January 23, 2008: The Israeli air raid on a Syrian research center late last year, which blew past the extensive Russian built air defenses, has caused a lot of nations to look at alternatives to the old Russian Cold War model. The Russians used a special commo network for the air defense network, that included landline as well as wireless communications. These have been shown to be very vulnerable to a skilled and resourceful foe (like the U.S. or Israel), several times over the last few decades.

China, for example, went in a different direction for their air defense commo needs. They use very little wireless stuff, and basically depend on Internet type technology. This includes encryption stuff available on the net, and VOIP (like Skype) for voice communications. Skype is encrypted, and not quickly decrypted (although the NSA may have a solution here, but they would never admit it.) China does this mainly because they cannot afford a Cold War type system, so they improvise. The Chinese are very good at improvising.

The Internet was originally designed for the Department of Defense, as a communications system that could survive a nuclear attack. The Internet is robust, and could take a lot of abuse from smart bombs and electronic weapons, and keep working. The U.S. Air Force is now looking into how to take out an air defense system that bases its communications on Internet technology.