The Cyber Warfare/Security Briefing Part I

"He who possesses most must be most afraid of loss" - Leonardo Da Vinci.

The London Stock Exchange for meetings with the Commander of the United States Cyber Command 15. 07. 2015

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu

I have often wondered if it is possible, no, I have often hoped that it is possible to have enough information about the principles of a particular field that you no longer need to add to your stock and can, on the basis of this stock, cogently discuss any new permutations in the field. I am going to test this hope (empirically) by, without looking at a book, webpage, journal, video or audio clip, write all I currently know about the Cyber (Security) Domain; then, tomorrow, after meeting the National Security Agency (NSA) Director and Commander of the United States Cyber Command, I will write, for want of a better word, a de-briefing of the current state of the field. I will then measure the distance between what I thought I knew and what I will have learnt from tomorrow's discussion. If the distance is too vast then I must conclude, in despair, that we are all in exactly the same situation as Sisyphus.

The State of the Cyber Environment 

Wherever human beings live and operate, challenges and opportunities exist. I have no charts or graphs to show you here but, because human beings live on land, land warfare (a challenge) is the most predominant form of warfare. The benefits (opportunities) of land to humans need not be listed - it's our natural habitat. Adjunct environments such as Sea, Air and Space are then used either to support the waging of (land) warfare, or enjoying the benefits of our habitat. To these natural environments - Sea, Land, Air and Space - human ingenuity has added another one - Cyber! 

The Cyber environment, properly conceived, is just an adjunct that helps humans perform their tasks better: I am communicating my ideas to you from the comfort of my bed when previously I would have gone to a library, typed my thoughts, printed them, then snail mailed them to the national paper, wait to see if they may be published and, even then, if you did not buy the paper that day, you would have still missed all this I am writing right now (which would probably not have been necessarily a tragedy!). The point is, the cyber domain makes a lot of things easier. This convenience, however, comes with potent challenges. As the (physical) Critical Infrastructure Network (CNI) - health system, roads, national grids, railways, aviation, military command and control - all now rely on the cyber environment for their smooth operation, a potent vulnerability thus exists.

  

The oft quoted possibility is that of a hacker being able to disrupt Air Traffic Control to the extent that aircraft will collide into each other. For busy airports like Heathrow, where planes land every 3 minutes, this will be a nightmare of epic proportions with, in addition to the loss of life, serious knock on effects to the economy. The same scenario would have the most negligible effects on an airport in Swaziland where under 10 aircraft land on a busy day. This is also very pertinent to the cyber security environment - with greater interconnectivity comes greater threats and disruptions. Another (remote) possibility is that a hacker could launch a country's missiles against a nuclear armed state and thus hasten Armageddon. The essence is that, activity in the Cyber Domain now has real world consequences, to the extent that if cyber assets of Country A are damaged by Country B, the understanding is that Country B reserves the right to strike back with all its Land, Sea, Air and Space Forces.

What is still notoriously elusive in the Cyber Domain is the ability to attribute a cyber attack to the right culprit.

If I Were To Choose The Country Of My Birth...

"For if one should propose to all men a choice, bidding them select the best customs from all the customs that there are, each race of men, after examining them all, would select those of his own people; thus all think that their own customs are by far the best" - Herodotus of Halicarnassus, The Histories. 

Below is the Preface to Rousseau's discourse on the origins of inequality. In itself, the preface is a self contained unit which describes what the ideal republic ought to look like. The works that become classics or become listed as canons, tend to do so on merit. Now read on... 

"The Republics" by Kudakwashe Kanhutu

by Jean-Jacques Rousseau 

Dedication to the Republic of Geneva 

MOST HONOURABLE, MAGNIFICENT AND SOVEREIGN LORDS, convinced that only a virtuous citizen can confer on his country honours which it can accept, I have been for thirty years past working to make myself worthy to offer you some public homage; and, this fortunate opportunity supplementing in some degree the insufficiency of my efforts, I have thought myself entitled to follow in embracing it the dictates of the zeal which inspires me, rather than the right which should have been my authorisation. Having had the happiness to be born among you, how could I reflect on the equality which nature has ordained between men, and the inequality which they have introduced, without reflecting on the profound wisdom by which both are in this State happily combined and made to coincide, in the manner that is most in conformity with natural law, and most favourable to society, to the maintenance of public order and to the happiness of individuals? In my researches after the best rules common sense can lay down for the constitution of a government, I have been so struck at finding them all in actuality in your own, that even had I not been born within your walls I should have thought it indispensable for me to offer this picture of human society to that people, which of all others seems to be possessed of its greatest advantages, and to have best guarded against its abuses. 

If I had had to make choice of the place of my birth, I should have preferred a society which had an extent proportionate to the limits of the human faculties; that is, to the possibility of being well governed: in which every person being equal to his occupation, no one should be obliged to commit to others the functions with which he was entrusted: a State, in which all the individuals being well known to one another, neither the secret machinations of vice, nor the modesty of virtue should be able to escape the notice and judgment of the public; and in which the pleasant custom of seeing and knowing one another should make the love of country rather a love of the citizens than of its soil. 

I should have wished to be born in a country in which the interest of the Sovereign and that of the people must be single and identical; to the end that all the movements of the machine might tend always to the general happiness. And as this could not be the case, unless the Sovereign and the people were one and the same person, it follows that I should have wished to be born under a democratic government, wisely tempered. 

I should have wished to live and die free: that is, so far subject to the laws that neither I, nor anybody else, should be able to cast off their honourable yoke: the easy and salutary yoke which the haughtiest necks bear with the greater docility, as they are made to bear no other. 

I should have wished then that no one within the State should be able to say he was above the law; and that no one without should be able to dictate so that the State should be obliged to recognise his authority. For, be the constitution of a government what it may, if there be within its jurisdiction a single man who is not subject to the law, all the rest are necessarily at his discretion. And if there be a national ruler within, and a foreign ruler without, however they may divide their authority, it is impossible that both should be duly obeyed, or that the State should be well governed. 

I should not have chosen to live in a republic of recent institution, however excellent its laws; for fear the government, being perhaps otherwise framed than the circumstances of the moment might require, might disagree with the new citizens, or they with it, and the State run the risk of overthrow and destruction almost as soon as it came into being. For it is with liberty as it is with those solid and succulent foods, or with those generous wines which are well adapted to nourish and fortify robust constitutions that are used to them, but ruin and intoxicate weak and delicate constitutions to which they are not suited. Peoples once accustomed to masters are not in a condition to do without them. If they attempt to shake off the yoke, they still more estrange themselves from freedom, as, by mistaking for it an unbridled license to which it is diametrically opposed, they nearly always manage, by their revolutions, to hand themselves over to seducers, who only make their chains heavier than before. The Roman people itself, a model for all free peoples, was wholly incapable of governing itself when it escaped from the oppression of the Tarquins. Debased by slavery, and the ignominious tasks which had been imposed upon it, it was at first no better than a stupid mob, which it was necessary to control and govern with the greatest wisdom; in order that, being accustomed by degrees to breathe the health-giving air of liberty, minds which had been enervated or rather brutalised under tyranny, might gradually acquire that severity of morals and spirit of fortitude which made it at length the people of all most worthy of respect. I should, then, have sought out for my country some peaceful and happy Republic, of an antiquity that lost itself, as it were, in the night of time: which had experienced only such shocks as served to manifest and strengthen the courage and patriotism of its subjects; and whose citizens, long accustomed to a wise independence, were not only free, but worthy to be so.  

I should have wished to choose myself a country, diverted, by a fortunate impotence, from the brutal love of conquest, and secured, by a still more fortunate situation, from the fear of becoming itself the conquest of other States: a free city situated between several nations, none of which should have any interest in attacking it, while each had an interest in preventing it from being attacked by the others; in short, a Republic which should have nothing to tempt the ambition of its neighbours, but might reasonably depend on their assistance in case of need. It follows that a republican State so happily situated could have nothing to fear but from itself; and that, if its members trained themselves to the use of arms, it would be rather to keep alive that military ardour and courageous spirit which are so proper among freemen, and tend to keep up their taste for liberty, than from the necessity of providing for their defence. 

I should have sought a country, in which the right of legislation was vested in all the citizens; for who can judge better than they of the conditions under which they had best dwell together in the same society? Not that I should have approved of Plebiscita, like those among the Romans; in which the rulers in the State, and those most interested in its preservation, were excluded from the deliberations on which in many cases its security depended; and in which, by the most absurd inconsistency, the magistrates were deprived of rights which the meanest citizens enjoyed.  

On the contrary, I should have desired that, in order to prevent self-interested and ill-conceived projects, and all such dangerous innovations as finally ruined the Athenians, each man should not be at liberty to propose new laws at pleasure; but that this right should belong exclusively to the magistrates; and that even they should use it with so much caution, the people, on its side, be so reserved in giving its consent to such laws, and the promulgation of them be attended with so much solemnity, that before the constitution could be upset by them, there might be time enough for all to be convinced, that it is above all the great antiquity of the laws which makes them sacred and venerable, that men soon learn to despise laws which they see daily altered, and that States, by accustoming themselves to neglect their ancient customs under the pretext of improvement, often introduce greater evils than those they endeavour to remove. 

I should have particularly avoided, as necessarily ill-governed, a Republic in which the people, imagining themselves in a position to do without magistrates, or at least to leave them with only a precarious authority, should imprudently have kept for themselves the administration of civil affairs and the execution of their own laws. Such must have been the rude constitution of primitive governments, directly emerging from a state of nature; and this was another of the vices that contributed to the downfall of the Republic of Athens. 

But I should have chosen a community in which the individuals, content with sanctioning their laws, and deciding the most important public affairs in general assembly and on the motion of the rulers, had established honoured tribunals, carefully distinguished the several departments, and elected year by year some of the most capable and upright of their fellow-citizens to administer justice and govern the State; a community, in short, in which the virtue of the magistrates thus bearing witness to the wisdom of the people, each class reciprocally did the other honour. If in such a case any fatal misunderstandings arose to disturb the public peace, even these intervals of blindness and error would bear the marks of moderation, mutual esteem, and a common respect for the laws; which are sure signs and pledges of a reconciliation as lasting as sincere. Such are the advantages, most honourable, magnificent and sovereign lords, which I should have sought in the country in which I should have chosen to be born. And if providence had added to all these a delightful situation, a temperate climate, a fertile soil, and the most beautiful countryside under Heaven, I should have desired only, to complete my felicity, the peaceful enjoyment of all these blessings, in the bosom of this happy country; to live at peace in the sweet society of my fellow-citizens, and practising towards them, from their own example, the duties of friendship, humanity, and every other virtue, to leave behind me the honourable memory of a good man, and an upright and virtuous patriot. 

But, if less fortunate or too late grown wise, I had seen myself reduced to end an infirm and languishing life in other climates, vainly regretting that peaceful repose which I had forfeited in the imprudence of youth, I should at least have entertained the same feelings in my heart, though denied the opportunity of making use of them in my native country. Filled with a tender and disinterested love for my distant fellow-citizens, I should have addressed them from my heart, much in the following terms. 

"My dear fellow-citizens, or rather my brothers, since the ties of blood, as well as the laws, unite almost all of us, it gives me pleasure that I cannot think of you, without thinking, at the same time, of all the blessings you enjoy, and of which none of you, perhaps, more deeply feels the value than I who have lost them. The more I reflect on your civil and political condition, the less can I conceive that the nature of human affairs could admit of a better. In all other governments, when there is a question of ensuring the greatest good of the State, nothing gets beyond projects and ideas, or at best bare possibilities. But as for you, your happiness is complete, and you have nothing to do but enjoy it; you require nothing more to be made perfectly happy, than to know how to be satisfied with being so. Your sovereignty, acquired or recovered by the sword, and maintained for two centuries past by your valour and wisdom, is at length fully and universally acknowledged. Your boundaries are fixed, your rights confirmed and your repose secured by honourable treaties. Your constitution is excellent, being not only dictated by the profoundest wisdom, but guaranteed by great and friendly powers. Your State enjoys perfect tranquillity; you have neither wars nor conquerors to fear; you have no other master than the wise laws you have yourselves made; and these are administered by upright magistrates of your own choosing. You are neither so wealthy as to be enervated by effeminacy, and thence to lose, in the pursuit of frivolous pleasures, the taste for real happiness and solid virtue; nor poor enough to require more assistance from abroad than your own industry is sufficient to procure you. In the meantime the precious privilege of liberty, which in great nations is maintained only by submission to the most exorbitant impositions, costs you hardly anything for its preservation.  

May a Republic, so wisely and happily constituted, last for ever, for an example to other nations, and for the felicity of its own citizens! This is the only prayer you have left to make, the only precaution that remains to be taken. It depends, for the future, on yourselves alone (not to make you happy, for your ancestors have saved you that trouble), but to render that happiness lasting, by your wisdom in its enjoyment. It is on your constant union, your obedience to the laws, and your respect for their ministers, that your preservation depends. If there remains among you the smallest trace of bitterness or distrust, hasten to destroy it, as an accursed leaven which sooner or later must bring misfortune and ruin on the State. I conjure you all to look into your hearts, and to hearken to the secret voice of conscience. Is there any among you who can find, throughout the universe, a more upright, more enlightened and more honourable body than your magistracy? Do not all its members set you an example of moderation, of simplicity of manners, of respect for the laws, and of the most sincere harmony? Place, therefore, without reserve, in such wise superiors, that salutary confidence which reason ever owes to virtue. Consider that they are your own choice, that they justify that choice, and that the honours due to those whom you have dignified are necessarily yours by reflexion. Not one of you is so ignorant as not to know that, when the laws lose their force and those who defend them their authority, security and liberty are universally impossible. Why, therefore, should you hesitate to do that cheerfully and with just confidence which you would all along have been bound to do by your true interest, your duty and reason itself? 

Let not a culpable and pernicious indifference to the maintenance of the constitution ever induce you to neglect, in case of need, the prudent advice of the most enlightened and zealous of your fellow-citizens; but let equity, moderation and firmness of resolution continue to regulate all your proceedings, and to exhibit you to the whole universe as the example of a valiant and modest people, jealous equally of their honour and of their liberty. Beware particularly, as the last piece of advice I shall give you, of sinister constructions and venomous rumours, the secret motives of which are often more dangerous than the actions at which they are levelled. A whole house will be awake and take the first alarm given by a good and trusty watch-dog, who barks only at the approach of thieves; but we hate the importunity of those noisy curs, which are perpetually disturbing the public repose, and whose continual ill-timed warnings prevent our attending to them, when they may perhaps be necessary." 

And you, most honourable and magnificent lords, the worthy and revered magistrates of a free people, permit me to offer you in particular my duty and homage. If there is in the world a station capable of conferring honour on those who fill it, it is undoubtedly that which virtue and talents combine to bestow, that of which you have made yourselves worthy, and to which you have been promoted by your fellow-citizens. Their worth adds a new lustre to your own; while, as you have been chosen, by men capable of governing others, to govern themselves, I cannot but hold you as much superior to all other magistrates, as a free people, and particularly that over which you have the honour to preside, is by its wisdom and its reason superior to the populace of other States. 

Be it permitted me to cite an example of which there ought to have existed better records, and one which will be ever near to my heart. I cannot recall to mind, without the sweetest emotions, the memory of that virtuous citizen, to whom I owe my being, and by whom I was often instructed, in my infancy, in the respect which is due to you. I see him still, living by the work of his hands, and feeding his soul on the sublimest truths. I see the works of Tacitus, Plutarch, and Grotius lying before him in the midst of the tools of his trade. At his side stands his dear son, receiving, alas with too little profit, the tender instructions of the best of fathers. But, if the follies of youth made me for a while forget his wise lessons, I have at length the happiness to be conscious that, whatever propensity one may have to vice, it is not easy for an education, with which love has mingled, to be entirely thrown away. 

Such, my most honourable and magnificent lords, are the citizens, and even the common inhabitants of the State which you govern; such are those intelligent and sensible men, of whom, under the name of workmen and the people, it is usual, in other nations, to have a low and false opinion. My father, I own with pleasure, was in no way distinguished among his fellow-citizens. He was only such as they all are; and yet, such as he was, there is no country, in which his acquaintance would not have been coveted, and cultivated even with advantage by men of the highest character. It would not become me, nor is it, thank Heaven, at all necessary for me to remind you of the regard which such men have a right to expect of their magistrates, to whom they are equal both by education and by the rights of nature and birth, and inferior only, by their own will, by that preference which they owe to your merit, and, for giving you, can claim some sort of acknowledgment on your side. It is with a lively satisfaction I understand that the greatest candour and condescension attend, in all your behaviour towards them, on that gravity which becomes the ministers of the law; and that you so well repay them, by your esteem and attention, the respect and obedience which they owe to you. This conduct is not only just but prudent; as it happily tends to obliterate the memory of many unhappy events, which ought to be buried in eternal oblivion. It is also so much the more judicious, as it tends to make this generous and equitable people find a pleasure in their duty; to make them naturally love to do you honour, and to cause those who are the most zealous in the maintenance of their own rights to be at the same time the most disposed to respect yours. 

It ought not to be thought surprising that the rulers of a civil society should have the welfare and glory of their communities at heart: but it is uncommonly fortunate for the peace of men, when those persons who look upon themselves as the magistrates, or rather the masters of a more holy and sublime country, show some love for the earthly country which maintains them. I am happy in having it in my power to make so singular an exception in our favour, and to be able to rank, among its best citizens, those zealous depositaries of the sacred articles of faith established by the laws, those venerable shepherds of souls whose powerful and captivating eloquence are so much the better calculated to bear to men's hearts the maxims of the gospel, as they are themselves the first to put them into practice. All the world knows of the great success with which the art of the pulpit is cultivated at Geneva; but men are so used to hearing divines preach one thing and practise another, that few have a chance of knowing how far the spirit of Christianity, holiness of manners, severity towards themselves and indulgence towards their neighbours, prevail throughout the whole body of our ministers. It is, perhaps, given to the city of Geneva alone, to produce the edifying example of so perfect a union between its clergy and men of letters. It is in great measure on their wisdom, their known moderation, and their zeal for the prosperity of the State that I build my hopes of its perpetual tranquillity. At the same time, I notice, with a pleasure mingled with surprise and veneration, how much they detest the frightful maxims of those accursed and barbarous men, of whom history furnishes us with more than one example; who, in order to support the pretended rights of God, that is to say their own interests, have been so much the less greedy of human blood, as they were more hopeful their own in particular would be always respected. 

I must not forget that precious half of the Republic, which makes the happiness of the other; and whose sweetness and prudence preserve its tranquillity and virtue. Amiable and virtuous daughters of Geneva, it will be always the lot of your sex to govern ours. Happy are we, so long as your chaste influence, solely exercised within the limits of conjugal union, is exerted only for the glory of the State and the happiness of the public. It was thus the female sex commanded at Sparta; and thus you deserve to command at Geneva. What man can be such a barbarian as to resist the voice of honour and reason, coming from the lips of an affectionate wife? Who would not despise the vanities of luxury, on beholding the simple and modest attire which, from the lustre it derives from you, seems the most favourable to beauty? It is your task to perpetuate, by your insinuating influence and your innocent and amiable rule, a respect for the laws of the State, and harmony among the citizens. It is yours to reunite divided families by happy marriages; and, above all things, to correct, by the persuasive sweetness of your lessons and the modest graces of your conversation, those extravagancies which our young people pick up in other countries, whence, instead of many useful things by which they might profit, they bring home hardly anything, besides a puerile air and a ridiculous manner, acquired among loose women, but an admiration for I know not what so-called grandeur, and paltry recompenses for being slaves, which can never come near the real greatness of liberty. Continue, therefore, always to be what you are, the chaste guardians of our morals, and the sweet security for our peace, exerting on every occasion the privileges of the heart and of nature, in the interests of duty and virtue.  

I flatter myself that I shall never be proved to have been mistaken, in building on such a foundation my hopes of the general happiness of the citizens and the glory of the Republic. It must be confessed, however, that with all these advantages, it will not shine with that lustre, by which the eyes of most men are dazzled; a puerile and fatal taste for which is the most mortal enemy of happiness and liberty. 

Let our dissolute youth seek elsewhere light pleasures and long repentances. Let our pretenders to taste admire elsewhere the grandeur of palaces, the beauty of equipages, sumptuous furniture, the pomp of public entertainments, and all the refinements of luxury and effeminacy. Geneva boasts nothing but men; such a sight has nevertheless a value of its own, and those who have a taste for it are well worth the admirers of all the rest.  

Deign, most honourable, magnificent and sovereign lords, to receive, and with equal goodness, this respectful testimony of the interest I take in your common prosperity. And, if I have been so unhappy as to be guilty of any indiscreet transport in this glowing effusion of my heart, I beseech you to pardon me, and to attribute it to the tender affection of a true patriot, and to the ardent and legitimate zeal of a man, who can imagine for himself no greater felicity than to see you happy. 

Most honourable, magnificent and sovereign lords, I am, with the most profound respect, 

Your most humble and obedient servant and fellow-citizen. 

J. J. ROUSSEAU 

Chambéry, June 12, 1754

Being Very Strong. Zimbabwe: The New National Security Paradigm

As the 32nd Independence Anniversary celebrations come to a close, being the good nationalists that we are; let's now go behind closed doors, away from the media and international scrutiny to talk about our failures. I volunteer that the government and all nationalists have failed Air Zimbabwe. This is my formulation:

 Air Zimbabwe's Boeing 767 - 200 Extended Range. Registration Mark: Zulu - Whisky Papa Foxtrot. Call sign: UM. The aircraft named Chimanimani.

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu

In a world with nuclear weapons, I am dismayed by the prospective ignominy of being defeated by our detractors without their having to resort to these ultimate weapons, or any other weapons for that matter. The first place I see this happening is when security is breached in fields that ordinarily should have no relation to orthodox national security. Indeed, times have changed. National security, properly conceived, now goes way beyond what happens on the battlefield; for the field has become much wider. Thus I am mortified that fellow nationalists seem not to realise this. It is critical that all nationalists understand the new pillars that undergird security. For brevity’s sake, I will rely only on one example although I can talk about a lot of other fields where failures will impinge on national security.

For my purpose this will suffice; the very fact that Air Zimbabwe is not flying today is a dagger to the heart of Zimbabwe’s national security. Yet I do not see a reaction in the same league as if an armed attack was under way. There is no recognition in our ranks that the national airline is as much a part of our security set up as our newspapers, our radio stations and our armed forces. There is no realisation of the shift in national security thinking. Our detractors now talk of a system of systems when talking about national security, since a disruption in any seemingly unrelated part eats away and weakens the whole structure. Attacks on these fringe aspects may seem insignificant but overtime will prove the death knell of the system. Therefore, if it becomes urgently incumbent in every nationalist’s mind that the way of preserving national security has shifted considerably, these sorts of insidious damages can still be remedied.

To go directly to the heart of the matter; there is no reason why, in a country that has millionaires in her nationalist ranks, the national airline can fail to fly because of an outstanding workers’ wage bill of around $40 million. I am outright saying here: there is no reason why the millionaires who claim to want to see the nationalist project succeed, should not – of their own volition – put money on the table to solve the national airline’s minor debt problem. The only reason I can think of is that they have not looked at the big picture and properly understood what role the national airline has played all along. Besides providing employment, Air Zimbabwe landing in Western capitals has been a symbol of stubborn defiance. A falsification of any propaganda claim that Zimbabwe is a failed state. It has been a significant foil to the prescient observation by Napoleon that “four hostile newspapers are to be more feared than a thousand bayonets.” Air Zimbabwe, flying anywhere in the world in the face of innumerable hostile newspapers, was a statement to counter all their malicious allegations against Zimbabwe.

Any negative effects the airline kept at bay will now feed directly into the system. Unemployment feeds into insecurity. Perceptions of disorganisation feed into insecurity. Let any newspaper now make an outlandish claim that Zimbabweans are so backward that not a single person there is trainable to become a pilot; who is to dispute that. Let anyone suggest the need for a civilising mission as they claimed in the colonial era, what do we have as an affront to that? Any charge of mismanagement of affairs is no longer unsustainable without the airline as our highly visible counter-argument. Those who know what is at stake will understand what I mean when I say losing the airline is very much the equivalent of giving our detractors our newspapers, radio and TV station.

Having understood each other on this count, I am then insistent that an unequivocal demand should be made on our wealthy fellow nationalists to produce the money required to return the airline to the skies. The national airline is a strategic asset that should be as non-negotiable to the true nationalist as our armed forces are. I will also say something briefly about the missed opportunity that should not be missed again once the airline returns to the air. The concept of ‘strategic inflection points’ dictates that the airline industry is now a field of alliances, once the airline is operating again, the government must without delay negotiate partnerships with airlines from countries we have no bad blood with. The only stipulation should be that our aircraft retain the national colours and thus maintain the value the national airline has for national security.

National security in its new permutation allows a reckless enemy to attack our symbols of nationhood and cause as much damage as a conventional military attack did in the old days. A patient enemy can just attack these symbols and wait for a nation to collapse due to the weaknesses ensuring thus, this is the whole logic behind sanctions. If we are scrupulous and diligent, we can counter these attacks on the new pillars of national security. What I refuse to accept is that sanctions are to blame for a national airline being unable to fly for want of $40 million dollars in a country with millionaires in its nationalist ranks. This is recklessness on our part.

Strategy For The North

“Security is development” – Robert S McNamara.

I prefer having grain silos to having nuclear silos, that's just me.

The more I find myself talking eloquently on Nuclear Strategy, the more I realise that I am being co-opted into adopting other people's problems as my own. My position - properly conceived - should be that of fearing hunger more than thermonuclear weapons.


Strategy For The North


by Kudakwashe Kanhutu

Devolution of power has been touted in Zimbabwe for a long time by the opposition and some academics. If it were to be instituted, I would hope that it follows the system they have in Nigeria as described to me when I spoke to the Rivers State’s Executive Governor - Hon. Rotimi Amaechi - in London not so long ago. I was impressed by the potential developmental positives their system holds. The problem for me is that, in Zimbabwe, devolution has not been presented primarily to realise our development goals. Development is an afterthought. The main preoccupation is diluting the power President Robert Mugabe has over central government. Some even think it possible to create a separate Ndebele State as part of this 'devolution.' The debate therefore does not get serious consideration which it could get if it was presented purely as a development agency.

Hon. Rotimi Amaechi, Rivers State Governor.

Indeed - Zimbabwe on the verge of civil war - before the Government of National Unity on 11 February 2009 offered (albeit as an extreme), the possibility of this kind of devolution, separatism if you like. In a state of war it is reasonable that people must organise themselves as best as they can for their preservation. The government will have breached the social contract in failing to deliver order and security; therefore 'devolution' becomes the logical pathway. I considered the dynamics of that eventuality and identified the area where we would make our last stand had civil war occurred. Typically I proceeded from a sentimental dimension; my family has owned land here as subsistence farmers since the Rhodesian war. The area I am from, being conterminous with Mozambique, was a very active theatre during the Liberation War. My grandparents did not leave at the height of that war, and are buried here, which too means that this is the last place for me.

I am from the northernmost tip of Zimbabwe; our landmarks are the Mavhuradonha Mountain range to the south, and the Zambezi River to the north. The mountain range forms a perfect protective wall, which cuts us off from the whole country, accessible by road only at two points. The area therefore has physical attributes suitable for defensive purposes. Its main guarantor of safety from wars of greed however, has always been that it is devoid of mineral wealth, which is also why it is currently underdeveloped, neglected and overlooked by central government. Had civil war come, it would be different from the Liberation War which was fought in the rural areas. This time the war would be in the urban areas and diamond fields, as belligerents sought to control the centre of gravity of the state. We would only need to arm and arrange ourselves as an insurance policy against defeated units coming here and causing insecurity. The main challenge in war - had it come - would have been food security, and in peace it still is food security. 

Granted, I drew my borders with defence in mind, the area that is bordered by the Mavhuradonha Mountain and the Zambezi River would have been my theatre in civil war. This was not arbitrary; this is my place in the universe. 

"Each blade of grass has its spot on earth whence it draws its life, its strength; and so is man rooted to the land from which he draws his faith together with his life."

Did I not walk barefoot to Mahuhwe and back to pick cotton seed when there was no seed at Mzarabani Growth Point? Did I not as a school child scale the Mavhuradonha Mountain to unblock leaves that had stopped our water supply on the Tank Four line? Did I not walk barefoot to church gatherings in Hoya? How about the barefoot trips to Hwata, Kapembere, Mzarabani, Sohwe and Machaya for primary schools competitions? How about when I carried sacks of fish from the Musengezi River? Swam in the Sohwe and Musengezi Rivers? Nights spent in guard huts to light fires to scare away elephants and wild pigs from our maize crop? Braved lions and leopards in defence of our livestock? Or in the dry season, did I not drive our livestock to drink from the Musengezi River?

All these places I mention are within the confines of the Mavhuradonha and Zambezi borders and they hold a special significance for me. They are populated by the people I grew up with; a functional community I owe a debt of gratitude to. You only need to consider the acts of depravity widespread in the media in some countries to understand why I feel that I grew up in the best possible community. If I can contribute so that the children growing up here today are not subject to abuses that tend to occur when extreme poverty breaks up the fabric of society. If I can make a contribution that helps restore the dignity of families here. If I can initiate a sustainable strategy for development for this community, then this debt I owe will have been repaid.

The result that comes from thinking about our community faced with the extreme danger of war, is a realisation that our community must be made resilient against whatever challenge may emerge. The constant challenge is food security, any other challenge springs from this board. As exemplified by the ability of Zimbabwean politicians to, in every election, incite normally civil neighbours to violent hatred by buying them with grain.

My desire is to help create conditions of relative prosperity that will obviate the life and death aspect of elections. If our community can feed itself, our people cannot be incited into acts of violence against each other by unscrupulous politicians in exchange for grain. I am unhappy that people who live civilly with each other throughout the year turn to murdering each other in the two weeks leading up to elections. This dynamic exists chiefly because those who live in near starvation conditions can be made to murder for their next meal. My idea is to turn the land that lies between the Mavhuradonha and the Zambezi into an oasis, disregarding that politicians would rather the whole country was a desert for the sake of power.

Her Excellency Helen Clark, former New Prime Minister and current head of the UNDP with me at a UN Forum.

To this end there are three interconnected imperatives I have always held dear: security is development, community capacity initiated by constituents and, that agriculture is the most viable development option for rural communities. These ideas were reinforced for me when I had a chat with H. E. Helen Clark, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand and current Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme. I think the first hurdle has always been people’s misconception that success in life, or development, is living in urban areas and working for a wage. The reality, however, is that (global inequities considered) in all agro-based economies such as ours, most people are better off making a living off their land. Efforts should be directed vigorously to sustaining ourselves on the land we own in the rural communities.

The primary goal for me is building capacity for self-sustenance. The requirements are quite simple but will need hard work as it will be a one man initiative to begin with. Three main things are needed, firstly, a large farm inputs depot which will make seed, pesticides, fertilisers and spares readily available in the area. The second thing required will be grain silos in the area and, thirdly, libraries to ensure that, with time, knowledge becomes easily accessible. A larger, ambitious drive would actually harness the waters of the Zambezi River for an irrigation scheme. Our proximity to the great river favours this, but that would be a longer term undertaking. The main idea is that if we succeed in agriculture and maintenance of our livestock, we will have taken a huge step in creating a key component of human security for our community. This will be the springboard for an across-the-board secure community which other rural communities can see and emulate. The big picture will be a functional country that does not depend on food aid.

Kudakwashe KANHUTU

Associations:

Durham Global Security Institute DGSI

University of Kent, School of Politics and International Relations

Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies

United Nations Association of the United Kingdom

University of London, Goldsmiths College [Classics]

[Progressive Nationalism in Zimbabwe]

Soldier Without A Country

From Wikileaks we learn that Botswana ran to the United States in 2008/9 asking for military assistance, fearing Zimbabwe was about to launch a massive invasion. Knowing the Zimbabwe Defence Forces' mentality, had they chosen to attack Botswana, it would have been a surgical strike which, only God in high heaven, or the ZDF itself could prevent.

Zimbabwean Special Forces from 1 Commando Regiment.

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu 

“The soldier often regards the man of politics as unreliable, inconstant and greedy for the limelight. Bred on imperatives, the military temperament is astonished by the number of pretences in which the statesman has to indulge. The terrible simplicities of war contrast strongly to the devious methods demanded by the art of government. The impassioned twists and turns, the dominant concern with the effect to be produced, the appearance of weighing others in terms not of their merit but of their influence – all inevitable characteristics in the civilian whose authority rests upon the popular will – cannot but worry the professional soldier habituated as he is to a life of hard duties, self effacement, and respect for services rendered” - Charles de Gaulle 1890 -1970 

My name is Kudakwashe Kanhutu, Lieutenant Colonel Kudakwashe Kanhutu, Commanding Officer, 1 Commando Regiment; the foremost unit of the Special Forces in the Zimbabwe Defence Forces. My life has been duty bound from the very start, of pride in family possessions, placing others’ lives before my own and holding as inviolable the defence of our territory. Starting with the defending of the family livestock and maize plot from wild animals as a child, to protecting family members in playground fights at school. Destiny, it would seem, had pre-programmed my disposition. I do not know what the exact date is, but I am writing this from the cold hardness of a Botswana Military Prison cell, it is at least 10 years since my capture on 11 February 2009, but for the magnitude of the events I am about to recount to take root in your mind, let me start from the very beginning. 

I have never placed much emphasis on riches, in fact, I have what borders on disdain for worldly riches as they distract from the duty of service to the Nation. This is manifest, from the onset, in my decision not to take sole ownership of my parents’ property and livestock, as was my right as eldest son when my parents passed away while I was only 15. Choosing instead communal ownership where a greedy disposition would have assumed sole ownership and demanded that everyone else be subservient to that decision. There was no shortage of acts of bravery in my childhood. My family’s settling in the Zambezi Valley at the end of Liberation Struggle meant that we had to compete for living space with wildlife such as Lions, Leopards, Elephants and - the deadliest of them all - the Black Mamba. I have lost count of the number of times when I had to come to the aid, with other boys, of a homestead that had to fend off these predators. Many times these predators would attack people, but yet I find myself thinking, in retrospect, that none of these predators were as deadly as the politician, with his fickleness, his double dealings, conniving, scheming and deception. 

Soldiers are a breed apart, especially in my experience those of 1 Commando Regiment. Anyone who is willing to die for his country without question qualifies for that distinction. Politicians on the other hand concern themselves with ‘pulling strings’ when conscription is necessary, so that their sons and their friends’ sons do not end up serving in the military. For their own children, service in the military is to be avoided like the plague. It is ironic that people who depend that much on the military for their survival should hold it in such poor regard. 

My joining of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces was the most natural thing. After University I could have applied directly to the Zimbabwe Military Academy, to start life of service as an Officer but instead I went via the basic entry route; General Duty Infantry. The aspersion I held then was that in choosing to become an officer from the onset, I could never really be a soldier. I feared that the stratification of our society was also mirrored in the military by division between Officers and their men; where Officers would be living a life of privilege and enjoying trappings of wealth far removed from the asceticism that is a prerequisite for an honourable military life. I was pleasantly surprised to find this to be contrary to the truth. As soon as I had finished my basic infantry training I was transferred to the Zimbabwe Military Academy on merit, where I soon found out that my Officer training was doubly harder and more demanding than the one at Infantry School. The reasoning at ZMA was that as Officers we can only lead men into battle if we are at least equals with the best man in our units in all the physical requirements of our mission: we lead from the front. 

Excellence at training saw me transferred to 1 Commando Regiment. Subsequent combat operations saw my meteoric rise to Commanding Officer of the same unit, notably the last minute defence of Kinshasa from Ugandan and Rwandan troops; an operation executed with great precision but whose details I will neglect in this account for brevity’s sake. I will only defend our deployment to the Democratic Republic of Congo in its context as a humanitarian effort to give civilians of that country a moment of peace as civilians everywhere deserve. The DRC had continually never known peace with various foreign governments, including America, implicated in the instability. At the time of my DRC tour of duty, I was not yet privy to operational decision making, but I understood the necessity of the mission in the humanitarian context as opposed to the aspersions cast out by the media. 

My life, therefore, was a life dedicated to serving Zimbabwe to the exclusion of all else. In this sort of setting, where you are driven by the honour within you, the most common mistake is that you will think everyone in the Country to harbour the same feeling, which is a fatal mistake. You will essentially have no prejudices or suspect that some are driven by greed. 

The background to my head on collision with the politicians of Zimbabwe, the subject of this account, is indeed the economic quandary and political stalemate the Country was in. Politicians’ arguments, personality clashes and all else that played out needlessly. Each trying to out-do the other in showing who could damage the Country the most if he was not at the helm. Each flexing political muscles, the one ordering his supporters to slash and burn, and, the other - not to be outdone - running to the International Community and demanding they cut credit lines to Zimbabwe. The only one suffering being the ordinary man. In this vein, I find the best argument for rule by the military in developing infant democracies as opposed to the oversight of the military by civilians that is prevalent in the come-of-age democracies. The true military man gets his inspiration from the duty to protect the weak from exploitation, and, his strength is derived from the honour instilled in him by an inviolable military code. The true military man has no need for exploitative deception. 

Politicians on the other hand are ungrateful parasites, every four to five years they abandon their expensive suits, they dress down and descend on the ordinary people like vultures. They pretend to identify with the ordinary man’s plight, they lie, how they lie? They invoke fictitious backgrounds of trial by fire, and, because the ordinary man is not wise, this deception takes root and the tragedy is that it is repeated regularly and, still, ordinary people are none the wiser. All this is done to legitimate the group of politicians whose turn it is to plunder the Country’s resources. The anomaly of politicians having oversight over the military then ensures that the military is then obliged to be a blunt tool in the hands of politicians, subject to abuse. 

All the problems we were having in the Country, the economic meltdown, the political hate, the closure of hospitals and every other malady, were manifestations of dishonourable people having control over things they should not have control over. Of course because of the subservience to the Zimbabwe Constitution of the institution that was my station of contribution to the good of the nation, I found myself unable to initiate a course that I am now able to argue from solitary confinement in a Botswana Military Prison. How did this come about? 

Again the politicians came to us, with substantial proof that Botswana was training disaffected Zimbabweans to act as insurgents against the Zimbabwe government. This was not made up as some quarters argued at the time, sixteen men from my unit had actually joined these groups and so substantiated the existence of these acts of aggression. In a serious breach of protocol Botswana had also amassed troops on the border for manoeuvres. These manoeuvres had been observed by the Air Force of Zimbabwe’s reconnaissance planes. 

The Botswana Defence Forces had foolishly conducted these actions as a back-up to the foolish rhetoric their Commander-in-Chief and President was spouting at regional meetings. Whether he wanted to immortalise himself in the history books or driven by a heartfelt cause I do not know but, either way, he had chosen the wrong vehicle for these hands. Of course, when the politicians came to us they wanted the army to invade Botswana and attack the camps where the insurgents were being given training, reminiscent of their experiences with Rhodesian Armed Forces. Here, as so often happens, even to the most stringently opposed dictates, the military’s duty to maintain peace and stability coincided with the politicians’ need to preserve and perpetuate themselves. As the military our duty to maintain peace and order makes us very circumspect. It is necessary to have absolute peace in the Country, once that has been breached, we lose control and the outcome becomes very fluid, with never before known players surfacing with invariably ridiculous agendas to promote. 

The politicians were quoting their precious books of International Law and were desirous that we should set an example that will be remembered into eternity, or even occupy Botswana indefinitely. Such was their dexterity with empty words that, this was going to be “our War on Terror”. I, personally, do not like wars of conquest because they stretch the military and are unwinnable as the United States’ campaigns in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan holds testimony. Furthermore, you have to take on duties of civil government like policing, a mammoth task among hostile foreigners. Personally I prefer defensive wars. I was also averse, in discussions with HQ, to attacks on fellow Zimbabweans without warning and reasoned that the guilty party was the most powerful man in Botswana. It was he who should come to answer questions on behalf of the Zimbabweans he had made criminals out of by providing military training to. After all, it was he who was most vocal and, he who was displaying all that great bravado. My dearest wish is that people who endanger lives while hiding behind political office should be made to answer questions on their actions away from their great offices. It is a simple psychological exercise. 

We also absolutely had to make a response because non action was dangerous in that it would embolden our detractor and award him allies who otherwise were not convinced. So to avert the danger of Botswana galvanizing countries on our borders into a coalition which would potentially set the whole Southern Africa region on fire, we needed something unheard of in war; the one single and instantaneous blow that would win the war. From our standpoint, the military manoeuvres on our border by the Botswana Defence Forces was an act of aggression. 

Thus I found myself accompanied by the Service Chiefs, outlining to the politicians, the alterations I had made to their instruction and detailing the form the mission would now take. I emphasized that the goal would still be the same but practicalities demanded that we follow a surprise commando raid with one objective; a solitary blow. There were great arguments from the politicians who sensed that there would not be great big flashes, jets screaming overhead and, death and destruction to captivate the world media and award them their interviews with CNN. I have to emphasize, away from post factor rationalisations, Botswana indeed posed a threat to the region through their undiplomatic and irresponsible action. Having established this, the mission was an absolute necessity. 

Zimbabwe Defence Forces Helicopters flying over a Southern African city.

The mission would in essence be carried out by 200 men from 1 Commando Regiment with me in the lead, 216 including the 16 who had already been in Botswana in the insurgents training camps, conducting various intelligence works. If that number seems low, that is because if the mission was executed with great secrecy, we would encounter negligible numbers to oppose us. Also, in terms of capabilities, the Botswana Defence Forces are essentially a bow and arrow army, in their whole existence they are not that much better than their civilians because they have never seen active combat anywhere. Conversely I was taking in veterans of the Mozambican, Somali and DRC wars. Support would ensure from the 7th Squadron of the Air Force of Zimbabwe. All military bases in the South West of the Country would be on high combat alert for a defensive war should the Botswana Army choose to cross into Zimbabwe. We would draw Botswana into an invasion, something they would never do especially with their Commander-in-Chief awaiting trial at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison. 

Yes, at 2300hrs on February 10 2009, I was the greatest servant of the Zimbabwean Nation, poised to send a message to our neighbours that interference of a military nature in our domestic affairs would have their heads of state punished in a Zimbabwean Court of Law. On February 10 2009, at 2300hrs, I was standing by to rewrite the statute books of international relations. My men were standing by to bring Botswana to a standstill, telecommunications, the airport, Radio and TV stations were within fifteen minutes of my men’s control. Five 1 Commando Regiment Helicopters were standing by just fifteen minutes from Gaborone, to airlift ourselves and "Cargo One" back to Harare, having evaded Botswana radar earlier. The rest of the team would exfiltrate back to Plumtree on commandeered vehicles. 

At 2330hrs on the same day, the politicians in my country who had been at each other’s throat all along finally signed on to a Government of National Unity, of course the actual ceremony was done in the day time the following day for the sake of posterity. On reflection this was an agreement to share in the plunder of the Country’s resources. All the same, part of the agreement was to put all the cards on the table, and the 1 Commando Operation so necessary to the stability of the Country was one of the cards to be put on the table. Such that by 0001hrs on 11 February 2009, I was a criminal and adventurer, disowned by the politicians in my Country. A military operation that could have only worked because it was shrouded in secrecy, a precise mission to get into Botswana and arrest the Head of State without great bloodshed was thus compromised. Against the 5000 or so men the Botswana Defence Forces could master when warned in advance my men stood no chance. The numbers advantage was too overwhelming, unsuspecting of our presence we could have been superior to the Botswana Army units we would come across in the execution of the mission. Every single detail of the mission was relayed to Botswana by our great politicians and the Botswana Defence Forces have never had a greater day in their whole existence. I ordered that the men who were manning the outer ring of the operational zone exfiltrate back to Zimbabwe. Still, this left 60 Commandos in the inner ring which comprised the units that were to take charge of the telecommunications and the actual arrest of the Head of State. 60 soldiers sacrificed because the politicians had decided it is better to share the loot, after all... 

I used to be Zimbabwean, all those years ago when my heart used to beat with pride at the sight of a Zimbabwean flag fluttering in the wind. All those years ago when I used to stand to attention when the National Anthem was playing, when I would become agitated if I saw anyone, man or child, spell Zimbabwe without a capital Z. I used to be the most Zimbabwean of all Zimbabweans, all those years ago when I could spend hours doing nothing but think of ways to defend the nation from all enemies, foreign or domestic. I used to have a Country, but what happens when the fickleness of politicians overrides the sense of duty inculcated in a soldier’s fabric?