American cyber hegemony: Science-fiction turned into reality
In early 2010, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) noted a problem in Natanz uranium enrichment facility in Iran. Through a camera mounted outside the centrifuge assembly site, inspectors observed from thousands of miles away that the centrifuges had been replaced at an unusually high rate over the past month. This indicated mass damage to the devices that are of vital importance to national security. Had there been a premeditated sabotage, or a terrorist attack? No one knew for sure. The answer, however, was staring them in the face. It was in the computers in Natanz's industrial control room.
A year later, The New York Times journalist David Sanger wrote a detailed report on the story, igniting an international uproar. Evidence showed that the uranium enrichment facility's centrifuge industrial control system was infected by the Stuxnet computer worm jointly developed by the U.S. and Israel. The virus works by changing the centrifuge frequency and making it spin at a much higher rate for a long time to exhaust its components, leading to mass breakdown.
This was the first case in human history where a computer network inflicts physical damage on crucial infrastructure. Countries started to realize that in a deeply networked and highly automated world, humanity was facing unprecedented risks and the world was less safe. So, who's the culprit of this insecurity?
As the world's leading cyber power, the U.S. controls the distribution and deployment of IT infrastructure resources, the production of contents and the key nodes along the IT industrial chain. To perfectly project its hegemony in the real world into the cyberspace and gain advantages vis-à-vis other countries, the U.S. since the Clinton era has been straining every sinew to claim "high ground" – advancing offensive cyber security strategies, expanding cyber forces, instigating cyber missions against other countries, suppressing non-allies on the supply chain, and covertly developing its espionage empire across the globe. These are eventually turning the global cyberspace into the "Wild West" fraught with a sense of insecurity and instability.
First, the U.S. has formulated and promoted an increasingly offensive cyber security strategy, rendering cyberspace in perpetuated instability. With strategic competition as the focal point, the four U.S. governments since the 20th century have embarked on a three-phase process of establishing, managing and controlling the cyber network – all in an attempt to write the rules and gain absolute strategic advantages in cyberspace.
For this end, Washington has mapped out detailed cyber security strategy and related policies in a bid to safeguard its hegemony. Starting from 2011, the U.S. Department of Defense has passed three reports on cyber security strategy, showing the country's evolving model and approach on the issue. From a passive defensive strategy that protected key infrastructure and beefed up the management system, the U.S. has gradually turned to an active defensive strategy that systematically built cyberspace deterrence to fend off threats, and then to a forward defensive strategy that pre-emptively attacks potential targets of threat actors. America's increasingly expansive and aggressive cyber security strategies clearly demonstrate its intention to gain global cyber supremacy.
Second, the unbridled expansion of America's cyber army has accelerated the militarization of the cyberspace. In 2010, the U.S. set up the Cyber Command as a prelude to its cyber warfare for years to come. In merely five years, over 3,000 officers were hired for the over 60 cyber task forces under the Command. After Donald Trump took office, America's cyber army, driven by the forward defensive strategy, grew rapidly to reach its full operating capacity with 133 task forces filled out by 6,187 cyber warriors in 2018.