There are some disturbing signs that the world is inching closer to a cataclysmic war with the two sides already in intense conflict in cyberspace and with proxies carrying out acts of sabotage.
"We are increasingly concerned about growing links between the Russian intelligence services and proxy groups to conduct cyberattacks as well as suspected physical surveillance and sabotage operations," said Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) Director Anne Keast-Butler.
Keast-Butler was speaking at the CyberUK 2024 conference. "Before, Russia simply created the right environments for these groups to operate, but now they are nurturing and inspiring these non-state cyber actors in some cases seemingly coordinating physical attacks against the West."
China has always had its shadowy PLA Unit 61486, the People's Army unit dedicated to waging cyber warfare on the U.S. and the West. Now Russia has proxy warfare units at its beck and call.
CBS News reported last month that "A 20-year-old British man has been charged with masterminding an arson plot against a Ukrainian-linked target in London for the benefit of the Russian state." And that's not an isolated incident.
"In April alone a clutch of alleged pro-Russian saboteurs were detained across the continent," The Economist noted on May 12 in describing what it called a "shadow war" between East and West.
The Economist also reported that "Germany arrested two German-Russian dual nationals on suspicion of plotting attacks on American military facilities and other targets on behalf of the GRU, Russia's military intelligence agency."
FBI Director Christopher Wray has been sounding the alarm about China's cyber warfare capabilities and their intentions for years.
"The PRC [People's Republic of China] has made it clear that it considers every sector that makes our society run as fair game in its bid to dominate on the world stage, and that its plan is to land low blows against civilian infrastructure to try to induce panic and break America's will to resist," Wray told the Vanderbilt Summit on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats in Nashville.
China has been fighting wars like that for 1,500 years and is well-versed in the subtleties of psychological warfare. But is it ahead of the U.S. in the cyber arena? And are we hurting Russia and China as much as it's hurting us?
In June 2022, The New York Times reported that Ukraine's defensive efforts relied heavily on "a stealthy network of commandos and spies rushing to provide weapons, intelligence and training." In addition to Americans, the story noted, "commandos from other NATO countries, including Britain, France, Canada and Lithuania, also have been working inside Ukraine."
American journalist and combat veteran Jack Murphy goes further, claiming the CIA, working through an allied spy service "is responsible for many of the unexplained explosions and other mishaps that have befallen the Russian military industrial complex." The targets include "railway bridges, fuel depots and power plants," he adds.
J.D. Tuccile points out that "Taken all together, the warnings from Keast-Butler and Wray, as well as acts of sabotage and arrests of foreign agents suggest that fears of a wider war resulting from Russia's continuing invasion of Ukraine may miss the point; the war could already be here."
"Russia is definitely at war with the West," Oleksandr Danylyuk of the Royal United Services Institute, a British defense and security think tank, told NBC News.
Do you think Joe Biden knows this, and is he prepared for it?
