World war Three is just around the corner, and there�s no sign of a slowdown in our

global arms race.

The past few years have seen some notable changes in the international order. The
United States and Russia are engaged in a titanic arms race. China has embarked on
a new, stealthier, and more aggressive version of its earlier naval strategy.
Nations are increasingly competing to build new weapons to protect their interests,
ranging from weapons to deter nuclear attack to weapons to fight cyber war. And as
all this is happening, military-industrial firms are cashing in.

The United States and Russia are engaged in a titanic arms race.

The United States and Russia have had a competitive relationship in nuclear,
conventional, and cyber arms for decades, and the stakes have risen in recent
years. Russia has developed a new generation of hypersonic missiles capable of
destroying NATO countries in their own territory, and the United States and Russia
are locked in a nuclear standoff over Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Russia and China have been escalating their respective military and
economic rivalry. In 2014, China developed its first aircraft carrier, the
Liaoning, and launched a test flight. It spent roughly $9.2 billion to purchase 10
missile-carrying submarines from Russia. A Russian state-run news agency has been
touting China�s �plan to build two to three carriers.� That may be overstating the
case a bit, but China has been busy developing its navy, and it has been testing
high-speed anti-ship missiles and has developed a new anti-aircraft missile that
can be launched from a plane.

All this is occurring as we hear the latest stories about Russian hackers stealing
data from the U.S. electric grid, or what The New York Times has called a �shadow
war� waged by China�s cyber forces against American companies and government
agencies. The United States needs to prepare for the coming cyber wars. It is time
to talk about building a U.S. �cyber state,� with robust military, diplomatic, and
commercial responses.

But, first, we have to admit that the United States needs to create a military
force that can respond appropriately in a digital world. We have to get ahead of
the game, and we should take our own advice. That means focusing on the need for a
comprehensive doctrine.

The term �cyber doctrine� tends to conjure up images of elaborate, highly

theoretical thinking. Perhaps, but we don�t need to spend time inventing some new
doctrine to address cyberspace. Some of the basic principles and capabilities of
the Cold War U.S. doctrine have already proved useful, and can be applied to
cyberspace. As the National Security Council reported in its 2007 report on the
National Strategy for Information Sharing and Collaboration, �It is imperative for
our military, intelligence, diplomatic, law enforcement, and commercial sectors to
have the necessary tools to operate in cyberspace. The need to operate in this
domain has grown dramatically in the last three years,� and more than ever, the
federal government must share cyber information.

We already have the doctrine in place for the conduct of conventional military
operations. We need to apply the principles to cyber operations as well. Here are
some fundamentals:

First, information should be free to flow. The United States has had a free-flow
doctrine for the dissemination of military information since the 1970s. But the
doctrine has only been tested in the information age. If we are to ensure freedom
of information, the United States must ensure that access to information�not just
possession�is protected.
Second, the U.S. doctrine should ensure we share information with our allies and
allies should share information with us. Cyber and cyberspace are globalized: A
cyber attack from a country outside the United States