The Pentagon's first formal cyber strategy, unclassified portions of which are expected to become public next month, the Pentagon intends its plan as a warning to potential adversaries of the consequences of attacking the U.S. in this way. "If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks," said a military official.

The report will also spark a debate over a range of sensitive issues the Pentagon left unaddressed, including whether the U.S. can ever be certain about an attack's origin, and how to define when computer sabotage is serious enough to constitute an act of war.
The new strategy suggested by some US officials, seeking to respond to foreign cyber attacks through military force, has been described as "crazy," by former Pentagon official and retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski. 

In an interview with Press TV, Kwiatkowski said "We have conducted some prohibitive electronic internet-type warfare but we don't call it warfare and in fact if we define it that way we ourselves can be guilty of instigating an act of war and be subject to retaliation under the same under the same rules." 

"I think it reflects two things, one, a pretext designed for an ability to attack without really having a justifiable reason and also a misunderstanding of the nature of the internet," added Dr. Kwiatkowski.
Kwiatkowski said military response was "not appropriate," reiterating that the plan "would not pass the Congress, but its crazy."