Trump Is Breaking the Rule That Every Barroom Brawler Knows

Provoking your enemies, alienating your friends and actively sabotaging your own defenses is no one’s idea of a sound national security plan. And yet, this is the playbook that President Trump has apparently followed over the first 100 days of his second term. You can see it most clearly in the global fight he kicked off with China. He’s been scrapping for this showdown since before he entered politics, so you’d think that before taking on such a global powerhouse, he’d strengthen every alliance, game out every possible countermeasure and…

Biden Plans to Harden Protection Against Cybersecurity Threats to Ports

President Biden is expected to sign an executive order on Wednesday that will strengthen the government’s ability to respond to maritime cybersecurity threats, amid heightened concerns that China could seek to hobble crucial infrastructure systems within the United States. Anne Neuberger, the deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, previewed the executive order for reporters on Tuesday evening, saying it would broaden the powers of the Department of Homeland Security. She said that the order would also allow the U.S. Coast Guard to outline rules for establishing minimum…

F.B.I. Director Warns of China Hacking Threat

Christopher A. Wray, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, warned on Wednesday that China was ramping up an extensive hacking operation geared at taking down the United States’ power grid, oil pipelines and water systems in the event of a conflict over Taiwan. Mr. Wray, appearing before a House subcommittee on China, offered an alarming assessment of the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts. Its intent is to sow confusion, sap the United States’ will to fight and hamper the American military from deploying resources if the dispute over Taiwan, a…

Hacking of Government Email Was Traditional Espionage, Official Says

The hack of Microsoft’s cloud that resulted in the compromise of government emails was an example of a traditional espionage threat, a senior National Security Agency official said. Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, Rob Joyce, the director of cybersecurity at the N.S.A., said the United States needed to protect its networks from such espionage, but that adversaries would continue to try to secretly extract information from each other. “It is China doing espionage,” Mr. Joyce said. “It is what nation-states do. We have to defend against it, we need…