What do you think?
Code War: How Nations Hack, Spy, and Shape the Digital Battlefield
An incisive exploration of how cyberattacks are transforming geopolitics
Cyberattacks are the ultimate geopolitical weapon of the 21st century. They are used to damage presidential campaigns, shut down electric grids, sway public sentiment, and cost businesses and governments alike billions of dollars.
Popular culture portrays cyberattacks as unstoppable and mysterious actions taken by shadowy, unpredictable forces.
Code War: How Nations Hack, Spy, and Shape the Digital Battlefield shatters this depiction, revealing nation-state cyberattacks for what they are: calculated, measured actions to achieve state objectives.
World-renowned cybersecurity expert Allie Mellen draws on her extensive experience with nation-state cyberattacks and AI threats to break down how and why nations deploy cyberattacks in their own unique ways, driven by their military doctrine, national history, and, most importantly, geopolitical strategy.
Mellen deconstructs the most infamous cyberattacks of our time to reveal how and why attacks like Stuxnet, WannaCry, NotPetya, and the Sony Pictures hack happened and how their success altered the international landscape.
Code War also demonstrates how individuals, business professionals, and government officials can use this knowledge to understand and respond to the practical realities of nation-state cyberattacks.
Readers will also find:
• An overview of how cyberattacks operate, where governments most frequently use them, their limitations, and where they provide the most value.
• A breakdown of threats from countries like Iran, Russia, Israel, North Korea, and many others, who fund cyber threat actors like Fancy Bear, Scattered Spider, the Lazarus Group, and the Equation Group.
• Deep dives into the histories and attacks perpetrated by governments with the most prolific cyberattacks: China, Russia, and the United States.
An eye-opening guide to the world of nation-state cyberattacks, Code War is a must-read for business and government leaders responsible for protecting against these attacks. It’s also a fascinating look into the world of cyberattacks for anyone interested in foreign relations who wants to keep up with the evolving weapons of war.
Cyberattacks are the ultimate geopolitical weapon of the 21st century. They are used to damage presidential campaigns, shut down electric grids, sway public sentiment, and cost businesses and governments alike billions of dollars.
Popular culture portrays cyberattacks as unstoppable and mysterious actions taken by shadowy, unpredictable forces.
Code War: How Nations Hack, Spy, and Shape the Digital Battlefield shatters this depiction, revealing nation-state cyberattacks for what they are: calculated, measured actions to achieve state objectives.
World-renowned cybersecurity expert Allie Mellen draws on her extensive experience with nation-state cyberattacks and AI threats to break down how and why nations deploy cyberattacks in their own unique ways, driven by their military doctrine, national history, and, most importantly, geopolitical strategy.
Mellen deconstructs the most infamous cyberattacks of our time to reveal how and why attacks like Stuxnet, WannaCry, NotPetya, and the Sony Pictures hack happened and how their success altered the international landscape.
Code War also demonstrates how individuals, business professionals, and government officials can use this knowledge to understand and respond to the practical realities of nation-state cyberattacks.
Readers will also find:
• An overview of how cyberattacks operate, where governments most frequently use them, their limitations, and where they provide the most value.
• A breakdown of threats from countries like Iran, Russia, Israel, North Korea, and many others, who fund cyber threat actors like Fancy Bear, Scattered Spider, the Lazarus Group, and the Equation Group.
• Deep dives into the histories and attacks perpetrated by governments with the most prolific cyberattacks: China, Russia, and the United States.
An eye-opening guide to the world of nation-state cyberattacks, Code War is a must-read for business and government leaders responsible for protecting against these attacks. It’s also a fascinating look into the world of cyberattacks for anyone interested in foreign relations who wants to keep up with the evolving weapons of war.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published March 17, 2026
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 13, 2026
Code War is a refresh primer on cyberwar. Following the aphorism “War is the continuation of politics by other means”, cyberwar is usually seen as extension of policy by actions taken in cyberspace. Mellen like her predecessors gets into intersection of cybersecurity and geopolitics focusing on top nation state actors, namely the USA, Russia and China ( not sure why Iran Israel or North Korea are excluded). She picks on major hacking campaigns, infowars (starting with the first one ‘91 Gulf War), cybercrime and cyber espionage operations. There is little new here as most if not all cases are already documented in detail like in Cyberwar by Dick Clarke (2010), Likewar by PW Singer (2018), Sandworm by Andy Greenberg (2019), Cyberwarfare by Chase Cunnigham (2020), the Cyberweapons books by Kim Zetter (2014), Dave Sanger (2018), Nicole Perloth (2021). If you missed the aforementioned references Code War is a very readable recap of hybrid cyberwarfare utilized by nation states with a few brushstrokes of proto-states and artificial intelligence.
September 2, 2026
Cybersecurity is often presented as a technical problem - patch vulnerabilities, deploy tools, detect intrusions, and keep attackers out. In Code War: How Nations Hack, Spy, and Shape the Digital Battlefield (Wiley), Allie Mellen makes a compelling case that this understanding is far too narrow. Based on cybersecurity attacks of the past 20 years, she may be on to something.
Cybersecurity attacks are not simply digital crimes committed by highly skilled individuals. Increasingly, they are instruments of national power, used by nation states to advance their political, military, economic, and strategic objectives.
Mellen is a Forrester Research analyst who covers security operations, nation-state threats, and the use of automation, machine learning, and AI in security tools. She’s written an engaging book meant for individuals, business professionals, and government officials, particularly leaders who need to understand nation-state cyberattacks.
An interesting element of the book is its comparative approach. Mellen focuses particularly on the US, Russia, and China, examining not merely what these countries do in cyberspace, but why they do it. Their approaches reflect their different histories, political systems, military doctrines, and visions of national power.
China views the internet largely as an extension of state authority and social control. Russia has incorporated cyber operations into a broader hybrid-warfare strategy, combining espionage, disinformation, disruption, and conventional military force. The US, by contrast, must balance national security and offensive capabilities with economic interests, individual freedoms, and an open internet.
Just this week, Reuters reported that China's state-owned shipping giant COSCO uses concealed equipment on board its ships to spy on military communications near the coastlines of target nations including the U.S.
The book provides a good overview of some of the most significant cyberattacks, including Stuxnet, WannaCry, NotPetya, attacks against elections, Sony Pictures hack, and cyber operations associated with the war in Ukraine.
Rather than treating these events as isolated technical incidents, she places them within the larger geopolitical contests that produced them. The result is a reminder that attribution alone is not enough. To understand cyberattacks, one must also understand their strategic objective.
The book does a good job of placing these events in their historical perspective. Mellen demonstrates that many supposedly new forms of cyber conflict are actually technological adaptations of much older techniques: espionage, propaganda, sabotage, psychological warfare, and attempts to manipulate an adversary's population. Technology has changed dramatically; human motivations have not.
The chapters on Russia are particularly illuminating. Mellen identifies a recurring combination of disruption, espionage, psychological operations, and destructive malware. The war in Ukraine provides perhaps the clearest demonstration of how these capabilities can operate alongside conventional military power. Cyberwarfare is therefore not necessarily a separate battlefield. It can be another component of the same conflict.
The book is also valuable because, contrary to what the media often portrays, it avoids portraying cyberattacks as magical weapons, as they have limitations. They can be expensive, difficult to conceal, and unpredictable in their consequences. A successful intrusion does not necessarily translate into strategic success. Understanding those limitations is essential for policymakers and business leaders deciding how much attention and money to devote to cyber defense.
The book emphasizes the US, Russia, and China, leaving some important actors comparatively underdeveloped. Namely, Iran and North Korea. While the book does discuss them, and she writes that North Korea’s campaigns to steal cryptocurrency have become a defining feature of its foreign policy, more details on North Korea and Iran would have been valuable.
Code War succeeds because it moves the discussion of cybersecurity beyond passwords, malware, vulnerabilities, and firewalls and into the realm where cyber risk increasingly belongs - geopolitics and national strategy.
Code War is a really good introduction to the increasingly important intersection of cybersecurity and international affairs. It will appeal not only to cybersecurity professionals, but also to executives, policymakers, government officials, and anyone who wants to understand how nations are fighting for power in a world where the battlefield is increasingly made of code.
Cybersecurity attacks are not simply digital crimes committed by highly skilled individuals. Increasingly, they are instruments of national power, used by nation states to advance their political, military, economic, and strategic objectives.
Mellen is a Forrester Research analyst who covers security operations, nation-state threats, and the use of automation, machine learning, and AI in security tools. She’s written an engaging book meant for individuals, business professionals, and government officials, particularly leaders who need to understand nation-state cyberattacks.
An interesting element of the book is its comparative approach. Mellen focuses particularly on the US, Russia, and China, examining not merely what these countries do in cyberspace, but why they do it. Their approaches reflect their different histories, political systems, military doctrines, and visions of national power.
China views the internet largely as an extension of state authority and social control. Russia has incorporated cyber operations into a broader hybrid-warfare strategy, combining espionage, disinformation, disruption, and conventional military force. The US, by contrast, must balance national security and offensive capabilities with economic interests, individual freedoms, and an open internet.
Just this week, Reuters reported that China's state-owned shipping giant COSCO uses concealed equipment on board its ships to spy on military communications near the coastlines of target nations including the U.S.
The book provides a good overview of some of the most significant cyberattacks, including Stuxnet, WannaCry, NotPetya, attacks against elections, Sony Pictures hack, and cyber operations associated with the war in Ukraine.
Rather than treating these events as isolated technical incidents, she places them within the larger geopolitical contests that produced them. The result is a reminder that attribution alone is not enough. To understand cyberattacks, one must also understand their strategic objective.
The book does a good job of placing these events in their historical perspective. Mellen demonstrates that many supposedly new forms of cyber conflict are actually technological adaptations of much older techniques: espionage, propaganda, sabotage, psychological warfare, and attempts to manipulate an adversary's population. Technology has changed dramatically; human motivations have not.
The chapters on Russia are particularly illuminating. Mellen identifies a recurring combination of disruption, espionage, psychological operations, and destructive malware. The war in Ukraine provides perhaps the clearest demonstration of how these capabilities can operate alongside conventional military power. Cyberwarfare is therefore not necessarily a separate battlefield. It can be another component of the same conflict.
The book is also valuable because, contrary to what the media often portrays, it avoids portraying cyberattacks as magical weapons, as they have limitations. They can be expensive, difficult to conceal, and unpredictable in their consequences. A successful intrusion does not necessarily translate into strategic success. Understanding those limitations is essential for policymakers and business leaders deciding how much attention and money to devote to cyber defense.
The book emphasizes the US, Russia, and China, leaving some important actors comparatively underdeveloped. Namely, Iran and North Korea. While the book does discuss them, and she writes that North Korea’s campaigns to steal cryptocurrency have become a defining feature of its foreign policy, more details on North Korea and Iran would have been valuable.
Code War succeeds because it moves the discussion of cybersecurity beyond passwords, malware, vulnerabilities, and firewalls and into the realm where cyber risk increasingly belongs - geopolitics and national strategy.
Code War is a really good introduction to the increasingly important intersection of cybersecurity and international affairs. It will appeal not only to cybersecurity professionals, but also to executives, policymakers, government officials, and anyone who wants to understand how nations are fighting for power in a world where the battlefield is increasingly made of code.
July 26, 2026
The way Mellen writes is both informative and engaging, making complex topics easy to understand. I really enjoyed this. I appreciated how the book was organized by country, which made it easy to follow the different events.
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in cyber espionage, international politics, or cybersecurity. Even for someone who is just getting into cybersecurity, the real-world stories and examples from different countries provide valuable insight into how cyber conflicts have shaped global events.
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in cyber espionage, international politics, or cybersecurity. Even for someone who is just getting into cybersecurity, the real-world stories and examples from different countries provide valuable insight into how cyber conflicts have shaped global events.
September 4, 2026
The focus is on how effective cyberwar attack and defense is at this point. It is not absolutely effective, but it has become something serious to prepare for.
I might read this book to review the scope of the problem in the USA, China and Russia.
I might read this book to review the scope of the problem in the USA, China and Russia.
July 23, 2026
Shoutout Allie 🐐
I enjoyed this. Obviously a few terms and technical stuff was over my head but the way this was written, she made it so easy to understand. The flow was great. Great stuff
I enjoyed this. Obviously a few terms and technical stuff was over my head but the way this was written, she made it so easy to understand. The flow was great. Great stuff
August 25, 2026
Had to read for my work book club and it was actually pretty interesting but definitely took me a long time to get through bc a lot of history
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews