Are Wars Blurring Lines Between Corporate and National Security?
3 45Subsea cables. Ukrainian power stations. Russian oil refineries. Even airports, water-desalination plants and Amazon data centers.
They've all become targets in wartime, notes the Wall Street Journal, and around the world now arguments "are already brewing between companies and governments over new regulations and potential costs." In Germany, powerful associations representing private companies and municipal utilities have pushed back against new standards for physical protection, warning they could spell financial ruin. New Zealand's government has faced resistance from industry groups over a proposal to fine critical-infrastructure companies and their directors for cybersecurity breaches... A sign of how lines are blurring: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's 32 countries last year agreed that as part of a pact to spend 5% of economic output on defense and security, 1.5% would go to military-adjacent needs including protecting critical infrastructure and networks. Spending targets range from cybersecurity and industrial capacity to railroads, bridges and ports needed for military logistics... "We need a wide concept of defense — defense is no longer just military," said Italian Adm. Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, NATO's top military adviser.
Adding to the complexity, companies now need to protect the data networks that serve as gateways to critical infrastructure. Hackers increasingly target not just computer files to steal information but also systems managing vital functions like building access and factory control, remotely causing physical damage or enabling espionage. U.S. authorities in April warned that Iranian hackers were trying to disrupt American drinking-water systems by targeting computer equipment that connects hardware with software. A year earlier, suspected Russian hackers remotely manipulated valves on a Norwegian hydroelectric dam...
Another challenge will be parsing jurisdictions and liability for assets that cross international waters or are damaged in combat — such as subsea data cables or energy pipelines. Turf battles between law enforcement and militaries are already complicating efforts... "The private owner can invest in redundancy, monitoring, and repair capacity, but only governments and militaries can really deter, patrol, attribute, or respond to hostile state activity," said Marc Glasser, who worked on cybersecurity and infrastructure security for three decades at the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Department of Homeland Security.... Companies say they need greater clarity from governments on what protections they will provide and subsidies to help them defend privately owned assets that provide a public good. Most governments don't provide incentives for companies to invest more than the minimum legal resilience requirements.
The article notes that in May the chief executive of California's Port of Long Beach "launched a cyber-defense operations center to thwart tens of thousands of cyberattacks daily, which jeopardize computer systems and all equipment connected to them."
The article also points out that the EU adopted new regulations requiring countries to reduce vulnerabilities, and new laws proposed in the U.K. now "seek to increase penalties for subsea sabotage, updating codes that date to when telegraph cables were first laid in the 19th century."
3 comments
Is This Question a Joke? (Score: 5, Insightful)
by rbrander ( 73222 ) on Saturday July 04, 2026 @10:07PM (#66222860)
"I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. "
-Gen. Smedley Butler, 1933
A lot of American wars are at the behest of resource-seeking corporations. National forces are brought out when corporate enforcers are inadequate or expensive. I thought all this got very obvious, too, when "Blackwater" was so much in the news during Iraq, and the legal need to give them the same immunity to every Iraqi law that American national troops enjoyed.
Are Wars Blurring Lines... (Score: 5, Insightful)
by korgitser ( 1809018 ) on Saturday July 04, 2026 @10:07PM (#66222862)
Are Wars Blurring Lines Between Corporate and National Security?
No. For everyone who can put two and two together it has always been obvious that:
1) Everything a country needs to function at war time is of strategic importance, and needs to be protected, defended, duplicated, and easily repaired, and
2) Everything a country needs to function at war time is going to be attacked. You can cry "civilian infrastructure" as much as you want, but the civilian economy supports, and is therefore largely indistinguishable from, the war economy. Damaging one means damaging another, means better chances of winning.
It was only corporations and politicians that wagered they can kick the can down the road, and not have to be the ones that will foot the bill. And they have indeed won that bet for decades, and now we have to face the fact that we have half a century of work to catch up with.
Or maybe, which is more likely, we will do our best to forget the problem, and carry on based on vibes as usual.
Re:Are Wars Blurring Lines... (Score: 5, Interesting)
by korgitser ( 1809018 ) on Sunday July 05, 2026 @12:27AM (#66222966)
That's one way to put it, if quite the understatement.
Those who exported the US manufacturing base got insanely rich off of it, unfathomably rich. In doing this they were supported by bipartisan policy, and the government ran the PR campaign for them.
To add to what was already for all practical purposes selling the country for scrap, China was also smart enough to demand technology transfer as part of the deal. So not only were they handed the factories, the exporters taught them everything they knew about technology and manufacturing.
I cannot think of a single example in the whole written history that can hold a candle to the level of stupid this was. The US handed it's leadership role in the world to China on a silver platter, and all of DC and Wall Street cheered on on it, just so that a handful of rich assholes could become even more rich.
I cannot think of a single example in the whole written history that can hold a candle to the level of smart this was. Not in a thousand years does an opportunity like this present itself to anyone, and China recognized it and took it, and understood the level of greed and stupid in the US leadership, and bought the whole country for lunch money, kitchen sink included.