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Understanding Cyber Conflict: Fourteen Analogies
Cyber weapons and the possibility of cyber conflict—including interference in foreign political campaigns, industrial sabotage, attacks on infrastructure, and combined military campaigns—require policymakers, scholars, and citizens to rethink twenty-first-century warfare. Yet because cyber capabilities are so new and continually developing, there is little agreement about how they will be deployed, how effective they can be, and how they can be managed.
Written by leading scholars, the fourteen case studies in this volume will help policymakers, scholars, and students make sense of contemporary cyber conflict through historical analogies to past military-technological problems. The chapters are divided into three groups. The first—What Are Cyber Weapons Like?—examines the characteristics of cyber capabilities and how their use for intelligence gathering, signaling, and precision striking compares with earlier technologies for such missions. The second section—What Might Cyber Wars Be Like?—explores how lessons from several wars since the early nineteenth century, including the World Wars, could apply—or not—to cyber conflict in the twenty-first century. The final section—What Is Preventing and/or Managing Cyber Conflict Like?—offers lessons from past cases of managing threatening actors and technologies.
Written by leading scholars, the fourteen case studies in this volume will help policymakers, scholars, and students make sense of contemporary cyber conflict through historical analogies to past military-technological problems. The chapters are divided into three groups. The first—What Are Cyber Weapons Like?—examines the characteristics of cyber capabilities and how their use for intelligence gathering, signaling, and precision striking compares with earlier technologies for such missions. The second section—What Might Cyber Wars Be Like?—explores how lessons from several wars since the early nineteenth century, including the World Wars, could apply—or not—to cyber conflict in the twenty-first century. The final section—What Is Preventing and/or Managing Cyber Conflict Like?—offers lessons from past cases of managing threatening actors and technologies.
304 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 1, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 3, 2019
Should be read as study material.
It has some nice analogies, while some are sensible, others are a little too far fetched, but nevertheless it is researched in such a way that in the end it does connect on some level (i'm looking at you train analogy).
It has some nice analogies, while some are sensible, others are a little too far fetched, but nevertheless it is researched in such a way that in the end it does connect on some level (i'm looking at you train analogy).
August 28, 2018
This edited collection provides a number analogies that compare aspects of modern cyber issues to both technical and political issues of the past. For example, the last chapter compares cyber conflict to privateering - where governments and independent actors used conducted criminal behavior without specifically associating with a government. This is similar to state and non-state actors who use cyber capabilities for political and economic advantage while pretending to be ignorant of the crimes.
The authors are all careful to avoid the dangers of analogies, but demonstrate the usefulness of such comparisons to policymakers who must make decisions with imperfect information.
The authors are all careful to avoid the dangers of analogies, but demonstrate the usefulness of such comparisons to policymakers who must make decisions with imperfect information.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews