The Cyber Warfare/Security Briefing Part II

"He who offends others does not secure himself" - Leonardo da Vinci.

The blue circle represents what I knew before the USCYBERCOM briefing while the black circle represents elements I did not know.

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu

Following on from my provisional assessment of the state of the field before my meetings with the USCYBERCOM Commander, I can now say with great confidence that it is possible to know enough about a field not to engage in any further earnest research every time a permutation occurs. Of course, this conclusion of mine may be down to the fact that my allegiance is to the Republic of Zimbabwe, and cyber threats are not our foremost concern at this present point in time. The picture above represents what I knew about the field (blue circle) and what I did not know (black circle) before meeting Admiral Michael S. Rogers.

Admiral Michael S. Rogers, Commander USCYBERCOM, Director NSA.

The Real State of the Cyber Environment

Admiral Michael S. Rogers speaks to Financial and Security Experts at the London Stock Exchange.

My summary of the field in Part I (pre-meeting) is very much valid. The only thing I can now add is that as the NSA Commander as well as the GCHQ Director also presented their views of the field, I managed to get an insider's view as opposed to mine which is that of a dilettante. Their classification of the various threats; criminal, vandal, state attack etc and the ways in place to respond to each of these threats were also much better than mine. Again, this may be due to the fact that I only worry about those cyber actions that are related to, or may result in open warfare. These practitioners were more concerned, or rather, equally concerned with commercial crime in cyber space. In this regard, my opening quotation by Leonardo da Vinci is not as apt as it could be - those who are targeted by cyber criminals do not necessarily have to have done something to get targeted. Possession of wealth and valuable information is enough reason for the cyber miscreants. It has always been my argument that military aggression creates committed enemies but this dictum does not strictly apply in the cyber domain. 

The other knowledge I do not have, represented by the black circle in the first picture, relates to classified information these officials did not divulge, as well as, that knowledge Donald Rumsfeld saw fit to call unknown unknowns.

My arrival for the meeting at the LSE

My arrival for the meeting at the LSE

The State and Human Security in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Abstract.

This is the abstract to the researches that were conducted by Kudakwashe Kanhutu of Mashonaland Central (Zimbabwe), in fulfilment of the requirements of his Master of Science in Defence, Development & Diplomacy degree at Durham University in England. He will publish his full researches in the hope that he will instruct his fellow countrymen that when brother fights brother, no one wins but the outsider.

Zimbabwe: Pax Africana! The cover of my thesis is a tribute to my brother who fought in the DRC War.

Dedication 

To the people of Zimbabwe, may our peaceful polity long continue! 

Kudakwashe Kanhutu, Hatfield College, Durham University, School of Government & International Affairs, September 2014. 

Abstract 

The recurring civil wars and deaths of civilians from preventable causes in the DRC forms the puzzle for this paper: why has the state remained so weak over such a long period? This paper has cast the inability by the state's institutions to provide human security as state weakness. Human security is then used as a lens to interrogate where the international community and the local elites, through commission or omission, have been culpable for state weakness in the DRC. Human security is argued to be achievable under conditions where the state is legitimate and has a monopoly on the use of force - a strong state. This point necessitates a comparison between conditions faced by the consolidated European states in their creation and those which now confront the post-colonial states. The reasons for state weakness here are then argued to be on two levels: the international level and the state level. At the international level, the continued extractive relationship with the global North and the actions of the DRC's neighbours are inimical to the state's ability to maintain a monopoly on the use of force. At the state level, the most significant cause is the self-defeating short term strategies adopted by post-colonial elites to consolidate their power at independence. This paper argues that the ideal Weberian state, with its impersonal institutions, is the best possible way of achieving human security in the DRC and other post-colonial states. Human security provision would then be the remedy to legitimacy crises that arise due to the colonial legacy.

Professor David Held, who helped me formulate, even though I say so myself, an elegant thesis.

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.