CDR V11 N2 Joyce
In this senior‑leader perspective, former NSA cyber director and ex‑Acting Homeland Security Adviser Rob Joyce argues that recent Chinese state‑sponsored cyber campaigns—most notably Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon—are not ordinary espionage but a deliberate, pre‑positioning of “cyber explosives” within U.S. critical infrastructure. By infiltrating electric grids, water treatment, transportation, pipelines, and telecom networks, the People’s Republic of China has created hidden footholds that could be detonated in the first 72 hours of a conflict over Taiwan, causing both military disruption and civilian panic. Joyce diagnoses a systemic failure of U.S. cyber deterrence: the effects of cyber attacks are invisible, deniable, and reversible, preventing the political pressure needed for a decisive response. He points to the brief post‑2015 decline in Chinese activity—prompted by a cross‑domain economic threat from the Obama administration—as proof that credible, visible costs can deter. The article further highlights how insurers (e.g., Lloyd’s) have already classified nation‑state cyber attacks as war‑like risks, exposing a gap between private‑sector risk assessment and governmental action. Institutional missteps, such as the cancellation of a Salt Typhoon after‑action review, erode institutional memory and signal weak resolve to allies. Joyce calls for a whole‑of‑government, presidential‑level strategy that combines public attribution, diplomatic expulsions, economic sanctions, offensive cyber operations, and the credible threat of military action, and stresses the need to translate cyber risk into a public narrative that generates political will. The piece concludes that unless the United States treats these intrusions as intolerable acts of war, China will retain the ability to detonate its cyber explosives at will.
Topics
Cyber Explosives: Pre‑positioned Access in U.S. Critical Infrastructure
The concept that Chinese actors have embedded persistent, covert footholds—likened to digital explosives—within power grids, water systems, transportation, pipelines, and telecom networks, ready for coordinated activation.