Biden should assure China of excess utilities destruction in war
Tom Rogan
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Preparing for conflict, China continues to target U.S. critical infrastructure nodes as a key part of its vast cyber espionage campaign. Beijing is particularly interested in infrastructure that would support any U.S. war effort over Taiwan or in the South China Sea.
The Washington Post reported new details on how Chinese government cyber teams have sought to infiltrate ports, energy pipelines, and water facilities in places such as Hawaii and the West Coast. These intrusions fall under the work of a Chinese government actor labeled Volt Typhoon. As Microsoft outlined in May, this Chinese campaign, which includes operations targeting Guam and other Pacific locales, seeks persistent covert access to U.S. utilities networks. This access then affords means of collecting intelligence useful for the preparation of future cyberattacks.
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In war, China would hope to launch surprise attacks to disrupt key utilities, thus sowing U.S. civilian fear and associated pressure on Washington for a speedy, Beijing-favorable resolution to the conflict. The attacks would also aim to disrupt reinforcement and materiel resupplies. Of key importance: If it did attack in this manner, Beijing would hope that Washington would avoid similar action against Chinese utilities for fear of being accused of committing war crimes or risking movement toward nuclear escalation.
President Joe Biden must disabuse Beijing of any such understanding. He should make clear that the U.S. retains the ability and intent to respond to any Chinese cyberattack on U.S. utilities with overwhelming force in kind. This messaging interest is particularly important when it comes to China. Like Moscow, Beijing is well aware of the success that the U.S. National Security Agency has had in accessing its utilities networks and assuring means of future covert access. The NSA can use this access to launch attacks that cripple Chinese utilities networks. Those who carry out these intrusions are known as part of what the U.S. intelligence community colloquially calls its “war teams.” Put simply, these teams know that the vast majority of what they are doing isn’t designed for peacetime intelligence reporting but rather war-time application.
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Biden’s assurance that he would authorize retaliatory action against Chinese utilities would weigh on Xi Jinping’s risk calculus. Although China’s cyber espionage is vast in scale and ambition, China does not yet have the means of crippling utilities across the U.S. via cyber actions alone. Instead, its cyber forces could only do major harm to certain elements of the U.S. system. In contrast, the U.S. could far more effectively target the major communications, power, and other utilities services relied upon by China’s keystone military activity and civilian population centers. China also lacks the insight of U.S. intrusions into its own utilities networks that the U.S. has toward Chinese intrusions into its utilities networks. This makes it far harder for China to prepare adequate defenses.
Biden should let Xi know that far from offering him an attack potential of potent impunity, Chinese cyberattacks on U.S. critical infrastructure would only result in far more damaging American counterforce. In essence, Biden should make clear that the principles of U.S. nuclear deterrence extend to the cyber domain.