US to foes: Will retaliate if faced with cyberattacks
In a clear threat of strike back, President Biden calls on China, Russia not to risk such attacks against American targets
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden on Tuesday warned that if the United States ended up in a “real shooting war” with a “major power” it could be the result of a significant cyberattack on the country, highlighting what Washington sees as growing threats posed by the governments of Russia and China.
Cybersecurity has risen to the top of the agenda for the Biden administration after a series of high-profile attacks on entities such as network management company SolarWinds, the Colonial Pipeline company, meat processing company JBS and software firm Kaseya.
“I think it’s more than likely we’re going to end up, if we end up in a war - a real shooting war
with a major power - it’s going to be as a consequence of a cyber breach of great consequence and it’s increasing exponentially, the capabilities,” Biden said during a speech while visiting the office of the director of national intelligence (ODNI).
During a June 16 summit in Geneva between Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Biden shared a list of critical infrastructure the US considers off-limits to nation-state actors.
Since then, senior members of the Biden administration’s national security team have been in constant contact with senior members of the Kremlin over cyberattacks on the United States, the White House has said.
‘China is deadly earnest’
Biden also highlighted the threats posed by China, referring to President Xi Jinping as “deadly earnest about becoming the most powerful military force in the world, as well as the largest and most prominent economy in the world by the mid-40s, the 2040s”.
US worried over nukes
The Pentagon and Republican congressmen on Tuesday aired fresh concerns about China’s build-up of its nuclear forces over reports saying Beijing was building 110 more missile silos.
An American Federation of Scientists (AFS) report on Monday
said satellite images showed China was building a new field of silos near Hami in the eastern part of its Xinjiang region.
The report came weeks after another on the construction of about 120 missile silos in Yumen, about 380km to the southeast.
“This is the second time in two months the public has discovered what we have been saying all along about the growing threat the world faces and the veil of secrecy that surrounds it,” the US Strategic Command said in tweet linked to a New York Times article on the AFS report.
The US state department in early July called China’s nuclear build-up concerning and said it appeared Beijing was deviating from decades of nuclear strategy based around minimal deterrence. It called on China to engage with it “on practical measures to reduce the risks of destabilising arms races”.
Republican Congressman Mike Turner, ranking member of the House armed services subcommittee on strategic forces, said China’s nuclear build-up was “unprecedented” and it was “deploying nuclear weapons to threaten the US and our allies”.