Yes
No
I'm buying my marshmallows
One of the beauties of Cyber Attacks is the relative ease with which you can make them either non-attributable, or impossible to prove attribution (the Russians are particularly good at that trick). Which is one reason why governments do, in fact, initiate Cyber Attacks. For other exceptions where this has gone public check out China (who seems to be quite busy in this realm) and Israel. Iran joins the club as a proud member, having outed herself (as did we). Even Hermit Kingdom North Korea has gotten into the game, although it seems they got at least an initial boost there from China.
So, either we're really, really stupid (which I have a hard time believing because we have the best hackers money can buy) or the others aren't doing it, or are doing it on a very, very small scale.that. Or cyber defenses, capabilities, and weapons have extremely limited shelf-lives after they become public, and so are among the most tightly guarded secrets of any nation, and what has leaked is enough to make it clear that this is now a global cyber field of conflict, while what hasn't leaked is enough to make what has leaked look like the snowball on top of the tip of the iceberg.
Or, you know. Nations could be sitting on top of a perfect way to strike at opposing entities while risking very little in return and refusing to do so out of a sense of decency about the whole thing. That, too, I suppose, is a possibility.
:raises eyebrow: we outed ourselves. The Administration wanted to have some good "Foreign Policy" chest-thumping before the election and so they leaked it to the New York Times, and outed our Israeli allies as well (who must have collectively hit the ceiling, thereby further eroding trust with a key ally in the region).
27 thousand pro-Kremlin marchers in WW2 uniforms carrying banners reading "Ukrainian Front".
BBC News - LIVE: Ukraine army on alert after Russia approves troops
'Night Wolves' pro-Putin biker gang establishing presence in Crimea.
Meet the Night Wolves – Putin's Hell's Angels - Telegraph
With Gates as secretary of defense, Kerry at state and Obama as president what could go wrong? They will all be on the golf coarse.
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury." Attributed to Alexander Tytler
I'm not, it's Ukraine's path after membership that is less concerning. Ukraine is highly unlikely to ever become an islamist state or to have an islamist leader in the same way Turkey has Erdogan.
Oh we're highly likely to have more Eastern European gangs and drugs runners (we already have them) but there are still more basic cultural similarities between us than with Turkey - and I am in favour of Turkey joining the EU. I am not going to look at either country through rose tinted glasses though.
Just saw this, the situation is still heating up
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_0...medium=twitter
A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.
Winston Churchill
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
Winston Churchill