Dec. 4, 1835: Samuel Butler born.
Friday, December 4, 2015
Thursday, December 3, 2015
Q&A with Ted Koppel
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| Ted Koppel, photo by Steven Biver |
Ted Koppel is the author of the new book Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath. He spent more than four decades at ABC News, and was anchor and managing editor of Nightline from 1980 to 2005. He also has written Nightline and Off Camera.
Q: Why did you decide to write a book about the danger of a
cyberattack on the U.S. power grid?
A: General Keith Alexander, the former director of the
National Security Agency, likes to say that there are two kinds of companies in
the United States: those that have been hacked and those that don't yet know
it.
His is only one voice among many in current and former U.S.
government leaders warning of the ubiquitousness of cyber attacks. President
Obama himself has twice warned of the danger in successive State of the Union
addresses.
Former secretary of defense (and DCI) Leon Panetta warned in
a speech to security company executives that the country is facing the danger
of a "cyber Pearl Harbor. Janet Napolitano, after almost five years
serving as secretary of homeland security, gave a similar warning in her
farewell remarks at the National Press Club.
What piqued my interest was the fact that so many senior
officials were issuing similar warnings and not much attention was being paid;
either in the media or among the public at large. What, I wondered, were the
preparations that the federal government was making to deal with a danger that
so many of its leaders foresee as inevitable. I feared the answer was "not
much."
Q: In the book, you describe the U.S. as a country
unprepared for a cyberattack on its power grid. Why do you think this degree of
unpreparedness exists today, and what are your suggestions for what the
government can do to prepare?
A: For all its many virtues, democracy can be an inhibiting
factor when it comes to government responding quickly and forcefully to a
looming danger. The electric power industry sometimes appears more concerned
about maintaining its deregulated status and preserving its privacy than it is
with protecting itself against cyber attacks. As things now stand, the federal
government can only enforce regulations that the industry itself has approved
by a two-thirds majority.
The very fact that the power industry is made up of 3,200
companies, all of which are interconnected but many of which are poorly
protected, provides would-be cyber attacks with multiple points of
accessibility. Like any chain, the power industry is only as strong as its
weakest link when it comes to keeping out hackers.
Add to that the fact that many key components of the
industry, such as large power transformers, are (on average) 38-40 years old,
very expensive ($10 million and up), huge and difficult to transport and mostly
produced overseas, and you get some sense of why the industry is vulnerable.
The government cannot simply order changes and the Chamber
of Commerce, in particular, has been obstructive in permitting Congress to pass
cyber security legislation with real teeth.
Where the government can (and should act) is in preparing
for the likelihood of a cyber attack on the grid. It should begin the process
of ordering the production of freeze-dried foods in large quantities.
Freeze-dried foods last for more than 25 years, would be applicable in
any disaster, but require significant time (several years) to be grown,
processed and stored.
Currently, the government warehouses only limited quantities
of Meals Ready to Eat (MRE's), because they have a shelf life of only five
years. Government is reluctant to spend billions on food that would have
to be scrapped after only five years.
Q: You write that “the Internet, among its many virtues, is
also a weapon of mass destruction.” What do you see as the greatest sources of
potential cyberattack?
A: NSA specialists tell me that the Chinese and the Russians
are already "inside" our power grids. They have, in other words,
spent years mapping the grid, have penetrated the SCADA (supervisory control
and data acquisition) systems that maintain the balance required between
electricity produced and consumed; and are, therefore, in position to take down
the grid more or less at will.
Because of our interlocking interests with both China and
Russia, they are unlikely to provoke war with the United States by taking down
a grid. However, a necessary qualification rests in the knowledge that it can
be very difficult to trace the source of a cyber attack and that attacks may
come from geographic points that appear to have nothing to do with Moscow or
Beijing.
Among nations and groups with far few interlocking
interests, Iran's cyber capabilities are known to be very high. North Korea is
also cyber capable, as is Syria. Worst of all, ISIS, with at least $2 billion at
its disposal, can buy cyber expertise and would have no qualms about attacking
our infrastructure.
Q: You write in the book about individuals and organizations
that prepare for disaster. What do you see as some of the more effective
approaches?
A: I believe we can learn from the Mormons, who recommend to
their co-religionists that each family keep a three-to-six-month supply of food
and water on hand. Their own organization from the top down controls an
awesome array of production and delivery capabilities.
I doubt that there are
many organizations in the country capable of duplicating the Mormon example,
but individual families can and should try to begin rotating long-lasting food
supplies into their daily use; if only because this would put less pressure on
the federal government to support those families that cannot afford to
contribute to their own survival.
The collaboration of affinity groups, be they religious,
social, athletic or other, can be enormously helpful, in that the larger such a
group is, the more likely it is to provide access to a wide variety of useful
specialties - medical, law enforcement, a variety of trades such as plumbing,
building, electric.
Most of all, people living in our urban centers need to
begin thinking about how they would survive in place without electric power or,
alternatively, where they could be sure of receiving extended shelter. We
cannot assume that other states would necessarily welcome tens or hundreds of
thousands of domestic refugees for more than a few days.
There is, at the moment, no national plan for dealing with
such a disaster. That borders on criminal negligence.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
Q&A with David Milne
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| David Milne, photo by Stephen Spark |
David Milne is the author of the new book Worldmaking: The Art and Science of American Diplomacy. He also has written America's Rasputin, and is a senior editor of the Oxford Encyclopedia of American Military and Diplomatic History. His work has appeared in a variety of publications, including the Los Angeles Times and The Nation, and he is a senior lecturer at the University of East Anglia.
Q: You begin the book by describing the differing
views of George Kennan and Paul Nitze in 1949 over the development of the
H-bomb. What does that incident say about the opposing strands of thought
running through U.S. foreign policy?
A: I was fascinated by the very different ways that
Nitze and Kennan responded to the question of whether to develop the H-bomb.
Kennan turned to Shakespeare and the Bible, and peppered his 79-page case
against the “Super” with quotations from each. Nitze sought to master the physics
of nuclear fusion, met with Oppenheimer and Edward Teller, and presented a coolly
rational case in favor of developing the weapon – that if we don’t, the Soviets
will.
On one level, Kennan responded through art and Nitze
with science. But there were other divides at play: realism versus idealism;
ethics versus technics; emotionality versus instrumental rationality; theory
versus intuition; pragmatism versus monism.
It was a debate fraught with meaning, because any
future thermonuclear war could potentially end human life on earth. It seemed a
good case study in how the history of U.S. foreign policy is often best
understood as intellectual history – that an ideational frame is vital.
Q: You focus in the book on nine different people. How
did you pick them?
A: This was a real challenge. I wanted to write about
individuals whose ideas were representative of particular eras, and erred
toward those who would allow me to cover a lot of ground. It was also important
that these individuals engaged with each other, either on the page or in
person.
My idea was to create a dialogue between these figures
– not write a series of potted biographies – and I was particularly influenced
by two wonderful books that achieved this: Louis Menand’s The Metaphysical Club
and Alex Ross’s The Rest is Noise.
Q: The first person on whom you focus is Alfred Thayer
Mahan. Why did you choose to start with him, and how did his views affect those
who followed?
A: In many ways, Mahan was America’s first foreign policy
intellectual. His most important book, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History,
met with acclaim in the United States – it was read and admired by Theodore
Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge – and overseas, particularly in Germany and
Japan.
Its principal argument was that the United States must
abandon the small satisfactions of regional hegemony and any hope of attaining
economic self-sufficiency. Instead, the nation should emulate Great Britain in
building a dominant navy to enhance its security, project power globally, and
hence expand economically through free trade – where the nation’s advantages in
natural resources and ingenuity could best be brought to bear.
Mahan was an inescapable point of reference for many
of the individuals in the book. Woodrow Wilson was repelled by his materialism
and the absence of idealism in his thinking.
Charles Beard described Mahan as “the most successful
propagandist ever produced in the United States.” He observed that Theodore
Roosevelt “made Mahan’s work his bible of politics in the United States,” and
decried the expansionary, imperialistic policies – culminating with the
Spanish-American War – that his works had encouraged.
Walter Lippmann, George Kennan, and Henry Kissinger
admired Mahan’s historical literacy and the clear-headed way he defined
America’s national interest.
In terms of legacy, the world in which we live
resembles the one Mahan said would come to pass in the late 19th century. The
Washington-led world economic system is dominated by free trade facilitated by
open shipping lanes; the U.S. Navy has no peer competitor in its ability to
project power; significant world crises are rarely resolved through the good
offices of the United Nations; and the United States reserves the right to act
unilaterally if its interests are threatened.
Whether you delight in these realities or not, it is hard
to deny that Mahan anticipated the shape of the modern world.
Q: The last person you focus on is Barack Obama, whom
you describe as a pragmatist. Why do you characterize him this way, and what do
you see as his foreign policy legacy?
A: President Obama is identifiably pragmatic in
responding to challenges on a case-by-case basis, shunning universal principles
and doctrines, and engaging in practical rather than abstract reasoning.
“Pragmatic” is often deployed as an epithet,
suggesting too great a willingness to bend or compromise. Yet there is much
more to it than that. In his classic series of lectures on the meaning of
pragmatism,
William James observed that “at the outset, at least,
it stands for no particular results. It has no dogmas, and no doctrines save
its method… the attitude of looking away from first things, principles,
‘categories,’ supposed necessities; and of looking towards last things, fruits,
consequences, facts.” This fits Obama’s method well, it seems to me.
His foreign policy legacy is impossible to know. But
my feeling is that historians writing in 20-30 years’ time will view his
foreign policies more favorably than the snap judgments of the present.
The presidential predecessor that Obama most resembles
is Dwight Eisenhower, who was also criticized for passivity and drift at the
time, but whose cautious instincts look wiser with each passing year.
Q: In the book, you ask, "Should diplomacy be
practiced as a science, unveiling new discoveries to effect enduring change, or
as an art, responding creatively and intuitively to a world without
pattern?" How would you answer this?
A: George Kennan once cautioned that “international
relations are not a science,” and I largely agree – though there are some
exceptions, which I’ll come to later. The world is not a laboratory, and it is
impossible for the United States to effect the repeat of precise outcomes – particularly
when deploying military power as an agent of change.
Woodrow Wilson’s hopes of achieving a “scientific
peace” at the Paris Peace Conference – one that would cure the world of its
pathological tendency toward conflict, rather than merely manage its symptoms –
and Paul Wolfowitz’s utopian vision of catalyzing the democratization of the
Middle East through the invasion and occupation of Iraq were both born of
scientism: the belief that the core elements of scientific method – theory
testing, the detection of patterns, and the unveiling of new discoveries – can
be emulated to discern objective truth and make fundamental changes to the
structure of world affairs.
The appeal of scientism is not difficult to
comprehend. It holds out a promise of certainty – permitting a nation to
understand and tame the world’s volatility – that is highly seductive. But it
is mostly an illusion.
Only when every nation in the world has a more or less
equal stake in resolving a problem can foreign policy be approached in the
manner of science.
So George Kennan also believed that the dangers posed
by climate change and nuclear proliferation required Wilsonian solutions:
international collaboration to effect systemic changes to safeguard the
continuation of human life on earth. A broad commonality of outlook when faced
with an existential threat is the closest the world can get to controlled
laboratory conditions.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m planning to write a book about Sigrid Schultz
(1893-1980), a Norwegian-American woman who led a remarkable life. Schultz lived
in Berlin from 1911 to 1941 – working as a correspondent and later bureau chief
for the Chicago Tribune from 1920 – but was forced to return home to the U.S.
after being injured in a British bombing raid.
Fluent in French and German, Schultz interviewed Erich
Ludendorff, Hermann Goering, and Adolf Hitler, was framed for espionage by the
Gestapo, submitted copy to the Chicago Tribune under the name John Dickson to
conceal her identity from the Nazi authorities, and wrote incisively on a huge
range of topics.
She returned to Germany after the D-Day landings in
1944, following the First and Third Armies as they closed in on Berlin. She was
one of the first journalists to enter the Buchenwald concentration camp and later
covered the Nuremberg Trials. Schultz had a significant life and career and yet
her historical trace is regrettably faint. My hope is to help remedy that.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Q&A with Lisa Hilton
Lisa Hilton is the author of the new biography Elizabeth: Renaissance Prince. Her other books include Athenais and Queens Consort. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications, including The Spectator and The Times. She lives in London.
Q: You write, "Nearly every biography of the queen
[Elizabeth I] begins from the premise that her role was in some way anomalous, by virtue of
her gender." What do you think of that premise?
A: Elizabeth’s gender has been assumed to define every
aspect of her rule, and has been a particular preoccupation of many recent
writers. Yet in her own time, one old lady, observing her on progress, remarked
in astonishment “What? The Queen is a woman?”
I believe that it was her royalty, not her femininity, which
set Elizabeth apart, and that we cannot assume the 16th century shared our own
conceptions of gender politics.
Elizabeth was indeed an exceptional woman, but she was more
importantly an exceptional ruler, and it was this which I set out to reassess.
Q: Why did you decide to write about Elizabeth I, and what
are some of the more common perceptions and misperceptions about her?
A: I really didn’t think the world needed yet another book
about Elizabeth I, but when my publisher suggested the project, I began to
think about how I could deal with her more originally.
As I researched, it became clear that too little is
discussed in popular history about Elizabeth as an international politician,
and far too much about her presumed romantic life, or lack of it.
The marriage question was much less of a personal
preoccupation to Elizabeth than for her ministers; equally her power brokering
in places as diverse as Turkey, Russia, and Transylvania are little discussed
by many popular historians.
Q: How did you decide on the book's title, and what does it
signify for you?
A: “Prince” was a title Elizabeth used about herself, as did
Mary Queen of Scots. The use of the masculine noun is typical of the more
subtle gender qualifications of her time, and also suggestive of Elizabeth’s
self-conception as a ruler.
“We are a prince from a line of princes,” she told the
Venetian ambassador. I used the title because, to me, it reflected more closely
the period’s own ideas about gender and monarchy, rather than our own.
Q: You write that "Elizabeth had never sought to become
the champion of the Protestant cause in Europe." Did she end up playing
that role?
A: Elizabeth became the champion of European Protestantism
almost by default, a position which was cemented throughout the course of her
reign.
She was deeply involved internationally in the back-room
dealings of the Reformation, and it is a testament to her brilliance and that
of her ministers that England was able to endure as a Protestant nation without
being exposed to the massacres and civil wars which threatened the stability of
both France and the Netherlands.
The disadvantage to Elizabeth was that it forced her into
taking a much harder line with English Catholics than her original religious
settlement had made provision for.
I try to explain the compromises and hypocrisies she was
compelled to, and to look at both sides of the question. Anglo historians make
much of the glories of Elizabeth’s reign, but in the eyes of Europe she was the
tyrannical dictator of a rogue state.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I have the first of a trilogy of novels coming out next
year, something quite different than anything I have previously attempted, but
after that I hope to return to the 17th century, where I have two projects
lined up, one on Vanbrugh and one on Bernini.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Just that I’m very grateful for your interest in the
book, and hope that readers will find it as exciting to read as I did to write!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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