Editor’s Note: For the past year, WTOP National Security Correspondent J.J. Green has investigated a growing national security crisis fueled by a combination of escalating foreign intrusions and internal missteps. In his series, “National InSecurity,” he examines how America’s digital defenses have become increasingly fragile.
While U.S. leaders struggle to contain domestic vulnerabilities, America’s adversaries are preparing for the next phase of digital warfare. The new battlefield is already here — inside networks, satellites and personal devices — and it is expanding faster than the systems designed to defend it.
China’s Salt Typhoon operation revealed the scale of what is coming. For years, Beijing’s cyber units quietly penetrated U.S. telecommunications infrastructure, listening in on live calls, reading text messages and mapping sensitive communications among political and security leaders. This was not espionage in the traditional sense; it was an exercise in real-time situational dominance, knowing what American leaders were thinking before they acted.
Meanwhile, Russia continues to merge disinformation and disruption, blurring lines between psychological warfare and digital attack. Iran’s hacker networks have evolved from crude propaganda to precision theft and infiltration, while North Korea uses cyber intrusions to fund its regime and test Western vulnerabilities.
These are not parallel efforts. They are parts of a synchronized, persistent campaign to undermine American confidence, disable response capabilities and erode public trust.
The discovery of a clandestine SIM-based mobile network operating in New York and New Jersey is a new escalation. Investigators say it could disable cell towers or flood national communications in minutes. If that system was one node in a broader foreign architecture, it suggests the U.S. homeland is already wired for disruption.
The threats ahead will not announce themselves with explosions or invasions. They will unfold through access, manipulation and paralysis, subtle acts that corrode national command before the country realizes it is under attack.
Cybersecurity experts warn that adversaries are testing not just defenses, but decision-making itself, using data and deception to steer outcomes in their favor.
Whether the U.S. is prepared remains in doubt. Its defenses are fragmented, its responses reactive and its deterrence uncertain. The coming struggle will not be measured in territory or troop movements, but in time, trust and technological control.
If America fails to secure its digital core, its enemies will not need to cross borders; they will simply switch off the signal and watch the world’s leading power go silent.
Need a refresher? Read parts 1 and 2 of J.J. Green’s series, “National InSecurity.”
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