The New, More Dangerous Massive Attacks of Disruption.

• Author: Ullman, Harlan
• Position: Viewpoint

* To paraphrase Karl Marx: A specter is haunting the globe. It is the specter of the new MAD--not the Cold War's "mutual assured destruction" that could have erupted into a thermonuclear holocaust eviscerating much of society. The new MAD stands for "massive attacks of disruption." Unlike the old MAD, the newer version has already wreaked havoc across the planet and will continue to do so with greater intensity unless it is checked.

Massive attacks of disruption induced by acts of nature, from pandemics to extreme weather conditions, threaten society at large. So do manmade acts of disruption. China, Russia and non-state actors understand the potency and force of this concept. Beijing and Moscow are developing kinetic and nonkinetic strategies based on disrupting military forces, the U.S. system of government, the homeland, and allies and alliances.

COVID-19 was the most obvious precursor of the new MAD. More Americans have died of the novel coronavirus than in every conflict the United States has fought since the Civil War ended. Unlike the Spanish flu of 1918-1920, COVID-19 massively disrupted international trade and finance. And unlike nuclear war, much of the new MAD is not deterrable, including climate change and certain types of cyber attacks from state and non-state actors. And these trends may not be preventable or containable absent unified global action.

In December 2019, who foresaw the arrival of a pandemic; Russian cyber attacks and storms that would shut down the US northeast for lack of gasoline supplies; a ship grounding in the Suez Canal creating a global supply chain bottleneck for days; and the overrunning of the Capitol by Americans upset about the outcome of a presidential election?

Massive attacks of disruption should provoke public demand for action. So far, that has not happened.

What created this new MAD? A combination of globalization and the diffusion of power is responsible for undoing the 350-year-old Westphalian system of state-centric international politics. Ironically, one unintended consequence was that as societies became more advanced largely through technological revolutions, greater dependencies and vulnerabilities were created domestically and internationally. It is these dependencies and vulnerabilities that MAD exploits to disrupt society at large, whether through natural or manmade causes.

Consider what senior managers and CEOs of defense companies could face under the new MAD. There may be long-term...