“Hiroshima of cyberwar” ★ 22.10.11

How could I miss that line in Michael J. Gross’ Stuxnet article in the April edition of Vanity Fair:

Stuxnet is the Hiroshima of cyber-war. That is its true significance, and all the speculation about its target and its source should not blind us to that larger reality. We have crossed a threshold, and there is no turning back.

Nice alteration to recently excavated rhetoric corpse of the Digital Pearl Harbour by the Washington Post. “Hiroshima of cyber-war” is an allegory conveying ideas and association probably not intended by the author:

• The dawn of a new age of geopolitics defined by control over certain technological artefacts.
• The assumption by US security circles that unilateral and sole control over these artefacts equals incontestable geopolitical power, a truly “unipolar moment” (Charles Krauthammer) that should have lasted considerably longer than 1949 when the Soviets managed to assemble their “Fat Man” equivalent.
• The militarisation and secretisation of a potentially benevolent technology.
• The institution of a nuclear umbrella which served as a foreign policy instrument and “provided a cooperative structure, linking the United States in a mutually beneficial way to a wide range of friends, allies, and neutral nations.” (Nye/Owens 1996, p. 26)

A Hiroshima of cyberwar?