CYBERWAR: Richard Clarke and Rob Knake have written a good book on the practical realities of cyberwar. I cover this topic, and Richard Clarke himself, in Skating on Stilts, including this quick sketch:
Clarke was a flamboyant bureaucratic warrior camouflaged by the dress and haircut of a high school math teacher. A career official with a knack for building empires — and making enemies — he had risen to take charge of both cybersecurity and terrorism policy in President Clinton’s National Security Council. He later became famous briefly for his scathing denunciation of the Bush White House’s response to terrorism warnings. But in 2000 he was better known as the man who had sponsored the failed Clinton Administration plan to build a monitoring network.
So Clarke’s got years of government background on the issue. His book aims to do for cyberwar what Herman Kahn and William Kaufmann did for nuclear war — engage in some clear-eyed thinking about the very unpleasant surprises that new forms of war may hold for America’s leadership. By and large, he succeeds (though he’s occasionally a bit naive about the way international initiatives to limit cyberwar will likely play out).