International Relations 2.0: The Balance of Power in Cyberspace

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, 2014

Much discussion of the concept of cyberwar, cyber conflict, and the changing dynamic of future security interactions is founded upon the study of what could be, conjured through spectacular flights of the imagination. The goal of this research article is to exhaustively collect information on cyber interactions between rival states in the last decade so that we can delineate the patterns of cyber conflict as reflected by evidence at the international level. The field of cyber security needs a clear return to social science in order to be able to definitively engage the cyber debate with facts, figures, and theory. To that end we provide a dataset of cyber incidents and cyber disputes that spans from 2001 to 2011. Our data include 110 cyber incidents and 45 cyber disputes. Further, we test our theory of cyber conflict which argues that restraint and regionalism should be expected, counter-intuitive to conventional wisdom. We find here that the actual magnitude and pace of cyber disputes among rivals does not match with popular perception; 20 of 126 active rivals engaged in cyber conflict. The interactions that are uncovered are limited in terms of magnitude and frequency suggesting cyber restraint. Further, most of the cyber disputes that are uncovered are regional in tone, defying the unbounded nature of cyberpower. The coming era of cyber conflict may continue to exhibit these patterns despite fears mentioned in the discourse by the media and cyber security professionals.

How cyber assaults and government responses have been interpreted is not uniform, however, especially with regard to whether the world will eventually engage in “cyber war.” There is a community of scholars and analysts who argue that cyber war will not happen or that the impact of cyberspace on armed conflict will be limited. Others in the broad field of security studies, traditional computer science, or corporate communities claim that while some form of conflict is happening, government officials, military officers, and legislators are suffering from “threat inflation.” They argue that hyperbolic projections are leading to bad policy decisions, especially with regard to specific adversaries, and that there has been overinvestment in offensive cyber weapons rather than prudent defensivemeasures. A best-selling nonfiction book has been criticized for contributing unnecessarily to public fears about the potential for cyber warfare. Many of these critics argue that what are being called “cyber attacks” are really instances of espionage, allowed by international law, or simply crime, which is not the mission area of the nation’s military services. Some analysts detect the influence of the military-industrial complex on policy debates. If hackers, official or not, from China and Russia, terrorists, and criminals use the Internet to penetrate U.S government systems, contractors see opportunities for increased revenue. As two observers of cyberspace argue, “There’s an arms race in cyberspace, and a massively exploding new cyber-industrial complex that serves it.” Our position on this ongoing debate is that neither side has it right.

Strategic Analysis, 2010

The last couple of decades have seen a colossal change in terms of the influence that computers have on the battle field, to an extent that defence pundits claim it to be a dawn of a new era in warfare. The use of computers and information in defence has manifested into various force multipliers such as Information Operations, C4I2SR Systems, Network Centric Warfare, to the extent that commentators are terming this information age as a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). These advances have not only revolutionized the way in which wars are fought, but have also initiated a new battle for the control of a new dimension in the current contemporary world: The Cyber Space. Over time cyber warfare has assumed the shape of an elephant assessed by a group of blind people, with every one drawing different meanings based upon their perceptions. Under these circumstances there was a gradual paradigm shift in military thinking and strategies, from the strategic aspect to the tactical aspect of cyber warfare laying more emphasis on cyber attacks and counter measures. This resulted in the formation of a notion that cyber warfare or information warfare is a potent force multiplier, which in a sense downgraded the strategic aspects of cyber war to a low grade tactical warfare used primarily for a force enhancement effect. The author believes this is wrong, cyber war is a new form of warfare and, rather than cyber war merely being an enhancement of traditional operations, traditional operations will be force multipliers of cyber war. This paper tries to shatter myths woven around cyber warfare so as to illuminate the strategic aspects of this relatively misinterpreted notion. This paper will elucidate the scenarios and mechanisms illuminating the process of using the strategies of cyber war, so as to achieve conventional objectives. The paper will also analyze the doctrine and strategies including first and second strike capabilities with regard to cyber war. This paper identifies a paradigm shift from the conventional belief of cyber warfare acting as a force multiplier for conventional warfare to the recognition, that conventional warfare will be acting as a force multiplier around cyber war and hence making cyber war as the primary means of achieving grand strategic objectives in the contemporary world order.

Politeja, 2022

In 2012, the US Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta warned against an inevitable 'cyber-Pearl Harbor' , an attack that would cause physical destruction and loss of life. Even though the darkest scenarios have not come true, his words shaped the perception of conflicts in cyberspace. 1 Recently, between the cyberwar and cyberpeace, states started recognizing a grey zone area-aggressive and offensive actions below the threshold of armed aggression that enable gaining strategic advantage. The aim of the article is to describe and discuss the change in the American approach to managing conflicts in the cyberspace. The focus will be on describing the current state of the concept of the grey zone in the US strategic documents, as well as the premises for forecasting the development of the grey zone in the future.

Encyclopedia of Cyber Behavior, 2012

2019 11th International Conference on Cyber Conflict, 2019

The unprecedented transparency shown by the Netherlands intelligence services in exposing Russian GRU officers in October 2018 is indicative of a number of new trends in state handling of cyber conflict. US public indictments of foreign state intelligence officials, and the UK's deliberate provision of information allowing the global media to "dox" GRU officers implicated in the Salisbury poison attack in early 2018, set a precedent for revealing information that previously would have been confidential. This is a major departure from previous practice where the details of state-sponsored cyber attacks would only be discovered through lengthy investigative journalism (as with Stuxnet) or through the efforts of cybersecurity corporations (as with Red October). This paper uses case studies to illustrate the nature of this departure and consider its impact, including potentially substantial implications for state handling of cyber conflict. The paper examines these implications, including: • The effect of transparency on perception of conflict. Greater public knowledge of attacks will lead to greater public acceptance that countermeasures should be taken. This may extend to public preparedness to accept that a state of declared or undeclared war exists with a cyber aggressor. • The resulting effect on legality. This adds a new element to the long-running debates on the legality of cyber attacks or counterattacks , by affecting the point at which a state of conflict is politically and socially, even if not legally, judged to exist. • The further resulting effect on permissions and authorities to conduct cyber attacks, in the form of adjustment to the glaring imbalance between the means and methods available to aggressors (especially those who believe themselves already to be in conflict) and defenders. Greater openness has already intensified public and political questioning of the restraint shown by NATO and EU nations in responding to Russian actions; this trend will continue. • Consequences for deterrence, both specifically within cyber conflict and also more broadly deterring hostile actions. In sum, the paper brings together the direct and immediate policy implications, for a range of nations and for NATO, of the new apparent policy of transparency.

CANABARRO, D. R. ; BORNE, T. ; CEPIK, M. A. C. . Three Controversies on Cyberwar: a Critical Perspective. In: MPSA Annual Conference, 2013, Chicago - IL - Estados Unidos. MPSA Conference Paper Archive, 2013, on line. The spread of contemporary information and communication technologies among state and non-state actors adds new dimensions to the study of diffusion in global politics. The Digital Era brings about different challenges for national and international security policymaking, heating up academic and political debate surrounding the scope and the implications of the term cyberwar. This paper surveys the evolution of academic and technical production on cyberwar with the intention of providing background for the critical evaluation of the Brazilian case. Finally, it details the prospective research agenda that follows from the evaluation of the Brazilian case.

Analysts suggest that the rise of the cyber domain of combat has led to a revolution in military affairs and have greatly changed how society interacts with the Internet. The structure and content of interactions on the battlefield have supposedly changed in light of this development. In the rush to note the changing face of conflict, few scholars have actually examined the impact of cyber conflict on foreign policy relationships. Here we use weekly events data to examine exactly what happens between countries when cyber conflict is utilized as a foreign policy choice. Using a previously constructed data set of cyber actions, we measure conflict and cooperation after a cyber operation to understand the true impact of this new way to arm a state and society. We find that only one method of cyber malice, denial of service, and one tactical goal, seeking a change in behavior in the opposing side, impacts conflict-cooperation dynamics between states.

The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies

Cyber warfare; International humanitarian law; ius ad bellum; ius in bello; Self-defense Definition/Description The development of cyber capabilities among state and non-state actors, as well as the increase of cyber dependency has made cyber conflict a plausible reality and no longer a hypothetical example. There is a general agreement among scholars and states that the traditional concept of conflict as set out in the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol remains the same and is applicable to any new technological weapons and thus also applicable to cyberspace. However, the sophistication of cyber capabilities of states and the amplification of power of non-state actors in cyberspace have shifted the paradigms and blurred the lines of the clear delineation between international and non-international armed conflict and when the use of cyber capabilities triggers a conflict. As such the article will aim to provide some insight on when the use of cyber weapons by state actors can result in a conflict if the requisite cyber operation reaches the threshold of an armed attack. Given the technical capacities of some non-state actors to conduct dangerous cyber operations that can amount to armed attacks, the question arises if these attacks can trigger a conflict and how that conflict would be classified and lastly how do the Laws of Armed Conflict (LOAC) apply to cyber conflict particularly with regard to non-state actors and non-international armed conflicts.

In a speech at the Reagan National Defense Forum on November 15, 2014, then-Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel unveiled the Defense Innovation Initiative (DII). Secretary Hagel called for an “initiative [that] is an ambitious department-wide effort to identify and invest in innovative ways to sustain and advance America’s military dominance for the 21st century. It will put new resources behind innovation, but also account for today’s fiscal realities – by focusing on investments that will sharpen our military edge even as we contend with fewer resources.” He then appointed Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work to oversee the DII and announced a list of critical technologies that would provide the foundations for the new strategy. This article will discuss potential cybered conflicts in the context of contemporary U.S. defense policy, the recent forty-year period of military transformation, and the intensifying Sino-American peacetime competition.