Cyber Warfare

We've entered a new era in the history of human-kind in the last decade. Almost from the beginning of time, wars have been fought with physical violence meaning spears, knives, arrows, bullets, bombs and attack helicopters. Now, wars can be fought with a single computer. If an aggressor nation or rebel movement can attack and shutdown another nation's electrical grid, water system, sewer system and communications, they won't last very long in a war.

Russia launched a DoS attack against the former Soviet state of Georgia before they invaded South Ossetia in 2008 and the U.S. launched a sophisticated worm known as Stuxnet against Iran in 2010. Everyday, hackers from China hack into U.S. and other nation's computer systems. Unpublicized cyber wars are raging around the world all the time.

This new type of warfare doesn't require multi-billion dollar aircraft carriers and millions of soldiers, but rather a select few cyber warriors with the skills to knock out the other nation's critical infrastructure. Some people have speculated that this new era of warfare actually levels the playing field between nations as small nations with few military resources might be able to equal such superpowers as the U.S., China and Russia.

What do you think?