China has surpassed the United States in conducting cyber warfare and one day may launch a large-scale attack that the U.S. will be unable to respond to, some of the nation’s foremost national security experts warned Wednesday.
Unlike nuclear threats, where overwhelming U.S. stockpiles are considered a deterrent to China’s smaller numbers of warheads, no such balance exists in the cyber realm, said Zbigniew K. Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s former national security adviser.
China’s superior capabilities in cyber warfare create the possibility “to paralyze an opponent entirely without killing anyone — that is very tempting,” Brzezinski said at the first Senate Armed Services Committee hearing under new Chairman Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
The committee also discussed the ongoing threats presented by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, instability and developing U.S. operations in Syria, potential continued aggression by Russia and the new resurgence of violence in Yemen.
“President Obama told the nation last night that the ‘shadow of crisis has passed.’ That news came as quite a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention to what’s been happening around the world,” McCain said.
Brzezinski and retired Air Force Gen. Brent Scowcroft, who served as national security adviser under Presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush, suggested that the U.S. should pursue both pre-emptive and reactive cyber capabilities that would form a mutually assured deterrent to hostile cyber activity.
The nation needs to develop “pre-emptive capability that matches the actions against us … to change the balance of power.”
Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., asked the panel what the U.S. would have done if the recent cyberattack on Sony Pictures had targeted U.S. stock exchanges instead, saying it’s only a matter of time.
The lack of response is similar to “England before World War II, ignoring a threat that is right before us,” Donnelly said. The U.S. has “never had more warnings and done less.”
Scowcroft cautioned that U.S. efforts to develop a cyber defense strategy are “still at step one. We need serious analysis” of the extent of the gaps in capabilities.
