Cyberwar: Kaplan on Clarke

I expected better from Fred Kaplan, writing in Slate - ‘Richard Clarke’s Cyber War may be the most important book about national-security policy in the last several years.’

That may say more about the competition than Clarke’s book itself but I doubt that Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About It (2010) is quite the classic Clarke or Kaplan want it to be:

Clarke means for his book to serve the same role in the cyber era that those strategists’ works—Bernard Brodie’s The Absolute Weapon, Albert Wohlstetter’s The Delicate Balance of Terror, Herman Kahn’s On Thermonuclear War, Thomas Schelling’s The Strategy of Conflict, and William Kaufmann’s (still-classified but much-discussed) “Counterforce” briefings—served during the nuclear era.

I think I’d be quite disturbed if this book is being taught on syllabi in 40 years time. Aside from the content, which I’ve not yet read, its co-author is being sidelined in the PR and the typography. That’s a publisher’s gambit usually used for journalists supporting the production of celebutard ‘auto’-biographies, and is only a step above the ghost-writer in publishing terms. If this book wants any credibility, it should recognise Robert Knake’s status as a subject-matter expert (even if he does work for Clarke’s consultancy firm, Good Harbor) and become Clarke & Knake as soon as a reprint can be arranged.

Clarke can write what the hell he likes in his book and his friends in government and industry can testify however they like in Congressional hearings and briefings, and to the press. The problem comes when claims are left unchallenged by those in positions to do so. The recent Senate confirmation hearings for Gen Keith Alexander as head of US Cyber Command are a case in point: with the exception of Sen Udall, none of the committee members had any intention of challenging Alexander about anything of substance.

So far, Clarke has done a string of patsy interviews on radio, TV, and the press, none of which have addressed two key points: how is a string of unsubstantiated anecdotes the basis for a revised national strategy? And how does it justify the spending of billions of tax dollars on schemes, initiatives and projects run by the same guys (Clarke included) who are advising USG where to spend that money?

Remember Cyber ShockWave, back in February? Remember Joe Lockhart’s comments afterwards?

Lockhart said that people would be scared by the simulation but that “that’s a good thing.” Only then, he said, would Congress act.

Now that’s what I call evidence-based policy.

I haven’t got a copy of Clarke & Knake’s book yet but I’m a little confused. Do I look for it under fact, or fiction?