The New Global Competitive Model Based on Cyber and Asymmetrical Hybrid Warfare

by T. Casey Fleming

Instroduction

Imagine if Pearl Harbor had been attacked and there had been no response from Washington.

This is the actual case today due to a highly sophisticated, mature, and stealth strategy perpetrated against the United States (US) by advanced nation-state military methods leveled at every sector and organization in our society. This includes private sector businesses, all government agencies, the military, and academia - every US organization
operating with innovation, intellectual property, or sensitive data. The world is in significant conflict requiring the private sector, US government, and military to deliberately confront this national crisis or become permanently irrelevant. It is no longer “business as usual.”

Over the past three decades, as the US military trained in conventional, nuclear, and counterinsurgency warfare, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) engaged and perfected over forty methods of warfare intended to permanently destabilize and weaken the US both economically and militarily. At the same time, China rapidly grew its economy and military without the required time or investment in innovation. The result is that the US is hemorrhaging its economic strength and relevance at the rate of $5 trillion in lost total value each year, or one-third of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

General (Ret.) Keith Alexander, former Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) and Commander of US Cyber Command, referred to China’s theft of American innovation and intellectual property as “the greatest transfer of wealth in history.”

Over time, a weakened US economy directly reduces the strength and effectiveness of the US military. Further, when a country is manipulated by an adversary to lose one-third of the value of its economy each year, it is at war. What does this mean for US citizens? A cumulative and shocking permanent reduction in quality of life to those organizations that "don't know what they don't know."

Asymmetrical Hybrid Warfare

Clear and Present Existential Threat

Over the past thirty years, the US government and private sector have advanced their policy of full-cooperation, including substantial financial and technological investment in China, under the belief that they were moving towards a more democratic, free-market society while China played intentional misdirection and deception. In 1986, month number three, the Communist Party of China (CCP) officially declared Asymmetrical Hybrid Warfare (AHW) against the US and its western allies in its nation-state Program 863. This strategy commits all of China with its strict Communist military rule to engage in any and all methods to become on par with, surpass, and dominate the West at any and all cost. China’s ultimate objective is to harvest and perpetuate the Chinese Dream through the extraction and extinguishing of the American Dream, the American way of life and ending Western dominance. The Chinese strategy is that a er 200 years of Western global dominance, it is their destiny to reverse roles with the US and to relegate it to a forced supplier with a much lower quality of life. To underscore this strategy, China refers to the last century as “the century of great humiliation.” It must also be emphasized that AHW strategy is rooted in Unrestricted Warfare or “war without rules.”

Death by a Thousand Cuts

The Modern Battlefield is Everywhere

AHW has been established as the future of modern warfare and business strategy across the globe. It is ultimate warfare that has many forms: economic warfare, transaction warfare, industrial warfare, drug warfare, and propaganda warfare, to name only a few. Each method is characterized by the non-utilization of military or conventional warfare that is typical of aircraft, ships, troops, and weapons. While China continues to aggressively develop and expand its military, it does so with the belief that if it must resort to the use of conventional or nuclear warfare, it has ultimately failed at achieving the enemy’s capitulation through the combined methods of AHW. In the business sector, AHW has become the “New Global Competitive Model” where the “winner takes all.” Soon, China will dictate transactions and pricing based on its market dominance. As businesses rush to move to “digital transformation” and “Big Data,” each must perform a 180° cybersecurity transformation based on sensitive data protection and adversarial motives as a means to survive. Currently, AHW is the primary focus of our adversaries: China is, by far, the most successful at methodically executing all AHW methods, while Russia, North Korea, Iran, and India engage in relatively few methods at present. The strategy is to continuously inflict damage or cuts to every facet of American society just below the pain threshold where we choose not to act. We believe that China has achieved an estimated 750 cuts towards “death by a thousand cuts.” (Sun Tzu)

Definition

AHW is characterized as unconventional, non-military, multi-method strategic warfare based on deception and void of any rules between countries where economic and military power, strategy and tactics differ significantly. The attacking country exploits inherent weaknesses through numerous uneven and seemingly unrelated AHW methods that are designed to destabilize the unwitting target country for ultimate and complete economic and military submission. Extensive use of misinformation and plausible deniability are used to deceive and deflect suspicion of the strategy or its methodical advancement. Hybrid warfare is a military strategy that blends conventional warfare, asymmetric warfare, irregular warfare, offset warfare, non-linear warfare, and cyber warfare. AHW is rooted in unrestricted warfare (war without rules where “everything is fair play”) which is also described as “anything warfare.” Source: BLACKOPS Partners Corporation

Culture Disparity as a Strategic Weapon

It is important to note the striking contrast between the two cultures of the US and Communist China. It is this great divide that has contributed to China’s manipulation and acceleration of AHW against the US. The CCP believes its “legalism” philosophy of supreme law and people are superior to America’s constitutional democracy underpinned by justice, religion, a Creator, and “all men are created equal.” Since 1949, the CCP have controlled all aspects of China’s commerce, military, and daily life where intellectual property is state-owned, all data is controlled, and it is the national duty of all citizens to support the regime, including all aspects of espionage. The Communist culture is further defined not by “winning vs. losing”; rather, “living vs. dying.” It is this extreme belief that underscores China’s support for AHW in its conflict with the US. Another distinction is that the CCP controls every business transaction with US companies. In many cases, the CCP resembles a powerful organized crime faction, through its shell business partnerships and facades. There is no distinction between China’s organized crime, military, or government. This places every US business partnership or transaction with China at extreme risk.

Critical Role of Intelligence

China’s uncompromising commitment to AHW demonstrates a national objective to destroy the US and its Western allies. The critical nucleus that drives the AHW strategy is the complete dependence on stolen innovation, intellectual property (IP), sensitive data, and military secrets - namely intelligence. For over thirty years, China has orchestrated the most impressive and sophisticated strategy with an intricate global network of espionage and industrial the to fuel AHW. In recent years, an emboldened China has demanded the complete surrender of all intellectual property during the process of contracting current international business transactions. Conversely, intelligence plays a critical role for the US to gauge the executional success of AHW, changes in strategy, and individual and cumulative damages.

Cyber Warfare as the Key Accelerator

China has successfully intertwined Cyber warfare as the key AHW accelerator due to its relatively minimal investment and the difficulty of attributing actions to a specific actor. At the same time, cybersecurity remains fundamentally broken in the US and the West due to failed cyber strategies, lack of awareness of AHW, lack of accountability, overconfidence, and over-dependence on inherently fallible cybersecurity products. This is made clear by the “new normal” of the increased trend in number, frequency, and resulting total damages from cyberattacks.

Current estimates place global cyber losses at $6 trillion by 2021, with expectations that this will increase further in the future, according to Cybersecurity Ventures. Cyber warfare and cybersecurity have become a “whole of society” challenge that requires a unified, elevated strategy and 180° approach to combat the morphing threat. As we examine today’s cybersecurity environment, we are looking through the wrong end of the telescope. It is only in the context of AHW that we can begin to fully understand cybersecurity’s critical role for successful defense, protection, and resolution. We have learned to treat cybersecurity first and foremost as a human problem and a senior leadership challenge, not solely an IT issue.

Urgent Call to Action

Every company director, CEO, and C-level must immediately increase awareness, positive action, and accountability at all levels through creating a unified and aggressive approach in responding to the advancement and threat of AHW. The following recommendations are put forth: 

All companies must immediately re-evaluate their corporate and Cyber strategies with the latest adversarial intelligence including the evolving AHW threat 

Review current IT and organizational strategies, systems, and processes Unser AHW to protect sensitive data 

Immediately support the Asymmetrical Hybrid Warfare Center: 

True Public-Private Partnership Center coalition, U.S. university-based 

Independent leadership and reporting structure as a resource-focused, support entity charged with maximum efficiency (reporting to the U.S. Executive Branch or U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence) 

Constituents: USG, Pentagon, Congress, private sector, academia, and US Allies 

Mission: strategy, intelligence, counterintelligence, research, tracking, analysis, awareness, training, AHW-countering recommendations to constituents (e.g., foreign acquisition of assets determined to be harmful to US economy or military, false shell companies, espionage reporting database, misinformation generation, spyware) 

Cybersecurity consortium clearinghouse with anonymity scrub: intelligence at a level higher than today with a focus on advanced attack methods for early warning and resolution 

DarkNet research and triangulation, active surveillance as adversaries increasingly exploit this platform 

Regular release of evolving cybersecurity attack methods and best practices 

No organization or entity today has the scope or is positioned for this mission 

4. Transformational culture change in each organization to prioritize the protection of innovation, IP, and sensitive data

5. AHW executive briefing and exercise for key US and Allied organizations (private sector, government, military, and academia) to train in evolving AHW strategy, methods, and countering techniques

Summary

The persistent engagement of Asymmetrical Hybrid Warfare (AHW) will continue to grow as the preeminent threat to US national security and will characterize the future focus of each of our adversaries in business and military transactions. AHW is the new global competitive model for business that has evolved for the past three decades under methodical stealth execution.

Asymmetrical / Conventional / Nuclear is the new continuum of modern warfare for all sectors (private sector, military, government, academia) with Cyber Warfare at the center as the key accelerator. The Russian hacking of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election clearly demonstrates the shift of AHW to the forefront and the relative effectiveness of a single act and method. All sectors of US society must increase its awareness of highly advanced AHW, provide accountability, and routinely engage in effective countermeasures to train, secure and protect the future of each company and the collective United States.

Increasing awareness of AHW brings the blur of cybersecurity and the protection of sensitive data into focus. Implementing countering strategies within the company and throughout the supply chain is the new critical imperative required for survival.