I see that “cybersecurity” one of the agenda items in this week’s tete-a-tete between Foreign Minister Murray McCully, Defence Minister Wayne Mapp and their UK counterparts William Hague and Liam Fox.
The first question McCully and Mapp should ask the British ministers is “Are you going to challenge the United States on its resort to cyberwarfare?”
The
New York Times
says American and Israeli experts have inserted a sophisticated virus into the computer system governing the operation of Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme.
There should be no tolerance of cyberwarfare, which can be just as destructive as any other warfare. Also, it can spin out of control, once several governments get in to it. Any government attacked will think they have the right to respond in kind.
It is also now starting to be used against NGOs, as in the recent denial of service attacks on Wikileaks sites.
The other thing Murray McCully and Wayne Mapp should do is resist any pressure from the Brits to keep the SAS on in Afghanistan beyond the March 2011 planned withdrawal date. The botched December 24
raid
in Kabul
, where two Afghan security guards were killed, shows that the continued SAS presence is not helping our reputation among the Afghan people.