This will be a war like none other. It’s not about people dying. In World War I and World War II they fought over resources, territory and ideology and tens of millions died. I envision World War III to be about economics and a cyber war will replace the troops, tanks and bombers of earlier wars. It would be virtually bloodless.

Jacques Gansler, former Pentagon undersecretary for technology and security said,  “Nowadays it’s hard to separate warfare from cyberwarfare, or even economic warfare.  The three are interrelated.”

With the Ukraine becoming more and more important for Russia and led by Vladmir Putin, the economic buffer is even more important and it represents and important buffer between them and Europe.

Cyber-attacks are “bound to be part of any future engagements,” Gansler said. “We also have economic concerns about cyber having impact on industry or messing up power grids or communications systems. These are the things we are worrying about for the 21st century.”

Infrastructure will be crippled much as railroads, telegraph lines and radio stations were to previous wars. Think about this. Energy supplies, water supplies and power grids are all linked digitally and would be advantageous to take down with a virus.

But other experts believe nationalism and power is behind Russia’s moves.

“War comes from a mixture of motives,” said Charles Maier, history professor at Harvard University. “That was true of World War II and whatever conflicts exist today. Putin would like to believe he can reconstruct the influence the Soviet Union had during the Cold War. Ukraine was part of Russia for a long time; he’s trying to show it won’t be easily absorbed by the West. This is as much as power politics as economics.”

I get irritated when my computer gets slow…. sheesh.

This blog was written by Tom Knuppel