Cyber War: Do We Have the Right Mindset?

Abstract

In security circles, an ongoing debate on the nature of war revolves around the influence of cyberspace. Many security experts warn of a cyber “Pearl Harbor” that has the potential to cripple critical infrastructure of a targeted state. However, the history of cyber attacks suggests that this warning is overstated and that political interests will limit the extent of operations in the cyber domain just as war in the terrestrial domain. Counter to predictions, given the heavy reliance on cyber capabilities by modern economies, instances of cyber war and cyber warfare are relatively rare. Cyber experts and intelligence officials seem to be inflating the threat when evaluating the national security threats from cyberspace. This chapter will analyze cyber war from a war theory perspective and show that by ignoring the political goals of state action, many cyber theorists and security experts fail to understand the political goals of a cyber operation and therefore overestimate the risk to a given threat. Although the cyber domain is unique, the threats from the domain do not fundamentally change the nature of war. Military forces can effectively plan and execute operations in cyberspace using the same strategy and doctrine already used in the physical domains. Thus, cyberspace operations can be part of the tools of national power already used by states to influence other states.