By John McAfee
Sep 11, 2015
This is my first article in a foreign publication that I have written since the announcement of my candidacy for US president. I would like to thus take this opportunity to address the vector of my foreign policy.
The United States government, like much of the Western developed world governments, has lost touch with the technology upon which the power, as well as the threats to national security within our government, rests. That technology is the science of cyber engineering, and the cyber-security aspects of this science have been developed into the weapons that will be used as the main offensive means of destruction in the upcoming new age of warfare.
We are on the edge of a precipice and my government is clueless - largely illiterate in the most important science to have ever existed.
The next major war will not be fought with guns, ships and missiles. It will a cyber war with far more devastation than could possibly be achieved by our combined nuclear arsenals. Or if conventional weapons are used, they are likely to be our own turned against ourselves.
A scant two months ago, hackers demonstrated their ability, from halfway around the world, to hack into a Jeep automobile, take control of the steering, brakes and acceleration, and run the car into a ditch, while the driver tried desperately to regain control.
The same intelligence concepts that created the architecture of the Jeep control system pervades every aspect of our military hardware. To expect our defence department to have some magic that the Chrysler Corporation does not have, especially in the light of the recent OPM hack in which tens of millions if critical personnel files were easily stolen by the Chinese and Russians, is absurd.
We are on the edge of a precipice and my government is clueless – largely illiterate in the most important science to have ever existed. This same illiteracy does not exist in Russia, India, China, Japan and a host of more perceptive countries than my own. To the contrary, it is difficult to reach any level of political power in most of these countries if you never programmed a computer.
To these countries, the concept of a government official who was not highly competent in the cyber sciences would be the equivalent to us of having a president who could not read or write. This must drastically change, and we must also see cyber attacks from foreign governments for what they are – acts of war – and respond accordingly.
The US has for too long considered itself as the world's policeman, at the expense of rational internal growth. This too must change. Interference in the affairs of foreign states is the true cause of national animosities and is the fertiliser and feed for terrorism.
Who is John McAfee?
John McAfee is one of the most influential commentators on cybersecurity anywhere in the world. His new venture – Future Tense Central – focuses on security and personal privacy-related products. In September 2015, McAfee announced that he will be running for US president in 2016.
McAfee provides regular insight on global hacking scandals and internet surveillance, and has become a hugely controversial figure following his time in Belize, where he claims to have exposed corruption at the highest level before fleeing the country amid accusations of murder (the Belize government is currently not pursuing any accusations against him).
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