authorities also believe the plan devised in Moscow for violent demonstrations among and by Estonia's Russian diaspora was aimed at inciting a series of demonstrations large enough to provoke violence. They similarly contend that the ensuing violence could have been used as a pretext by Moscow to intervene and launch a kind of insurgency directed against Estonia that could have justified either direct Russian support for the insurgents or some form of direct, even military, intervention from Russia. Though Western audiences might consider such threat assessments and scenarios to be far-fetched, the Estonians do not. Indeed, they emphasize that this operations represented something quite close to state-sponsored terrorism. 21 While labeling these attacks state-sponsored terrorism may be stretching the definition of terrorism, there is little doubt that one purpose of these attacks was to “derange” the Estonian social order and create a sense of mass panic within that society. Though this may not be terrorism as it is conventionally understood, there is a similarity as to some of the intended goals of terrorist attacks. As Estonian Defense Minister Jaak Aviksoo said, “It is true to say that the aim of these attackers was to destabilize Estonian society, creating anxiety among people that nothing is functioning, the services are not operable, this was clearly psychological terror in a way.” 22 He also observed that the attacks in April–May represented a botnet strike that for the first time simultaneously targeted an entire country on every digital front. The attacks, he observed, targeted Estonia's essential electronic infrastructure, banks, telecommunications, media outlets, and name servers, thus threatening the entire nation's security. 23 Thus they came close to describing this operation as an act of terrorism, underlining, even if only implicitly, the well-established link between terrorism and information warfare (IW), and also linking it to state-sponsored terrorism as enacted by Russia.
Estonian officials also maintained that these provocations and the cyberwar directed against Estonia's society and government targeted those institutions like banks and the media whose destabilization would induce mass social panic in Estonia and undermine confidence in both the stability of the government and of the country's leading institutions. Lastly, they are also quite convinced that these attacks represented probes to find out to what degree European security institutions like the European Union (EU), NATO, and the Council of Europe would stand by Estonia. In this regard, officials say, Russia was surprised to find the strong if somewhat belated response by the EU and Council of Europe and was also disappointed by the lack of support for this program of action by Estonia's Russians. 24 However, NATO's response was late in coming, something that may signify a real weakness in that 26-nation collective security organization.
Equally important, taken in a broader global strategic context, in light of China's launch of a space antisatellite weapon, for example, and the crystallizing signs of Hugo Chavez's asymmetric war strategy, this attack represents the first realization of new trends in IW, actively directed against another nation's civilian infrastructure. This is different from the so-called war of ideas taking place in the global war on terror (GWOT). 25 The combination of IW or Information Operations (IOs), criminal penetration, incitement through diasporas or other similar organizations, and intelligence subversion of politicians and political institutions, when combined together, represents a potentially lethal form of warfare aiming to destabilize a state and serves as a possible paradigm, or elements of a paradigm, for what is increasingly called asymmetric war. 26
Thus we should realize that this kind of situation has not been confined to Estonia, although other instances of similar operations may differ in some important particulars from the Estonian situation. For example, another noteworthy aspect of the Estonian incidents is the subsequent scandal in Latvia. During the fall of 2007, a major scandal broke out in Latvia after attempts were made to blow up the director of the Customs Service criminal department, and a secret service officer was found in the Daugava River. During subsequent investigations it was discovered that Russian-funded political organizations were buying Latvian politicians. Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis observed at the time that there is a criminal gang consisting of former employees of the KGB and employees of the Latvian security services of parliament and the presidential office. When President Valdis Zatlers refused to accept the anticorruption minister's report concerning this network of corruption, he resigned. This resignation triggered a large defection from the cabinet in which Kalvitis and ultimately the entire government resigned, underscoring the threat to these new states from Russian-inspired corruption. 27 These almost concurrent events or crises underscore the consistency of the Russian strategy for “political warfare” in the Baltic region and Eastern Europe.
Beyond these facts, the melding of tried-and-true Leninist tactics of subversion and intimidation with new forms of IW and large-scale influence-buying reflects the continuing development of the Soviet and Leninist belief that Russia (previously the USSR) is permanently under threat and that its national security policy begins from the standpoint of what the German philosopher Carl Schmitt called the presupposition of enemies. 28 In other words, the tactics and strategies developed and employed by the Soviet Union have served as a foundation for the development of new strategies that incorporate at least some of this Leninist repertoire and new trends like IW for the conduct of continuous political warfare against hostile targets. The continuity in tactics employed in Estonia with those utilized in earlier Communist takeovers underscores this point. For example, in attempting to demonstrate to Estonia that its allies would not or could not defend it, Moscow, as in 1968 when it sought successfully to isolate the Dubcek regime in Czechoslovakia, operated on the belief, expressed by Ivo Ducachek, that,
For a successful revolution, the Communists must have, among other things, a clearly favorable balance of potential outside aid. The democratic majority must feel isolated internationally, while the Communist minority is sure of direct or indirect support form Soviet Russia or other Communist states. 29 (Emphasis in original)
Furthermore, the use of aggrieved ethnic or class minorities, especially when backed by a neighboring great power, as a pretext for subverting an established order is a hallmark of Leninist tactics that have since been globalized. Indeed, the tactics of terrorism, or tactics that resemble terrorism, in order to undermine a state's adhesion to NATO were also used by the Soviet Union. Spanish officials reported in 1980 that Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko told them that Moscow would help with their terrorist problem if they refrained from joining NATO. On the other hand, he implied that entry into NATO would leave Spain more vulnerable to terrorism. 30 Similarly, we can understand the Soviet attempt to organize large-scale political organizations in targeted countries along with smaller-scale guerrilla movements and intelligence networks, and to use either or both for purposes of political subversion in those states, as a conscious strategy. Devised at a time of military weakness, such methods expanded the repertoire of instruments available to Moscow for waging political warfare against enemies to destabilize them and their societies through what were then novel means, to include colonial insurgencies. Such tactics in their day, like IW today, were surrogates for large-scale military capabilities that were unavailable or simply not usable. 31 Contemporary Russian leaders see IW in a similar light. Thus Deputy Premier and former Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov's recent observations indicate Moscow's full awareness of the kinds of activity it was launching in Estonia and that it was a surrogate for a more classical military kind of operation.
The development of information technology has resulted in information itself turning into a certain kind of weapon. It is a weapon that allows us to carry out would-be military actions in practically any theater of war and most importantly, without using military power. That is why we have to take all the necessary steps to develop, improve, and, if necessary—and it already seems to be necessary—develop new multi-purpose automatic control systems, so that in the future we do not find ourselves left with nothing. 32
The breakup of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, the parade of “color revolutions” in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, and so on show how principal threats exist objectively, assuming not so much military forms as direct or indirect forms of political, diplomatic, economic, and informational pressure, subversive activities, and interference in internal affairs…. The RF's security interests require not only that such threats be assessed, but also that effective measures of countering them be identified. 34
In order to fully grasp the nature of the threat posed by such attacks, we need to analyze two strategic environments. Obviously in any assessment of the Russian IO, the regional Russo-Baltic and CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) environment antecedent to this attack must figure in the analysis. Beyond that environment, if we are to fully grasp the issues posed by this IO beyond the borders of former Soviet republics, we must take account of the macro- or global strategic environment. Moreover, in neither environment can the frequency or ubiquity of future employment of such attacks be ruled out. Indeed, as it is, the Pentagon is under “daily attack” by cyberattackers. 37
Asymmetric War in Russia's Borderlands
It also seems that Russia has embarked upon a strategic course of action in both Eastern Europe as a whole from the Baltic to the Black Sea as well as in the Commonwealth of Independent States, or the former Soviet Union, toward the creation of capabilities for engendering constant crises in unfriendly governments. Certainly there is abundant evidence that Moscow does not recognize the sovereignty of post-Soviet states and therefore regards them as fit subjects for such attacks. Indeed, Russia's ambassadors have regularly demonstrated they believe they are talking to “banana republics.” 38 As one recent study observes,
The experience of former imperial dominance and the continued determination of Russian governments to assert their political, economic, and security agenda in the region have fundamentally shaped the politics of the former Soviet Union, particularly the bilateral relationships of other successor states with Russia, and the attitudes of these states toward multilateral regional cooperation in the CIS … Russia's distinct position in the post-Soviet space and the political and legal implications of its self-defined position as the inheritory of the Soviet center in the immediate post-Soviet period, have shaped its approach to the legacy of the Soviet armed forces and to a sense of its authority in relation to other states' policymaking on foreign and security issues. 39
Apart from the repeated remarks and, one imagines, activities of Russian ambassadors who frequently, vocally and publicly, denigrate a host country's sovereignty, we can see this attitude in repeated Russian political interventions and use of the energy weapon against its neighbors. 40 (For example, Ukraine's election in 2004 was in many ways a different kind of information operation in that it attempted to corrupt the Ukrianian political process with Russian money and spin doctors to manipulate public consciousness to vote for Moscow's chosen candidate.) Nor are such activities confined to Eastern Europe. Perhaps the most egregious example is Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's February 2007 statement that Russia would not permit Georgia to join NATO. This was “an assertion that clearly indicated that he did not regard Georgia as an equal and fully independent state—not, in other words, as a sovereign state in the Western sense.” 41 As these examples and those cited below show, this outlook also pervades Russia's attitude toward the Baltic states, if not its former East European satellites.
In 2005, U.S. Ambassador to Tajikistan, Richard Hoagland, observed that Russia's special services constitute the main threat to security and sovereignty in Tajikistan and that they sought to destabilize the situation there during the elections because they aggravated the sitution of a threatened revoltuion by charging that Washington was behind efforts to initiate a revolution. Their efforts to avenge the loss of empire include working among Tajik migrants to Russia and attempts to create an atmosphere of fear and insecurity that would preserve undemocratic and anti-American forces in power. 42 Some commentators have even gone beyond the nearly universal argument that Russia seeks to turn the CIS into an enduring sphere of influence to argue that Russia has already effectively limited the sovereignty of those states by dominating their security arrangements and foreign and eocnomic policies. 43
But the Estonian operation must be seen in the context of an intensification, if not escalation, of the drive for such capabilities. And the use of the local Russian diaspora as an instrument of attempted subversion must be seen in the light of earlier usage in Ukraine and Moldova and the potential for futher use of this diaspora or of migrants, following up on the evidence cited above by Ambassador Hoagland, in the Baltic states and elsewhere. This would include new organizations being set up among the Baltic Russian diaspora. It appears that in conjunction with a stepped-up policy of concern for the overall Russian diaspora throughout the former Soviet Union, Putin and his government are calling upon Baltic diaspora organizations to unite, overcome their differences, and work with Moscow to become more effective political players in the Baltic states. 44
In the context of attempts to launch cyber or more broadly asymmetic war against Estonia, we see not just an ongoing derogation of former republics' present sovereignty, but also the formulation and implementation of policies designed to undermine it. In late 2006, for example, President Vladimir Putin offered Ukraine unsolicited security guarantees in return for permanently stationing the Black Sea Fleet on its territory, a superfluous but ominous gesture inasmuch as Russia had already guaranteed Ukraine's borders and security through the 1992 Tashkent Treaty and 1994 Tripartite agreement with America and Ukraine to denuclearize Ukraine. 45 Putin's offer also came at the same time as he announced his typically “dialectical” approach to Ukraine's sovereignty in the Crimea, about which he stated that, “The Crimea forms part of the Ukrainian side and we cannot interfere in another country's internal affairs. At the same time, however, Russia cannot be indifferent to what happens in the Ukraine and Crimea.” 46
In other words, Putin was hinting that Ukrainian resistance to Russian limits on its freedom of action might encounter a Russian-backed “Kosovo-like” scenario of a nationalist uprising in the Crimea, to which Russia could not remain indifferent. Here we must note that, as one recent commentary puts it,
Moscow has the political and covert action means to create in the Crimea the very type of situations against which Putin is offering to “protect” Ukraine if the Russian Fleet's presence is extended. Thus far such means have been shown to include inflammatory visits and speeches by Russian Duma deputies in the Crimea, challegnes to Ukraine's control of Tuzla Island in the Kerch Strait, the fanning of “anti-NATO—in fact anti-American—protests by Russian groups in connection with planned military exercises and artificial Russian-Tatar tensions on the peninsula. 47
Moscow already utilized such tactics when it organized noisy anti-NATO demonstrations in the Crimea in 2006 aimed at persuading NATO to abort planned exercises there. Russian activities in the Crimea, conducted in typically clandestine and covert fashion, bear considerable resemblance to what occurred in Tallin, suggested that those Crimean demonstrations may have been a dress rehearsal for what was already being planned for Tallinn. In the Crimean case we find the integration of pro-Russian local political movements, Russian diaspora (in this case serving officers of the Black Sea Fleet and their families), funding sources from untraceable but politically connected Russian sources, and the use of Russian intelligence personnel to supply intelligence on the location and plans for NATO's military exercises and personnel in order to increase attendance at demonstrations. 48
Russia is also augmenting its capabilities for covert subversion by instituting a substantial program to give soldiers and officers in the Transnistrian “Army” in Moldova Russian military service passports and rotating them through elite Russian officer training courses at the combined arms training center there called Vystrel at Sonechegorsk. As one intelligence officer in a post-Soviet republic told American analyst Reuben Johnson,
You do not try to cover up a training program of this size unless you are someday planning on using these people to overthrow or otherwise take control of a sovereign government … The facility at Solnechegorsk is used by Russia to train numerous non-Russian military personnel openly and legally for peacekeeping and other joint operations. If then, in parallel, you are training officers from these disputed regions—officers that are pretending to be Russian personnel and carrying bogus paperwork—then it does not take an emormous leap of faith to assume that Moscow is up to no good on this one. 49
Similarly, in regard to Moldova, Putin in 2000 invoked the Russian diaspora there and other ethnic minorities in an effort to gain more influence over Moldova and its frozen conflict. His justification could have been written by Catherine the Great or, for that matter, Hitler or Stalin:
Russia is interested in Moldova being a territorially whole, independent state. But this cannot be achieved unless the interests of all population groups, including Transnistria's population, are observed. Russia is prepared to participate in creating the conditions in which all residents will feel secure in Moldova. The political treaty must firmly ensure the rights of all those who reside on the territory of Moldova and who consider that Russia can be a guarantor of their rights. 50
Institutional features were designed to provide Transnistria a veto over any legislation that would threaten the leadership. Ultimately these multiple loci of vetoes would make it impossible for the federal government to operate. In addition, the Kozak Memorandum included clauses that could be interpreted to easily dissolve the federation. For example, the Kozak Memorandum allowed for subjects of the federation to have the right “to leave the federation in case a decision is taken to unite the federation with another state and (or) in connection with the federation's full loss of sovereignty” … [Thus] Moldovan integration with international organizations such as the EU could be used as a basis for the dissolution of the federation under this clause. 51
I did not only mean Chechnya. I meant that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, centrifugal and centripetal trends naturally caused significant damage to state-building and the development of the new Russian state, and the foundations of the Russian state were undermined. These trends were out of sync, in many regions, both in national and in those [states] where a primarily ethnic Slavic, Russian population resides, we saw different trends not only toward federalization but toward overstepping rights within the framework of the federative state. It was precisely these trends that were stopped. 52
At the same time, the tactics employed against Estonia can be used by Moscow to suppress domestic opposition. For example, not only does the Estonian government believe Russia orchestrated this attack, but it also turns out that Russia, only a few weeks earlier had, launched a similar attack against its own domestic opposition by shutting down its websites. 53 Likewise, the Kazakh regime, learning from Moscow, has recently done the same thing to opposition websites in Kazakhstan. 54 Thus it would appear that Russia is refining the tools and capabilities to ignite what a French analyst calls “hypercrises” of unending duration but modulating intensity targeted against its neighbors or other countries. 55 Furthermore, such asymmetric warfare could be used in Russia or other post-Soviet states against internal opponents of the regime by opening up opportunities for aggravated repressions or insurgencies and counterinsurgencies within these states.
This provoking of hypercrises and maintaining a stage of constant tension to probe both the internal solidity of the target countries and the Western response to attacks upon allies or partners has also been a hallmark of Russian foreign policy in Georgia. The most recent example is the incident of August 6, 2007, when a Russian aircraft dropped a large surface-to-air missile that failed to detonate near an upgraded Georgian radar station at Tsitelubani. A Western assessment of this incident, based upon international investigations, concluded that this incursion into Georgian air space was directed against both Georgia and NATO (in the latter's case, to probe its response). The authors noted that this event mirrored similar Russian airspace incursions into the Baltic States on the eve of their entry into NATO and represented a similar effort to intimidate the target countries. 56 Notably, the authors conclude that,
While a Russian air attack is no doubt more likely than an assault by land, Georgia must be prepared for more, greater, and different forms of intimidation. These include, but are not limited to, Special Forces actions in the conflict zones, environmental attacks, quest for economic control of strategic assets, or cyber warfare. 57
The macrostrategic point that America and other governments must therefore assimilate and internalize as a result of these developments is, while quite simple, of overwhelming strategic importance. And this macrostrategic point goes beyond the very sore point of Russia's tense relations with its Baltic neighbors. Namely,
It is critical that U.S. policymakers understand that the international system may be open to rapid change and the strategic environment may be very unforgiving of policy errors. Moreover, it is necessary that they comprehend that their foreign counterparts will seek to leverage new technologies so as to gain a unique, if fleeting, military or other advantage. Most importantly, however, they must understand that there is a very real possibility that an epochal change in world politics is underway and that it is possible that some of their competitors may come to see international political relationships in a fashion radically different from their own perceptions. 59 (Emphasis in original)
The Emerging Strategic Environment
The attacks on Estonia took place in an environment of increasing signs of a general rise in asymmetric forms of war, or at least in capabilities for waging asymmetric wars that include IW. Such examples would include the Chinese antisatellite launch, Chavez's anti-U.S. activities, and the ongoing guerilla wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The formation of the U.S. Cyber Command within the Air Force at Barksdale Air Force Base, which has an avowedly offensive posture, is another such example. The Command's formation is not surprising given the volume of attacks upon U.S. targets. 60 These examples suggest an increasing willingness of states and nonstate movements to resort to war, to include cyberwar and information operations. Leading American defense officials now recognize that the global strategic environment will be, if it is not already, dominated by the prevalence of asymmetric conflicts, of which cyberwar is merely but one example. Thus Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that,
The real challenges we have seen emerge since the end of the Cold War—from Somalia to the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere—make clear we in defense need to change our priorities to be better able to deal with the prevalence of what is called “asymmetric warfare.” … We can expect that asymmetric warfare will be the mainstay of the contemporary battlefield for some time. These conflicts will be fundamentally political in nature, and require the application of all elements of national power. Success will be less a matter of imposing one's will and more a function of shaping behavior—of friends, adversaries, and most importantly, the people in between. 61
Daily cyberspace intrusions into civil, military, and commercially networked systems; the nuclear aspirations of Iran and North Korea, in open disregard of international opinion; the firing of rockets and cruise missiles from Lebanon and Gaza into Israel by Hezbollah and Hamas; the unannounced and irresponsible launch of North Korean missiles in the vicinity of Japan; and China's controversial launch of an anti-satellite missile, which has subsequently endangered routine use of space, demonstrate the range of challenges facing America. 62
The cyberattack against Estonia took place in conditions of not just steadily worsening relations with Estonia, but in the overall context of the marked deterioration of East-West relations in general. Under such unsettling circumstances, Moscow, which from its standpoint sees the state as being under conditions of permanent threat from within and without, may not be not wholly misguided in its perceptions when its officials, beginning with President Vladimir Putin and going down the defense policy chain contend, as they have with growing frequency since 2004, that the potential for conflict and the use of force is increasing and broadening and coming closer to its borders. 63
This heightened possibility for international or internal conflict is by no means an exclusively Russian viewpoint. While he was Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz admitted that the American preemption doctrine “envisages war, once more, as a rational instrument of policy.” 64 Thus, as David Martin Jones of the University of Queensland observes, “In the future, there is likely to be recourse to war both as an example and as a way of redrawing an area of strategic interest by the United States and its allies.” 65 Obviously Putin and his government, not to mention China and other American enemies, will not stand by idly under such strategic circumstances. Hence Putin's many statements that Russia will respond asymmetrically to threats coming from American policy, specifically NATO enlargement and missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic. 66 And indeed Moscow has essentially adopted the right to preemption and undeclared operations in and around its frontiers, as the Estonian cyberwar and other operations indicate. 67
Moreover, Russian officials and analysts (e.g. the prominent Eurasianist Alexander Dugin and Gareyev among others) also openly state their belief that the country is facing an information or network war (by which they mean hostile media criticism of Putin's increasingly autocratic regime) and so do their smaller counterparts in the Commonwealth of Independent States like Belarus. Indeed, Russia itself has been subjected to information attacks by outside forces and claims occasionally as well that Western criticisms of its policies and form of government represent information attacks. This line of reasoning also applies to the authoritarian regimes in the CIS, which regard U.S. and/or efforts by nongovernmental organizations to promote democracy as forms of IW. Thus Belarussian Television 1, the government's official channel, openly stated that “a war of a new type, based on networks of organizations, is being waged on the post-Soviet space.” 68 The official line is that typically this “network war” is directed by the U.S. State Department and U.S. intelligence services, which direct the activity of thousands of smaller organizations. They maintain that this tactic was first tried out in Ukraine's 2004 election campaign. 69 But what is most interesting is that the description of the tactics of this operation closely describes what took place in Estonia. According to this report,
Political technologies and manipulating information form the basis of “the network war.” Networks consist of numerous modes, and each of them, civil organizations, movements, foundations, human rights activists, and the mass media, are playing their particular role: staging protests and pickets, conducting seminars and publishing articles and reports, in other words, displaying any instance of public activity seeking to deliberately destabilize the situation in the country … [in Ukraine in 2004] the number and intensity of democratization programs have been stepped up, the target audience and the net of pro-Western forces are being expanded. Youth, women, and religious organizations, independent trade unions and regional opposition unions and the mass media are seeking to implement a civil eruption scenario with numerous sources of fire. 70
The head of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), Nikolai Patrushev, recently called for intensified cooperation among CIS states to expand cooperation among secret services, security agencies, and law enforcement agencies to fight the use of the internet for terrorist purposes. (Of course the hidden agenda is also to stifle dissent in all these states, but nonetheless the threat to which we and he are referring is real enough.) 71 Similarly, the Chief of the CIS Anti-Terrorist Center, Police Colonel-General Andrei Novikov, told a meeting of this organization that the expansion of terrorist activity from the Balkans to Afghanistan places every member of the CIS within the orbit of terrorist information warfare. Therefore,
Terrorism not only exchanges information with the help of the internet and recruits new members, but also carries out active propagandist work. This circumstance dictates the need for developing adequate and effective strategic methods of information counteraction on the part of CIS states. 72
Novikov and Patrushev have very good reason for their anxiety about IW conducted by terrorists. Russia, according to the author's conversations with Russian analysts, has also been victimized in this regard as part of the Chechen war (indeed this aspect of that war has received hardly any coverage). Thus, reportedly in late summer 2007 the Russian armed forces went offline because so many penetrations of the system were recorded from pro-Chechen sources that their network could not cope. 73 Certainly the Russian government understands both the opportunities and threats, as President Putin has recently advanced a plan and called upon Russia to become a global leader in information technology (IT). He also warned at the same time that Russia must guard against the threat of cyberterrorism. Therefore it needs to develop innovative companies and replace foreign components by domestic products. 74 Similarly the recent report of a leading Russian think tank, The Council on Foreign and Defense Policy's (Sovet Vneshnei i Oboronitel'noi Politiki-SVOP) recent report “The World Around Russia: 2017” warned that,
The emerging global system, which involves economic globalization and the spread of information technology, opens up unprecedented opportunities for development, but at the same time makes the entire system increasingly exposed to terrorism, WMD, and IT weapons. 75
Of no less importance, current wars have brought home to the Russian military that, “It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the information factor in local wars and armed conflicts of the early 21st century.” 76 Equally important, the Russian power structures fully understand the capabilities of information weapons and the need for Rusisa to compete in their production and use. Sergei Ivanov's aforementioned statement strongly suggests that Russia sees cyber capabilities as giving it asymmetric or alternative ways to counter perceived Western challenges and threats. 77
But we must also understand that while Putin was referring to the threat of war and of American unilateralism both being directed against Russian interests, the Estonian episode, along with Ivanov's remarks, and events like the Chinese launch betoken the increased ability of Russia and China to wage IW and to engage in surprise and preemptive strikes against enemies and, in the case of IW, to launch attacks that may not even be traceable. As correspondent John Vinocur recently observed, “America's wars of grief have become Russia's leverage.” 78 These military activities may also be fairly seen as part of the rising anti-American and antiliberal, if not anti-Western, tide of coalescing authoritarian capitalist regimes in Russia and China. 79
But beyond the fact that anti-Western states may sponsor these kinds of asymmetric attacks against Western powers—insurgencies, terrorism, space threats, or IW—in one or more of its many manifestations, the Estonian attack also reveals another threat dimension. We should remember these attacks were launched by relatively rudimentary information networks against a highly networked society like Estonia. 80 So while they probably emanated from Russia or Russian planning, great technological sophistication was not necessary. In other words, even individuals like Thomas Friedman's “super-empowered individual” or terrorist or insurgent cells could launch such attacks against their enemies anywhere in the world with some chance of success without sophisticated equipment or even organization. This is not merely an issue of who may launch attacks; it also goes to the purpose of such attacks. Undoubtedly in some way those who launch such attacks are marching to Thucydides' trinity of fear, honor, and interest as motive forces for war. But it is easily conceivable that such attacks may be launched simply to destroy the vital nerves of a society and not for any easily discernible strategic gain, particularly if nonstate actors launch them. Contemporary experience already shows us how difficult it is for states to wage war abroad for attainable strategic purposes. Yet, as nuclear, space and IW weapons suggest, the destructive potential of warfare is growing as is the array of technologies that can be used to prosecute IW. Moreover, these technologies are also coming into reach of ever more actors, whether they are states or nonstate actors. IW may become a kind of nihilistic port or war fueled simply for its own sake (in some respects corresponding to Thucydides' categories of fear and honor), but we may not be able to discern or even determine if there is a strategic rationale behind it beyond the sheer delight in destruction. 81
These attacks, particularly if they can be successfully coordinated from without any country, represent a new kind of war where the threat lies not in conventional armies but in a wholly asymmetric or unconventional attack deploying one or another form of IW, economic and criminal operations, and political subversion from within. These instruments can also be used for purposes of internal strife against dissidents or insurgents, or for that matter against the ruling government and its counterinsurgency forces. In such a war, of course, it is not the enemy army that is targeted, but rather the entire society and political structure become targets. Thus the implications of this episode far transcend Russian relations with any of the Baltic States. Indeed, what we see here is merely the latest crystallization of this new but previously foretold kind of war. 82 This episode represents the latest materialization of IW which, as this case shows, can take many forms and be utilized either in isolation from other instruments of pressure or in tandem across the globe.
For example, according to General James Cartwright, once he became the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the United States is under daily attack and vulnerable to cyber attacks. 83 Similarly,
One defense official recently estimated that someone mounts an attack every eight seconds, on average. Pentagon officials have revealed that a June 2007 attack temporarily disabled unclassified Pentagon office computer systems as well as the e-mail system in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. 84
International Consequences
Beyond the obvious ramifications of this attack for Russo-Baltic relations, which remain quite troubled and are not likely to improve much in the foreseeable future, this episode has global implications. In other words, Europe's first information war has revealed a part of our future that must be understood in its fullest and deepest implications and context lest we and other societies prove unable to cope with the challenges it poses to our security. IW is a global phenomenon. Anyone with a computer can launch targeted or even random attacks against other users or systems that depend on information technology. In this sense IW fits completely into the global threat matrix whereby anyone anywhere can launch an attack from the ether, subsurface platforms like submarines, space, sea, air, or land against targets in any of those domains. 86 First of all, “asymmetric” and strategic threats have become multidimensional. Threats originating in any of the following dimensions, land, sea, air, underwater, space, and the ether, can strike at a target, including major strategic targets, in any of those dimensions (see Figure 1). 87
Published online:
25 July 2008![]({"type":"image","src":"/na101/home/literatum/publisher/tandf/journals/content/ucst20/2008/ucst20.v027.i03/01495930802185312/production/images/medium/ucst_a_318698_o_f0001g.gif"})
Figure 1 Global threat matrix.
In other words, threats and operations against them are no longer exclusively determined by geography. 88 Because of this multidimensionality, which is greatly facilitated by the accelerating diffusion of high technology (even technology of the 1970s or 1980s, if used innovatively, can wreak havoc upon targets), any actor anywhere in the world can target anyone or any object somewhere else in the world, or in space or underwater, or in the cybersphere. Moreover, the originator of these threats need not launch them from his point of origin. All he need do is set them in motion, as bin Laden has done. Then those carrying out the mission can identify the appropriate medium and locales from which to launch a threat. This also greatly multiplies the possibilities for shadowy relationships among sponsoring states and shadowy transnational organizations like al Qaeda. By analogy we could conceive of links among Russian residents of Estonia and the Kremlin but without any way to achieve a decisive resolution, as may be the case in Estonia. There is no geographical center to the enemy. 89 Consequently, the number of strategic targets expands indefinitely. Anywhere on earth can become a strategic target or a “launch pad.” Therefore we cannot preplan sufficient capability to ensure global and multidimensional readiness. And given the ubiquity of systems' dependence upon properly functioning IT, the opportunities to strike at the nerve center of society without violence is great and probably growing.
Consequently, IW has the potential to pose multiple, simultaneous, overlapping, surprising, and often unidentifiable threats to a society over time. As General Cartwright observed in his testimony, IW attacks or intrusions into civil, commercial, and military networks are not just a daily occurrence, they belong to a host of developing “asymmetrical” approaches to attacking American and international security. These forms of asymmetric challenge can be used alone or in combination against U.S. and allied interests. Thus he stated that,
Daily cyberspace intrusions into civil, military, and commercial networked systems; the nuclear aspirations of Iran and North Korea, in open disregard of international opinion; the firing of rockets and cruise missiles from Lebanon and Gaza into Israel by Hezbollah and Hamas; the unannounced and irresponsible launch of North Korean missiles in the vicinity of Japan; and China's controversial launch of an anti-satellite missile, which has subsequently endangered routine use of space, demonstrate the range of challenges facing America. 90
Rebecca Grant observes, “Cyberspace may be a single medium, but it has multiple theaters of operation.” 91 It also is a protean medium whose potential applications for enhancing or degrading security are multiple and dynamic in nature. We can only focus on cyberwar, not issues of strategic communication, an area where, by all accounts, we again are failing to meet the challenge. But it can and should also be argued that concern with cyberwar is not exclusively an American or Russian affair. Neither should it be the concern of any one or particular group of states. Rather, the potential for threats to security through cyberwar affect all states and nonstate movements alike, since all states and nonstate movements are or could simultaneously be both attackers and defenders. Just as we shall see below that many have accused the Chinese government and hackers in China of launching information attacks against them, and China is clearly very interested in IW, Beijing also claims that it is under cyberattack from American and other Western sources. 92
Finally the Estonian case also points out the urgency for NATO to devise appropriate responses to such threats being mounted against members, whatever these threats' origin is. In other words, states and alliances must run faster to keep up with technology's impact on war in all its dimensions. Superior precision-strike in these kinds of cases is clearly impotent and of little utility. But displaying robust and active practical solidarity with allies, to show that what Putin has called the West's silly solidarity is real and reliable, is now essential. We and our enemies are engaged in a long-term IW that is a theater of the larger global war on terrorism, but clearly it is not only confined to that war. We too are under similar attacks and we cannot be complacent in our defense against them.
The views expressed here do not in any way represent those of the U.S. Army, Defense Department, or the U.S. Government.
Notes
1. A concise description of the attacks may be found in Rebecca Grant (Victory in Cyberspace, Washington, DC: US Air Force Association), pp. 3–9.
2. Ibid., pp. 7–8.
3. James A. Hughes, “Cyber Attacks Explained,” CSIS Commentary, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC, June 15, 2007.
4. Igor Kotenko and Alexander Ulanov, “Agent-Based Modeling and Simulation of Network Softbots' Competition,” in Enn Tyugu and Takahira Yamaguchi, eds., Knowledge Based Software Engineering: Proceedings of the Seventh Joint Conference on Knowledge-Based Software Engineering(Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2006, Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications), vol. 140, pp. 243–253.
5. Stephen Blank, “The Putin Succession and Its Implications for Russian Politics,” Post-Soviet Affairs, forthcoming.
6. Moscow, Interfax, in English, October 10, 2007, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Central Eurasia (FBIS SOV), October 10, 2007; Moscow, NTV Mir, in Russian, October 10, 2007, FBIS SOV, October 10, 2007; Moscow, ITAR-TASS, in English, October 1, 2007, FBIS SOV, October 1, 2007.
7. Conversations with Estonian authorities in Tallinn, October, 2007.
8. Tor Bukevoll, “Putin's Strategic Partnership with the West; The Domestic Politics of Russian Foreign Policy,” Comparative Strategy, vol. 22, no. 3 (2003); 231–233; “The EU, May Day and Moscow”; Stefan Pavlov, “Bulgaria in a Vise,” The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January–February, 1998, p. 30; Robert D. Kaplan, “Hoods Against Democrats,” Atlantic Monthly, December, 1998, pp. 32–36; As Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said, “Fuel and energy industries in the Balkans are totally dependent on Russia. They have no alternative.” “Ivanov on Foreign Policy's Evolution, Goals,” Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press (Henceforth CDPP), vol. 50, no. 43 (November 25, 1998): 13; U.S.-Slovakia Action Commission: Security and Foreign Policy Working Group: Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Slovak Foreign Policy Association, Slovakia's Security and Foreign Policy Strategy, 2001, Czech Security Information Service, Annual Report 2000, http://www.bis.cz/eng/vz2000/vz2000_10.html; Interview with Russian General Aslambek Aslanbekov,” Trud (Bulgaria), April 8, 2004, FBIS SOV,October 2, 2002; Conversations with American diplomats and analysts, and East European analysts in Vilnius and Washington in May 2000, and September, 2001; Max G. Manwaring, Latin America's New Security Reality: Irregular Asymmetric Conflict and Hugo Chavez (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2007).
9. Ibid.; Janusz Bugajski, Cold Peace: Russia's New Imperialism (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, Praeger, 2004), passim; Richard Krickus, Iron Troikas (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College, 2006); Keith C. Smith, Russian Energy Politics in the Baltics, Poland, and the Ukraine: A New Stealth Imperialism? (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2004); Magdalena Rubaj and Tomasz Pompowski, “What Is the KGB Interested in?” Warsaw, Fakt, in Polish, October 19, 2004, Open Source Center, FBIS SOV, October 19, 2004; Jan Pinski and Krzystof Trebski, “The Oil Mafia Fights for Power,” Warsaw, Wprost, in Polish, October 24, 2004, FBIS SOV, October 24, 2004; Warsaw, Polish Radio 3, in Polish, October 15, 2004, FBIS SOV, October 15, 2004; Warsaw, PAP, in Polish, December 13, 2004, FBIS SOV, December 13, 2004; Open Source Center Analysis, “Lithuania: Businessman Stonys Wields Power with Russian Backing,” FBIS SOV, October 1, 2007.
10. FBIS SOV, December 13, 2004.
11. The KGB was the powerful Committee of State Security of the Soviet Union, a government organ comprising the state security, intelligence agency, and secret police.
12. FBIS SOV, October 1, 2007.
13. Richard J. Krickus, “The Presidential Crisis in Lithuania: Its Roots and the Russian Factor,” Occasional Papers of the East European Studies Institute, no. #73 (Washington, DC, 2004); Vilnius, BNS Internet Version, in English, September 21, 2007, FBIS SOV, September 21, 2007; Kaunas, Kauno Diena Internet Version, in Lithuanian, September 20, 2007, FBIS SOV, September 21, 2007.
14. Tallinn, Eesti Express Internet Version, in Estonian, October 1, 2007, FBIS SOV, October 1, 2007.
15. Janusz Bugajski, Cold Peace: Russia's New Imperialism (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, Praeger, 2004), passim; Richard Krickus, Iron Troikas (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College, 2006); Keith C. Smith, Russian Energy Politics in the Baltics, Poland, and the Ukraine: A New Stealth Imperialism? (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2004).
16. Magdalena Rubaj and Tomasz Pompowski, “What Is the KGB Interested In?” Warsaw, Fakt, in Polish, October 19, 2004, FBIS SOV, October 19, 2004; Jan Pinski and Krzystof Trebski, “The Oil Mafia Fights for Power,” Warsaw, Wprost, in Polish, October 24, 2004, FBIS SOV, October 24, 2004; Warsaw, Polish Radio 3, in Polish, October 15, 2004, FBIS SOV, October 15, 2004; Tor Bukevoll, “Putin's Strategic Partnership with the West; The Domestic Politics of Russian Foreign Policy,” Comparative Strategy, vol. 22, no. 3 (2003): 231–233; “The EU, May Day and Moscow”; Stefan Pavlov, “Bulgaria in a Vise,” The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January–February, 1998: 30; Robert D. Kaplan, “Hoods Against Democrats,” Atlantic Monthly, December, 1998: 32–36; As Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said “Fuel and energy industries in the Balkans are totally dependent on Russia. They have no alternative.” “Ivanov on Foreign Policy's Evolution, Goals,” Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press (Henceforth CDPP), vol. 50, no. 43 (November 25, 1998): 13, U.S.-Slovakia Action Commission: Security and Foreign Policy Working Group: Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Slovak Foreign Policy Association, Slovakia's Security and Foreign Policy Strategy, 2001, Czech Security Information Service, Annual Report 2000, http://www.bis.cz/eng/vz2000/vz2000_10.html; Interview with Russian General Aslambek Aslanbekov,” Trud (Bulgaria), April 8, 2004, FBIS SOV, October 2, 2002; Conversations with American diplomats and analysts, and East European analysts in Vilnius and Washington in May 2000, and September, 2001; Max G. Manwaring, Latin America's New Security Reality, Irregular Asymmetric Conflict and Hugo Chavez (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2007).
17. Cory Welt, “Russia and Its Post-Soviet Neighbors,” in Andrew C. Kuchins, Alternative Futures for Russia to 2017 (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2007), p. 54.
18. Conversations with Estonian authorities in Tallinn, October, 2007.
19. Jakob Hedenskog and Robert L. Larsson, Russian Leverage on the CIS and the Baltic States (Stockholm: Swedish Defense Research Agency, www.foi.se, 2007), pp. 37–38.
20. Conversations with Estonian authorities in Tallinn, October, 2007.
21. Ibid.
22. Looking West—Estonian Minister of Defense Jaak Aviksoo,” Jane's Intelligence Review,October, 2007, www4.janes'com/subscribe/jir/doc.
23. Davis, p. 163.
24. Conversations with Estonian authorities in Tallinn, October, 2007.
25. Latin America's New Security Reality: Irregular Asymmetric Conflict and Hugo Chavez (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2007).
26. Ibid.
27. Vadim Radionov, “KGB Servicemen Motif Used in Public Relations Campaign,” Riga, Chas Internet Version, in Russian, October 2, 2007, FBIS SOV, October 2, 2007; “Latvian Government Resigns,” www.stratfor.com, December 5, 2007.
28. M.A. Gareev, ‘Russia’ New Military Doctrine: Structure, Substance,” Military Thought, no. 2 (2007): 1–14; Y.N. Baluyevsky, “Theoretical and Methodological Foundations of the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation (Points for a Report), Military Thought, no. 1, 2007: 15–23 exemplify this point.
29. Ivo Ducachek as cited in Jan T. Gross, “Social Consequences of War: Preliminaries to the Study of Imposition of Communist Regimes in East Central Europe,” Eastern European Politics and Societies, vol 3, no. 2 (Spring, 1989): 287.
30. James M. Markham, “Spain's Terror, Onus on the Soviets,” The New York Times, May 11, 1980.
31. Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World (New York: Basic Books, 2005).
32. Moscow, NTV, in Russian, August 15, 2007, FBIS SOV, August 15, 2007.
33. Gareev, 2007, p. 4; Baluyevsky, p. 19.
34. Gareyev, p. 4.
35. Kotenko and Ulanov, pp. 245–246.
36. Stephen Blank, “Class War on the Global Scale: The Culture of Leninist Political Conflict,” Stephen J. Blank et al., Conflict, Culture, and History: Regional Dimensions (Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air University Press, 1993), pp. 1–55.
37. General James E. Cartwright (USAF) Commander, United States Strategic Command Testimony Before the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, House Armed Services Committee, March 8, 2007 (Henceforth Cartwright, Testimony).
38. Ruth Deyermond, Security and Sovereignty in the Former Soviet Union (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2007); Stephen Blank, “The Values Gap Between Moscow and the West: Sovereignty at Issue,” Acque et Terre, forthcoming.
39. Deyermond, p. 6.
40. Blank, “The Values Gap Between Moscow and the West: Sovereignty at Issue.”
41. Deyermond, p. 198.
42. “Russian Security Services Main Threat to Tajikistan—US Envoy,” BBC Monitoring, from the Avesta Website, September 9, 2005.
43. Marat Terterov, Gulf Cooperation Council Relations with Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) (Dubai, Gulf Research Centre, 2005), pp. 23–27.
44. “Putin Urges Latvia, Estonia to Observe Minority Rights,” Interfax, October 24, 2006; “Moscow to Back Russians' Struggle for Rights in Baltic States—Putin,” Interfax, October 24, 2006.
45. Vladimir Socor, “Putin Offers Ukraine ‘Protection’ for Extending Russian Black Sea Fleet's Presence,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, October 30, 2006.
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid.
48. Jakob Hedenskog and Robert L. Larsson, Russian Leverage on the CIS and the Baltic States (Stockholm: Swedish Defense Research Agency, www.foi.se, 2007), pp. 37–38.
49. Reuben F. Johnson, “The Expansion Process Has Begun,” The Weekly Standard, vol. #12, no. #4, October 10, 2006.
50. The Jamestown Monitor, June 18, 2000.
51. Steven D. Roper, “Federalization and Constitution-Making as an Instrument of Conflict Resolution,” Demokratizatsiia, vol. #12, no. #4. (Fall, 2004): 536.
52. “Interview with al Jazeera Arabic Satellite Television Network, February 12, 2007, quoted in Saida Safaeva, “Post-Soviet Integration Through the Prism of Political Transformation in the Newly Independent States,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, vol. 5, no. 47 (2007): 134.
53. Joshua Davis, “Web War One,” Wired, September, 2007, p. 182.
54. David L. Stern and C. J. Chivers, “Kazakh Web Sites Blocked,” The New York Times, October 27, 2007.
55. Emmanuel Chiva and Richard Roll, “Simulation of Hypercrises,” Defense Nationale et Securite Collective, no. 10, October, 2007.
56. Svante E. Cornell, David J. Smith, and S. Frederick Starr, The August 6 Bombing Incident in Georgia: Implications for the Euro-Atlantic Region: (Washington, DC and Stockholm, 2007) Central Asia Caucasus Institute and the Silk Road Studies Program pp. 23–24.
57. Ibid., p. 25.
58. Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty Newsline, December 11, 2007.
59. C. Dale Walton, “The Geography of Universal Empire: A Revolution in Strategic Perspective and its Lessons,” Comparative Strategy, vol. 14, no. 3 (2006): 231.
61. U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense Public Affairs, Landon Lecture, Remarks as Delivered by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Wichita State University, Manhattan, KS, November 26, 2007, http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/speech,aspx?speechid=1199.
62. “Statement of General James E. Cartwright, Commander, United States Strategic Command, Before the House Armed Services Committee on United States Strategic Command, March 21, 2007.
63. Moscow, RBSC Daily in Russian, February 22, 2005, FBIS SOV, February 22, 2005; “Russia Slams U.S. 2006 Freedom Agenda, www.mosnews.com, December 31, 2005; Golts, “Russia at Risk of Collapsing, Putin Says,” Associated Press, April 18, 2005, Retrieved from Lexis-Nexis; “Interview with Chief of the Presidential Staff Dmitri Medvedev,” Ekspert Weekly, April 5, 2005, retrieved from Lexis-Nexis; “Vladislav Surkov's Secret Speech: How Russia Should Fight International Conspiracy,” www.mosnews.com, July 12, 2005; “Interview with Vladislav Surkov, Moscow, Ekho Moskvy, FBIS SOV, September 29, 2004. It should be noted that in his interview with the Dutch Newspaper Handelsbad on November 1, 2005, Putin explicitly denied that he is afraid of such contingencies, raising the question of who is telling the truth, “Interview with Dutch Newspaper Handelsbad, www.president.ru, November 1, 2005; Vladimir Putin, “Speech at the New Headquarters of the Chief Intelligence Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff,” November 8, 2006, www.kremlin.ru/eng/text/speeches/2006/11/08/000.
64. David Martin Jones, “Political Islam and the New Global Insecurity: An Australian Perspective,” Australian Army Journal, vol. 3, no. 1 (2007): 188.
65. Ibid.
66. “Speech and the Following Discussion at the Munich Conference on Security, February 10, 2007,” www.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2007/02/10/0138; Poslanie Federal'nomu Sobraniiu Rossiiskoi Federatsii, April 26, 2007, www.kremlin.ru/speeches/2007/04/26.
67. Julie Wilhelmsen and Geir Flikke, “Copy that—A Russian ‘Bush Doctrine’ in the CIS'” Oslo, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, 2005.
68. Minsk, Belarussian Television 1, in Russian, August 12, 2007, FBIS August 12, 2007.
69. Ibid.
70. Ibid.
71. “FSB Chief Calls for Wider Cooperation Against Internet Use by Terrorists,” ITAR-TASS, September 6, 2007.
72. Moscow, ITAR-TASS, in English, July 27, 2007, FBIS SOV, July 27, 2007.
73. Conversations with US and Russian specialists, August, 2007.
74. Moscow, Kommersant.com, in English, July 26, 2007, Open Source Committee, FBISSOV, July 26, 2007; Moscow, Interfax, in English, July 25, 2007, FBIS SOV, July 26, 2007.
75. The Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, State University-Higher School of Economics RIO Center, The World Around Russia: 2017, An Outlook for the Midterm Future, Moscow, 2007, p. 25.
76. Gennadiy Chernykh and Col. Valery Sumenkov, “Based on Data, Not Rumors: The Radiological, Chemical, and Biological Situation as a Factor of Information Conflict,” Moscow, Armeyskiy Sbornik, in Russian, March 21, 2007, Open Source Committee, FBIS SOV, March 21, 2007.
77. FBIS SOV, August 15, 2007.
78. John Vincour, “Russian Maneuvers, American Incoherence,” International Herald Tribune, November 7, 2006.
79. Azar Gat, “The Return of Authoritarian Great Powers,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 86, no. 4 (July–August, 2007): 59–70.
80. Davis, pp. 163–184.
81. John Arquilla.
82. Hanns W. Maull, “The Precarious State of International order: Assessment and Policy Implications,” Asia-Pacific Review, vol. 13, no. 1 (2006): 71.
83. Grant, p. 4, citing Cartwright, Testimony.
84. Ibid., citing Demetri Sevastopoulo and Richard McGregor, “Chinese Military Hacked into Pentagon,” Financial Times, September 4, 2007.
85. Cartwright, Testimony, p. 5.
86. Stephen Blank, Rethinking Asymmetric Threats (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2003), pp. 30–31.
87. For example, Steven J. Forsberg,” Subs Can Threaten Aircraft,” Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, April, 2003, pp. 85–86; “Russia: Submarine Launches Spacecraft on Converted Missile,” ww.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/nnewswires/2002_7-12, accessed on July 19, 2002; Richard Scott, “Future Undersea Battlespace: Unmanned, Undersea,” Jane's Defence Weekly, June 12, 2002, www4.janes.com/search97/vs.vts?action=View&VdkVgwKey=/content1/jamesdata/m, accessed on September 4, 2002.
88. Testimony of Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense on U.S. Military Presence in Iraq: Implications for Global Defense Posture, Prepared for Delivery to the House Armed Services Committee, 108th Congress, Washington, DC June 18, 2003, www.defenselink.mil/speeches/2003/sp20030618-depsecdef0302; see also the remarks of Indian National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra, quoted in C. Raja Mohan, “India and the Bush Doctrine,” The Monitor, Center for International Trade and Security, University of Georgia, Athens, GA., vol. 9(2); (Summer, 2003): 4.
89. Thomas Donnelly and Vance Serchuk, “Toward a Global Cavalry: Overseas Rebasing and Defense Transformation,” American Enterprise Institute for Policy Research, July, 2003, p. 2.
90. Cartwright, Testimony,p. 4.
91. Grant, p. 3.
92. Mure Dickie, “Chinese Cyber-Call Censored,” Financial Times, September 29, 2007, www.ft.com.