China prepares for war in cyberspace

Bill Gertz:
China’s military is preparing for war in cyberspace involving space attacks on satellites and the use of both military and civilian personnel for a digital “people’s war,” according to an internal Chinese defense report.

“As cyber technology continues to develop, cyber warfare has quietly begun,” the report concludes, noting that the ability to wage cyber war in space is vital for China’s military modernization.

According to the report, strategic warfare in the past was built on nuclear weapons. “But strategic warfare in the information age is cyber warfare,” the report said.

“With the reliance of information warfare on space, cyberspace will surely become a hot spot in the struggle for cyberspace control,” the report said.

The new details of Chinese plans for cyber and space warfare were revealed in a report “Study on Space Cyber Warfare” by four engineers working at a Chinese defense research center in Shanghai.

The report presents a rare inside look of one of Beijing’s most secret military programs: Cyber warfare plans against the United States in a future conflict.

“Cyber warfare is not limited to military personnel. All personnel with special knowledge and skills on information system may participate in the execution of cyber warfare. Cyber warfare may truly be called a people’s warfare,” the report says.

People’s War was first developed by China’s Communist founder Mao Zedong as a Marxist-Leninist insurgency and guerrilla warfare concept. The article provides evidence that Chinese military theorists are adapting Mao’s peasant uprising stratagem for a future conflict with the United States.
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There is much more.

I think China believes it has to prevail in the cyber arena to have a chance of winning the kinetic war.  It would otherwise have little chance of success in a straight up conflict with the US.   Whether the US is up to the challenge is cyber warfare is not clear.  There is so much secrecy surrounding our efforts in that arena that it is hard to know how effect our response will be.

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