The pentagons posturing on using force in retaliation to cyber attacks, would be a hard sell [to the public] to ever actually perform one of these retaliations... Especially with such a prominent target as China.
Rather than an arms race in cyber-warfare, is it possible to work out why these attacks are occurring?
A militarily non-aggressive nation (outside of its own borders) continuously attacking external targets for no reason, feels like we are missing some of the story.
I'm pretty sure the US public would require retaliation in the event of, say, a prolonged regional blackout, a breached dam, a meltdown at a nuclear facility or any other number of real world insanity caused by a cyber attack.
"for no reason" I'm sure there are reasons. LulzSec does it for the "lulz". China has their own reasons, whatever they are they are and we can sit and discuss them but there needs to be red lines. Figuring those reasons out does not mean we should not have a well known military posture in certain eventualities.
Rather than an arms race in cyber-warfare, is it possible to work out why these attacks are occurring? A militarily non-aggressive nation (outside of its own borders) continuously attacking external targets for no reason, feels like we are missing some of the story.