The Perfect Weapon is an intriguing account of history’s most cunning cyberwarfare operations. I learned about the incremental evolution of cyberspace as the fifth domain of war and how policymakers, military leaders and the private technology sector continue to adapt to this new threat landscape.
Much has been written about influence operations or cyber criminals, but few accounts present so clearly a link between national security, cyberspace and foreign policy. Some of the stories told in The Perfect Weapon touch upon the Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections, the 2015 hack of the Ukrainian power grid, the 2014 Sony hack, the 2013 revelations by Edward Snowden and many other notable breaches of cybersecurity. These aren’t news anymore, but help to understand America’s 21st century vulnerabilities.
Chapter 8 titled “The Fumble” left a particular mark on me. In it, Sanger details the handling of Russian hackers infiltrating the computer and server networks of the Democratic National Committee. The sheer lethargy by officials at the time demonstrated over months on end, including Obama’s failure to openly address the ongoing cyber influence operations perpetrated by the Russians ahead of the elections, was nothing particularly new yet I still felt outraged by what now seems to be obvious. The chapter illustrates some governance shortcomings that we as a society need to overcome in order to address cyberattacks but also build better cyber defense mechanisms.
Left of Launch is a strategy to leverage cyberwarfare or other infrastructure sabotage to prevent ballistic missiles from being launched
But the most insights for me came from the books cross-cutting between the cyberspace/cybersecurity domain to the public policy domain. It showed me how much work is still left to be done to educate our elected officials, our leaders and ourselves about a growing threat landscape in cyberspace. While technology regulation is a partisan issue, only bi-partisan solutions will yield impactful results.
David E. Sanger is a great journalist, bestselling author and an excellent writer. His storytelling is concise, easy to read and accessible for a wide audience. Throughout the book, I never felt that Sanger allowed himself to get caught up in the politics of it but rather maintained a refreshing neutrality. His outlook is simple: we need to redefine our sense of national security and come up with an international solution for cyberspace. We need to think broadly about the consequences of cyber-enabled espionage and cyberattacks against critical infrastructures. And we need to act now.