CSIS: Deter North Korea with subversive information (Update: You had one job!)

Penetrating outside information into North Korea questioning the legitimacy of leader Kim Jong-un should be considered as a key means to retaliate against and curb the communist nation’s cyber attacks, a U.S. think tank said.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) made the suggestion in a report on policy suggestions on how to counter the North’s cyber operations, saying reponding to cyber attacks with cyber attacks won’t be effective because the North isn’t as dependent on networks as South Korea and the U.S. are.

“Therefore, responses should be tailored to leverage North Korea’s specific weaknesses and sensitivities,” said the report released this week. “North Korea has unique asymmetric vulnerabilities as well, especially to outside information that attacks the legitimacy of the regime.” [….]

“The deliberate introduction of additional media and information into North Korea’s networks and population may serve as a potent means of responding to cyber attacks without resorting to use of force, armed attacks or countermeasures,” it said. [Yonhap]

Well, isn’t that what I’ve been saying since 2010? The times have finally caught up with me. By the way, if you can lay your hands on a copy of the original report, I’d be most grateful.

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Update: Thanks to two readers to provided me with the report. Imagine my dismay when I reached page 78 and saw this:

Hardly a word of this is true, and it’s not hard to see why. The authority the authors cite for their conclusion that North Korea is “heavily sanctioned”?

Seriously? That was 16 years ago! In 2000, there were no Chapter VII U.N. Security Council resolutions against North Korea, and no history of China flagrantly violating those resolutions. There was no Patriot Act. North Korea was still listed as a state sponsor of terrorism. None of the executive orders that form the legal basis for U.S. sanctions against North Korea existed yet. No one in America had heard of Banco Delta Asia. We had not seen financial sanctions nearly crush the economy of Iran. Kaesong didn’t exist, Kumgang still did, and the Sunshine Policy was just starting.

Some of those sanctions are legally (but not practically) stronger today, others are far weaker, and the most effective ones were not even invented yet. But any way you look at it, a 16-year-old study on North Korea sanctions is as useless as a 16-year-old study on social media.

CSIS, you had one job. For a respected think tank to offer senior policymakers such a poorly researched (and consequently, wrong) conclusion about such an important policy option is just unforgivably sloppy. Is it too much to ask a think tank with an operating revenue of more than $30 million to research the law and the facts, or find and cite someone who has done it for you? For God’s sake, this isn’t even my day job. It’s YOUR day job!