Chris Demchak, professor at the US Naval War College has written an article on Defense One, where he deals with the dangers in cyber space from "subtle" opponents of Western democracies. The American professor links the security of national strategic infrastructures to their economic development.
The cyber in the military world is expanding in western democracies, from the simple protection of its military networks to support national cyber defense and their economies. New defense strategies have emerged between defense and civil security forces. These national efforts are fundamental for the survival of democratic societies in a world increasingly dependent on cyber space.
An equivalent NATO / EU architecture for the era of cyber conflict, a Cyber Operational Resilience Alliance (CORA), should be thought of to defend the entire democratic community.
Although NATO is promoting cooperation and coordination between the cyber components of the allied armed forces, it is not thinking about focusing efforts on society as a whole to protect civilian commercial infrastructure and the economic system.
The European Union also has no plans for defense missions that coordinate processes from intelligence to operations in cyber space.
A CORA would operationally harmonize the cyber defense actions of nations aligned with the critical roles of telecommunications networks that provide cyber backbones to these nations and to national strategic industries.
It would integrate these sectors to the extent necessary for a shared cyber defense in order to build a cybernetic space in defense of democracies.
After winning the Cold War, Western powers have rested on their laurels. Meanwhile the internet has grown on an infrastructure built with very little security while cyberspace is being used by a tsunami of state and non-state actors. The internet is rapidly fragmenting into national jurisdictions, responsibilities and cyber obligations. The free, open, secure and globally available network created in democracies is dying.
For the first time, the United States and its allies face opponents capable of reaching all layers of the socio-technical-economic system through cyberspace, very often in a misleading way.
These “underhanded” adversaries manage to steal and alter critical information, using it to bribe or blackmail corporate and political leaders. They often leave back doors in systems to allow for future actions ranging from theft to total data destruction.
The enemies of Western democracies, increasingly on the rise, are able to spread campaigns "not directly kinetic but no less disruptive" intended to "fight" economic rivals. These campaigns include using state proxies to subvert democracies by slowly moving or buying their IT assets and telecommunications industries. The problem is that there is no certain perspective on the political will of Western nations to remedy and counter the ever-expanding threat.
This, also in light of the estimated economic losses of between 1 and 2% of annual GDP across the United States and in the countries of its allies and partners.
Western leaders are now slowly making efforts to reverse the trend. The United States has finally included the defense of its economy as a national security mission. France recently acknowledged that defending its economy will require previously prohibited actions, such as cyber attacks on foreign opponents.
But individual national efforts, according to experts, are insufficient. No single state, not even the United States, can withstand all the cyber terror attacks in the world.
Therefore the first mission of CORA is to consolidate the IT infrastructure of democracies.
The democratic community therefore needs a capital goods industry and a telecommunications industry capable of operating independently. The only practical way to do this is to create a market large enough to support economic efforts.
The approximately 35 nations that would form the CORA would represent a market of over 900 millions of people with common interests.
Having ensured their survival, CORA would push these industries to reinvent the Internet with products and protocols designed from the start for security. The organization requires a massive joint investment in research and development for academic, commercial and military cyber security, promoting a new network of civil-military-commercial operational partnerships.
Operationally, CORA would coordinate the cyber security processes of governments, companies, organizations and the armed forces. Coordinating the latter will allow for more comprehensive threat traceability, analysis and modeling and the development of better ways to defend the government, commercial and civil sectors.
CORA will integrate the various capacities and skills of the armies of its members, putting everything into a system by organizing support and training.
CORA must be, first of all, an operational alliance, not a planning, discussion and political exhortation group. Only such an organization will ensure that its member countries can act in unison with respect to socio-technical-economic cyber threats.
Threat analysts would work with all three types of organizations directly to ensure a collective awareness and response to emerging threats.
IT defenders would operate in response or in anticipation of attacks through joint allied centers or in national operational centers hosted by states designated as specialized capacity holders.
The collective cyber defense of democracies guarantees future well-being and for this an international CORA is vital.
Funding in the USA
The Trump administration intends to allocate about 2020 17,4 billiondollars in cybersecurity to be distributed among federal agencies and central government institutions. Most of these funds, in fact, will go to the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security.
Italy's efforts in the 2019 budget
According to the DPP Defense for Italy will be allocated few funds: 6,5 million 2019 - 11,1 million 2020 - 28 million 20121 / 23 - 472,5 million 2024 / 2033) about 525 million euro spread over 16 years.
For the three-year period 2019 / 21 the increase for each year alone has been foreseen 1 million euro increase for "... interventions and instrumental equipment in the field of cyber defense, as well as strengthening national energy resilience capacities ".
To provide a term of comparison, the "Loi de Programmation Militaire 2019-2025”Recently approved in Franceforesees, precisely for the "cyber security" allocations equal to 1,6 billion euros.
Only the extraordinary allocation announced by the Renzi government in 2016 of 150 million euros had deluded the insiders and opened up some perspectives.
Another country that is moving with upward percentage trends is the UKthat on average dedicates to cybersecurity, in the annual budgets, no less than 800 million pounds.
NDA: "Growing cyber threat"
Dan Coats, director of the US National Intelligence, has launched a real cry of alarm claiming that the danger signals detected daily by the various cyber defense Agencies have recently reached levels comparable to those of the periods immediately preceding the 11 September. Faced with this escalation, the United States is thinking of proposing to the NATO Allies to increase their defense budget at least up to 4% of GDP. A proposal that is difficult to achieve in light of the impending economic situation.