The US appears to be shockingly unprepared for social cyberwar.
If you're an aggressor, you don't need to break infrastructure or blow things up. For the cost of a few troll farms, a few training classes in infowar, and maybe a mainstream news outlet or two, you can split any country along its political fault lines and encourage division, sectarianism, social unrest, "spontaneous" terrorism, and perhaps eventually civil war.
A country like the US, which has extremely deep social fault lines, is almost ridiculously vulnerable to this kind of attack.
And with the right financial and/or political incentives, there will always be potential fifth column interests who would support such an effort, as long as they gain personally.
The US has sponsored efforts like these in other countries in the past. There doesn't seem to be much understanding that it's also vulnerable to them - far more than it used to be, thanks to the amplifying effects of social media.
Indeed, the society is so divided, just sowing a little bit of doubt would be enough to prevent the huge decision of retaliation. Merely some anonymous accounts on influential forums could be a very cheap way to make strides in that direction.
So cheap in fact that I'm not surprised if we witness exactly that very, very nearby.
If you're an aggressor, you don't need to break infrastructure or blow things up. For the cost of a few troll farms, a few training classes in infowar, and maybe a mainstream news outlet or two, you can split any country along its political fault lines and encourage division, sectarianism, social unrest, "spontaneous" terrorism, and perhaps eventually civil war.
A country like the US, which has extremely deep social fault lines, is almost ridiculously vulnerable to this kind of attack.
And with the right financial and/or political incentives, there will always be potential fifth column interests who would support such an effort, as long as they gain personally.
The US has sponsored efforts like these in other countries in the past. There doesn't seem to be much understanding that it's also vulnerable to them - far more than it used to be, thanks to the amplifying effects of social media.
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