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C H A P T E R 1 1 The Bear Goes Digital Russia and Its Cyber Capabilities Nikolas K. Gvosdev IN SPITE OF ITS SOVIET PAST, contemporary Russia does not have the reputation of being in the vanguard of the most technologically advanced countries in the world. In 2009 President Dmitry Medvedev lamented the fact that Russia was ‘‘significantly behind other countries in developing advanced technologies, particularly in the field of supercomputers.’’1 In the area of cyberwarfare, however, Russia is proving to be a trailblazer. Russian ‘‘hacktivists’’ convincingly demonstrated their skill in attacking and disabling the computer and communications infrastructure of Estonia in 2007 in a series of incidents that have been described as the world’s first cyberwar.2 The cyber attacks directed against Georgia in 2008 were more significant because this time they took place in apparent coordination with an ongoing conventional military operation.3 Western military and governmental institutions report regular cyber probes emanating from Russian sources, with a particularly serious attack having occurred against the US Department of Defense in late 2008.4 The use of cyber attacks is indicative of a shift in the thinking and approach of the Kremlin national security establishment over the last three decades, from a Soviet-era reliance on overwhelming conventional military superiority as the prime factor for affecting the ‘‘balance of forces’’ on the world stage to a greater appreciation of the nonmilitary tools of national power—of achieving Russian aims ‘‘if not by tanks, then by banks.’’5 In addition to a greater appreciation of how control of energy supplies as well as other economic and financial instruments can be wielded as tools of national power, there is a growing appreciation for what can be achieved in cyberspace—a theme sounded directly by Medvedev. Speaking to student cadets in September 2010 in Orenburg, the Russian president bluntly stated, ‘‘The computer today is now no less important of a weapon than an automatic weapon or a tank, but, to be serious, is actually much more important, because practically all government processes, including control over the Armed Forces, now occurs with the help of computers.’’6 173 174 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Bear Goes Digital Russia and the Digital Age The popular perception of post-Soviet Russia as a digital and cyber backwater— despite an educational system known to produce large numbers of graduates wellversed in math and science—is a legacy of the Soviet system and its fear of the free flow of information. During the Soviet period, the government was very suspicious of technologies that might break down the carefully constructed compartmentalization of information that existed in the country. There was no room in the Soviet system for breakthroughs such as those that produced the personal computer and the Internet in the United States. Soviet scientific leaders acknowledged the importance of computing technologies in the modernization of the economy but warned that any large-scale introduction of computers needed to be very carefully managed and controlled.7 Through to the very end of the USSR, the state continued to impose stringent controls on the dissemination of computers.8 In 1985, at the start of perestroika , the USSR had a grand total of fifty thousand personal computers (in contrast to the thirty million in the United States). Even with General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms, by the time the USSR collapsed, there were still only four hundred thousand personal computers in use.9 The impact of these Soviet restrictions is still felt today; citing the situation in the aircraft industry, Medvedev complained, ‘‘Everything . . . is done on Whatman’s drawing paper like in the 1920s and 30s using the old approaches. It’s obvious that here only a digital approach can have a breakthrough effect, lead to dramatic improvements in quality, and reduce the cost of the product.’’10 Comparing the Internet usage of the United States and Russia demonstrates the persistence of this gap. The International Telecommunications Union data presents a stark contrast: while there are 75.9 Internet users for every 100 Americans, that number drops to 31.9 per 100 in the case of the Russian Federation.11 However, this aggregate statistic masks some important trends. In some regions of Russia— beginning with the capital, Moscow—Internet usage parallels the trends observed in other parts of the developed world. In addition, if the penetration of the personal computing and Internet revolutions among lower-income and less-developed segments of Russia has lagged, there remains an...

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