tag:theconversation.com,2011:/es/topics/sabotage-25083/articlesSabotage – The Conversation2024-02-29T05:42:43Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2247312024-02-29T05:42:43Z2024-02-29T05:42:43ZExplainer: what is sabotage and why is the ASIO chief worried about it?<p>Last night, ASIO boss Mike Burgess made another powerful public statement in delivering the <a href="https://www.asio.gov.au/director-generals-annual-threat-assessment-2024">Annual Threat Assessment for 2024</a>. Burgess stated that ASIO has seen “terrorists and spies […] talking about sabotage, researching sabotage, sometimes conducting reconnaissance for sabotage”.</p>
<p>He also highlighted the increasing focus on cyber (online methods) as a way that sabotage might be conducted. <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-28/asio-reveals-plot-by-retired-politician/103513926">He said</a>:</p>
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<p>ASIO is aware of one nation state conducting multiple attempts to scan critical infrastructure in Australia and other countries, targeting water, transport and energy networks.</p>
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<p>This would seem to align with recent reports of <a href="https://www.itnews.com.au/news/chinese-attackers-camped-on-us-networks-for-five-years-604887">Chinese hackers spending up to five years in US computer networks</a> before being detected.</p>
<p>But what exactly is sabotage, and should we be worried?</p>
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<h2>The legal definition</h2>
<p>“Sabotage” is a French term originally used to refer to <a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/sabotage">deliberate acts by workmen to destroy machinery</a> during the Industrial Revolution. Since then, “sabotage” has been used to describe acts that undermine military power without a battle – <a href="https://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/wartime-acts-of-sabotage/">such as</a> destroying train lines, cutting telephone wires, or setting fuel dumps on fire.</p>
<p>However, the legal definition is a bit bigger than that.</p>
<p>In Australia, sabotage is both a <a href="https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/cth/consol_act/cca1995115/sch1.html">federal crime</a> under the Criminal Code and also a crime under state and territory laws. At the federal level, sabotage has three key elements:</p>
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<li> engaging in conduct that results in “damage to public infrastructure”</li>
<li>intending to or risking the act will “prejudice Australia’s national security” or “advantage the national security of a foreign country”</li>
<li> an act on behalf of, in collaboration with, or with funding from a “foreign principal” (that is, a foreign government or one of its authorities, such as their intelligence service).</li>
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<p>“Public infrastructure” is a broad concept, and includes anything belonging to the Commonwealth, defence and military bases and equipment, and telecommunications. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/research-espionage-is-a-real-threat-but-a-drastic-crackdown-could-stifle-vital-international-collaboration-223555">Research espionage is a real threat – but a drastic crackdown could stifle vital international collaboration</a>
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<p>In some circumstances, it could also include banks, supermarkets, food, farms and other services provided to the public. Essentially, pretty much anything needed to run the country could be “public infrastructure”. </p>
<p>These are already <a href="https://www.herbertsmithfreehills.com/insights/2023-03/demystifying-australias-recent-security-of-critical-infrastructure-act-reforms">considered “critical infrastructure”</a>, and must meet strict physical security and cybersecurity guidelines.</p>
<p>New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, the ACT and the Northern Territory also have specific sabotage offences. Those offences capture deliberate acts to damage or destroy public facilities, where the person intends to cause <a href="https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/criminal/legislation/crimes-act/sabotage/">major disruption</a> to “government functions”, major disruption to the “use of services by the public” or major “economic loss”. </p>
<h2>So what is ASIO doing?</h2>
<p>ASIO’s annual threat assessment mentioned that sabotage has increasingly been discussed between <a href="https://www.itnews.com.au/news/asio-boss-warns-of-crack-cyber-teams-scanning-critical-networks-605594">agents of foreign countries, spies and would-be terrorists</a>. While Burgess did not name which countries have been involved, ASIO has been watching China, perhaps because a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-disabled-chinese-hacking-network-targeting-critical-infrastructure-sources-2024-01-29/">hacking group called “Volt Typhoon”</a> has been named as allegedly working on behalf of the Chinese government. </p>
<p>It also appears ASIO is watching “nationalist and racist violent extremists advocating sabotage”. This would also fit with recent increases in <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/australian-far-right-terrorism-investigations-have-increased-by-750-per-cent-in-18-months/rsowz6fnt">counter-extremist investigations by the AFP</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/nov/01/australian-defence-force-strengthens-vetting-procedures-to-prevent-extremists-from-joining">changes to Defence vetting procedures</a>. </p>
<p>Yet, there have been very few cases of sabotage pursued in the courts. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, <a href="https://theconversation.com/amid-warnings-of-spy-hives-why-isnt-australia-using-its-tough-counter-espionage-laws-more-200440">there can be several barriers to prosecuting foreign agents</a> who engage in espionage, foreign interference and/or sabotage. These include gathering the necessary evidence that might reveal how the spies were detected, in turn potentially compromising ASIO’s ability to operate in the future. </p>
<p>However, foreign agents can still be deterred from engaging in this kind of activity. Just last year, Burgess <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/fake-russian-diplomats-revealed-as-heart-of-hive-spy-ring-in-australia-20230223-p5cmxz.html">detailed how a Russian spy ring was expelled rather than prosecuted</a>. In this year’s threat assessment, Burgess also said ASIO often puts foreign agents on notice – that ASIO knows what they’re up to – or it shines a “disinfecting light” on Australia’s adversaries so the public is aware of what they’re up to.</p>
<p>However, one of the cases mentioned by Burgess in the assessment – <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-68420795">a politician alleged to have “sold out Australia” for a foreign nation</a> – probably won’t be identified. That’s strange on its own, as Burgess’ usual approach in these cases seems to be to “name names” – in going public, ASIO removes the one thing foreign agents need to operate: anonymity.</p>
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<h2>What more is needed?</h2>
<p>ASIO will need to continue (and possibly even ramp up) its surveillance operations in Australia. That in turn will require the attorney-general <a href="https://www.ag.gov.au/crime/telecommunications-interception-and-surveillance/reform-australias-electronic-surveillance-framework">to step up the review of Australia’s surveillance laws</a>, which is yet to get started. </p>
<p>That said, the Albanese government has started consultation on its <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about-us/our-portfolios/cyber-security/strategy/2023-2030-australian-cyber-security-strategy">2023-2030 Australian Cyber Security Strategy</a>, which will make sure our cybersecurity laws are up to scratch. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has also already put boards and chief executives on notice that they will <a href="https://www.afr.com/technology/asic-to-target-boards-execs-for-cyber-failures-20230913-p5e4bf">prosecute companies for cybersecurity failures</a>. </p>
<p>There are some niche areas in the law that might need some tweaking. Last year, we <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4257292">published research</a> that demonstrated Australia’s laws might not protect an act of sabotage that was aimed at our natural environmental assets such as the Great Barrier Reef. </p>
<p>However, we may not need more laws – we just need to better use the ones we have. As <a href="https://theconversation.com/does-australia-need-new-laws-to-combat-right-wing-extremism-196219">Keiran Hardy argues</a> in the context of counter-terrorism laws: </p>
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<p>Australia’s counter-terrorism laws are already extensive […] If a criminal offence or power is needed to combat terrorism, Australia already has it and more. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/does-australia-need-new-laws-to-combat-right-wing-extremism-196219">Does Australia need new laws to combat right-wing extremism?</a>
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<p>More broadly, Australia needs to confront its “this won’t happen to us” attitude to national security. Chris Taylor, head of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Statecraft and Intelligence Program, <a href="https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-evolution-of-australian-intelligence-revisiting-harvey-barnetts-tale-of-the-scorpion/">recently revived the words of Harvey Barnett</a> (a former boss of ASIO) when he said:</p>
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<p>With the simple self-confidence which living in an island state breeds, Australians are sometimes doubtful that their country might be of interest to foreign intelligence services. “It can’t really happen here” is a stock attitude. It has, it does, it will.</p>
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<p>Those words should resonate with us all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224731/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The views contained in this article are those of the individual author, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of any organisation, department or agency with which the author may be affiliated.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This article was written in Sarah Kendall's personal capacity as a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland School of Law. It does not reflect the views of any organisation with which the author is affiliated.</span></em></p>In its annual threat assessment, the spy agency has named sabotage by foreign actors as an increasing concern - and we too, should take it seriously.Brendan Walker-Munro, Senior Lecturer (Law), Southern Cross UniversitySarah Kendall, PhD Candidate in Law, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2061012023-05-24T13:42:03Z2023-05-24T13:42:03ZCorruption in South Africa: former CEO’s explosive book exposes how state power utility was destroyed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527785/original/file-20230523-19-yugb19.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">PenguinRandomHouse</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One repeated theme of the <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/truth-power-my-three-years-inside-eskom/9781776390625#:%7E:text=De%20Ruyter%20candidly%20reflects%20on,to%20speak%20truth%20to%20power">memoir</a> Truth to Power: My Three Years Inside Eskom, by Andre de Ruyter, former CEO of South Africa’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-electricity-supply-whats-tripping-the-switch-151331">troubled power utility</a>, Eskom, is that “negligence and carelessness had become cemented into the organisation”. </p>
<p>Dirt piled up at even the newest power stations until it damaged equipment, which stopped working – and some equipment disappeared beneath a layer of ash.</p>
<p>Integrity had been displaced by greed and crime: </p>
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<p>Corruption had metastasised to permeate much of the organisation. </p>
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<p>As a political scientist who has, among other topics, followed corruption and kleptocracy, this book ranks among the more informative.</p>
<p>De Ruyter (or his ghost writer) delivers a pacey, racy adventure <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/truth-power-my-three-years-inside-eskom/9781776390625">thriller</a>. Chapter after chapter reads like a horror story about Eskom, whose failure to generate enough electricity consistently for <a href="https://theconversation.com/power-cuts-and-food-safety-how-to-avoid-illness-during-loadshedding-200586">the past 15</a> years has <a href="https://www.investec.com/en_za/focus/economy/sa-s-load-shedding-how-the-sectors-are-being-affected.html">hobbled the economy</a>. </p>
<p>The book is also a sobering indication that parts of South Africa now fester with organised crime.</p>
<p>This book merits its place alongside <a href="https://www.loot.co.za/product/crispian-olver-how-to-steal-a-city/jywy-5080-g730?PPC=Y&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIgZaS7pbE3QIVS7DtCh0EGQXfEAAYASAAEgLszPD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds">How to Steal a City</a> and <a href="https://jacana.co.za/product/how-to-steal-a-country-state-capture-and-hopes-for-the-future-in-south-africa/">How to Steal a Country</a>. These two books chronicle how corruption undermined respectively a city and a country to the level where they became dysfunctional.</p>
<h2>Brazen looting</h2>
<p>Another take-away is the devastating indictment of De Ruyter’s immediate predecessors as CEO, <a href="https://www.eskom.co.za/heritage/matshela-koko/">Matshela Koko</a> and <a href="https://www.eskom.co.za/heritage/brian-molefe/">Brian Molefe</a>. They appear as incompetent managers who ran into the ground what the Financial Times of London had praised as the world’s best state-owned enterprise as recently as 2001. Both <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/live-former-eskom-boss-matshela-koko-arrested-on-corruption-charges-20221027">Koko</a> and <a href="https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/molefe-singh-back-in-palm-ridge-specialised-commercial-crimes-court/">Molefe</a> have been charged with corruption – at Eskom and the transport parastatal Transet, respectively.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explosive-revelations-about-south-africas-power-utility-why-new-electricity-minister-should-heed-the-words-of-former-eskom-ceo-201508">Explosive revelations about South Africa's power utility: why new electricity minister should heed the words of former Eskom CEO</a>
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<p>The standard joke about corruption is “Mr Ten Percent” – meaning a middleman who adds 10% onto the price of everything passing through his hands. Under Koko and Molefe, this had allegedly ballooned into “Mr Ten Thousand Percent”. </p>
<p>For example, De Ruyter writes that Eskom was just stopped in the nick of time from paying a middleman R238,000 for a cleaning mop. </p>
<p>Corruption focused on the procurement chain. One middleman bought knee-pads for R150 (US$7,80) and sold them to Eskom for R80,000 (US$4,200). Another bought a knee-pad for R4,025 (US$209) and sold it to Eskom for R934,950 (US$48,544). The same applied to toilet rolls and rubbish bags. One inevitable consequence of corruption on such a scale was that Eskom’s debt, which was R40 billion (US$2.076 billion) in 2007 (the year that former president Jacob Zuma came to power), ballooned to R483 billion (US$25 billion) by 2020 – which incurred R31 billion (US$160 million) in annual finance charges.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Book cover showing a Caucasian man." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527730/original/file-20230523-27-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527730/original/file-20230523-27-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527730/original/file-20230523-27-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527730/original/file-20230523-27-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527730/original/file-20230523-27-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527730/original/file-20230523-27-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527730/original/file-20230523-27-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>De Ruyter reveals that the “presidential” cartel (meaning one of the local mafias) pillaged Matla power station, the “Mesh-Kings” cartel Duvha power station, the “Legendaries” cartel Tutuka power station, and the “Chief” cartel Majuba power station. He writes that the going rate for bribes at Kusile power station is R200,000 (US$10,377) to falsify the delivery of one truckload of good quality coal. <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/special-investigating-unit-secure-another-preservation-order-matter-related-corruption">Kusile</a> is one of the two giant new coal-fired power stations which Eskom is relying on to end power cuts.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-bailout-of-eskom-wont-end-power-cuts-splitting-up-the-utility-can-as-other-countries-have-shown-200490">South Africa's bailout of Eskom won't end power cuts: splitting up the utility can, as other countries have shown</a>
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<p>The book says a senior officer at the <a href="https://www.saps.gov.za/dpci/index.php">Hawks</a>, the police’s priority crimes investigation units, tipped off De Ruyter how he was blocked in all his attempts to combat corruption at Eskom. Senior police officers, at least one prosecutor, and a senior magistrate, have also been bribed by the gangs. </p>
<h2>Noncomformist</h2>
<p>Eskom had 13 CEOs and acting CEOs in 13 years. Twenty-eight candidates, most of them black, rejected head-hunters’ offers to become CEO of Eskom. De Ruyter who was previously CEO of Nampak, took a pay cut (to R7 million) to accept the job, in the hope of accelerating Eskom’s transition from coal to renewables.</p>
<p>At the time of his appointment some commentators alleged that he was an African National Congress (ANC) cadre deployed to Eskom. The ANC’s <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321223498_The_African_National_Congress_ANC_and_the_Cadre_Deployment_Policy_in_the_Postapartheid_South_Africa_A_Product_of_Democratic_Centralisation_or_a_Recipe_for_a_Constitutional_Crisis">cadre deployment</a> policy is aimed at ensuring that all the levers of power are in loyal party hands – often regardless of ability and probity. But De Ruyter came <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/politics/anc-claims-de-ruyter-is-trying-to-tarnish-its-image-ahead-of-elections-in-2024-20230426">into conflict</a> with the ruling party.</p>
<p>What caught De Ruyter out was the viciousness of the political attacks on him: smears of racism and financial impropriety. He had to devote many hours of office time to refuting them: </p>
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<p>occupying that seat at Megawatt Park comes with political baggage. </p>
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<p><a href="https://za.geoview.info/eskom_megawatt_park,32555009w">Megawatt Park</a> is Eskom’s head office in Johannesburg. </p>
<p>The book’s early chapters summarise how he was one of those Afrikaners with Dutch parents, who did not conform entirely to apartheid norms. The Afrikaner <em>volk</em> imposed the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/apartheid">apartheid</a> regime onto South Africa for 42 years. In his high school years he became a card-carrying member of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Progressive-Federal-Party">Progressive Federal Party</a>, a liberal anti-apartheid opposition party, antecedent of the Democratic Alliance, which is now the official opposition to the governing party. </p>
<h2>Poisoning</h2>
<p>De Ruyter’s book mentions organising a routine Eskom stakeholders’ meeting at a guesthouse in Mpumalanga province. </p>
<p>To save time, he ordered that food be served on plates to table places, instead of buffet arrangements. The guesthouse management refused, due to fear of facilitating poisoning one or more guests – only buffet arrangements could thwart that. </p>
<p>He says that in Tshwane (Pretoria), the seat of government, the National Prosecution Authority no longer orders takeaway lunches for delivery to their premises. Instead, standard procedure is that a staff member buys lunches for all at random take-away shops. </p>
<p>This sinister development culminated in De Ruyter himself being poisoned with cyanide in his coffee in his office, demonstrating how mafia-type gangs had recruited at least one Eskom headquarters staff member.</p>
<h2>Unintended consequences</h2>
<p>In several places De Ruyter also touches on other issues. The unintended consequence of some government policies, such as localisation and <a href="https://www.treasury.gov.za/comm_media/press/2022/2022110801%20Media%20Statement%20-%20PPP%20Regulations%202022.pdf">preferential procurement</a>, is that it costs Eskom two and a half times more to pay for each kilometre of transmission cable than it costs <a href="https://www.nampower.com.na/">Nampower</a> Namibia’s power utility, just across the border. </p>
<p>What stands out from this memoir is that the success of a company demands that a CEO, managers, artisans, guards, and cleaners all take the attitude that the buck stops with them – seven days a week – and act accordingly.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206101/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Gottschalk is a member of the African National Congress, but writes this review in his professional capacity as a political scientist.</span></em></p>The book shows how parts of South Africa now fester with organised crime.Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1981602023-02-06T14:58:00Z2023-02-06T14:58:00ZLink between crime and politics in South Africa raises concerns about criminal gangs taking over<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507613/original/file-20230201-8719-bz77s1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African President Cyril Ramaphosa receives reports of the of the state capture commission from Justice Raymond Zondo. The reports found exposed massive state corruption involving private individuals and companies. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A <a href="https://globalinitiative.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/GI-TOC-Strategic-Organized-Crime-Risk-Assessment-South-Africa.pdf">report</a> by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (Gitoc) released in September 2022 argues that South Africa has increasingly become a centre of organised crime, transcending national boundaries.</p>
<p>The picture emerging from the report is that there are organised networks inside and outside the state that enable, facilitate and exploit opportunities for private gain. Or, they exercise unfair advantage in economic activity in the public and private sectors, using coercive methods. Some actively go about <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-needs-stronger-security-in-place-to-stop-the-sabotage-of-its-power-supply-187889">sabotaging critical infrastructure</a> to benefit from this.</p>
<p>The areas of public life where criminals exploit or intimidate their way into influence are growing. In recent times grand-scale crime has seeped through to <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/terror-and-security/mystery-murdered-whistleblower-babita-deokaran-who-uncovered/">healthcare</a>, <a href="https://mg.co.za/opinion/2023-01-13-shooting-at-fort-hare-university-highlights-corruption-at-south-african-universities/">education</a> and <a href="https://www.mining.com/eskom-ceo-de-ruyter-survives-alleged-poisoning-attempt/">parastatals</a>. Speaking out against malfeasance comes at a high price.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/crime-covid-and-climate-change-south-african-tourism-faces-many-threats-but-its-resilient-192505">Crime, COVID and climate change - South African tourism faces many threats, but it’s resilient</a>
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<p>This is apart from the scores of <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-06-27-the-underworld-runs-the-anc-assassinations-analysis-shows-stark-reality-of-violence-in-kzn/">political assassinations of local activists</a> and officials, either for political gain or sheer vengeance against those who dare to call out corruption. </p>
<h2>Mafia state</h2>
<p>There is no doubt that there is a growing ecosystem of organised crime overwhelming the state and public life in the country. And, because political actors or state institutions are so often implicated in it, some commentators are even asking if South Africa is becoming a <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2017-11-10-00-the-mafia-state-is-in-full-swing/">“mafia state”</a>. </p>
<p>The term “mafia state” refers to the interpenetration of governments and organised crime networks. In his influential 2012 article, <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2012/04/25/mafia-states-pub-47954">Mafia States</a>, Venezuelan journalist and writer Moises Naim said: </p>
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<p>In a mafia state, high government officials actually become integral players in, if not the leaders of, criminal enterprises, and the defence and promotion of those enterprises’ businesses become official priorities.</p>
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<p>There is no single prototype for when a state can be labelled a mafia state. The concept is best thought of as a spectrum. The most extreme cases involve politicians at the highest levels taking direct control of organised crime operations. Other characteristics are collusion between crime syndicates and powerful political figures, money laundering to hide illicit proceeds, and the use of violence and intimidation to protect those involved.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://globalinitiative.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/GI-TOC-Strategic-Organized-Crime-Risk-Assessment-South-Africa.pdf">Gitoc report</a> shies away from using the label “mafia state” to describe South Africa. What it does make clear is that there is a proliferation of crime networks that involves not just criminal “kingpins” and politically connected individuals but also ordinary people. They become part of this “value chain”, for different historical reasons. But South Africa may be reaching a point where the link between crime and politics is sustained because there are role-players who do not want to see it changing. </p>
<h2>Fighting corruption</h2>
<p>The prevalence of criminal elements within the state does not mean that the whole of the state has become a criminal enterprise. But it is true that many state institutions, have been targeted by criminals, with the collusion of people on the inside.</p>
<p>South Africans are not resigned to the criminalisation of the state, and are actively challenging it. Many of the revelations about fraud, corruption and nepotism come from principled whistle-blowers within state structures. Others come from the relatively free media, and voices in civil society and politics. Some of the malfeasance has been revealed by <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-08-15-the-zondo-report-has-clearly-fingered-the-enablers-of-state-capture-now-its-time-for-reparations/">inquiries initiated by the executive</a> itself. This is the case with the Zondo Commission, which <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/">probed state capture</a>.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/using-the-south-african-army-to-fight-crime-is-a-bad-idea-heres-why-85627">Using the South African army to fight crime is a bad idea: here's why</a>
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<p>Poor communication strategies make it difficult for ordinary citizens to assess how the state is responding to these challenges. A case in point is the government’s decision to <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/opinions/columnists/mpumelelo_mkhabela/mpumelelo-mkhabela-when-did-eskom-crisis-become-a-national-security-crisis-requiring-the-army-20230111">deploy the military</a> to beef up security at several electricity generation facilities. It remains to be seen whether the deployment will be able to stop the acts of sabotage that the ESKOM senior management claim to be a major factor in the worsening energy crisis. </p>
<p>As with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-lies-behind-social-unrest-in-south-africa-and-what-might-be-done-about-it-166130">July 2021 riots</a>, sparked by the jailing of former president Jacob Zuma for contempt of court, there are <a href="https://mg.co.za/news/2022-12-15-gordhan-calls-out-mantashes-bizarre-accusations-applauds-de-ruyters-efforts-at-eskom/">conflicting public pronouncements</a> from cabinet ministers on critical sectors and services affected by crime.</p>
<h2>The political economy of organised crime</h2>
<p>The South African economy has a formal sector (“first economy”) and an informal sector (“second economy”). Economists call this a <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/05/south-africas-economy-in-5-charts/">dual economy</a>. To this should be added a “third economy” – the illicit economic activities described above, that have seeped into the formal and informal economies. </p>
<p>The overlap between the licit and the illicit economy in South Africa is complex. Even big, multinational companies may also <a href="https://www.pplaaf.org/cases/bain.html">covertly engage in illicit operations</a> in spite of appearances. On the other hand, criminals often exploit vulnerable people where the state has failed to meet basic needs: they offer jobs, opportunities and income, a phenomenon seen not only in South Africa, but <a href="https://www.thebrokeronline.eu/poverty-and-unemployment-encourage-organized-crime-d6/">across the African continent</a>. </p>
<h2>Looking forward</h2>
<p>Part of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-needs-stronger-security-in-place-to-stop-the-sabotage-of-its-power-supply-187889">reset</a> South Africa needs to untangle political and crime networks is better policing and security strategies. The state must be able to assert its authority in the interests of the majority, law-abiding citizens who want to live honest lives in a climate of certainty.</p>
<p>If the crime-politics nexus is being deliberately sustained through the collusion of influential actors within the state, then it is going to be much harder to dismantle. </p>
<p>The resources being spent to address crime will be ineffective. The spectre of corrupt, pliable or compromised people in the criminal justice sector will make the future more unstable. Violence and threats against those who stand up against organised crime will become more commonplace. </p>
<p>The reports of the <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/site/information/reports">Zondo Commission</a>, the <a href="https://www.siu.org.za/investigation-reports/">Special Investigating Unit</a>, whistle-blower reports, work by <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-investigative-journalists-helped-turn-the-tide-against-corruption-in-south-africa-93434">investigative journalists</a>, research by <a href="https://pari.org.za/betrayal-promise-report/">academics</a>, <a href="https://issafrica.org/research/southern-africa-report/investigating-corruption-in-south-africa-cooperation-or-conflict">think tanks</a> and <a href="https://www.corruptionwatch.org.za/">civil society organisations</a>, all go some way towards showing how the slide towards a criminal state can be halted. The criminal justice system must bring criminals to book, not give way to impunity. </p>
<p>But more important than combating crime is asking the difficult questions about how ordinary people end up involved in organised crime, and why the country’s democracy is becoming <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africans-hold-contradictory-views-about-their-democracy-159647">more polarised</a>. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/many-kenyans-have-embraced-vigilante-cops-an-ineffective-police-force-is-to-blame-196449">Many Kenyans have embraced vigilante cops – an ineffective police force is to blame</a>
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<p>If the dire <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-is-trapped-again-what-kind-of-leaders-can-set-the-country-free-187704">socio-economic conditions</a> persist, there is every likelihood that organised criminals will continue to exploit the contradictions in society, and organised crime markets will expand. </p>
<p>The stakes are high. Stopping South Africa from becoming a “mafia state” ought to be a priority for everyone. This will become a key issue of concern to voters ahead of the 2024 national general elections.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198160/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sandy Africa is affiliated with the University of Pretoria's Faculty of Humanities, which partnered with the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime (GITOC), the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) and the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) to launch GITOC's 'Strategic Organised Crime Risk Assessment: South Africa' in September 2022.</span></em></p>South Africans are actively challenging the criminalisation of the state. Many of the revelations about fraud, corruption and nepotism come from principled whistle-blowers within the state.Sandy Africa, Associate Professor, Political Sciences, and Deputy Dean Teaching and Learning (Humanities), University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1878892022-08-03T16:03:47Z2022-08-03T16:03:47ZSouth Africa needs stronger security in place to stop the sabotage of its power supply<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477200/original/file-20220802-14-80pssz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South African president Cyril Ramaphosa recently <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/address-president-cyril-ramaphosa-actions-address-electricity-crisis%2C-union-buildings%2C-tshwane">outlined</a> plans to solve the country’s devastating electricity supply crisis. But he didn’t mention the country’s ability to protect its energy infrastructure as a prerequisite to any solution.</p>
<p>South Africa has had power cuts <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/7/1/power-cuts-in-south-africa-what-you-need-to-now">since 2007</a> when Eskom, the power utility, began failing to meet demand. This got worse every year. The power utility is struggling to keep its <a href="https://www.power-technology.com/news/eskom-coal-power/">aged coal-fired power stations</a> running after many years of poor maintenance. It is also <a href="https://www.esi-africa.com/industry-sectors/asset-maintenance/generating-capacity-woes-continues-to-bedevil-eskom/">struggling</a> to get its two new power stations to operate at full capacity.</p>
<p>Explaining some of the recent power cuts, Ramaphosa said that some of the energy infrastructure had been <a href="https://www.enca.com/news/sas-power-stations-ramaphosa-says-theres-deliberate-sabotage">sabotaged</a>. </p>
<p>We flagged this in an earlier <a href="https://theconversation.com/hybrid-warfare-is-on-the-rise-globally-might-south-africas-eskom-be-its-latest-victim-173166">article</a>. We argued that Eskom was the target of hybrid warfare operations aimed at destabilising South Africa’s national power generation capability. </p>
<p>The question is whether the country has the necessary security capabilities to protect its energy infrastructure from such threats and risks. An assessment of the security capabilities also has to include a fit for purpose test of the legislation for the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201911/4286628-11act8of2019criticalinfraprotectact.pdf">protection of critical infrastructure</a>.</p>
<p>Enhanced intelligence capacities are required to detect, deter and neutralise threats such as sabotage, or subversion caused by rioting. More – and appropriately equipped – security forces are also needed to physically secure critical infrastructure. These could be privately or publicly funded.</p>
<p>Our view is that the country does not have what is required where and when it is needed. A comprehensive approach is needed – including managing security threats – to address its energy crisis. This requires collaboration between the state and private sector to implement the president’s long-term energy security vision. </p>
<h2>Hybrid attacks now common</h2>
<p>South Africa is not the only country whose energy infrastructure is facing security threats. There are <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/za/en/insights/industry/public-sector/cyberattack-critical-infrastructure-cybersecurity.html">numerous examples</a> of attacks on critical infrastructure. These are typically <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/research-and-innovation/en/horizon-magazine/critical-infrastructures-under-daily-attack-erncip-head-georg-peter">cyber-related</a>. But physical attacks such as <a href="https://www.da.org.za/2021/11/eskom-infrastructure-sabotage-is-consistent-with-the-july-insurrectionists-modus-operandi">sabotage</a> also occur.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/critical-infrastructure-attacks-why-south-africa-should-worry">Institute for Security Studies</a> argues that attacks on the critical infrastructure of developing countries, such as South Africa, could be “<a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/critical-infrastructure-attacks-why-south-africa-should-worry">potentially devastating</a>”. South Africa’s national security vulnerabilities, combined with the security risks to a monolithic state owned entity with no backup, could exacerbate the country’s power supply insecurities. </p>
<p>Cyber attacks on Eskom’s critical infrastructure could lead to severe damage. The result could be corresponding losses of generation capacity and damage to the economy. </p>
<p>National security vulnerabilities can be reduced by state security capabilities that are equal to the task. A <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/content/report-expert-panel-july-2021-civil-unrest">Report of the Expert Panel</a> into <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57818215">civil unrest</a> in the country in July 2021 revealed serious capacity problems within the state security sector. The sector is mandated to forewarn government, and to protect critical infrastructure and the public against <a href="https://journals.sas.ac.uk/amicus/article/view/1671">hybrid threats</a>. These include terrorism, subversion, sabotage, espionage and organised crime. </p>
<p>This weakness was also highlighted in the 2018 <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201903/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency.pdf">High-Level Review Panel on the State Security Agency</a>. It concluded that the country’s <a href="https://nationalgovernment.co.za/units/view/42/state-security-agency-ssa">State Security Agency</a> had been</p>
<blockquote>
<p>compromised by factionalism, mismanagement and inefficiency.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The agency is South Africa’s primary authority tasked with protecting the country against such hybrid threats. Yet it is in a state of disrepair. This calls for the country to focus efforts on (at least) the capability to secure Eskom against obvious national security threats. </p>
<h2>The importance of critical infrastructure</h2>
<p>The protection of South Africa’s energy infrastructure falls within the remit of the new <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201911/4286628-11act8of2019criticalinfraprotectact.pdf">Critical Infrastructure Protection Act 8 of 2019</a>. Such infrastructure is crucial for the effective functioning of the economy, <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201911/4286628-11act8of2019criticalinfraprotectact.pdf">national security</a> and public safety. </p>
<p>Critical infrastructure consists of national assets that are viewed as having strategic importance. South Africa has plenty of critical infrastructure spread across its length and breadth – measuring <a href="https://www.worlddata.info/africa/south-africa/index.php#:%7E:text=South%20Africa%20is%20a%20country,25th%20biggest%20in%20the%20world">about 1.219 million km²</a>. These include the Eskom energy grid – <a href="https://www.eskom.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/TDP-Report-2019-2029_Final.pdf">including power stations, sub-stations and transmission networks</a> – dams, the banking system and oil storage. The sheer scale requires extensive security capabilities necessary for physical protection and monitoring threats. </p>
<p>Beyond physically securing this infrastructure, the state also needs to have the ability to detect, deter and neutralise threat actors. These are classical counterintelligence prerogatives. Failure on this front makes the country vulnerable to destabilisation. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/download/file/fid/2442">stretched nature</a> of the country’s security agencies was laid bare during the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57818215">violent riots</a> in July 2021. It is thus reasonable to question the capacity of the police, and other security agencies, to secure Eskom’s critical infrastructure and that of private power producers.</p>
<h2>Planning for security</h2>
<p>In our view, all planning to develop and diversify the national power grid and energy supply should include enough resources to protect them. This requires cooperative planning between Eskom and the South African security sector (both state and private).</p>
<p>The exact role of the South African National Defence Force in providing security for critical infrastructure remains unclear. The <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201503/act-102-1980.pdf">National Key Points Act 1980</a>, the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/a42-020.pdf">Defence Act 2002</a> and the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201911/4286628-11act8of2019criticalinfraprotectact.pdf">Critical Infrastructure Protection Act 8 of 2019</a> are not explicit on the issue. </p>
<p>The protection of critical infrastructure has been assigned to the South African Police Service, with the defence force <a href="https://static.pmg.org.za/170512review.pdf">supporting it</a>. Given that the defence budget has been shrinking annually, the military will probably not be able to sustain this.</p>
<p>With the private sector playing an increased role in the energy sector, South Africa needs to develop dedicated private security capacities to protect its critical infrastructure. At the very least, it should adopt a mixed public-private security model akin to the police service’s <a href="https://cvwa.org.za/community-police-forum/">community policing</a> concept. </p>
<p>The president’s energy vision envisages a much larger private industrial capacity. If left unsecured, such capacity would be just as vulnerable to sabotage as the current Eskom infrastructure is. It is time the country took stock of its security requirements in the same way it has started being serious about its energy vulnerabilities. </p>
<p>There’s also the question of whether the penalties prescribed by law are fit to deter sabotage. </p>
<h2>What needs to happen</h2>
<p>The hybrid nature of <a href="https://www.da.org.za/2021/11/eskom-infrastructure-sabotage-is-consistent-with-the-july-insurrectionists-modus-operandi">threats to the country’s infrastructure</a> can only be solved by an integrated solution. That requires, firstly, clarity about mandates as well as state security capabilities. </p>
<p>Secondly, security sector capacity needs to be developed alongside critical infrastructure. Thirdly, legislation needs to increase existing sanctions in terms of fines and imprisonment.</p>
<p>Lastly, public-private security partnerships must be established to bolster the security of the country’s electricity infrastructure.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187889/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sascha-Dominik (Dov) Bachmann has received funding from the Australian Department of Defence for research regarding grey zone and information operations targeting Australia. Sascha Dov is a Research Fellow with The Security Institute for Governance and Leadership in Africa, Faculty of Military Science, Stellenbosch University. Sascha would like to thank Dr. Sasha-Lee Afrika for her insightful comments and assistance, particularly regarding the law.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dries Putter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The hybrid nature of threats to South Africa’s energy infrastructure can only be solved by an integrated solution, including severe sanctions that should include fines and imprisonment.Sascha-Dominik (Dov) Bachmann, Professor in Law and Co-Convener National Security Hub (University of Canberra) and Research Fellow (adjunct) - The Security Institute for Governance and Leadership in Africa, Faculty of Military Science, Stellenbosch University- NATO Fellow Asia-Pacific, University of CanberraDries Putter, Lecturer at the Faculty of Military Science / Affiliate Member, National Security Hub, University of Canberra and Researcher for Security Institute for Governance and Leadership in Africa (SIGLA), Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1705962021-11-05T13:12:47Z2021-11-05T13:12:47ZSouth Africa’s liberation war veterans are angry: here’s why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429948/original/file-20211103-23-o3k8nm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Umkhonto we Sizwe army veterans stand to attention during the 75th birthday celebrations of the governing ANC in 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Cornell Turiki</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The late 1950s was an era of growing resistance to the apartheid’s state’s application of discriminatory laws in South Africa. The resistance, led by the African National Congress (ANC) and Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), was met with harsh state suppression. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/sharpeville-massacre-21-march-1960">massacre in 1960</a> of 69 black people protesting against being forced to carry identity documents that restricted their movement, was a turning point for both the ANC and PAC. It precipitated their move away from passive non-violent resistance towards the armed struggle.</p>
<p>In 1961, the ANC formed its armed wing, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02582473.2018.1438882">Umkhonto we Sizwe</a> (MK) (Spear of the nation). And the PAC <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/trc/hrvtrans/submit/apla.htm">formed the Azanian People’ Liberation Army (APLA)</a>. The aim was to violently challenge white minority rule. Both embarked on campaigns of armed resistance against the state, including acts of sabotage and guerrilla warfare. </p>
<p>The most spectacular symbolic attacks on the apartheid state were the rocket attack on the fuels company, Sasol’s coal-to-oil refinery in Sasolburg; the Koeberg nuclear power station in 1982; and the South African Defence Force headquarters in Pretoria <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Umkhonto-Sizwe-ANCs-Armed-Struggle/dp/1770228411">in 1983</a>. </p>
<p>As state repression increased, especially after the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">Soweto uprisings of 1976 of schoolchildren </a> many young black South Africans flocked to join the liberation movements and their armed wings in exile.</p>
<p>It is estimated that the membership of the ANC and PAC’s military wings in the 1990s stood at between 8000 and 10 000 members. These numbers swelled during the transition to democracy to 23 000 by 1994, and later to <a href="https://www.bookdepository.com/Military-Making-Modern-South-Africa-Annette-Seegers/9781850436898">33 000 members</a>. </p>
<p>This last-minute spike raised eyebrows at the time, and in fact can be blamed in part for the unhappiness ensued. The numbers went up because it was felt necessary to boost the relatively small number of liberation fighters, compared to the apartheid-era South African Defence Force which had a total of <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-33734-6">67 5000 active duty force and 360 000 in the citizen forces in 1993</a>. </p>
<p>But the large signups were controversial, and created tensions that have simmered down the decades.</p>
<p>On top of this, the dismantling of these armed forces and that of the apartheid state was, in retrospect, managed badly. The result is that it left in its wake thousands of angry veterans who felt betrayed. In recent years they have come out vociferously against the ruling ANC. Most recently <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/state-ponders-adding-terrorism-charges-to-53-people-who-allegedly-held-ministers-hostage-20211018">53 veterans were charged with taking government ministers hostage</a> in an attempt to get the government to fulfil promises they claim were broken.</p>
<p>For decades sociologists have warned that military veterans would <a href="https://www.projecttopics.org/journals/140158-the-social-integration-of-demobilised-soldiers-in-contemporary-south-africa.html">use their skills to cause instability</a> if their needs weren’t addressed. Lephophotho Mashike, who has researched the subject extensively called them a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21528586.2004.10419108">‘a ticking time bomb’</a>.</p>
<h2>Demobilisation and compensation</h2>
<p>The end of the armed hostilities following the end of apartheid in 1994 meant the establishment of a new united military – the <a href="http://www.csvr.org.za/docs/militarisation/fromsadftosandf.pdf">South African National Defence Force</a>. The former guerrillas and armies of the former nominally independent states of Venda, Bophuthatswana, Ciskei and Transkei, were either integrated into the new defence force or demobilised. </p>
<p>When the integration process was finalised in 2001, 44 143 names appeared on the collective Non-Statutory Force Certified Personnel Register. Of these, 15 805 were integrated into the South African National Defence Force, 9 771 demobilised and 13 117 neither integrated or demobilised. </p>
<p>Those who were demobilised weren’t considered fit to serve in the new integrated army due to ill-health or age. Each <a href="https://pmg.org.za/committee-meeting/325/">received a gratuity</a> based on their years of service. They could choose to either receive a lump sum, or <a href="https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030337339">monthly pension pay-out</a>. </p>
<p>Military veterans complained that the payments were inadequate. Many have <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10246029.2012.752396">remained destitute</a> due to poor education, lack of marketable skills, health problems and <a href="http://www.csvr.org.za/docs/militarisation/nowthatthewar.pdf">inability to reintegrate into society</a>.</p>
<p>A 2006 report titled <a href="https://www.atlanticphilanthropies.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Only-Useful-Until-Democracy.pdf">“Only Useful Until Democracy”</a> found that 73% of the military veterans believed that South Africa’s post-apartheid leaders had forgotten them. Over 84% believed that their compensation was not <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/news/anti-apartheid-veterans-left-in-the-lurch-1.611906">adequate</a>, felt neglected and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10246029.2012.752396">abandoned by the ANC government</a>.</p>
<p>And a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10246029.2012.752396">study I conducted in 2012</a> with researcher Henrietta Bwalya found that military veterans were frustrated by slow payments. They were living in abject poverty, felt used, neglected and marginalised in the new political dispensation. </p>
<p>In 2007 they finally seemed to have attracted the earnest attention they had been seeking. This was at the ANC’s National Conference in Polokwane at which Jacob Zuma was elected President of the ANC.</p>
<p>The conference pledged to provide veterans with extensive welfare support, adopting <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent/news/ramaphosa-blamed-for-military-vets-hostage-incident-54061ce5-71b7-4060-8ef8-43e7a646ee50">a resolution</a> that committed the ANC to taking direct interest in the welfare and reintegration of its former soldiers <a href="https://new.anc1912.org.za/resolutions-2/">into civilian life</a>. </p>
<p>Two years later, and after Zuma had become the president of the country, the <a href="http://www.dmv.gov.za/">Department of Military Veterans</a> was created. It was placed under the Department of Defence, with the remit of managing veterans’ affairs. </p>
<p>In 2011 the <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/military-veterans-act">Military Veterans Act</a> was promulgated. It obliged the state to provide military veterans access to healthcare, subsidised public transport, education, skills and job training as well as burial support. This was <a href="http://www.dmv.gov.za/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/The-Military-Veterans-Act-of-2011.pdf">subject to meeting a needs test</a>.</p>
<p>This raised the legitimate expectations of military veterans that they would now finally receive the benefits. But <a href="https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030337339">discontent remained – and even grew –</a> as the Department of Military Veterans proved unable to <a href="https://www.defenceweb.co.za/featured/ministerial-hostage-incident-seen-as-another-intelligence-failure/">roll out the benefits</a> or even spend its allocated budget.</p>
<p>This has been largely attributed to the lack of capacity and poor administration in the department. This was <a href="https://pmg.org.za/committee-meeting/32465/">reflected in the deliberations</a> of Parliament’s Select Committee on Security and Justice, in March 2021.</p>
<p>The department has consistently under-performed in terms of meeting the needs of veterans. It’s plagued by mismanagement and corruption, including wasteful, <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2021-08-24-four-military-vets-department-managers-suspended-ahead-of-probe-into-r120m-irregular-expenditure/">irregular and fruitless expenditure</a>.</p>
<p>Discontent among military veterans took on an extreme turn in October. A group of them allegedly <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-10-15-military-vets-leader-who-took-two-ministers-and-a-deputy-minister-hostage-works-for-ethekwini-municipality/">held </a> two government ministers and a deputy minister hostage. They demanded government jobs, R4.2 million (US$285 000) compensation each, land for housing, and free <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/mabuza-to-meet-military-veterans-demanding-government-jobs-millions-in-gratuity-payments-20211014">education</a> for their dependants. </p>
<p>The group, calling itself the Liberation Struggle War Veterans, is made up of former members of Umkhonto we Sizwe, APLA and the Azanian National Liberation Army (Azanla) allied to the Black Consciousness Movement. This Azanian National Liberation Army was not officially disbanded during the negotiations to end apartheid as the Black Consciousness Movement boycotted the talks. They were therefore latecomers to the compensation process.</p>
<h2>What needs to be done</h2>
<p>Military veterans constitute a small but vocal constituency in the ANC and form a powerful political bloc <a href="https://irr.org.za/media/articles-authored-by-the-institute/the-dangerous-rise-of-jacob-zumas-private-army">that’s been closely aligned to Zuma</a>. </p>
<p>It’s neither sensible nor desirable that the maladministration that’s affected their lives is allowed to continue, as a recent <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/public-protector-finds-military-veterans-department-appointed-people-without-qualifications-and-experience-fccdcf81-73a1-45fc-89a4-8dee47fba21b">report by the public protector pointed out</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170596/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lindy Heinecken does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The dismantling of the liberation armies and that of the apartheid state was managed badly. It left in its wake thousands of angry veterans who felt betrayed.Lindy Heinecken, Vice-Dean Research, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1694672021-10-28T19:13:26Z2021-10-28T19:13:26Z3 ways we sabotage relationships (and 3 ways to kick the habit)<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428711/original/file-20211027-25-1u8brog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C14%2C992%2C588&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/broken-heart-breakup-concept-separation-divorce-275034533">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Popular culture has plenty of examples of people sabotaging their romantic relationships.</p>
<p>In the movie <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0147800/">10 Things I Hate About You</a>, Kat says she has no interest in romantic engagements. Then Patrick <a href="https://www.moviequotedb.com/movies/10-things-i-hate-about-you/quote_150.html">asks</a> about her dating style:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You disappoint them from the start and then you’re covered, right?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But as the plot develops, we learn this is Kat’s way of protecting herself, to cope with the trauma of a previous relationship.</p>
<p>Other people move through relationships searching for “the one”, making quick assessments of their romantic partners. </p>
<p>In the TV series <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2211129/">The Mindy Project</a>, Mindy is a successful obstetrician and gynaecologist with poor relationship skills. She has a trail of relationship failures, and partners who did not measure up. She is looking for the “perfect” love story with unrealistic expectations. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8iCwtxJejik?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Jacob moves through sexual partners night after night to avoid a serious commitment, in the movie Crazy, Stupid, Love.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another example is Jacob in the movie <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1570728/">Crazy, Stupid, Love</a>. He quickly moves through sexual partners night after night to avoid a serious commitment. </p>
<p>In the same movie, we meet Cal and Emily, who stayed in a marriage long term but had become complacent. This caused them to split, but once they started to work on themselves, they found a way to reconnect.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-ick-a-psychological-scientist-explains-this-tiktok-trend-169546">What is 'the ick'? A psychological scientist explains this TikTok trend</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>What is relationship sabotage?</h2>
<p>My team and I <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-relationships-research/article/defining-romantic-selfsabotage-a-thematic-analysis-of-interviews-with-practising-psychologists/35531B41927851905281C7D815FE4199/share/ed27f1606df159cf7e3240f5c3136174c4991fe0">define</a> relationship sabotage as self-defeating attitudes and behaviours in (and out of) relationships. These stop relationships succeeding, or lead people to give up on them, justifying why these relationships fail.</p>
<p>Most importantly, relationship sabotage is a self-protection strategy for a win-win outcome. </p>
<p>For example, you might feel you win if the relationship survives despite your defensive strategies. Alternatively, if the relationship fails, your beliefs and choice to protect yourself are validated.</p>
<h2>Why do we do this?</h2>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Why do we sabotage love?</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15332691.2020.1795039">found</a> people sabotage their relationships mainly because of fear. This is despite wanting an intimate relationship. </p>
<p>As Sam Smith says in their song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_ub7Etch2U">Too Good at Goodbyes</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m never gonna let you close to me</p>
<p>Even though you mean the most to me</p>
<p>‘Cause every time I open up, it hurts.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1453190792462340097"}"></div></p>
<p>However, fear responses are not always visible or easy to identify. This is because our <a href="https://www.guilford.com/books/Emotionally-Focused-Therapy-for-Couples/Greenberg-Johnson/9781606239278">emotions are layered</a> to protect us. Fear is a vulnerable (and core) emotion, which is commonly hidden beneath surface (or secondary) emotions, such as defensiveness. </p>
<h2>Recognise any of these patterns?</h2>
<p>Relationship sabotage is not a “one off” moment in a relationship. It happens when fear triggers patterns of responses from one relationship to the next. </p>
<p>My research highlights <a href="https://rdcu.be/czwUo">three main patterns</a> of attitudes and behaviours to look out for.</p>
<p><strong>Defensiveness</strong></p>
<p>Defensiveness, such as being angry or aggressive, is a counter-attack to a perceived threat. People who are defensive are motivated by wanting to validate themselves; they are looking to prove themselves right and protect their self-esteem. </p>
<p>Threats that trigger defensiveness are a previous relationship trauma, difficulty with self-esteem, loss of hope, the possibility of getting hurt again, and fear of failure, rejection, abandonment and commitment. However, defensiveness is an instinctive response that sometimes makes sense.</p>
<p>People can believe relationships often end up in “heart break”. One <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15332691.2020.1795039">research participant</a> was tired of being criticised and having their feelings misunderstood:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I protect myself from getting hurt in a romantic relationship by putting up all of my walls and not letting go of my guard.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>Trust difficulty</strong></p>
<p>Having difficulty trusting others involves struggling to believe romantic partners and perhaps feeling jealous of their attention to others. People who feel this way might not feel safe and avoid feeling vulnerable in relationships. </p>
<p>This is often a result of past experiences of having trust betrayed, or expecting to be betrayed. Betrayals could be as a result of small deceptions (a white lie) or bigger deceptions (infidelity). </p>
<p>People explained choosing not to trust, or being unable to trust, was a way of avoiding being hurt again. One <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15332691.2020.1795039">research participant</a> said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I no longer trust my romantic partners 100%. I will always be thinking about what I would do if they left or cheated, so I never get fully invested.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>Lack of relationship skills</strong></p>
<p>This is when someone has limited insight or awareness into destructive tendencies in relationships. This may be a result of poor relationship
role models, or negative interactions and outcomes from previous relationships. </p>
<p>One <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15332691.2020.1795039">research participant</a> said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What used to hold me back was lack of experience, poor relationship examples (from my parents), and my own immaturity. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But relationship skills can be learned. Healthy relationships can help foster relationship skills and in turn lessen the effects of defensiveness and trust difficulty.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1450069204959432705"}"></div></p>
<h2>The cost of relationship sabotage</h2>
<p>Relationship sabotage does not necessarily end relationships. This depends on whether these patterns are long term. </p>
<p>For singles, relationship sabotage might prevent you from starting a relationship in the first place. For people in relationships, a long-term effect of repeatedly using self-defensive strategies might be to see your fears turn into reality, like a <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9731324/">self-fulfilling prophecy</a>.</p>
<p>Difficulties in intimate relationships are among the <a href="https://janzssa.scholasticahq.com/article/8074-anzssa-heads-of-counselling-services-hocs-benchmarking-survey-2018-summary-report">top</a> main reasons for seeking counselling. Such difficulties are also <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2003-88322-003">significant contributors</a> to anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts.</p>
<h2>So, what we can you do about it?</h2>
<p>I have seen <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15332691.2020.1795039">countless testimonials</a> from people who sabotaged their relationships and felt helpless and hopeless. But here are three ways to <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-34594-002">do something about it</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><strong>insight:</strong> we need to know who we are first, and the “baggage” we bring to relationships. Be honest with yourself and your partner about your fears and what you might be struggling with</p></li>
<li><p><strong>expectations:</strong> we need to manage our expectations of romantic engagements. Understand what you can realistically expect of yourself and your partners</p></li>
<li><p><strong>collaboration:</strong> you need to collaborate with your partner to implement strategies to maintain a healthy relationship. This means learning how to communicate better (across all topics, while being honest) and showing flexibility and understanding, especially when dealing with conflict. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Above all, believe you can have healthy relationships and deserve to be loved.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.</em></p>
<p><em>Correction: Sam Smith’s gender pronoun has been corrected to “their”.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169467/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raquel Peel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many of us form destructive habits that prevent us forming long-lasting, healthy relationships. But it doesn’t have to be this way.Raquel Peel, Lecturer, University of Southern QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1647172021-07-26T15:24:04Z2021-07-26T15:24:04ZMilitary not a magic bullet: South Africa needs to do more for long term peace<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/413119/original/file-20210726-26-vb3azi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African Defence Force troops on patrol in Alexandra, Johannesburg, following recent violence and looting. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a show of force unprecedented since South Africa became a democracy in 1994, the South African National Defence Force has <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/sandf-forces-continue-to-arrive-in-kzn-following-a-week-of-violence-faae84c3-64b0-474b-9716-f5147c86fcb6">commissioned 25,000</a> soldiers for deployment across KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, the two provinces most affected by <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/22/south-africa-unrest-death-toll-jumps-to-more-than-300">recent riots and large scale looting</a>. </p>
<p>President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the deployment of the troops to <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/address-president-cyril-ramaphosa-acts-violence-and-destruction-property">support the country’s police</a>, who had been overwhelmed by the scale of the violence.</p>
<p>Governments usually deploy the military as the last line of defence when they face an insurrection or <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/columnists/qaanitah_hunter/qaanitah-hunter-an-insurrection-or-not-why-governments-confusion-doesnt-solve-sas-crises-20210721">revolt</a>. The threat of or use of military force is the ultimate arbiter to quell unrest that threatens state stability or the safety of citizens, as seen in Nigeria, where the deployment of the army on internal security operations <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-use-of-nigerian-soldiers-in-civil-unrest-whats-in-place-and-whats-missing-149283">has increased dramatically since 1999</a>.</p>
<p>In South Africa, the military has recently been deployed to <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-army-is-being-used-to-fight-cape-towns-gangs-why-its-a-bad-idea-120455">counter gang violence</a> on the Cape Flats and during the <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-military-is-not-suited-for-the-fight-against-covid-19-heres-why-138560">COVID-19 pandemic</a>. In all these instances, there are concerns about how effective it is in these roles. </p>
<p>In South Africa, for now, the deployment of the army troops to assist the police has brought about an <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2021/07/21/explainer-what-caused-south-africa-s-week-of-rioting//">uneasy calm</a>. But what South Africans are seeing is a negative peace – where a degree of normality returns, but in which the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/422690?seq=2#metadata_info_tab_contents">underlying causes of the conflict remain</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-army-is-being-used-to-fight-cape-towns-gangs-why-its-a-bad-idea-120455">The army is being used to fight Cape Town's gangs. Why it's a bad idea</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The military may help create a more stable and secure environment, curb violence and unrest in the short term, but this is unlikely to result in a <a href="https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/4135/413546002004.pdf">sustainable and lasting peace</a>. The cultural and structural issues underlying the violence need to be <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-07-15-whats-behind-violence-in-south-africa-a-sociologists-perspective/">addressed</a>. These relate to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/pandemic-underscores-gross-inequalities-in-south-africa-and-the-need-to-fix-them-135070">inequalities</a> and injustices embedded in the structure of society. </p>
<p>The military is no magic bullet.</p>
<h2>Concerns about army deployment</h2>
<p>There are many concerns around the use of the military internally in domestic operations within the borders of one’s own country.</p>
<p>The first concerns the government’s use of the military <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10246029.2019.1650787">against its own citizens</a>. As seen in both Nigeria and South Africa, the military is typically not trained or equipped to deal with civil unrest and has limited experience in riot control.</p>
<p>One risk is that communities might deliberately act out in ways that <a href="http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/news/general/SANDF-covid-19">provoke the soldiers</a>, which could result in excessive use of force. This can affect trust in the military, affecting the legitimacy of the state. The South African government has already faced criticism for its heavy handed and highly militarised approach during the <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/SouthAfrica/News/un-human-rights-office-highlights-toxic-lockdown-culture-in-sa-20200428">early phase of lockdown in 2020</a>. However, in general the population has a far higher level of trust in the military <a href="https://afrobarometer.org/sites/default/files/publications/Dispatches/ab_r6_dispatchno90_south_africa_trust_in_officials.pdf">than in other state institutions</a>.</p>
<p>The second risk pertains to prominence given to the military when faced with situations of civil unrest. Giving the military a prominent role in political decision-making in dealing with civil unrest can <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-army-is-being-used-to-fight-cape-towns-gangs-why-its-a-bad-idea-120455">lead to a culture of militarism and militarisation</a>. This results in the increased political reliance and economic investment in the military to assist with solving societal problems.</p>
<p>This can undermine attempts at finding more constructive approaches at conflict resolution. </p>
<h2>Achilles’ heel</h2>
<p>The army will inevitably be called in again to support the police. Whether the soldiers can provide this support given their <a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-19-south-africas-neglected-military-faces-mission-impossible-133250">limited capacity</a> is the big question. Those deployed are predominantly from the infantry, of which there are only 14 battalions, not all of which can deploy internally. Then there are the commitments to peacekeeping operations and the border, and now to Mozambique. </p>
<p>In its present form, the military cannot adequately respond to the threats facing the country internally and externally, due to the way it is <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-mulls-future-of-its-military-to-make-it-fit-for-purpose-146423">structured, funded and trained</a>. The military is structured for <a href="https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-sociology/chapter/war-and-terrorism/">conventional warfare</a>. This requires expensive equipment and training and does not allow sufficient flexibility to perform the functions it actually does.</p>
<p>South Africa needs a military that is more capable of responding to all the challenges facing the country. These include <a href="https://www.dcaf.ch/sites/default/files/publications/documents/DCAF_BG_15_Gendarmeries%20and%20constabulary-type%20police_0.pdf">a mix of military and policing functions</a>. This would mean restructuring the military to be able to put more boots on the ground. What is needed is more infantry troops, trained and equipped for the tasks they are required to do. This is less costly than preparing for conventional warfare, and using the army in collateral roles as it does now.</p>
<p>These changes would ensure that it could meet roles like peacekeeping, border control, support for the police and countering terrorism more effectively. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-mulls-future-of-its-military-to-make-it-fit-for-purpose-146423">South Africa mulls future of its military to make it fit-for-purpose</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Beyond this is the need to address the current <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-07-14-south-africas-tipping-point-how-the-intelligence-community-failed-the-country/">inefficiencies in the state security cluster</a>. Clearly there is a lack of visionary leadership, accountability and oversight, to enable these sectors to function more effectively.</p>
<p>The lack of <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/unrestsa-ministers-cele-and-dlodlo-at-odds-over-intelligence-report-20210720">effective intelligence</a> has meant that both the military and police were unable to put preemptive defensive measures in place to tackle the recent violence and looting, which has left <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/22/south-africa-unrest-death-toll-jumps-to-more-than-300">more than 330 people dead</a>.</p>
<h2>Comprehensive approach</h2>
<p>A more comprehensive approach to security is required. As indicated by soldier-scholar Laetitia Olivier in relation to gang violence, what is needed is a coordinated and comprehensive plan to <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-soldiers-wont-end-gang-violence-a-co-ordinated-plan-might-120775">address the twin challenges of security and economic development</a>. </p>
<p>Security and economic development are intertwined; the <a href="https://www.accord.org.za/ajcr-issues/%EF%BF%BCthe-security-development-nexus-and-the-imperative-of-peacebuilding-with-special-reference-to-the-african-context/">one cannot be achieved without the other</a>. To date, the government has failed on both accounts, which has led to the current crisis.</p>
<p>What is needed is a clear national security framework to repurpose the military in terms of its most likely <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/south-africas-security-sector-is-in-crisis-reform-must-start-now">future roles, missions and goals</a>. These are the roles which the military is currently performing, but it doesn’t have the force design and structure best suited for the tasks.</p>
<p>Tough decisions have to be made in terms of personnel, rejuvenation and equipping the military for its future roles and functions, given the current security threats facing the citizens of South Africa. This does not imply more investment in defence, but better use of the resources available.</p>
<p>More than ever before, decisive leadership is needed from politicians, military leadership and civil society to march the South African National Defence Force in the right direction.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164717/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lindy Heinecken does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The army may help create a more stable and secure environment in the short term, but this is unlikely to result in sustainable and lasting peace.Lindy Heinecken, Chair of the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1432762020-07-23T12:07:41Z2020-07-23T12:07:41ZAndrew Mlangeni 1925-2020: South Africa loses the last of the Rivonia triallists<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349119/original/file-20200723-23-2h6mfj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African freedom struggle stalwart Andrew Mlangeni at the UN.
</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Anti-apartheid struggle hero <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/andrew-mokete-mlangeni">Andrew Mokete Mlangeni</a>, who died this week at the age of 95, was the last surviving of the eight African National Congress (ANC) activists who were sentenced to life imprisonment in the infamous <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/people-involved-rivonia-trial-1963-1964">Rivonia trial in the 1960s</a>. </p>
<p>Mlangeni spent 20 of his 26 years in jail on Robben Island alongside fellow triallist Nelson Mandela and other luminaries of the ANC. He symbolised the generations who had joined the ANC during the most dangerous period of resistance to apartheid. No rewards, but only vindictive persecution, including detention and jail, were all that they could expect. They joined the movement to overthrow apartheid and build the South Africa envisioned in the <a href="http://scnc.ukzn.ac.za/doc/HIST/freedomchart/freedomch.html">Freedom Charter of 1955</a>, the ANC’s blueprint for a free, democratic South Africa.</p>
<p>But he was no party apparatchik. He became a fierce critic of the ANC as it matured into a political party and began to show all the signs of abandoning its early commitment to establish a just South Africa. He was particularly outspoken about rampant corruption under President Jacob Zuma.</p>
<p>Speaking at the Rhodes University conferment of an honorary doctorate, <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-04-09-read-in-full-andrew-mlangenis-inspiring-graduation-speech/">he said </a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Some of our political leaders have become absolutely corrupt – they are no longer interested in improving the lives of our people. They are busy lining their pockets with the money that is meant to help the poor people. What a disgrace.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He said that if convicted of corruption, Zuma should be jailed.</p>
<h2>Early life</h2>
<p>His early life exemplified what so many South Africans shared. </p>
<p>He was born on 6 June 1925 on a white-owned farm near Bethlehem in the Free State. His father died when he was one year old. The farm owner then evicted the family, who went to live in the blacks-only township of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Bethlehem-South-Africa">Bethlehem</a>, known as Bohlokong (Place of sorrow) in Sesotho. Andrew had to drop out of school to earn money as a caddy at the nearest golf club.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mandela-was-a-flawed-icon-but-without-him-south-africa-would-be-a-sadder-place-142826">Mandela was a flawed icon. But without him South Africa would be a sadder place</a>
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</p>
<hr>
<p>In 1939, he and his mother moved to Pimville, in what is today part of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/place/soweto">Soweto</a>, the sprawling black residential area southwest of Johannesburg. He returned to school: one of his teachers was <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-anc-is-celebrating-the-year-of-or-tambo-who-was-he-85838">Oliver Tambo</a>, an ANC activist who went on to lead the movement in exile, after it was banned in April 1960.</p>
<p>In 1946 he began work in a factory. First-hand experience of exploitation made him join the Young Communist League. In 1951 he joined the African National Congress Youth League, and in 1954 the ANC. He married June Ledwaba in 1950. They had four children; she passed away in 2001.</p>
<h2>Freedom fighter</h2>
<p>In 1961 Mandela selected Mlangeni as one of the first six volunteers to be smuggled out of South Africa to receive military training and join the newly founded uMkhonto weSizwe (Spear of the Nation), the armed wing of the ANC. He was trained in China, and successfully returned to South Africa.</p>
<p>In 1963 Mlangeni was among those the Special Branch of the apartheid police detained at Liliesleaf farm, and joined Mandela and others as accused in the Rivonia trial for sabotage. In 1964 they were sentenced to life imprisonment, and transferred to <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/analysis/explainer-andrew-mlangeni-what-happened-at-the-rivonia-trial-20200722">Robben Island prison</a>.</p>
<p>When the political prisoners won the right to study by correspondence in 1967, he was the first to enrol, and obtained a degree from the University of South Africa. After 26 years in jail, he was one of the Rivonia triallists released in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/16/world/freed-prisoners-call-on-pretoria-to-let-mandela-go.html">October 1989</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="GCIS" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349114/original/file-20200723-17-1wvdhw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349114/original/file-20200723-17-1wvdhw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349114/original/file-20200723-17-1wvdhw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349114/original/file-20200723-17-1wvdhw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349114/original/file-20200723-17-1wvdhw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349114/original/file-20200723-17-1wvdhw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349114/original/file-20200723-17-1wvdhw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Andrew Mokete Mlangeni receives an honorary Doctor of Literature and Philosophy degree at Unisa.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When South Africa became a democracy <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14662040008447830?journalCode=fccp20">in 1994</a>, he was elected as an ANC member of parliament, serving until the 1999 election. He later served a second term, from 2009 to 2014. He was a <a href="https://www.pa.org.za/person/andrew-mlangeni/">member of both</a> the Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans and the <a href="https://www.pa.org.za/person/andrew-mlangeni/">Joint Committee on Ethics and Members’ Interests</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/denis-goldberg-rivonia-triallist-liberation-struggle-stalwart-outspoken-critic-137670">Denis Goldberg: Rivonia triallist, liberation struggle stalwart, outspoken critic</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>His Rivonia celebrity status, and being an octogenarian veteran, gave him the space as an MP to take a public stance against corruption in Zuma’s administration. </p>
<p>He repeatedly criticised his own party in public, regardless of the tensions that would cause with some members of his own caucus. Up to the time of his death, he chaired the ANC Integrity Committee. Though a majority on the ANC’s National Executive Committee got it to ignore the Integrity Committee’s findings, Mlangeni had done all that he could.</p>
<h2>Accolades earned</h2>
<p>Mlangeni was <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/andrew-mokete-mlangeni">awarded</a> the Order for Meritorious Service, gold class, in 1999 by President Mandela, the first head of state of democratic South Africa. In 2016 he was granted the <a href="https://www.joburg.org.za/media_/Newsroom/Pages/2016%20&%202015%20Articles/bizos-mlangeni-given-the-freedom-of-joburg-ID10496.aspx">Freedom of Johannesburg</a> and the <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/anc-veteran-andrew-mlangeni-in-london-to-receive-freedom-of-the-city-20180719">Freedom of the City of London</a>, and received the inaugural <a href="https://www.leadsa.co.za/articles/295772/the-launch-of-the-george-bizos-human-rights-award">George Bizos Human Rights Award</a>, named after the veteran human rights lawyer who represented the Rivonia triallists. </p>
<p>In 2017 he appeared in the documentary film <a href="https://www.uct.ac.za/event/life-wonderful-mandelas-unsung-heroes">Life is Wonderful</a>, along with the then two other living survivors of the Rivonia trial, <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-06-07-life-is-wonderful-retelling-the-rivonia-trial-with-new-voices/">Ahmed Kathrada and Denis Goldberg</a>.</p>
<p>In 2018 Durban University of Technology conferred an <a href="https://www.dut.ac.za/dut-to-confer-honorary-doctorate-to-dr-andrew-mlangeni/">honorary doctorate in Education on him</a>; in the same year, Rhodes University granted him <a href="https://www.ru.ac.za/latestnews/archives/2018/rhodesconfershonorarydoctoratetodrandrewmoketemlangeni.html">an honorary doctorate in law</a>. The ANC awarded him its highest honour, Isithwalandwe-Seaparankoe, <a href="https://www.deccanchronicle.com/world/africa/220720/andrew-mlangeni-ally-of-mandela-in-anti-apartheid-struggle-dies-at-9.html">in 1992</a>.</p>
<p>President Cyril Ramaphosa <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/breaking-anti-apartheid-struggle-stalwart-andrew-mlangeni-dies-20200722">said on his death</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The passing of Andrew Mokete Mlangeni signifies the end of a generational history and places the future squarely in our hands. He was a champion and exemplar of the values we need to build in South Africa.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>When the weekly barrage of media coverage on the ANC is dominated by reports of corruption, Mlangeni’s life work reminds South Africans of commitment to winning democracy and defending tenaciously its triumphs and achievements. </p>
<p>It reminds us that democracy is not only a destination, but also a lifelong commitment to a just society and fighting for it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143276/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Gottschalk is an ANC member, but writes this obituary in his professional capacity as a political scientist.</span></em></p>Although a commited veteran of the ANC, Mlangeni was no party apparatchik. He was outspoken against endemic corruption in government.Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1172502019-05-16T05:52:21Z2019-05-16T05:52:21ZUS ban on Huawei likely following Trump cybersecurity crackdown – and Australia is on board<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274816/original/file-20190516-69189-5wbo09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Trump signed an executive order on May 15 that signals USA is concerned about sabotage through Chinese telcos such as Huawei. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/chengdu-sichuan-china-february-04-2019-1308451744?src=-fezqxht3ocKrh3aZNH2jw-1-61">from www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>US President Donald Trump has raised the stakes in his country’s cyberspace confrontation with China and Russia. On May 15 he signed a <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-16/donald-trump-order-clears-way-for-barring-huawei/11118202">new executive order</a> that identifies sabotage (not espionage) as the main threat from foreign states, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/15/business/huawei-ban-trump.html">declared a national emergency</a>. </p>
<p>The executive order includes provisions for the US administration to label foreign countries as adversaries, a move sure to anger the great power competitors. </p>
<p>I’m not surprised at this news – US cybersecurity policy has been building to this point since at least 2015. It’s also clear Australia is firmly committed to the emerging, robust posture of the US to protect national assets from risks of sabotage in cyberspace from countries such as China. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-is-vulnerable-to-a-catastrophic-cyber-attack-but-the-coalition-has-a-poor-cyber-security-track-record-113470">Australia is vulnerable to a catastrophic cyber attack, but the Coalition has a poor cyber security track record</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Concerns about sabotage</h2>
<p>Sabotage in this context refers to the fear that in a political crisis or war, an adversary will have its finger on the switch of our critical infrastructure – including the internet and communications capability – and be able to turn it off. </p>
<p>The freshly signed <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/message-congress-securing-information-communications-technology-services-supply-chain/">US executive order</a> calls out two threats: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>“risk of sabotage to or subversion of the design, integrity, manufacturing, production, distribution, installation, operation, or maintenance” of information and communications technology (ICT) equipment and services in the United States</p></li>
<li><p>“undue risk of catastrophic effects on the security or resiliency of United States critical infrastructure or the digital economy of the United States”. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>The reference to the digital economy alludes to the theft of intellectual property.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-securing-information-communications-technology-services-supply-chain/">order</a> is not out of the blue, having been foreshadowed by strategies and policies previously issued by the White House. </p>
<h2>Focus on Russia and China</h2>
<p>The executive order places a complete ban on US companies or individuals conducting future business of any kind with foreign ICT corporations from a country the US administration has formally declared to be <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-securing-information-communications-technology-services-supply-chain/">an adversary</a>. </p>
<p>The order also makes it clear that banned products and services will be any that are “supplied by persons owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of foreign adversaries”. </p>
<p>The United States has already been explicit that China and Russia are undertaking cyber activities that threaten US national security (though sabotage has rarely been mentioned). The US position has also been that China and Russia both maintain political influence over corporations headquartered in their countries. </p>
<p>So it seems inevitable that the US will soon declare China and Russia as adversary countries under the terms of the order.</p>
<h2>Evolution of policy since Obama</h2>
<p>This is not a Trump administration innovation, but rather the natural – some would say slow – evolution of policy under the Obama administration. A national cyberspace emergency was declared in both <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/04/01/executive-order-blocking-property-certain-persons-engaging-significant-m">April 2015</a> and <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/cyber2_eo.pdf">December 2016</a>.</p>
<p>Trump’s move follows the introduction in 2018 of new policies designed to punish countries undertaking malicious activities in cyber space. These are contained in the <a href="https://media.defense.gov/2018/Sep/18/2002041658/-1/-1/1/CYBER_STRATEGY_SUMMARY_FINAL.PDF">Defense Department Cyber Strategy</a> and the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/National-Cyber-Strategy.pdf">National Cyber Strategy</a> issued by the White House.</p>
<p><a href="https://dod.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/1847823/persistent-engagement-partnerships-top-cybercoms-priorities/">Just this month</a>, comments from head of US Cyber Command General Nakasone imply America is already launching attacks in cyber space and taking other measures to punish China and Russia for their malicious actions in cyberspace. </p>
<p>The Cyber Deterrence Initiative was announced as part of the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/National-Cyber-Strategy.pdf">National Cyber Strategy</a> of September 2018. It involves coalition-building with like-minded states, a group that is now 27 members strong, and includes the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-the-australian-intelligence-community-works-94422">Five Eyes countries like Australia</a>. </p>
<p>Referring to “consequences of […] malicious cyber behavior” and “malign actors”, it’s now clear this initiative set the stage for Trump’s new executive order. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-the-australian-intelligence-community-works-94422">Explainer: how the Australian intelligence community works</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Australia is involved</h2>
<p>The actions of our government indicate Australia supports US policies on persistent engagement and cyber deterrence.</p>
<p>In October 2018, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Foreign Minister Marise Payne <a href="https://foreignminister.gov.au/releases/Pages/2018/mp_mr_181004.aspx">joined other countries in linking Russia</a> with malicious cyber activity over the previous four years. </p>
<p>In December 2018, Payne and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton joined like-minded countries in <a href="https://foreignminister.gov.au/releases/Pages/2018/mp_mr_181221.aspx">attributing a continuing campaign of intellectual property theft</a> in cyberspace to China’s Ministry of State Security. </p>
<p>It is difficult to gauge how far Australia or other allies will go in supporting the US in imposing more severe costs other than simply naming and shaming. </p>
<p>Australia, like the US, has compiled a range of consequences it will consider imposing on foreign countries for cyber attacks. This will mean responses can be much swifter in the future. They will depend on early and close international coordination, and finding the right strategies to pinpoint responsibility. </p>
<p>We can be certain from US policy statements in 2018 that the American list of consequences includes retaliatory cyber attacks for Chinese and Russian incursions, as well as other severe non-cyber penalties. These include trade bans on Chinese firms, and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-trumps-trade-war-saving-american-jobs-or-killing-them-117159">trade war</a> now being waged with China.</p>
<p>The Australian list is probably somewhat more muted. But just how far this country is prepared to go to punish China is not likely ever to be put on the public record. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-trumps-trade-war-saving-american-jobs-or-killing-them-117159">Is Trump’s trade war saving American jobs – or killing them?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>No Huawei</h2>
<p>Australia’s position on the risk of sabotage was implicit in the <a href="https://www.minister.communications.gov.au/minister/mitch-fifield/news/government-provides-5g-security-guidance-australian-carriers">statement by the government in August 2018</a> effectively banning Huawei from 5G. The statement mentions potential impacts on critical infrastructure, including their availability and integrity. It does not refer to espionage as a concern. </p>
<p>Huawei’s recent <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48276822">commitment to enter “no spy” agreements with host countries</a> will not address the sabotage concerns.</p>
<p>According to strategic studies expert Hugh White, the Australian government already sees China in adversarial terms. In a <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/how-accommodating-of-china-should-australia-be/10904772">recent debate</a> on Australia’s China policy, he said war with China over Taiwan or the South China Sea is now “the de facto basis of Australian defence policy”, adding:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Australia is building a force whose primary function is to support the United States in a war with China. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>While White saw such a war as still a possibility rather than a certainty – and therefore China as only a potential adversary – the Trump administration’s escalation of policies around cyber sabotage threats from China will present new policy challenges for Australia’s next government.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117250/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Greg Austin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Trump’s new executive order reflects a fear of sabotage, where an enemy such as China or Russia could turn off critical infrastructure like the internet or communications capability.Greg Austin, Professor UNSW Canberra Cyber, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1085752019-01-08T11:39:16Z2019-01-08T11:39:16ZWhat’s behind our appetite for self-destruction?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252509/original/file-20190104-32148-1z0p5uh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There seems be an attractive quality to things that are ostensibly unhealthy or dangerous.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/revolver-loaded-cigarette-concept-selfdestruction-nicotine-1099376930?src=IYGKvT09mwbSvoRrsLvyfA-1-72">Alisusha/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Each new year, people vow to put an end to self-destructive habits like smoking, overeating or overspending.</p>
<p>And how many times have we learned of someone – a celebrity, a friend or a loved one – who committed some self-destructive act that seemed to defy explanation? Think of the criminal <a href="https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/12-years-jail-bank-manager-2367077">who leaves a trail of evidence</a>, perhaps with the hope of getting caught, or the politician who wins an election, <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/bellingham-student-embroiled-in-rep-weiner-twitter-scandal/">only to start sexting</a> someone likely to expose him. </p>
<p>Why do they do it? </p>
<p>Edgar Allan Poe, one of America’s greatest – and most self-destructive – writers, had some thoughts on the subject. He even had a name for the phenomenon: “perverseness.” Psychologists would later take the baton from Poe and attempt to decipher this enigma of the human psyche. </p>
<h2>Irresistible depravity</h2>
<p>In one of his lesser-known works, “<a href="https://www.eapoe.org/works/tales/impc.htm">The Imp of the Perverse</a>,” Poe argues that knowing something is wrong can be “the one unconquerable force” that makes us do it. </p>
<p>It seems that the source of this psychological insight was Poe’s own life experience. Orphaned before he was three years old, he had few advantages. But despite his considerable literary talents, he consistently managed to make his lot even worse. </p>
<p>He frequently alienated editors and other writers, even accusing poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow of plagiarism in what has come to be known as the “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=TevIJKwqWPMC&pg=PA210&lpg=PA210&dq=poe+plagiarism+longfellow&source=bl&ots=3w6dR6MLhK&sig=MzGhVaXkN0dMGJT91S58rcPBt6Y&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjznsj-pdLfAhUq54MKHbrOBIE4ChDoATAJegQIChAB#v=onepage&q=poe%20plagiarism%20longfellow&f=false">Longfellow war</a>.” During important moments, he seemed to implode: On a trip to Washington, D.C. to secure support for a proposed magazine and perhaps a government job, he apparently drank too much and <a href="https://www.eapoe.org/works/ostlttrs/pl661c05.htm">made a fool of himself</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252510/original/file-20190104-32124-lvaic9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252510/original/file-20190104-32124-lvaic9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252510/original/file-20190104-32124-lvaic9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252510/original/file-20190104-32124-lvaic9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252510/original/file-20190104-32124-lvaic9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252510/original/file-20190104-32124-lvaic9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1055&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252510/original/file-20190104-32124-lvaic9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1055&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252510/original/file-20190104-32124-lvaic9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1055&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">According to Edgar Allen Poe, knowing something is wrong can make it irresistible.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edgar_Allan_Poe_daguerreotype_crop.png">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After nearly two decades of scraping out a living as an editor and earning little income from his poetry and fiction, Poe finally achieved a breakthrough with “<a href="https://www.eapoe.org/works/editions/raop.htm">The Raven</a>,” which became an international sensation after its publication in 1845. </p>
<p>But when given the opportunity to give a reading in Boston and capitalize on this newfound fame, Poe didn’t read a new poem, as requested.</p>
<p>Instead, he reprised a poem from his youth: the long-winded, esoteric and dreadfully boring “<a href="https://www.eapoe.org/works/poems/aaraafc.htm">Al Aaraaf</a>,” renamed “The Messenger Star.” </p>
<p>As one newspaper <a href="https://www.eapoe.org/papers/misc1921/tplgc08b.htm">reported</a>, “it was not appreciated by the audience,” evidenced by “their uneasiness and continual exits in numbers at a time.” </p>
<p>Poe’s literary career stalled for the remaining four years of his short life.</p>
<h2>Freud’s ‘death drive’</h2>
<p>While “perverseness” wrecked Poe’s life and career, it nonetheless inspired his literature. </p>
<p>It figures prominently in “<a href="https://www.eapoe.org/works/tales/blcatd.htm">The Black Cat</a>,” in which the narrator executes his beloved cat, explaining, “I…hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart…hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin – a deadly sin that would so jeopardise my immortal soul as to place it – if such a thing were possible – even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.”</p>
<p>Why would a character knowingly commit “a deadly sin”? Why would someone destroy something that he loved?</p>
<p>Was Poe onto something? Did he possess a penetrating insight into the counterintuitive nature of human psychology? </p>
<p>A half-century after Poe’s death, Sigmund Freud wrote of a universal and innate “death drive” in humans, which he called “Thanatos” and first introduced in his landmark 1919 essay “<a href="https://www.libraryofsocialscience.com/assets/pdf/freud_beyond_the_pleasure_principle.pdf">Beyond the Pleasure Principle</a>.” </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252511/original/file-20190104-32130-1mvlw2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252511/original/file-20190104-32130-1mvlw2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252511/original/file-20190104-32130-1mvlw2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252511/original/file-20190104-32130-1mvlw2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252511/original/file-20190104-32130-1mvlw2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252511/original/file-20190104-32130-1mvlw2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1071&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252511/original/file-20190104-32130-1mvlw2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1071&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252511/original/file-20190104-32130-1mvlw2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1071&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Sigmund Freud wrote of a universal death drive, which he dubbed ‘Thanatos.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Sigmund-freud-400399_1280.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1745-8315.2009.00187.x">Many believe</a> Thanatos refers to unconscious psychological urges toward self-destruction, manifested in the kinds of inexplicable behavior shown by Poe and – in extreme cases – in suicidal thinking.</p>
<p>In the early 1930s, physicist Albert Einstein wrote to Freud to ask his thoughts on how further war might be prevented. <a href="http://www.public.asu.edu/%7Ejmlynch/273/documents/FreudEinstein.pdf">In his response</a>, Freud wrote that Thanatos “is at work in every living creature and is striving to bring it to ruin and to reduce life to its original condition of inanimate matter” and referred to it as a “death instinct.” </p>
<p>To Freud, Thanatos was an innate biological process with significant mental and emotional consequences – a response to, and a way to relieve, unconscious psychological pressure. </p>
<h2>Toward a modern understanding</h2>
<p>In the 1950s, the psychology field underwent the <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cognitive-science/">“cognitive revolution</a>,” in which researchers started exploring, in experimental settings, how the mind operates, from decision-making to conceptualization to deductive reasoning.</p>
<p>Self-defeating behavior came to be considered less a cathartic response to unconscious drives and more the unintended result of deliberate calculus.</p>
<p>In 1988, psychologists Roy Baumeister and Steven Scher identified <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1988-35696-001">three main types of self-defeating behavior</a>: primary self-destruction, or behavior designed to harm the self; counterproductive behavior, which has good intentions but ends up being accidentally ineffective and self-destructive; and trade-off behavior, which is known to carry risk to the self but is judged to carry potential benefits that outweigh those risks. </p>
<p>Think of drunk driving. If you knowingly consume too much alcohol and get behind the wheel with the intent to get arrested, that’s primary self-destruction. If you drive drunk because you believe you’re less intoxicated than your friend, and – to your surprise – get arrested, that’s counterproductive. And if you know you’re too drunk to drive, but you drive anyway because the alternatives seem too burdensome, that’s a trade-off.</p>
<p>Baumeister and Scher’s review concluded that primary self-destruction has actually rarely been demonstrated in scientific studies. </p>
<p>Rather, the self-defeating behavior observed in such research is better categorized, in most cases, as trade-off behavior or counterproductive behavior. Freud’s “death drive” would actually correspond most closely to counterproductive behavior: The “urge” toward destruction isn’t consciously experienced.</p>
<p>Finally, as psychologist Todd Heatherton <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.psych.121208.131616">has shown</a>, the modern neuroscientific literature on self-destructive behavior most frequently focuses on the functioning of the prefrontal cortex, which is associated with planning, problem solving, self-regulation and judgment. </p>
<p>When this part of the brain is underdeveloped or damaged, it can result in behavior that appears irrational and self-defeating. There are more subtle differences in the development of this part of the brain: Some people simply find it easier than others to engage consistently in positive goal-directed behavior.</p>
<p>Poe certainly didn’t understand self-destructive behavior the way we do today. </p>
<p>But he seems to have recognized something perverse in his own nature. Before his untimely death in 1849, he reportedly chose an enemy, the editor Rufus Griswold, as his literary executor. </p>
<p>True to form, Griswold wrote a damning obituary and “<a href="https://www.eapoe.org/geninfo/poegrisw.htm">Memoir</a>,” in which he alludes to madness, blackmail and more, helping to formulate an image of Poe that has tainted his reputation to this day.</p>
<p>Then again, maybe that’s exactly what Poe – driven by his own personal imp – wanted.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108575/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Edgar Allen Poe, Sigmund Freud and cognitive scientists have all wrestled with the human tendency to behave in ways that are irrational and self-defeating.Mark Canada, Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Indiana UniversityChristina Downey, Professor of Psychology, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1036702018-09-24T06:32:09Z2018-09-24T06:32:09ZWhy the increased penalties for strawberry sabotage will do little to prevent the crime<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237669/original/file-20180924-7728-ro7x01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Attorney-General Christian Porter announced that sabotaging food will now attract a penalty of up to 15 years' imprisonment.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The fruit contamination crisis has delivered a devastating blow to the growers of Australia. The crisis is now so big it seems to have <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-23/needles-found-in-australian-strawberries-sold-in-new-zealand/10296224">reached New Zealand</a> as well.</p>
<p>Producers and consumers have been justifiably outraged that someone, for reasons no one knows or understands, has decided to place sewing needles into packaged strawberries. The question for authorities is how to prevent this. </p>
<p>Prime Minister Scott Morrison was quick off the mark, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/sewing-needles-removed-from-woolies-shelves-amid-strawberry-scare-20180920-p504ve.html">foreshadowing amendments to legislation</a> to create new offences and to change proof requirements. He also announced plans to increase the penalties for this type of crime: imprisonment for up to 15 years. Morrison said:</p>
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<p>That’s how seriously I take this; that’s how seriously our government takes it. That will be an increased penalty for those who engage in this sort of thing.</p>
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<p>Two matters arise from these announcements. One requires a legal explanation; the other involves some criminological and political speculation.</p>
<p>The legal issue is the role of the federal government in dealing with criminal laws and setting criminal penalties, matters that are usually the preserve of the states and territories. The power of the federal parliament to legislate is brought about by the fact that goods are bought and sold in trade and commerce, a key plank of the federal parliament’s lawmaking authority.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-morrison-aims-to-make-agility-his-prime-ministerial-trademark-103626">Grattan on Friday: Morrison aims to make agility his prime ministerial trademark</a>
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<p>To that end, section 380 of the <a href="http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/cca1995115/sch1.html">Commonwealth Criminal Code Act</a> makes illegal any activity that involves the contamination of goods, including food, where there is an intention to cause anxiety, harm or loss.</p>
<p>Attorney-General Christian Porter has foreshadowed a change to the mental element for this crime. No longer will it require proof of a specific intention to cause harm. It will be sufficient for prosecutors to prove reckless indifference that harm might be caused.</p>
<p>Also before the federal parliament is the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r6022">Espionage and Foreign Interference Bill</a>, which contains new “sabotage” offences that make it a crime to cause damage to Australia’s critical infrastructure.</p>
<p>In light of the fruit contamination crisis, the definitions of “sabotage” and “infrastructure” will be amended to include tampering with goods intended for human consumption, where that tampering is deemed prejudicial to national security.</p>
<p>It is now time for some speculation. Leaving to one side the new offences and the alteration to the intention threshold, which may or may not increase the number of future arrests and conviction rates, can we confidently assume we will all be safer as a result of the increased penalties? The answer is no. </p>
<p>We have known for a long time that deterrence theory is highly speculative. There is little hard evidence that punitive approaches have a consistent deterrent effect. </p>
<p>Indeed, how does one ever know what conduct, and how much conduct, has been deterred by a rise in a penalty? And how do we know whether it was that specific legislative change that caused any recorded drop in crime?</p>
<p>Sentencing specifically for deterrent purposes is equally problematic. Magistrates and judges must sentence a myriad of personalities, in circumstances that change from case to case, to achieve a broad range of often inconsistent sentencing goals (not just deterrence), using a limited range of penalties, and guided by case law and legislation that is often contradictory. It is a tough ask to expect that this exercise alone will achieve a specific deterrent outcome.</p>
<p>Indeed, deterrence theory is premised upon a “free will” view of human motivation. That is, the theory assumes all offenders are rational decision-makers who weigh up the pros and cons of their actions. It is a brave assumption. </p>
<p>Moreover, for the deterrent penalty to be effective, a close relationship has to exist between the severity of the sanction and an offender’s perceived risk of being apprehended and convicted. That relationship rarely exists. So it is fanciful to think that a saboteur will think twice about his or her actions on the strength of penalties being increased from 10 to 15 years.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/strawberry-sabotage-what-are-copycat-crimes-and-who-commits-them-103423">Strawberry sabotage: what are copycat crimes and who commits them?</a>
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<p>It is also unrealistic to suggest that it is in the public interest to sentence to, say, a dozen years behind bars someone who, for reasons unknown, engages in a “copycat” crime and presents to a police station or media outlet with a contaminated package that they themselves have tampered with. </p>
<p>So there must be something more behind the government’s announcement. There is. It is caught up in what we refer to as “desert” theory. This is the idea that any penalty structure should reflect a relationship between the seriousness of a particular crime and the harshness of the punishment. Desert theory, moreover, demands the imposition of sanctions that are of a nature and sufficient degree of severity to express the public’s abhorrence of the crime for which the penalty was imposed.</p>
<p>Viewed in this light, the government’s announcements make complete sense. But we need to remember that the changes the government has foreshadowed have a far greater likelihood of making political mileage by expressing our collective outrage than of altering the behaviour of an unknown person’s twisted mind.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103670/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rick Sarre receives funding from the Criminology Research Council. He is affiliated with the Australian Labor Party. </span></em></p>After a spate of sewing needles being found in strawberries, the federal government has moved quickly to tighten penalties for those who sabotage fruit. But it is unlikely to be a strong deterrent.Rick Sarre, Adjunct Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/942792018-04-11T10:44:46Z2018-04-11T10:44:46ZRussians hacked into America’s electric grid. Here’s why securing it is hard.<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214152/original/file-20180410-566-1v4l0o8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hackers can interfere with everyday efforts to keep the lights on.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/solar-panels-pylon-470882099?src=xmWFBZIXBXw0kT3gk8-ZkA-1-50">pan denim/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hackers taking down the U.S. electricity grid may sound like a plot ripped from a <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0337978/">Bruce Willis action movie</a>,
but the Department of Homeland Security has recently disclosed <a href="https://www.utilitydive.com/news/russian-hackers-infiltrated-utility-control-rooms-dhs-says/528487/">new details</a> about the extent to which <a href="https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/TA18-074A">Russia has infiltrated “critical infrastructure”</a> like American <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2018/3/28/17170612/russia-hacking-us-power-grid-nuclear-plants">power plants, water facilities</a> and <a href="http://www.worldoil.com/news/2018/4/4/cyberattack-pings-data-systems-of-at-least-four-gas-networks">gas pipelines</a>.</p>
<p>This hacking is similar to the <a href="https://ics-cert.us-cert.gov/alerts/IR-ALERT-H-16-056-01">2015</a> and <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/crash-override-malware/">2016</a> attacks on Ukraine’s grid. While DHS has raised the number of the Russian utility-hacking incidents it detected from dozens to hundreds, it still maintains that this infiltration has not risen beyond scouting mode. <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/russian-hackers-reportedly-gained-access-to-us-utility-control-rooms/">Russia denies</a> having any role in the hacking, yet the specter of Russian sabotage in the U.S. now seems more realistic than it used to.</p>
<p>Clearly, there’s no time to waste in shoring up the grid’s security. Yet getting that done is not easy, as I’ve learned through <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=yxN_35oAAAAJ">my research</a> regarding efforts in to stave off outages in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040619011000947">hurricane-prone Florida</a>.</p>
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<h2>A catch-22</h2>
<p>There is <a href="https://theconversation.com/should-the-us-put-power-lines-underground-83771">no way to completely protect the grid</a>. Even if that were possible, utilities tend to adopt new and better security procedures after mishaps, boosting the chance that some attacks will succeed.</p>
<p>Regulation at the <a href="https://www.naruc.org/">state</a> and <a href="https://www.ferc.gov/">federal</a> levels makes it hard for utilities and regulators to work together to get this job done.</p>
<p>Utilities can charge their customers only what it takes for them to <a href="http://www.eei.org/issuesandpolicy/stateregulation/Documents/COSR_history_final.pdf">cover reasonable expenses</a>. Regulators must approve their rates through a process that needs to be <a href="http://www.psc.state.fl.us/ConsumerAssistance/CommissionCase">open to public scrutiny</a>. </p>
<p>Say, for example, a power company is building a substation. The utility would disclose what it spent on construction, prove that it picked its contractors responsibly and explain how this new capacity is enhancing its service. The regulator then must decide what rate hikes, if any, would be reasonable – after hearing out everyone with something at stake.</p>
<p>Following this routine is harder with cyberdefense spending. Security concerns make it tough if not impossible for utilities to say what they’re doing with that money. Regulators, therefore, have a hard time figuring out whether utilities are spending too much or too little or maybe even wasting money on an unnecessary expense.</p>
<p>If regulators blindly approve these rate hikes, it can be an abdication of their duties. If they reject them, utilities get penalized for shoring up their security and then lose an incentive to keep doing the right thing.</p>
<h2>To err is human</h2>
<p>Even though the idiosyncrasies of utility regulation make <a href="https://theconversation.com/cybersecurity-of-the-power-grid-a-growing-challenge-73102">cyberdefense</a> a more complicated issue than it might otherwise be, tools to manage this risk are available. </p>
<p>Mitigating the damage that human error can cause in response to malicious attacks, for example, may not demand any spending beyond what it costs to teach workers at utilities and their contractors to refrain from blindly <a href="https://www.us-cert.gov/report-phishing">opening perilous email attachments</a>, the avenue into the electricity system used by hackers in the <a href="https://www.nerc.com/pa/CI/ESISAC/Documents/E-ISAC_SANS_Ukraine_DUC_18Mar2016.pdf">2015 Ukraine attacks</a> and in the system breaches the government recently disclosed.</p>
<p>They also need to guard against so-called <a href="https://www.lastline.com/blog/network-security-and-watering-hole-attacks/">watering-hole attacks</a>. According to the new DHS revelations, <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/russian-hackers-breached-us-electric-utility-control-rooms-feds-say-2018-07-23">Russian hackers set traps</a> in websites that utility vendors were known to frequent – many of which had insufficient cybersecurity measures in place. They then leveraged that access to steal the credentials they needed to worm their way into utilities’ systems. </p>
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<p>Indeed, hackers delivered almost <a href="http://www.verizonenterprise.com/verizon-insights-lab/dbir/2017/">94 percent of all malware</a> in 2016 through email systems. Clearly, more widespread awareness of the need to keep an eye out <a href="https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/tips/ST04-014">for phishing attacks</a> will help secure infrastructure.</p>
<p>Regulators have been <a href="https://pubs.naruc.org/pub/66D17AE4-A46F-B543-58EF-68B04E8B180F">studying strategies</a> that might enhance cybersecurity. Standards are already in place in <a href="https://www.nerc.com/pa/Stand/Pages/CIPStandards.aspx">the U.S., Canada and part of Mexico</a> <a href="https://www.nist.gov/cyberframework/draft-version-11">for utilities</a> to assess their capability to prevent or detect cyberattacks.</p>
<p>Preventative measures can include states adopting <a href="http://www.puc.state.pa.us/about_puc/press_releases.aspx?ShowPR=1963">new regulations</a> that protect utilities’ confidential information and doing more to train utility workers to spot and confront <a href="http://www.puc.pa.gov/general/pdf/Cybersecurity_Best_Practices_Booklet.pdf">cybersecurity threats</a>.</p>
<p>It’s also important that regulators recognize that securing systems is an <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2018/07/18/department-homeland-security-host-national-cybersecurity-summit">ongoing process</a>. It can never really end because as system security measures change, hackers devise new ways to circumvent them.</p>
<h2>Grid resilience</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.nap.edu/catalog/24836/enhancing-the-resilience-of-the-nations-electricity-system">Grid resilience strategies</a> can help to maintain service regardless of the source of the outage. For example, many utilities have invested in “<a href="https://www.smartgrid.gov/files/NRECA_DOE_Costs_Benefits_of_SFS.pdf">self-healing</a>” systems that isolate glitches in the grid and quickly restore service amid outages.</p>
<p>Here’s an example of how that works. During Hurricane Matthew in Florida, in 2016, Florida Power and Light identified a threatened substation and <a href="http://www.psc.state.fl.us/Files/PDF/Utilities/Electricgas/StormWorkshops/2017%20-%20April%2020,%202017/Florida%20Power%20and%20Light%20Company.pdf">isolated it from the rest of the grid</a>. This measure protected its customers by ensuring that outages at that substation would not spread.</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.burnsmcd.com/insightsnews/news/in-trade-publications/2010/10/district-energy-outsourced-and-on-site-hospital-__">Utilities can also create microgrids</a>, or portions of the grid that can be isolated from the rest of the system in the event of an attack. Most of these systems have been designed to improve resilience in the event of natural disasters and storm events. But they can help defend the grid against cyberattacks as well. </p>
<p>Public concerns over grid security are more justified than ever. But I believe that minimizing the risk of a catastrophic infrastructure attack is within reach. All it will take is for utilities to educate their workers on system security while the government updates its rules and practices – and for everyone involved to keep doing what they can to avert outages of all kinds and to restore power as quickly as possible when outages occur despite those efforts.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This article was updated on July 24, 2018 to add news regarding the scale of the hacking and the discovery that hackers used watering-hole attacks.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94279/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Theodore Kury directs of Energy Studies at the University of Florida’s Public Utility Research Center, which is sponsored in part by the Florida electric and gas utilities and the Florida Public Service Commission, neither of which has editorial control of any of the content the Center produces.</span></em></p>It’s easier to see how customers benefit from increased grid security than it is to justify making them pay for it.Theodore J. Kury, Director of Energy Studies, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/903602018-02-22T14:36:25Z2018-02-22T14:36:25ZOperation Gunnerside: The Norwegian attack on heavy water that deprived the Nazis of the atomic bomb<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207345/original/file-20180221-132642-1euc63m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C174%2C3626%2C2293&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Nazi atomic effort relied on work done in this remote lab.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vemork_Tinn.jpg">grob831</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After handing them their suicide capsules, Norwegian Royal Army Colonel Leif Tronstad informed his soldiers, “I cannot tell you why this mission is so important, but if you succeed, it will live in Norway’s memory for a hundred years.”</p>
<p>These commandos did know, however, that an earlier attempt at the same mission by British soldiers had been a <a href="http://sciencenordic.com/heavy-water-mission-failed">complete failure</a>. Two gliders transporting the men had both crashed while en route to their target. The survivors were quickly captured by German soldiers, tortured and executed. If similarly captured, these Norwegians could expect the same fate as their British counterparts, hence the suicide pills.</p>
<p>Feb. 28 marks the 75th anniversary of Operation Gunnerside, and though it hasn’t yet been 100 years, the memory of this successful Norwegian mission remains strong both within Norway and beyond. Memorialized in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059263/">movies</a>, <a href="http://nealbascomb.com/books-bascomb/the-winter-fortress/">books</a> and TV <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/watching/recommendations/the-heavy-water-war">mini-series</a>, the winter sabotage of the Vemork chemical plant in <a href="https://www.citypopulation.de/php/norway-admin.php?adm1id=08">Telemark County</a> of <a href="http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/world-war-two/world-war-two-in-western-europe/the-attack-on-western-europe/the-occupation-of-norway/">Nazi-occupied Norway</a> was one of the most dramatic and important military missions of World War II. It put the German nuclear scientists months behind and allowed the United States to overtake the Germans in the quest to produce the first atomic bomb.</p>
<p>While people tend to associate the United States’ atomic bomb efforts with Japan and the war in the Pacific, the <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/the-manhattan-project">Manhattan Project</a> – the American program to produce an atomic bomb – was actually undertaken in reaction to <a href="https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/german-atomic-bomb-project">Allied suspicions that the Germans were actively pursuing such a weapon</a>. Yet the fighting in Europe ended before either side had a working atomic bomb. In fact, a <a href="https://www.army.mil/article/148701/100_ton_event_served_as_dress_rehearsal_for_trinity_site">rehearsal for Trinity</a> – America’s first atomic bomb test detonation – was conducted on May 7, 1945, the very day that Germany surrendered.</p>
<p>So the U.S. atomic bomb arrived weeks too late for use against Germany. Nevertheless, had the Germans developed their own bomb just a few months earlier, the outcome of the war in Europe might have been completely different. The months of setback caused by the Norwegians’ sabotage of the Vemork chemical plant may very well have prevented a German victory.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207351/original/file-20180221-132657-aojb25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207351/original/file-20180221-132657-aojb25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207351/original/file-20180221-132657-aojb25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207351/original/file-20180221-132657-aojb25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207351/original/file-20180221-132657-aojb25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207351/original/file-20180221-132657-aojb25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207351/original/file-20180221-132657-aojb25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207351/original/file-20180221-132657-aojb25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Norwegian saboteurs’ target.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vemork,_Rjukan_-_no-nb_digifoto_20151127_00149_NB_MIT_FNR_14085.jpg">Jac Brun</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Nazi bomb effort relied on heavy water</h2>
<p>What Colonel Tronstad, himself a prewar <a href="https://www.ntnu.no/forskning/kjentealumni/tronstad">chemistry professor</a>, was able to tell his men was that the Vemork chemical plant made “heavy water,” an important ingredient for the Germans’ weapons research. Beyond that, the Norwegian troops knew nothing of atomic bombs or how the heavy water was used. Even today, when many people have at least a rudimentary understanding of atomic bombs and know that the source of their vast energy is the splitting of atoms, few have any idea what heavy water is or its role in splitting those atoms. Still fewer know why the German nuclear scientists needed it, while the Americans didn’t.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207357/original/file-20180221-132642-1netn5x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207357/original/file-20180221-132642-1netn5x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207357/original/file-20180221-132642-1netn5x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207357/original/file-20180221-132642-1netn5x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207357/original/file-20180221-132642-1netn5x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207357/original/file-20180221-132642-1netn5x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207357/original/file-20180221-132642-1netn5x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207357/original/file-20180221-132642-1netn5x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Normal hydrogen, left, has just a proton; deuterium, the heavy form of hydrogen, right, has a proton and a neutron.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Izotopii_hidrogenului.png">Nicolae Coman</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“Heavy water” is just that: water with a molecular weight of 20 rather than the normal 18 atomic mass units, or amu. It’s heavier than normal because each of the two hydrogen atoms in heavy H2O weighs two rather than one amu. (The one oxygen atom in H2O weighs 16 amu.) While the nucleus of a normal hydrogen atom has a single subatomic particle called a <a href="http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/proton">proton</a>, the nuclei of the hydrogen atoms in heavy water have both a proton and a <a href="http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/neutron">neutron</a> – another type of subatomic particle that weighs the same as a proton. Water molecules with heavy hydrogen atoms are extremely rare in nature (less than one in a billion natural water molecules are heavy), so the Germans had to artificially produce all the heavy water that they needed.</p>
<p>In terms of their chemistries, heavy water and normal water behave very similarly, and you wouldn’t detect any differences in your own cooking, drinking or bathing if heavy water were to suddenly start coming out of your tap. But you would notice that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLiirA5ooS0">ice cubes made from heavy water sink</a> rather than float when you put them in a glass of normal drinking water, because of their increased density.</p>
<p>Those differences are subtle, but there is something heavy water does that normal water can’t. When fast neutrons released by the splitting of atoms (that is, nuclear fission) pass through heavy water, interactions with the heavy water molecules cause those neutrons to slow down, or <a href="http://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Neutron_moderator">moderate</a>. This is important because slowly moving neutrons are more efficient at splitting uranium atoms than fast moving neutrons. Since neutrons traveling through heavy water split atoms more efficiently, less uranium should be needed to achieve a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/critical-mass">critical mass</a>; that’s the minimum amount of uranium required to start a spontaneous chain reaction of atoms splitting in rapid succession. It is this chain reaction, within the critical mass, that releases the explosive energy of the bomb. That’s why the Germans needed the heavy water; their strategy for producing an atomic explosion depended upon it.</p>
<p>The American scientists, in contrast, had chosen a different approach to achieve a critical mass. As I explain in my book, “<a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10691.html">Strange Glow: The Story of Radiation</a>,” the U.S. atomic bomb effort used <a href="http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/conversion-enrichment-and-fabrication/uranium-enrichment.aspx">enriched</a> uranium – uranium that has an increased concentration of the easily split <a href="http://www.chemistrylearner.com/uranium-235.html">uranium-235</a> – while <a href="https://cen.acs.org/articles/93/i39/Nuclear-Forensics-Shows-Nazis-Nowhere.html">the Germans used unenriched uranium</a>. And the Americans chose to slow the neutrons emitted from their enriched uranium with more readily available graphite, rather than heavy water. Each approach had its technological trade-offs, but the U.S. approach did not rely on having to synthesize the extremely scarce heavy water. Its rarity made heavy water the Achilles’ heel of the German nuclear bomb program.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FcOK87ev8jU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Norwegian army has a long history of soldiers on skis, which continues to the present day.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Stealthy approach by the Norwegians</h2>
<p>Rather than repeating the British strategy of sending dozens of men in gliders, flying with heavy weapons and equipment (including bicycles!) to traverse the snow-covered roads, and making a direct assault at the plant’s front gates, the Norwegians would <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol36no3/html/v36i3a11p_0001.htm">rely on an alternate strategy</a>. They’d parachute a small group of expert skiers into the wilderness that surrounded the plant. The lightly armed skiers would then quickly ski their way to the plant, and use stealth rather than force to gain entry to the heavy water production room in order to destroy it with explosives.</p>
<p>Six Norwegian soldiers were dropped in to meet up with four others already on location. (The four had parachuted in weeks earlier to set up a lighted runway on a lake for the British gliders that never arrived.) On the ground, they were joined by a Norwegian spy. The 11-man group was initially slowed by severe weather conditions, but once the weather finally cleared, the men made rapid progress toward their target across the snow-covered countryside.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207339/original/file-20180221-132660-172g8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207339/original/file-20180221-132660-172g8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207339/original/file-20180221-132660-172g8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207339/original/file-20180221-132660-172g8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207339/original/file-20180221-132660-172g8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207339/original/file-20180221-132660-172g8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207339/original/file-20180221-132660-172g8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207339/original/file-20180221-132660-172g8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bridge in to the Vemork site.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bridge_Vemork.jpg">martin_vmorris</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Vemork plant clung to a steep hillside. Upon arriving at the ravine that served as a kind of protective moat, the soldiers could see that attempting to cross the heavily guarded bridge would be futile. So under the cover of darkness they descended to the bottom of the ravine, crossed the frozen stream, and climbed up the steep cliffs to the plant, thus completely bypassing the <a href="https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=A0LEVitaYYNaHC4Aj80PxQt.?p=view+from+vemork+bridge&fr=yhs-Lkry-SF01&fr2=piv-web&hspart=Lkry&hsimp=yhs-SF01&type=Tarrv_A01IK_set_bfr#id=1&vid=d0a070170d1bd76ea7a80d96adc314d3&action=view">bridge</a>. The Germans had thought the ravine impassible, so hadn’t guarded against such an approach.</p>
<p>The Norwegians were then able to sneak past sentries and find their way to the heavy water production room, relying on maps of the plant provided by <a href="https://www.geni.com/projects/Norwegian-Resistance-Movements-during-WWII/25591">Norwegian resistance</a> workers. Upon entering the heavy water room, they quickly set their timed explosives and left. They escaped the scene during the chaotic aftermath of the explosion. No lives were lost, and not a single shot was fired by either side.</p>
<p>Outside the plant, the men backtracked through the ravine and then split into small groups that independently skied eastward toward the safety of <a href="http://www.historyisnowmagazine.com/blog/2017/12/18/was-sweden-really-neutral-in-world-war-two#.WoMRboJG0UE=">neutral Sweden</a>. Eventually, each made his way back to their Norwegian unit stationed in Britain.</p>
<p>The Germans were later able to rebuild their plant and resume making heavy water. Subsequent <a href="https://ww2db.com/facility/Vemork_Heavy_Water_Plant/">Allied bomber raids on the plant</a> were not effective in stopping production due to the plant’s heavy walls. But the damage had already been done. The German atomic bomb effort had been slowed to the point that it would never be finished in time to influence the outcome of the war.</p>
<p>Today, we don’t hear much about heavy water. Modern nuclear bomb technology has taken other routes. But it was once one of the most rare and dangerous substances in the world, and brave soldiers – both <a href="http://www.aircrashsites-scotland.co.uk/raf-skitten-meml.htm">British</a> and <a href="https://www.tracesofwar.com/sights/15603/Memorial-Resistance-Fighters-Vemonk.htm">Norwegian</a> – fought courageously to stop its production.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90360/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy J. Jorgensen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Feb. 28 marks the 75th anniversary of Operation Gunnerside. A stealthy group of skiing commandos took out a crucial Nazi facility and stopped Hitler from getting the atomic bomb.Timothy J. Jorgensen, Director of the Health Physics and Radiation Protection Graduate Program and Associate Professor of Radiation Medicine, Georgetown UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/570942016-04-13T10:02:05Z2016-04-13T10:02:05ZHow to protect nuclear plants from terrorists<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118395/original/image-20160412-15858-1cye2vn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Temelin nuclear power plant, Czech Republic</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/iaea_imagebank/8357352656/in/album-72157631878373178/">IAEA/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the wake of terrorist attacks in Brussels, Paris, Istanbul, Ankara and elsewhere, nations are rethinking many aspects of domestic security.</p>
<p>Nuclear plants, as experts have long known, are potential targets for terrorists, either for sabotage or efforts to steal nuclear materials. </p>
<p>Currently there are <a href="https://www.iaea.org/pris/">444 nuclear power plants operating in 30 countries</a> around the world and <a href="https://nucleus.iaea.org/RRDB/RR/ReactorSearch.aspx?rf=1">243 smaller research reactors</a>, which are used to produce <a href="http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistryglossary/a/isotopedef.htm">isotopes</a> for medical uses and to train nuclear engineers. The nuclear industry also includes <a href="https://infcis.iaea.org/NFCIS/Facilities">hundreds of plants that enrich uranium and fabricate fuel for reactors</a>. Some of these facilities contain materials terrorists could use to build a nuclear or <a href="http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/fs-dirty-bombs.html">“dirty” bomb</a>. Alternatively, power plants could be <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/05/opinion/could-there-be-a-terrorist-fukushima.html?**__r=0">“hijacked”</a> to create an accident of the sort experienced at Chernobyl and Fukushima, sending clouds of radioactivity over hundreds of miles. </p>
<p>At last month’s Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, D.C., representatives from 52 countries <a href="http://static1.squarespace.com/static/568be36505f8e2af8023adf7/t/56fef01a2eeb810fd917abb9/1459548186895/Communiqu%C3%A9.pdf">pledged to continue improving their nuclear security</a> and adopted <a href="http://www.nss2016.org/2016-action-plans/">action plans</a> to work together and through international agencies. </p>
<p>But significant countries like Russia and Pakistan are not participating. And many in Europe are just beginning to consider physical security measures. From my perspective as a former nuclear regulator and now as director of the Center for International Science and Technology Policy at George Washington University, it is clear that nuclear plants are vulnerable to terrorist attacks. </p>
<h2>Physical and cyber threats</h2>
<p>It is not news that security is weak at many civilian nuclear power and research facilities. </p>
<p>In October 2012, Greenpeace activists <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/100154908">entered two nuclear power plants in Sweden</a> by breaking open a gate and scaling fences without being stopped by guards. Four of them hid overnight on a roof at one reactor before surrendering the next morning. </p>
<p>Just this year, Sweden’s nuclear regulatory agency adopted a requirement for armed guards and additional security measures at the plants. However, these upgrades <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/sweden-nuclear-security-idUSL8N15K3SS">do not have to be in place</a> until early 2017.</p>
<p>In 2014 French nuclear plants were plagued by <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/04/world/europe/unidentified-drones-are-spotted-above-french-nuclear-plants.html">unexplained drone overflights</a>. And Greenpeace activists broke into the Fessenheim nuclear plant near the German border and <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2583435/Greenpeace-activists-storm-Frances-oldest-nuclear-power-station.html">hung a large banner from the reactor building</a>. </p>
<p>In light of the recent Brussels attacks, reports from Belgium are more alarming. In 2012 two employees at the country’s Doel nuclear power station left Belgium to fight in Syria. In 2014 an unidentified saboteur tampered with lubricant in the turbine at the same reactor, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/26/world/europe/belgium-fears-nuclear-plants-are-vulnerable.html">causing the plant to shut down for five months</a>. And earlier this year authorities investigating the Paris attacks discovered <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/19/world/europe/belgium-nuclear-official-video-paris-attacks.html">video surveillance footage of a Belgian nuclear official</a> in the home of one of the Paris suspects. </p>
<p>One has to assume that potential attackers may understand how the sites and materials can be used. </p>
<p>Given the heightened state of alert in Europe, governments should, I believe, immediately increase security at civilian nuclear facilities. They could emulate the United States, where security at nuclear facilities has substantially increased since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. </p>
<h2>American role model</h2>
<p>U.S. nuclear power plants now are some of the most well-guarded facilities in the world. </p>
<p>The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) regulates both safety and security at nuclear power plants. After 9/11, these sites were <a href="http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/security-enhancements.html">required to add multiple layers of protection</a>, with the cores of reactors (where the fuel is located) the most highly defended areas. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118397/original/image-20160412-15858-xnr8cr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118397/original/image-20160412-15858-xnr8cr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118397/original/image-20160412-15858-xnr8cr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118397/original/image-20160412-15858-xnr8cr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118397/original/image-20160412-15858-xnr8cr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118397/original/image-20160412-15858-xnr8cr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118397/original/image-20160412-15858-xnr8cr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hand scanner at U.S. nuclear plant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nrcgov/9677249447/in/album-72157632817500380/">U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Up to one-third of the workforce at many U.S. nuclear plants now is security-related. Many nuclear utilities used to hire contract security forces; now guards at many of these plants are employed directly by plant owners and have opportunities to move to other jobs at their sites, increasing employee satisfaction and improving performance.</p>
<p>NRC regulations require U.S. nuclear plants to hold <a href="http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/force-on-force-bg.html">regular drills</a> in which well-trained former military units attack the plants with up-to-date materials and techniques. NRC observers evaluate these exercises, and facility owners face stiff penalties for failure.</p>
<p>The United States has also adopted <a href="http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/cyber-security-bg.html">regulations to ensure cybersecurity at reactors</a>. As new, entirely digital reactors come online, such measures will be more necessary than ever. </p>
<p>The successful 2010 <a href="http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/security/the-real-story-of-stuxnet">Stuxnet attack</a>, for example, in which a computer worm infiltrated computers at Iranian nuclear facilities and caused machines to malfunction, showed how vulnerable unprotected computer networks can be.</p>
<h2>Improving security worldwide</h2>
<p>There are no global standards for physical protection at civilian nuclear facilities. Each country adopts its own laws and regulations dictating what nuclear site owners are required to do to protect plants from attack. </p>
<p>As a result, measures at plants can vary widely, with some countries <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/03/10/unarmed-guards-bogus-terror-drills-and-96-tons-of-plutonium/">depending on the local police force for protection and leaving guards unarmed</a>. Often the level of security depends on cultural norms and attitudes, but the recent attacks in Europe suggest a rapid adjustment is needed.</p>
<p>Here are steps that, in my view, all countries can take to make nuclear plants more secure. </p>
<p>One priority is to provide enough funds to the <a href="https://www.iaea.org/">International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)</a>, which has recently <a href="https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/focus/nuclear-security-new-directions-21st-century">elevated its physical security section</a> to assist member countries looking for ways to protect their nuclear plants more effectively. Since 2010 the agency has <a href="https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/statements/statement-at-nuclear-security-summit">trained more than 10,000 people</a> in nuclear security, including police and border guards. It also tracks illicit trafficking and other activities involving nuclear material, and has recorded nearly 3,000 such events since 1995. </p>
<p>Countries that have nuclear power plants or research reactors understandably tend not to spotlight the challenges of protecting these sites. But we know from instances like the ones cited above that they exist. In many countries nuclear regulatory agencies oversee safety but not security. Each of these nations needs to empower an independent regulator to enforce new requirements and inspect security at nuclear sites. Most importantly, security forces at nuclear facilities should be required to practice attack scenarios regularly under the gaze of independent observers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118399/original/image-20160412-15858-1n2dlg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118399/original/image-20160412-15858-1n2dlg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118399/original/image-20160412-15858-1n2dlg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118399/original/image-20160412-15858-1n2dlg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118399/original/image-20160412-15858-1n2dlg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118399/original/image-20160412-15858-1n2dlg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118399/original/image-20160412-15858-1n2dlg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano visits the Barakah nuclear plant construction site in the United Arab Emirates, 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ABarakah_2013-01-29_1.jpg">IAEA/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Countries such as the United States that already have solid physical security requirements for nuclear facilities can help. </p>
<p>Nuclear regulators from all countries meet regularly and could easily share information and train their counterparts on plant physical security. In December 2012, for example, the U.S. NRC organized the first-ever <a href="http://www.nrcsecurityconference.org/about">International Regulators Conference on Nuclear Security</a>. No other government has offered to head up a follow-on meeting since then. </p>
<p>And countries with existing reactors aren’t the only problem. At least 60 countries have <a href="http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/others/emerging-nuclear-energy-countries.aspx">expressed a desire to acquire nuclear power</a>. The United Arab Emirates is in the process of constructing four reactors. Turkey and Vietnam have made deals with the Russian manufacturer, Rosatom, in which construction, financing, operation, even waste disposal, will be handled solely by the Russians. Many of these “emergent” countries do not regularly attend Convention on Nuclear Safety peer review meetings at the International Atomic Energy Agency. Without a security regime in place, how can we expect them to do any better than the existing plants?</p>
<p>To prevent an attack at a nuclear site, governments must take security at nuclear sites seriously now, not a year from now. </p>
<p>In light of the current terrorist threat and with four Nuclear Security Summits completed, countries with nuclear plants need to up their game with regards to physical security at nuclear power facilities before it’s too late.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57094/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Allison Macfarlane served as Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 2012 to 2014. She receives funding from the MacArthur Foundation. </span></em></p>Recent terrorist attacks have heightened concerns about the security of nuclear plants. A former top U.S. nuclear regulator says security is weak at many sites worldwide.Allison Macfarlane, Professor of Public Policy and International Affairs, George Washington UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/549382016-02-24T11:10:05Z2016-02-24T11:10:05ZCyberwar is here to stay<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112417/original/image-20160222-25891-ew3nqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cyberwarfare is a threat that is anonymous, hard to trace and hard to defend against.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-248183002/stock-photo-dark-grey-keyboard-red-enter-button-target-crosshair.html?src=-xgERUieADryMci0rL0Vfw-1-3">Keyboard image via shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last week, <em>The New York Times</em> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/17/world/middleeast/us-had-cyberattack-planned-if-iran-nuclear-negotiations-failed.html">revealed</a> that the Obama administration had prepared a cyberattack plan to be carried out against Iran in the event diplomatic negotiations failed to limit that country’s nuclear weapons development.</p>
<p>The plan, code-named <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2016/02/17/arts/17reuters-filmfestival-berlin-zerodays.html?_r=1">Nitro Zeus</a>, was said to be capable of disabling Iran’s air defenses, communications system and parts of its electric grid. It also included an option to introduce a computer worm into the Iranian uranium enrichment facility at Fordow, to disrupt the creation of nuclear weapons. In anticipation of the need, <a href="https://www.stratcom.mil/factsheets/2/Cyber_Command/">U.S. Cyber Command</a> placed hidden computer code in Iranian computer networks. According to <em>The New York Times</em>, President Obama saw Nitro Zeus as an option for confronting Iran that was “short of a full-scale war.”</p>
<p>The reports, <a href="http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-cybersecurity/2016/02/theres-an-asterisk-on-nitro-zeus-dhs-drops-some-cisa-rules-courts-weigh-unlocking-iphones-212740">if true</a> (to be fair, they have not been confirmed by any official sources), reflect a growing trend in the use of computers and networks to conduct military activity. </p>
<p>The United States is not, of course, the only practitioner. One notable example from recent history involves the <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/02/11/politics/ukraine-power-grid-attack-russia-us/index.html">apparent Russian assault on the transportation and electric grid in Ukraine</a>. That attack, which happened late in 2015, was a “first of its kind” cyberassault that severely disrupted Ukraine’s power system, affecting many innocent Ukrainian civilians. It bears noting that the vulnerabilities in Ukraine’s power system are <a href="https://theconversation.com/cyberattack-on-ukraine-grid-heres-how-it-worked-and-perhaps-why-it-was-done-52802">not unique</a> – they exist in power grids across the globe, including the U.S. power grid and other major industrial facilities.</p>
<h2>Built-in vulnerabilities</h2>
<p>The vulnerability of digital networks is, in many ways, an inevitable consequence of how the Internet was built. As then-Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn put it <a href="http://archive.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1593">in a 2011 speech announcing our military strategy for operating in cyberspace</a>: “The Internet was designed to be open, transparent and interoperable. Security and identity management were secondary objectives in system design. This lower emphasis on security in the internet’s initial design … gives attackers a built-in advantage.”</p>
<p>Among many factors, two in particular contribute to the growing sense of unease.</p>
<p>One is the problem of anonymity. Those who seek to do harm can easily do so at a distance, cloaked in the veil of anonymity behind false or shielded identities in the vastness of the web. With no built-in identity verification, pretending to be someone else is as easy as getting a new email address or registering a pseudonymous Facebook account.</p>
<p>Unmasking attackers is possible, but requires a significant investment of time and resources. It also often requires the “good guys” to use “bad guy” techniques to track the malefactors, because they need to hack the hackers to find out who they are. It took a Canadian company, <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/29435784/SHADOWS-IN-THE-CLOUD-Investigating-Cyber-Espionage-2-0">using hacker techniques</a>, more than a year to <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/07/29/cyberhacking_allegations_against_china_go_back_years.html">find out who had hacked the Dalai Lama’s official computers</a> – it was the Chinese.</p>
<p>In effect, this prevents targets from retaliating against attackers. Though most observers think Russia is behind the Ukrainian assault, there is no truly conclusive proof. It is very difficult to deter an unknown attacker. In addition, international coordination to respond to attacks that threaten global stability can be stymied without solid proof of the source of an assault.</p>
<h2>A new definition of war</h2>
<p>Second, and perhaps more significantly, the online world changes the boundaries of war. President Obama seems to think that cyberattacks are less than full-scale war (or so the <em>Times</em> reports). Is that realistic? Consider the following hypotheticals – all of which are reasonably plausible. </p>
<p>An adversary of the United States (known or unknown):</p>
<ul>
<li>Disrupts the stock exchanges for two days, preventing any trading;</li>
<li>Uses a digital attack to take offline a radar system intended to provide early warning of an aerial attack on America;</li>
<li><a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/03/13/stolen-f-35-secrets-now-showing-up-in-chinas-stealth-fighter.html">Steals the plans to the F-35 fighter</a>;</li>
<li>Disrupts the Pentagon’s communication system;</li>
<li>Introduces a latent piece of malware (a piece of malicious software that can be activated at a later date, sometimes called a “logic bomb”) into a radar station that can disable the station when triggered, but doesn’t trigger it just yet;</li>
<li>Makes a nuclear centrifuge run poorly in a nuclear production plant, eventually causing physical damage to the centrifuge; or</li>
<li>Implants a worm that slowly corrupts and degrades data on which certain military applications rely (such as GPS location data).</li>
</ul>
<p>Some acts, like stealing the plans for a new fighter jet, won’t be considered acts of war. Others, like disrupting our military command and control systems, look just like what we have always thought of as acts of war. </p>
<h2>Introducing uncertainty</h2>
<p>But what about the middle ground? Is leaving a logic bomb behind in a radar station like espionage, or is it similar to <a href="http://www.worldlii.org/int/cases/ICJ/1986/1.html">planting a mine in another country’s harbor</a> as a preparation for war? What about the computer code Nitro Zeus allegedly placed in the Iranian electric grid? And what if that code is still there?</p>
<p>These are hard questions. And they will endure. The very structures that make the Internet such a powerful engine for social activity and that have allowed its explosive, world-altering growth are also the factors that give rise to the vulnerabilities in the network. We could eliminate anonymity and restrict the potential for digital attacks, but only at the price of changing the ease with which peaceful people can use the Internet for novel commercial and social functions. </p>
<p>Those who want both ubiquity and security are asking to have their cake and eat it, too. So long as this Internet is “The Internet,” vulnerability is here to stay. It can be managed, but it can’t be eliminated. And that means that those who bear responsibility for defending the network have a persistent challenge of great complexity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54938/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Rosenzweig is affiliated with The Chertoff Group, where he consults for a number of tech companies.</span></em></p>The openness of the Internet gives an advantage to attackers – but what constitutes an act of war in the electronic world?Paul Rosenzweig, Professorial Lecturer in Law, George Washington UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.