NEWS AND ANALYSIS:
Adversaries such as China and Russia have penetrated critical private sector U.S. infrastructure networks and plan to attack them in a future war, according to a new report by the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board.
The U.S. military, however, is ill-prepared for attacks that a task force of experts warns will cause “potentially severe” delays and disruptions to U.S. military force projection. The military also risks losing a future war, the report concludes.
Extensive hostile breaches will cause long-term disruptions that would undermine popular support for a longer war, the report said.
Infrastructure attacks would “doom” a short conflict and a longer war with persistent attacks on networks would “sap the nation’s will to fight,” the report said.
But heightened awareness of the problem “has yet to be translated into the urgent, concrete action that [the Defense Department] must take to have confidence in executing its war plans going forward,” the report said. The eight-page executive summary urged the Pentagon to quickly strengthen critical infrastructure against attacks.
The task force has been studying the problem of infrastructure vulnerabilities since 2020, and its final report was posted online in September. The findings are being disclosed for the first time by Inside the Ring.
Immediate action should include stepped-up ties between military commanders and civilian infrastructure owners; bringing private sector infrastructure owners and operators into war games and exercises; and developing plans for responding to disruptions in wartime. Better defenses will undermine enemy confidence in U.S. attacks and bolster deterrence, the report said.
The report also indirectly criticized the Biden administration’s policy toward China, which has sought both competition and cooperation in bilateral relations, and for playing down an apparent 21st-century Cold War being waged by Beijing.
“The Task Force observed immediately that the distinction between ’competition’ and ’conflict’ is not serving the department well,” the report said. “Adversaries have already moved past simple competition to campaigns with actions that disrupt, degrade, and/or cripple civilian infrastructure that [the Defense Department} and the American public rely on. In their view, they are already in conflict with us.”
The report did not name the key adversaries, generally understood to be China, Russia and Iran. U.S. officials have said all three have targeted critical infrastructures for sabotage or attack in a conflict.
“If their attacks on the homeland are successful on the scale and in the time frames they seek, U.S. forces could be prevented from winning — or possibly even getting to — the forward fight altogether,” the report said.
The report was published after Chinese government-linked hackers were discovered in critical infrastructure networks on Guam, a major U.S. military hub. Chinese agents have also been uncovered recently spying on key American political figures, breaking into nine U.S. telecommunications companies and compromising Treasury Department networks.
The Pentagon’s efforts to deal with critical infrastructure vulnerabilities to attack are “almost universally scattered and episodic, and lacked the scale or urgency needed,” the report said. “As a result, the Task Force believes the Defense Department does not see this problem in its entirety and has therefore not organized to act on it.”
A greater unified effort is needed to prepare the military services, the combatant commands and defense agencies for infrastructure disruptions in wartime, the report said.
The task force focused on four sectors regarded as most critical for force protection: electricity and bulk fuel sources; communications; transportation and logistics; and water and wastewater. The Pentagon needs to “engage persistently” with each sector on protecting access during a conflict, the task force said.
Pentagon leaders need to take the challenges to civilian infrastructure seriously and to bolster its resiliency.
“No longer can the warning signs be downplayed or ignored. Both internal actions and strong partnering outside the department are paramount,” the report said.
Miriam John, an expert on strategic weapons and former vice president of Sandia National Laboratory’s California office, and Judith Miller, a former Bechtel Group senior executive, co-chaired the panel that wrote the report.
Xi vows in speech to annex Taiwan
Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a New Year’s Eve speech that China and Taiwan are “one family” and vowed to take control of the self-ruled island.
“We Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one and the same family,” Mr. Xi said, according to a transcript provided by the Foreign Ministry. “No one can ever sever the bond of kinship between us, and no one can ever stop China’s reunification, a trend of the times.”
Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te said in October that Taipei will “uphold the commitment to resist annexation or encroachment upon our sovereignty.”
Mr. Lai also called for maintaining the fragile status quo that has maintained the peace across the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait, in the face of increasing Chinese military provocations that have gone far beyond previous intimidation exercises.
Mr. Xi made a veiled reference to global instability as a result of wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, citing in his remarks “a world of both transformation and turbulence.”
China is continuing to promote its communist system in what Mr. Xi called the Global South through its infrastructure-financing Belt and Road Initiative and other outreach activities in Africa, Central Asia and the Asia Pacific region.
“We have contributed greatly to the maintenance of world peace and stability,” Mr. Xi said.
China, however, has been backing Russia in its war in Ukraine and remains a close partner with Iran, a key belligerent force in the current Middle East conflicts.
At home, China’s economy is struggling with real estate problems and financial problems, although Mr. Xi insisted in his remarks that the economic has rebounded and is on an upward trajectory. China’s navy and air force celebrated their 75th anniversaries, and Chinese troops are “full of drive,” he added.
Mr. Xi also said Chinese researchers have made breakthroughs in integrated circuit, artificial intelligence, quantum communications and other areas.
Ex-CIA officer says agency covered up Havana syndrome attacks
A former CIA officer who says she was attacked by some type of foreign energy weapon is charging the CIA with covering up the attacks.
The medically retired CIA officer, identified only as “Alice” because of her past agency work in Africa, revealed that she still suffers debilitating injuries after hearing a strange sound in her home in 2021, resulting in what the federal government is vaguely describing as an “anomalous health incident,” or AHI.
The malady, however, is known widely as Havana syndrome by the hundreds of U.S. diplomats, intelligence personnel and military members who say they have been afflicted after being posted overseas. An FBI agent also reported suffering head injuries from some type of energy device attack in the United States.
China and Russia are suspected of conducting the attacks that some analysts say are part of cognitive warfare — efforts to affect brain function. Sonic or microwave weapons are also suspected.
Last month, Rep. Rick Crawford, chairman of a subcommittee of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, released a report stating there is “reliable evidence” AHIs are “the work of foreign adversaries.”
The Washington Times disclosed in September that a 2014 National Security Agency document revealed Russia possessed a microwave document suspected in AHI attacks.
Despite these indicators, the official U.S. intelligence community assessment remains that foreign adversary involvement in the string of mysterious medical cases is unlikely.
“It’s a cover-up and it’s terrifying and it should be terrifying to all Americans,” Alice said in response to the House report conclusion that the Biden administration is hiding details of the attacks.
The former officer explained that she was serving in Africa when she was struck by some type of energy beam in her home on a Saturday night.
“I heard a weird noise. It was a really weird sound that I’ll never, never forget it. … And after about a second or two, I felt it in my feet, kind of like the reverb from a speaker,” she told the online publication “Catherine Herridge Reports,” published by former CBS and Fox News reporter Catherine Herridge.
The incident caused ear pain and vertigo: “The room was spinning, my head started pulsing. It hurt so badly and I had a ton of pain in my left ear and my ears started ringing and I thought I was going to pass out,” she said.
Alice said she believes multiple weapons can cause the symptoms felt by AHI sufferers, which include traumatic brain injury, memory failure, balance problems, eye-tracking disorders and nerve pain.
“I think there are weapons that can be fit in backpacks, ones that can be fit in the trunks of cars, ones that can be planted at a position with line of sight to people from across the street,” she said.
The newsletter report included interviews with more than a dozen AHI sufferers and accused U.S. intelligence officials of “gaslighting” suffers and the public about the cause. Ms. Herridge told Inside the Ring her investigation included multiple sources who said CIA Director William Burns privately has said he believes that Russia is conducting some of the directed energy attacks.
“While our investigation explores new claims about directed-energy weapons and their possible use by a foreign adversary, it also documents allegations of government gaslighting,” Ms. Herridge said. “And importantly, it underscores credible claims that the intelligence community, specifically the CIA, has failed to care for its own people after they reported directed-energy attacks.”
A CIA spokeswoman said the agency takes care of its people and is determined to address “this difficult challenge.”
As for Mr. Burns’ position on Russian involvement, the spokeswoman quoted the director as having said “our analysts’ job is not to validate his assumptions, but to ensure an intensive and professional effort to get as close to ground truth as we can. And that is what we have done and continue to do.”
• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.