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Richard A. Clarke

Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About It Paperback – August 5, 2011

by Richard A. Clarke (Author), Robert Knake (Author)

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Author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Against All Enemies, former presidential advisor and counter-terrorism expert Richard A. Clarke sounds a timely and chilling warning about America’s vulnerability in a terrifying new international conflict—Cyber War! Every concerned American should read this startling and explosive book that offers an insider’s view of White House ‘Situation Room’ operations and carries the reader to the frontlines of our cyber defense. Cyber War exposes a virulent threat to our nation’s security. This is no X-Files fantasy or conspiracy theory madness—this is real.

Print length

320 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Ecco
Publication date

August 5, 2011
Dimensions

0.78 x 5.42 x 7.78 inches
ISBN-10

9780061962240
ISBN-13

978-0061962240
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Chilling... [A] harrowing ― and persuasive ― picture of the cyberthreat the United States faces today.” (Michiko Kakutani, New York Times)

“Clarke and Knake are right to sound the alarm.” (Wall Street Journal)

“[CYBER WAR] may be the most important book about national-security policy in the last several years.” (Slate)

“In this chilling and eye-opening book, Clarke and Knake provide a highly detailed yet accessible look at how cyber warfare is being waged and the need to rethink our national security to face this new threat.” (Booklist)

“Will strengthen Clarke’s claims as one of the founding fathers of cybersecurocracy....It is worth buying this book if only for his pithy five-page vision of this coming apocalypse and a return to stone-age conditions within a week, all because of a few pesky hackers and viruses.” (Financial Times)

From the Back Cover

Richard A. Clarke warned America once before about the havoc terrorism would wreak on our national security—and he was right. Now he warns us of another threat, silent but equally dangerous. Cyber War is a powerful book about technology, government, and military strategy; about criminals, spies, soldiers, and hackers. It explains clearly and convincingly what cyber war is, how cyber weapons work, and how vulnerable we are as a nation and as individuals to the vast and looming web of cyber criminals. This is the first book about the war of the future—cyber war—and a convincing argument that we may already be in peril of losing it.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0061962244
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ecco; Reprint edition (August 5, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780061962240
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0061962240
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.1 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 0.78 x 5.42 x 7.78 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #195,949 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #308 in Terrorism (Books)
- #378 in National & International Security (Books)
- #540 in Political Intelligence

Customer Reviews:
440 ratings

About the author

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Richard A. Clarke

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I started writing books after a thirty year career in government writing bureaucratic papers. It was quite a shift. Cyber War is my fifth book and my third non-fiction. People often ask which genre do you prefer to write, fiction or non-fiction? They are both a challenge and both are exciting to attempt. Fiction may be the greater challenge, because of the need for imagination, characterization, dialogue, and plot twists. Non-fiction may actually have some real world effects. I've posted excerpts and other information on my web page; www.richardaclarke.net.

Customer reviews

5 star		64%
4 star		22%
3 star		8%
2 star		3%
1 star		3%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Christopher DeGeiso

Great read for non-academic use

Reviewed in the United States on August 3, 2015

Verified Purchase

I read this book as an optional reading requirement for a graduate level course in Cyber Intelligence. This book gives an interesting perspective from two inside men's view of the Cyber threat to this nation.

Things I liked about the book:

The authors don't try to overload the reader with a lot of technical jargon trying to justify their position at the micro level of cyber security. Throughout the book, the authors use anecdotes and personal experiences to bring home THEIR point of view on the cyber threat to the US. I like this style of writing as I can relate to someone walking through their opinion forming process much easier than I can digest a litany of statistics and facts on a topic. Although, a healthy amount of that is critical to forming a valid, sound opinion (see my criticisms of this book). I did appreciate that the authors were trying to convey how they came to their current world view on the topic and what the Nation's leaders are facing in dealing with these challenges.

Things I didn't like about the book:

My criticisms of this book lie mostly in how little citation of recent examples (recent up to when the book was written, not 2015) was used in the book as support of the position of the authors. Much of the referenced facts and information provided in the book was pretty old, dating back to the late 80s and 90s, and the challenges that were faced back then (also included early 2000s). So much more has happened in this space since then, even up to when the book was written, that I felt that more discussion on recent findings would have been more warranted, as well as addressing some of the dissenting viewpoints out there to even further solidify their positions.

Also, citations of any facts are practically non-existent in this book. Much of the facts presented are in the form of, "I had a discussion with Mr. X one day" or "It was found at the XYZ conference that...", which wouldn't really hold much water in an academic setting (why I was reading the book in the first place). Still, setting that aside, you can take the book for what it is, accept their statements as their perspective on the topic and cross-check it with other sources that may or may not corroborate their findings. This book is entertaining to read, informational and definitely makes you think about the cyber challenges we face in not just the U.S., but the world as a whole.

20 people found this helpful

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Elliott

Cyber War is the next war or so it seems...

Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2018

Verified Purchase

It would seem that Mr. Clarke wrote this book to present the case for preparing for the next war and not the last. He eloquently expresses his frustration with both the Bush and Obama administration over the lack of commitment to fighting this next war. He makes a compelling case that the next war will be determined by the most effective deterrents and offensive capability of destroying the opponents technical war making capabilities. It is more of a policy argument than a how too but that should be expected because that is where these decisions are made. The book was written before 2016 so there is no consideration of denial that cyber wars are already underway.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

J.T.Herczog

We thought we were safe

Reviewed in the United States on September 19, 2018

Verified Purchase

This is a highly interesting book in many aspects. Firstly there is the analysis of the technical shortcomings of the web, which if worst come to the worst could lead to war. This was done quite convincingly. Secondly there is the political analysis of why a defense is highly necessary as all countries, even the USA is vulnerable. Thirdly it discusses ways how to improve the situation. The author having been part of the political system at almost the highest level speaks with great authority about the past, the present and how experts would like to see the future. It’s a must read for all leaders, from company CEO’s to presidents of countries. Highly recommended.

2 people found this helpful

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Arthur Worster

A must read for IT and government leaders.

Reviewed in the United States on January 15, 2015

Verified Purchase

I found it amazing that this book written a few years ago is as relevant today as it was then. Just this week, the President talked about the need to attack cyber crime, never focusing on the obvious extended version of cyber crime - cyber warfare. While I am sure that some of the conditions mentioned in the book have evolved, maybe even improved, I felt that I could have been reading something written a few months ago or this week. The descriptions of how code vulnerabilities are created and the lack of testing for code quality is startlingly accurate and the lack of sensitivity to that by developers or their organizations should not surprise anyone, but it does. As Mr Clarke points out, there is so much lack of understanding how this all works at every level of government and business that to energize leaders to do something about it seems not daunting as much as impossible. It seems clear that, as he points out, eventual disasters will cause a great outpouring of investigations, inquisitions and blaming sessions assuming that we survive long enough to conduct them. It would be preferable for this and other "warning" books that point out what should be obvious might create a discussion into how the inevitable can be avoided or mitigated before it happens. I found this book to be extremely valuable in laying out the case for improvement as well as explaining the political reasoning behind our inability to act to attack this problem. It should be a "must read", particularly for leaders throughout the IT industry and government.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

L.W

New information warfare

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 12, 2019

Verified Purchase

The book starts off with a summary of where cyber warfare has been used recently, in Georgia, Russia, Estonia, North Korea, Iraq in 2003. In some senses then a person with a laptop can do more damage than a whole squadron of bombers.
Russian criminals also use it for their own ends. China also uses it for international espionage, stealing company secrets.
The author then creates a hypothetical scenario of a massive cyber attack in the USA, Airports are thrown into chaos, communications are badly affected, telephones stop working, traffic lights across the streets fail, power stations start to go offline, the markets are unable to trade, people cannot access their bank accounts, the stock exchange is paralysed. All this could easily happen one day the author believes. So dependent is the whole economy and infrastructure now on the internet.
The author takes us through a bit of a history of the internet. There’s no denying the great benefits it’s brought to many firms and companies during the 1990s and 2000s. There’s been much resistance though to government regulation of the internet, with Microsoft doing much lobbying. Many companies, banks, and local authorities do things at the lowest cost possible, they are not prepared to pay hundreds of thousands on high tech systems in defence and banking. It’s an interesting point that hackers in Afghanistan could cause massive damage to the US in a way they cover never do militarily. This is not true in the reverse though, there is very little cyber infrastructure to be attacked there. The West many not even have the cyber advantage.
This could deter use of military advantage if we thought there could be a blackout or our ships could be scrambled or switched off.
The author recommends that big institutions like the National Bank of America should have their internet security provided by the government rather than being expected to do it themselves.
Given recent develops with Huawei this book remains highly relevant, it’s both accessible and authoritative.

Allan

Outdated... but still relevant

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 6, 2020

Verified Purchase

This book is the bee’s knees. I even could implement some quotes in my dissertation for my university course - Computer Security. To mention, I got a great mark, thanks to the new perspective Mr Clarke showed.

I CANNOT stand READING... However, I seriously cannot wait to purchase Richard A Clark's next book - "The Fifth Domain: Defending Our Country, Our Companies, and Ourselves in the Age of Cyber Threats". If this next book is anything like its predecessor, I certainly would be over the moon.

I would recommend this to ANYONE. This book is not hard to read, and it gives great insight to the Cyber scenarios in the modern world, including several case studies.

Please... buy this now if you are on the fence. This relatively cheap book is worth every penny.

M. SMITH

Gentle introduction to IT Security

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 17, 2011

Verified Purchase

Richard Clarke has a good understanding of the politics involved in technology and why the implementation of defensive security measures has been slow within the western world, especially within the private sector of the critical infrastructure.

I found Cyber War a very well written book that was easy to read and understand. I am giving it 3 stars because it is more aimed at a political person than a technical one. Even so I would highly recommend it to anyone getting into the computer security or IT business.

The book does not use technical language and explains terms used in the text and in a glossary at the end. It is aimed at the non technical but could be required reading for anyone in the IT industry. There is good insight into the state sponsored attacks which are going on today. The threats faced by every organisation from advanced attackers need to be taken seriously. While this book does not claim to provide the solutions it should help to get the information to the real decision makers and budget holders within Government and large organisations.

The book begins with background on previous cyber attacks like the DDOS of Estonia and talks about how America wants to control cyber space. The end of chapter two narrates a (in my opinion) far fetched scenario in which the critical infrastructure of the USA is taken down. I think this is drawn form his previous experience in writing novels!

The authors broad background and view of international affairs allows him to draw comparisons to nuclear war planning which while I admit were similar were to 'out there' for anyone on the ground to influence. By halfway through the book I started to get pretty bored of the power grid and financial sector. I found that the recommendations given while reasonable were again to broad for anyone on the ground to implement.

In summary this quick read provides overview on the state of cyber space today and what may be done to start changing it for the better. Highly recommended.

9 people found this helpful

wezg

wezgbooks wordpress review

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 23, 2015

Verified Purchase

The author has had a political career which has reached the highest levels of the Pentagon. He is obviously a very driven and intelligent man and his analysis of the new phenomenon that is Cyber War is second to none. The globality of the threat is given a context that is very revealing of the geopolitics which drive the internet. How do nation states handle the use of cyberspace within their own borders and indeed outside their territories? As countries become more and more dependent upon computer technology, the risks faced by cyber attacks become exponentially more severe and critical to the economy and security of a nation. America is perhaps the nation that is most vulnerable, most dependent and most at risk, and Clarke’s high position within the US government system means that he has been placed in the very real environment of deciding upon global cyber was strategy. Some of the facts and figures revealed by the book are truly revelationary. Clarke rates North Korea as being the nation with the most capacity for cyberwar as it focuses on attack strategies and its near negligibilty of dependance at home on computer networks makes it absolutely resistant to any cyber warfare attacks it may experience itself. I was surprised at the levels of internet usage in countries like Estonia and also South Korea, and the stories of actual cyber attacks that were known to have happened and documented made fascinating reading. I didn’t think that the author ever really stretched the technicalities of what is indeed a very technical subject. He kept most of the book within the grasp of any tech novice reader, with a clear focus throughout on geopolitics. It’s a good book and I feel will be interesting to look back upon in 10 or 20 years time, to see if any of his prophecies have proved correct and also to gauge how different future cyberspace is. I’d recommend this book to any end user of the internet as your own reliance and dependance on the worldwide web is at risk from the cyber war phenomenon that is discussed.. https://wezgbooks.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/cyberwar-the-next-threat-to-national-security-what-to-do-about-it-by-richard-a-clarke/

One person found this helpful

Dad to 2 wee nippers

Title undersells a well thought out book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 10, 2014

Verified Purchase

CYBER WAR screams the title, in bold. The book itself is far more nuanced. Yes, Clarke and his co-author are writing about cyber war. But really the point they are trying to make is that America (and you can extend that easily to the UK and other developed, networked, Western societies) need to spend less time getting excited developing whizzy cyber weapons and more time protecting the critical national infrastructure at home, particularly the power grid. And they make this point repeatedly and well.

So, despite the populist title and cover, it's worth reading by interested amateurs, computer scientists and students of International Relations alike.

One person found this helpful

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