US articulation of red lines to cyberattacks a welcome move

THE digitalisation of critical infrastructure has dramatically improved their efficiency but at the same time, also opened it to hackers who can potentially insert malicious code to cripple them.

Hence Singapore, and many other countries, have added the cyber domain as a potential area of military conflict along with land, air, and sea. This means that if cyberattacks cross a certain threshold there could be a disproportionate military response to the attack.

That has been the implicit assumption, never openly articulated by any global leader, until now. Last week, speaking at the Office for the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees 18 US intelligence agencies, US President Joe Biden said America could end up with a "real shooting war" with a "major power" as a result of a big cyberattack on the US. His exact words: "... it's going to be (the war) as a consequence of a cyber-breach of great consequence".