The U.S. and Global Security Review - Blog by Michael Novakhov

U.S. troops in Iraq have been issued a new warning this month: don’t touch any model aircraft or drone devices found on the battlefield.

Syrian rebels jail about 300 people affiliated with Islamic State, including defectors
Wednesday October 12th, 2016 at 2:32 PM

Jaish al-Tahrir, an opposition group known for its relative moderation, is running a detention facility in northern Syria that holds about 300 people affiliated with the Islamic State who defected or were captured, the BBC reported Wednesday.

Europe's Russia Ties Fray Over Syria
Wednesday October 12th, 2016 at 2:32 PM

European relations with Moscow, which went into a tailspin over Ukraine in 2014, are deteriorating anew as Russian bombing of the Syrian city of Aleppo sweeps aside moves to ease tensions.

Probe Into Deaths of Migrants in Hungary Uncovers 'Vast Network'
Wednesday October 12th, 2016 at 2:32 PM

An investigation into the 2015 deaths of 71 refugees in a refrigerated truck along an Austrian highway revealed a “vast and ruthless network,” Hungarian police said.

Venezuela's Supreme Court lets Maduro bypass Congress in budget process
Wednesday October 12th, 2016 at 2:30 PM

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed President Nicolas Maduro to put forth the country's 2017 budget without going through the opposition-led National Assembly, breaking a constitutional obligation.

Putin dismisses accusations of meddling in U.S. election
Wednesday October 12th, 2016 at 2:30 PM

WASHINGTON/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Even as WikiLeaks released another trove of internal documents from Hillary Clinton’s campaign on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted his country was not involved in an effort to influence the U.S. presidential election.

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Kerry and Lavrov to resume talks on Syria despite war crimes row
Wednesday October 12th, 2016 at 2:30 PM

AP Top News At 2:00 P.M. EDT

MOSCOW/BEIRUT (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will meet his Russian counterpart in Switzerland on Saturday to discuss Syria, officials said on Wednesday, as a devastating bombing campaign of the city of Aleppo intensified.

Gays and Catholicism: Pope's words open door to confusionby By MICHELLE R. SMITH
Wednesday October 12th, 2016 at 2:29 PM

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- An ideological tug of war over the firing of a Rhode Island church music director for marrying his same-sex partner illustrates the confusion that permeates some U.S. Roman Catholic parishes over Pope Francis' words on homosexuality....

The Latest: Trump says 'everybody protects each other' in DC
Wednesday October 12th, 2016 at 2:29 PM

AP Top News At 2:00 P.M. EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Latest on the presidential race (all times local):...

Putin ally tells Americans: vote Trump or face nuclear war
Wednesday October 12th, 2016 at 2:29 PM

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Americans should vote for Donald Trump as president next month or risk being dragged into a nuclear war, according to a Russian ultra-nationalist ally of President Vladimir Putin who likes to compare himself to the U.S. Republican candidate.

Venezuela Freezes Out Congress
Wednesday October 12th, 2016 at 2:29 PM

Venezuela’s Supreme Court has stripped the congress of budgetary oversight, removing the last real powers of the only public institution opposed to President Nicolás Maduro amid the country’s deepening economic crisis.

U.S. Navy destroyer again targeted by missiles from Yemen: U.S. officials
Wednesday October 12th, 2016 at 2:28 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Navy destroyer was targeted on Wednesday in a failed missile attack from territory in Yemen controlled by Iran-aligned Houthi rebels, the second such incident in the past four days, U.S. officials told Reuters.

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Russian Officials Shift Away From Denying Involvement in DNC Hack
Wednesday October 12th, 2016 at 2:28 PM

Www.Washingtontimes.Com Stories: Security

Top Russian officials shifted away from denying a role in hacking the Democratic National Committee, with President Vladimir Putin saying it is irrelevant who stole the computer records and the foreign minister saying the U.S. hasn’t proved anything.

U.S. Navy Destroyer Targeted By Missiles in Yemen For 2nd Time This Week by Lolita C. Baldor / AP
Wednesday October 12th, 2016 at 2:28 PM

World – TIME

(WASHINGTON) — A U.S. military official says that for the second time this week two missiles were fired at a Navy ship in the Red Sea. Officials believe they were launched by the same Yemen-based Houthi rebels.

The official says the missiles were fired Wednesday at the USS Mason. The ship used countermeasures, but neither missile got near the ship and there were no injuries.

The official says the missiles were fired from the Yemen coast, which is near the location used Sunday when two missiles were fired at the USS Mason and the USS Ponce. The official was not authorized to discuss the incident publicly, so spoke on condition of anonymity.

U.S. officials have said the U.S. is weighing what military response it should take against the rebels.

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Russian military test-fires 3 ballistic missiles in same day
Wednesday October 12th, 2016 at 2:27 PM

MOSCOW (AP) - The Russian military has test-fired three ballistic missiles in one day, drills that come amid a U.S.-Russian rift over Syria.

The Defense Ministry said a nuclear submarine of the Russian Pacific Fleet launched an intercontinental ballistic missile from the Sea of Okhotsk off Russia's far east at ...

Official: Pro-Iranian rebels in Yemen again fire 2 missiles at US ship; Both miss
Wednesday October 12th, 2016 at 2:27 PM

International Security - Google News

A U.S. military official says that for the second time this week two missiles were fired at a Navy ship in the Red Sea. Officials believe they were launched by the same Yemen-based Houthi rebels.

The Next Four Years: Foreign relations - Princeton University
Wednesday October 12th, 2016 at 2:26 PM

Princeton University

The Next Four Years: Foreign relations
Princeton University
Friedberg is a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton, where he has taught since 1987, and co-director of the Center for International Security Studies at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. From June ...

ISIS hackers plotting to attack European nuclear power stations, UN warns - The Sun
Wednesday October 12th, 2016 at 2:24 PM

International Security - Google News

The Sun

ISIS hackers plotting to attack European nuclear power stations, UN warns
The Sun
International security experts have warned that as their territorial dominance abates they will focus more of their attention on cyber terror. Though blowing up a nuclear power station is still thought to be beyond the capabilities of most militant ...
IAEA chief: Nuclear power plant was disrupted by cyber attackReuters

all 26 news articles »

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Guccifer, hacker who exposed Hillary Clinton private email server, returns to native Romania by Andrew Blake
Wednesday October 12th, 2016 at 2:21 PM

Www.Washingtontimes.Com Stories: Security

"Guccifer," the computer hacker who revealed Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server, has been sent to his native Romania on Tuesday to finish serving time for a previous conviction before resuming a prison sentence in the United States.

Marcel Lazar, better known as the alias "Guccifer," arrived in ...

Russian Foreign Minister: ‘So Many P***ies’ on Both Sides of U.S. Election by Natalie Johnson
Wednesday October 12th, 2016 at 2:21 PM

Washington Free Beacon

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had harsh words for the U.S. presidential election when asked Wednesday about Donald Trump’s lewd comments about women, saying there are “pussies” on both sides of the race for the White House.

CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour asked Lavrov for his take on Trump’s 2005 remark that “when you’re a star” women allow men to “grab them by the pussy.” The comments were leaked Friday in a now viral video that has led more than two dozen Republican lawmakers to withdraw their support for the Republican nominee.

Lavrov, who speaks fluent English, pointed out the language is not his “mother tongue” and that he was unsure if he would sound “decent” before responding, “There are so many pussies around the presidential campaign on both sides that I prefer not to comment.”

Lavrov had earlier dismissed Washington’s accusations that the Kremlin was launching cyber attacks against American political computer networks to influence the election as “ridiculous.”

Lavrov told CNN while it is “flattering” that U.S. officials believe Russia is interfering in the election, the charges are unsubstantiated.

“Now everybody in the United States is saying that it is Russia which is running the [U.S.] presidential debate,” he said. “We have not seen a single fact, a single proof.”

U.S. intelligence officials on Friday formally accused Russia’s senior level officials of directing hackers to break into American political systems.

The Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security charged that the Russians were behind the high profile hack into the Democratic National Committee and subsequent breaches of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, a number of Hillary Clinton campaign staffers, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has adamantly rejected the Kremlin’s involvement in the U.S. cyber breaches, said Wednesday that hacking members of the Democratic Party is not in his country’s interest. He condemned U.S. officials for “starting this hysteria.”

The post Russian Foreign Minister: ‘So Many P***ies’ on Both Sides of U.S. Election appeared first onWashington Free Beacon.

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Is US Cyber Deterrence Strategy More than (Russian) Roulette?by Susan Hennessey
Wednesday October 12th, 2016 at 2:20 PM

Lawfare - Hard National Security Choices

Following the joint statement from DHS and ODNI accusing Russia of a recent spate of hacks aimed at influencing the US election, the obvious question is what exactly the US government plans to do about it. Over the weekend, the New York Times’ David Sanger and Nicole Perlroth offered a rundown of response options and Jack lamented that the Times report suggests that the US government still does not know how it should respond to Russian interference. He notes that, in the past, the US response to malicious cyber operations has been “dithering” at best.

Yesterday’s news that the White House plans to issue a “proportional” but possibly secret response does not actually indicate whether any decision has been reached regarding what sort of response we can expect and when. If anything, the statement indicates a continuation of the same policies. The Administration used nearly identical language when vowing to respond to North Korea’s attack on Sony (where the ultimate visible response was sanctions) and similar terms in pledging to retaliate against the Chinese for the OPM breach (where there was ultimately no visible US response, though China did arrest individuals it claimed were responsible).

It’s easy to be skeptical. Adversary nations continue to engage in significant malicious cyber activity against the United States. The only visible response from the US is a Name and Shame strategy of sanctions and indictments, which is applied sporadically and with mixed results. Name and Shame is purportedly augmented by “proportional” retaliatory cyber operations, but the secrecy and vagueness surrounding those prevent any meaningful assessment, raise questions as to whether adversaries even receive the intended message, and cannot deter outside groups who might be watching.

The unpleasant truth is that each of these episodes raises the spectre that the US still does not know when or how it will respond. Since the fundamental questions of deterrence policy appear to be unanswered, one wonders whether the US has any meaningful strategy at all. Or rather, if we have any strategy beyond playing it by ear.

Still, it isn’t entirely fair to characterize US cyber deterrence strategy, whatever it might be, as a failure.

Notwithstanding valid critiques, thus far US policy has (at least, apparently) been successful at some forms of deterrence. The United States has never been the victim of a cyber attack that genuinely threatened lives. And while the broad statutory definitions of “critical infrastructure” now threaten to encompass almost everything, there has never been a destructive attack against core US infrastructure. Given the fact that a number of US adversaries unquestionably possess the capacity to engage in such an attack, deterrence-by-denial (also known as strong cybersecurity) cannot explain the total lack of serious attacks because we know there is activity that we can’t prevent. With respect to highly capable adversaries, the absence of these kind of attacks can only be fully explained by fear of the United States’ capacity and willingness to respond. So, at least for now, we’re successfully deterring some of the most serious activity.

The present conflict again highlights the initial question where to draw the line: when is an attack serious enough to merit a response? There is a great deal of activity that occurs in this realm on a daily basis that does not even warrant the investment of time and resources to figure out who is responsible. The fundamental issue is determining where a given action, or course of conduct, fits on the scale. The timing of the official attribution in this case—more than four months after initial reports of Russian involvement—and the Administration’s own stated policy may offer some hints as to where on that spectrum it places the DNC hacks and electoral system intrusions.

In response to vocal calls from Congress, most notably from Senator John McCain, the Administration quietly released its policy on cyber deterrence late last year. In a section entitled “What the United States Will Seek to Deter,” the policy states that the White House “is most concerned about threats that could cause wide-scale disruption, destruction, loss of life, and significant economic consequences for the United States and its interests.” This category includes but is not limited to:

Cyber attacks or other malicious cyber activity intended to cause casualties.

Cyber attacks or other malicious cyber activity intended to cause significant disruption to the normal functioning of U.S. society or government, including attacks against critical infrastructure that could damage systems used to provide key services to the public or the government.

Cyber attacks or other malicious cyber activity that threatens the command and control of U.S. military forces, the freedom of maneuver of U.S. military forces, or the infrastructure on which the U.S. military relies to defend U.S. interests and commitments.

Malicious cyber activity that undermines national economic security through cyber-enabled economic espionage or sabotage. Such activity undermines the fairness and transparency of global commerce as U.S. competitors steal developing technologies, win contracts unfairly, or steal information to manipulate markets and benefit their companies directly.

Broadly speaking, attempts to interfere with the election qualify as “cyber activity intended to cause significant disruption to the normal functioning of U.S. society or government.” As early as July, intelligence officials had “high confidence” that the Russian government was involved in intrusions into the DNC and other political organizations, which resulted in the leaks of large quantities of internal emails. But the administration elected not to publicly respond or confirm attribution at that time, despite calls from commentators and Congress to provide more specific information.

At the end of August, however, reports emerged that a number of states had detected intrusions into election-related systems—first two and then over a dozen. These revelations have generated significant public anxiety over the security of election systems and, when paired with dangerous campaign rhetoric regarding “rigged” outcomes, have stoked genuine concern that people might not trust the integrity of election outcomes. Election-related systems certainly qualify as part of “key services” to the public and the ability to call an election quickly and decisively is incredibly important to functional democratic transitions.

This new information appears to be the impetus for the Administration’s public statement this week. After all, for at least several months the White House has known, with high confidence, that the Russian Government was behind the DNC hack and leaks. The decision to not publicly respond was not based on a need for additional certainty, and there is no indication additional evidence has emerged. The apparent explanation for the change in position is intrusions into state election systems. That activity, either separately or combined with the prior intrusions, crossed the threshold for a response.

With that in mind, the DHS and ODNI joint statement can be read in two distinct ways; it is both a message to Russia and a distinct reassurance to the American people. For Russia, the US government statement is a clear warning. The US government says it knows the Russian Government “directed” the computer intrusions of US political organizations and is not afraid to say so on the record. This limits Russia’s plausible deniability, and adds the U.S. case to the body of international evidence regarding Russian interference around the world, including intrusions into the German parliament and others. And the US government goes further, specifically indicating the leaks are consistent with Russian “methods and motivations” which are to “interfere with the US election process.” The US is typically hesitant to speculate regarding motivations, which can be difficult to discern and are often mixed. Doing so here offers a subtle warning: we know why you’re doing it (Hint: we can hear you, even where you think we can’t.) And naming “senior-most officials” as the responsible actors lays the groundwork to impose sanctions, pursuant to the recent Executive Order for sanctions against “persons engaging in significant malicious cyber-enabled activities.”

Here, the message to the American people is the more important one. By offering a candid assessment of what it knows and does not know, the US government seeks to reassure citizens of the integrity of our elections. The statement carefully notes that “scanning and probing” of election-related systems has been observed, which is less concerning than active manipulations. The government knows the intrusions “originated from servers operated by a Russian company” but expressly declines to attribute the activity to the Russian Government itself. This candor does tip the intelligence community’s hand—by confirming where it lacks specific intelligence—but it also bolsters the credibility of the accusations the US does levy against the Russian government.

And importantly, the statement reassures the public that there is no reason to fear that actual ballot counts could be altered. The government is going beyond a simple “trust us, everything is fine” and offers the specific case regarding what it knows. A sense of candor is critical to reinforcing public trust. And the specific information offered regarding the activity in question—probing and scanning—provides a reference point for experts seeking to publicly explain practical risks and tamps down on speculations regarding worst case scenarios, which feed public anxiety.

* * *

Public attribution is itself a significant government response and elucidates some of the administration’s sensibilities regarding line-drawing. But it also raises a difficult question about how we should think about what we are responding to. It appears that the trigger for the Obama administration was the targeting of election infrastructure and the threat to actual or perceived electoral integrity. But it is unclear that the type of election system intrusion thus far at issue—probing and scanning but not disrupting—would have been enough to warrant a response by itself. By linking the two activities together and to an overarching motivation—to interfere with the electoral process—the Administration is signaling that its response is to a course of conduct, not a single event.

Taking a broad view is sensible where Russia undertakes hybrid actions—intrusion into computer systems (malicious cyber activity) combined with the strategic release of documents (information warfare)—as well as larger efforts to undertake many distinct activities to achieve an overall goal—to sow distrust in the US electoral system. But the broad view here—where individual “below established threshold activities” combine to cross the threshold—also requires knowing what to group together.

We simultaneously engage Russia in cyberspace in a great many contexts, just as we do in diplomacy. And not everything is related. As Jack noted in a recent panel at Yale Law School, when we step back, it’s hard to know where the DNC and related leaks fall in the deterrence cycle. Are the leaks Russian retaliation for US action, such as imposing sanctions for Crimea? Or are the leaks intended by Russia to be a deterrent response to US cyber espionage? Or is this, as the White House statement would indicate, just a general attempt by Russia to see if it can sway the US election in its favor? Intelligence collection can answer some of those questions. But persistent uncertainty is a feature of cyber conflicts that is unlikely to ever resolve entirely.

In short, our current posture seems to be effectively preventing very serious activity, at least for now. Below that threshold, however, domestic pressures—like the anxiety over election results—figure into the calculations as to whether the US government responds. The result is that those responses are reactive and unpredictable, which undercuts the deterrent effect.

US deterrence policy currently has the feeling of roulette. Maybe the house still wins overall, but it is clear that actors like Russia are happy to keep spinning the wheel while they're ahead.

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In Trump's shadow, military veterans vie for Senate control
Wednesday October 12th, 2016 at 2:20 PM