Threat Axis Log

History – Remember Pearl Harbor

Originally uploaded by rob-the-org

Sixty-eight years ago today the US Naval Base at Pearl Harbor (Hawaii) was attacked and brought America into the Second World War.

Since then countless politicians have attempted to use the attack when warning against another suprise attack in other areas.

• In Space. January 2001 – the Rumsfield (yes, that Rumsfield) Commission warned against a “Space Pearl Harbor” on American satellites, due to the continued reliance on satellites for communications, early warning and even navigation (GPS).
• On-line. May 2007 – in the wake of Russian hacker attacks against the Estonian government systems – Federal agencies met with CIO’s in a classified briefing to review the changing nature of cyberattacks.

A ‘bolt from the blue’ attack – that Pearl Harbor has come to symbolize – could be seen more as a bookmark in history when warface has dramatically changed. Look at the Pearl Harbor attack. It basically signalled the end of the battleship as the dominant player in naval warfare, and heralded the rise of the aircraft carrier.

Taken in this context – the terrorist attacks on 9/11 (2001) could be seen as another ‘Pearl Harbor’ – and with it, announced the rise of ‘asymmetric’ warfare.

What happens next? Only time will tell.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 at 03:46 UTC and is filed under Editorial, History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.