There are a lot of documented small scale hacks on American infrastructure by state actors. The prevailing theory I have heard was that the point is to find as many vulnerabilities in our internet-connected critical infrastructure, then sit on it until it’s needed. It doesn’t make news when a few water tanks overflow in a random tiny Texas city, but the principle is that these kinds of exploits may generalize to the infra of major cities.

Example: https://texasstandard.org/stories/russian-hackers-muleshoe-t...

So there is no need for a highly visible active cyber war. We have tons of cyber professionals working on this stuff day in and day out to help keep up prepared.

> Counterpoint, industry cyber security is so generally weak, if there were actually a secret "huge cold cyber war" on-going, we'd see real world impact.

But we do: ransomware stories are in the news all the time; while they likely aren’t being directly executed by the Russian or Chinese governments they are being allowed to happen because they aid state interests: for example, https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa...

…or more insidiously: political influence campaigns, which are very much a cyber concern, and even easier to deny.

I like the argument and it seems valid, but I have heard the opposite from people working in commercial cybersecurity.

I mean, isn't that all counter-intelligence? They wouldn't want to be seen?