My Thoughts on This: As I get older, I become increasingly interested in how the future is likely to unfold. Part of it, I’m sure, is how much of it will I see, what will it look like, will I be there for my grandson’s high school graduation?

We have reason to be somewhat fearful of what will happen in the short term. How hot will it get? Can I afford to keep buying gas? Will the football team continue to outperform? That sort of thing. But on a much larger scale, how life and all its many fascinating components evolve is exciting for me to think about.

As you wonder about your family and the life they are likely to lead, consider these thoughts as they appeared on one of Time Magazine’s internet blogs:

Great New York Times front-pager on Tuesday finally provides a substantive overview of the comprehensive hacking activities of the Chinese military against all manner of U.S. industries (with an obvious focus on defense).

Actually, the title was a bit of soft sell (China’s Army Seen as Tied to Hacking Against U.S.). This unit’s activities have been much discussed within the U.S. national-security community for several years now, so we are far past the “tied to” allegation. It’s clear that Beijing has the People’s Liberation Army conduct widespread cyber- theft all over the world, targeting the U.S. in particular.

One is tempted to label this cyber-warfare, and to declare that bilateral conflict in full swing, but I like to avoid such imprecision in language.

What we have here is industrial espionage on a grand scale – pure and simple. Yes, the PLA wants to know how to cause as much infrastructure mischief as possible in the event of a shooting war with the U.S., but let’s not be naive about the extensive and ongoing U.S. efforts to do the same to China (much less our Rubicon-crossing cyber strikes against Iran).

That sort of spying and military espionage is nothing new. All that says is that both sides plan to go heavy on cyber warfare in the event of war. It does not prove that cyber is its own warfare domain – as in, constituting genuine war in isolation.