When Google's network was compromised in January 2010, apparently by Chinese hackers, international cyberwarfare entered new territory, said James Mulvenon, director of the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis Defense Group.

Unlike Chinese penetrations into Defense Department and defense contractors' networks, Google was an intrusion into the heart of the American innovation economy, Mulvenon said while speaking April 19 at a Brookings Institution event on U.S.-China relations and the Internet.

"It's very striking, in the last six months, to hear American companies, very quietly and now very loudly, saying that they believe that they're facing an incredibly hostile environment inside of China," said Mulvenon.

"My fear is that this fundamental, strong pillar of U.S.-China relations, that has weathered all these storms in the past is itself weakening, and this does not portend well for maintaining strategic stability in the relationship," he added.

Mulvenon told attendees that the United States has the right cyber "weapons" but nobody knows how or when to use them--in part, due to a policy gap and the great difficulty in simply attributing an attack to the correct source.

Meanwhile, suspicion of the other side goes both ways.

"There is a widespread belief among Chinese government, Chinese military analysts, the Chinese population, that in fact the U.S. has overwhelming asymmetric advantage in computer network attack capabilities, that we are ubiquitously intruding their networks currently," said Mulvenon. "You would think that would be sufficient in creating a deterrence regime in which our capabilities had credibility. The problem is: What doesn't have credibility is our willingness to use them."

For more:
- listen to this audio recording from the Brookings event

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