The U.S. has been thinking about cyberwar for decades

 by Ed Timperlake

Even President Trump’s severest critics acknowledge that he is very gifted at branding. Moving from the term “Artificial Intelligence” to “Super Intelligence” (SI) was spot on because it makes it obvious that America has been vigilant in defending against our enemies’ destructive, clever human SI long before AI came along.

Consequently, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei should have done more homework. He is making billions integrating his programs into the intelligence community while fearmongering that its members have been fundamentally ignorant of his hypotheses about AI’s (now SI’s) draconian threats. As a former member of both the intelligence and law-enforcement communities, I can state that he is simply wrong.

Many in our national security and law-enforcement communities have been fighting the human “Super Intelligence” battle for decades. It makes little difference whether runaway SI or malicious human SI is the threat in play. SI just puts the threat of cyberwar on steroids, but they already know that because they are paying for Anthropic products.

At a September 29 White House event with technology leaders, including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, President Trump announced that he would formally replace the government’s use of “Artificial Intelligence” with “Super Intelligence.” Asked about regulation and guardrails, Trump said there was a belief in “tremendous self-regulation,” adding that “the self-regulation is very important.”

What has gone largely unnoticed is that very smart civil servants and military members—some possessing human “Super Intelligence” themselves—have metaphorically stood guard on America’s ramparts, protecting us for nothing more than a civil-service or military salary.

Should not the “Masters of the Universe,” the phrase coined by the late Tom Wolfe for Americans making huge sums of money, and today’s SI mavens profiting from fearmongering, have known their customer base better?

Standing up Cyber Command anticipated the progression of Super Intelligence from the malicious use of human minds trying to cripple America to machine-based SI, which is but an extension of the threat, one I discussed in my first contribution to American Thinker in 2009:

Cyberwar is now a fact of life in 21st Century wars. Actual and potential enemies of America already know the dimensions of Cyberwar and have moved into full combat.

With a real world combat engagement in Georgia and Estonia, the Russians have shown skill. Make no mistake; in certain arenas the Russians are smart and capable, and as the invasion of Georgia shows, ruthless. They have world class scientists and engineers. It is well known they are excellent Cyber Warfighters who have now also apparently harnessed their criminal hackers to augment their worldwide reach. This melding of Russian conventional military might with reported state sponsored criminal cyber syndicates is ominous and powerful.

 

The Peoples Republic [sic] of China’s attacks in United States Cyberspace are well known to even casual-mail [sic] and Google users, where viruses linked by the media to Chinese sources circle and wait for openings. If the dollar value of the troves of information reported by media to be carted off by the Chinese were toted up, the number could be many billions, if not a trillion. If George Washington and Thomas Jefferson could visit America in 2009 they would call the Chinese attacks Acts Of War.

America is awakened. The Pentagon is standing up a new Department of Defense major combat command [sic] This new Cyber Command will be headed by Lieutenant General Keith Alexander, who currently commands the National Security Agency (nickname “no such agency”). He will be promoted to four stars and be the first Commanding General of the Cyber Command to be Headquartered [sic] at Ft Meade, Maryland.

 

The two overall functions in Cyberspace are Law Enforcement and Investigation, the mission assigned to the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and War Fighting, assigned to Cyber Command. Euphemistically, it can be said the first two are engaged in Dot.Gov and Dot.Com Cyberspace and DOD warriors fighting and defending our country from foreign attack are engaged in Dot.Mil Cyberspace.

Air Force Cyber Doctrine had an extremely attractive feature, and the new DOD Cyber Command can build on it: the US Cyber Command is a military fighting force that would interest 18-year-old men and women [sic] some who are already the most computer savvy individuals in the world. These young American men and women, who really enjoy Wired Magazine, have reached adulthood with an instinctive know how [sic] on how to use computers -- for good or ill. They are perfect warriors in this brave new world.

A great American General, later President, Andrew “Andy” Jackson [sic] in the War of 1812 understood the power of innovative American battle tactics. General Jackson augmented his regulars at the Battle of New Orleans with frontier sharpshooters and pirates. The poor Red Coats did not know what hit them.

Dario Amodei, Ph.D. 2011, is literally a brilliant example of the point I made in 2009. He is a perfect warrior in this brave new world of protecting America against all threats, foreign and domestic. But a little humility on his part in honoring the insights, forward-looking human superintelligence, and creativity of his customer base would make his warnings about future SI calamity more well-rounded and inclusive—and, hence, more credible.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/09/the-u-s-has-been-thinking-about-cyberwar-for-decades/