Newt Gingrich isn't the only politician who's freaked out by China and Russia's online spying. But the new Republican presidential frontrunner may be the highest-profile political figure all but openly calling for cyberwar with Moscow and Beijing.

"I think that we have to treat state-based covert activities as the equivalent of acts of war," Gingrich said in response to a question about countries that target U.S. corporate and government information systems. "And I think that we have to respond to that and create a level of pain which teaches people not to do it."

American officials have grown increasingly concerned about massive and strategic efforts by China and Russia to use U.S. network vulnerabilities to steal American know-how. "Trade secrets developed over thousands of working hours by our brightest minds are stolen in a split second and transferred to our competitors," Robert Bryant, the national counterintelligence executive, said in November. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who chaired a classified task force on the subject, called it "the biggest transfer of wealth through theft and piracy in the history of mankind."

But most American policymakers have been reluctant to publicly entertain the idea of attacking China or Russia in response to that economic espionage. The U.S. is trying to work with Moscow and Beijing to corral rogue states from Iran to North Korea. The three countries already share information on terror threats. Most importantly, the economies of the three nations are rather deeply intertwined, which means an overt online attack could harm more than just the intended target.

Nevertheless, Gingrich told the Coffee & Markets podcast in December that he's "much more inclined" to "develop capabilities that allow us to punish countries that engage in this kind of behavior."

"I think this ought to be a very high-level conversation at the presidential level, as it relates, for example, to both China and to Russia [where we say], 'Look, there are games we're not going to tolerate being played. And we either need an armed truce or we're going to engage as aggressively as you are,'" Gingrich added.

When it comes to matters of online war and peace, Gingrich has long been at least a half-step more extreme than the vast majority of U.S. officials. While military and intelligence leaders have quietly enjoyed the havoc that the Stuxnet worm wreaked on the Iranian nuclear program, Gingrich called on the U.S. to "wage real cyber warfare against Iran." While the heads of the Pentagon and the National Security Agency have publicly worried about a surprise and catastrophic online attack, Gingrich has written that "a cyber Pearl Harbor is not a question of if, but when." While the Pentagon has vigorously prosecuted Pfc. Bradley Manning for allegedly giving files to WikiLeaks, Gingrich called members of the secrets-spilling group enemy combatants. "No one from WikiLeaks should feel comfortable the rest of their lives. These are bad people doing bad things, and they're gonna get Americans and our allies killed. And we should recognize that, and recognize that it is in effect an act of war against the United States."

Gingrich has a famous fondness for information technologies, of course. In 1971, he foresaw a day when "computer time may be as inexpensive as using the telephone is today." In 1995, he ridiculed his fellow futurist Al Gore as "totally Second Wave." But Gingrich's love of network theory has often outpaced his use of actual networks. At the same time he was blasting Gore as being clueless noob, Gingrich was forced to admit that he didn't use e-mail himself. "When you ask the Speaker how much time he spends roaming the Net, he answers, 'Not as much as I'd like,'" Wired noted in issue 3.12. "When you ask him what he does in those sadly infrequent moments, he falls silent for at least five seconds – an eternity for him – and then responds, blankly: 'I play.'"

Photo: Flickr/GageSkidmore