Article 5.

This is coolbert:

"The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all . . ." - - Article 5 NATO Charter.

Estonia under siege!

From the latest edition of the Chicago Tribune:

“Attacks on Estonia move to new front”

“Cyberspace sabotage blamed on Russians.”

[But mind you, NOT ABSOLUTELY PROVEN!! PROBABLY A RUSSIAN ATTACK, BUT CANNOT BE PROVEN BEYOND A DOUBT!!]

“After Estonia relocated a Soviet war memorial out of downtown Tallinn last month, furious Russians rioted in the Estonian capital, tried to attack Estonia’s ambassador in Moscow, and hastily engineered a de facto economic sanctions against the tiny Baltic nation.”

“But the salvo From the Russian side that most worried Estonians is a carefully crafted three-week cyber attack on Estonian government, bank and media Web sites that wreaked havoc in a country heavily depended on the Internet”

This is a denial-of-service [DoS] attack.

“at least a million computers were used to deliver DoS attacks, which flood a Web server with so many queries that it becomes unusable.”

Estonia IS NOW a member of NATO. Recently became a member along with the other Baltic nations. NATO IS concerned about what is occurring to a constituent member of the treaty alliance.

“Because Estonia is NATO country, experts from the Western military alliance have been dispatched to Tallinn to help track down the source of the attacks.”

Cyber-terrorism has been speculated about for some time. A way to attack the ECONOMIC infrastructure of a nation. NOT causing loss of life or limb but loss of revenue. Economic devastation that becomes very painful. Staggering even!! The more dependent a nation is upon the Internet, the more likely such a type of attack becomes possible and probable.

[paraphrasing here: “as in nature, the more complex the organism, the more susceptible it is to disruption, so it is too with nation-states” - - Basil Liddell-Hart]

To combat this form of “warfare” can be very difficult. Literally millions of computers the world-over can be hi-jacked and used for DoS attacks. Finding the culprit is a monumental task sometimes not succeeding!!

All this for a STATUE!!??

[actually, it is just NOT about a statue. All those Baltic nations, newly free, have sizable populations of ethnic Russians who are restive and feel "oppressed"!!]

Good luck Estonia, you are going to need it!

coolbert.