Cyber Persistence Theory

"In 'Cyber Persistence Theory', Michael P. Fischerkeller, Emily O. Goldman, and Richard J. Harknett argue that this current theory only works well in the cyber strategic space of armed conflict but it is completely misaligned for conflict outside of war - where most state-sponsored adversarial cyber activity occurs. As they show, the reigning paradigm of deterrence theory cannot fully explain what is taking place with respect to cyber conflict. Therefore, the authors develop a novel approach to national cyber security strategy and policy that realigns theory and practice."--

The national security of the United States depends on a secure, reliable and resilient cyberspace. The inclusion of digital systems into every aspect of US national security has been underway since World War II and has increased with the proliferation of Internet-enabled devices. There is an increasing need to develop a robust deterrence framework within which the United States and its allies can dissuade would-be adversaries from engaging in various cyber activities. Yet despite a desire to deter adversaries, the problems associated with dissuasion remain complex, multifaceted, poorly understood and imprecisely specified. Challenges, including credibility, attribution, escalation and conflict management, remain ever-present and challenge the United States in its efforts to foster security in cyberspace. These challenges need to be addressed in a deliberate and multidisciplinary approach that combines political and technical realities to provide a robust set of policy options to decision makers. The Cyber Deterrence Problem brings together a multidisciplinary team of scholars with expertise in computer science, deterrence theory, cognitive psychology, intelligence studies and conflict management to analyze and develop a robust assessment of the necessary requirements and attributes for achieving deterrence in cyberspace. Beyond simply addressing the base challenges associated with deterrence, many of the chapters also propose strategies and tactics to enhance deterrence in cyberspace and emphasize conceptualizing how the United States deters adversaries.

A fresh perspective on statecraft in the cyber domain The idea of “cyber war” has played a dominant role in both academic and popular discourse concerning the nature of statecraft in the cyber domain. However, this lens of war and its expectations for death and destruction may distort rather than help clarify the nature of cyber competition and conflict. Are cyber activities actually more like an intelligence contest, where both states and nonstate actors grapple for information advantage below the threshold of war? In Deter, Disrupt, or Deceive, Robert Chesney and Max Smeets argue that reframing cyber competition as an intelligence contest will improve our ability to analyze and strategize about cyber events and policy. The contributors to this volume debate the logics and implications of this reframing. They examine this intelligence concept across several areas of cyber security policy and in different national contexts. Taken as a whole, the chapters give rise to a unique dialogue, illustrating areas of agreement and disagreement among leading experts and placing all of it in conversation with the larger fields of international relations and intelligence studies. Deter, Disrupt, or Deceive is a must read because it offers a new way for scholars, practitioners, and students to understand statecraft in the cyber domain.

Survival, the IISS’s bimonthly journal, challenges conventional wisdom and brings fresh, often controversial, perspectives on strategic issues of the moment. In this issue: Marcus Willet argues that the Russia–Ukraine war reveals much about the nature of cyber warfare, including the battle for hearts and minds and the role of ‘vigilantes’ Angela Stent contends that Putin badly misjudged how Germany would respond to the war in Ukraine in failing to anticipate that Olaf Scholz would provisionally jettison Ostpolitik Jude Blanchette and Evan S. Medeiros assess likely drivers and characteristics of Xi Jinping’s upcoming third term as Chinese leader Nicholas Crawford and David F. Gordon make the case that the green-energy transition is essential, despite new geopolitical risks caused by ‘greenflation’ Nigel Gould-Davies examines the recent foreign-policy failures of Belarus and Russia and sets out three lessons for a post-war order in the region And five more thought-provoking pieces, as well as our regular Book Reviews and Noteworthy column.

Some pundits claim cyber weaponry is the most important military innovation in decades, a transformative new technology that promises a paralyzing first-strike advantage difficult for opponents to deter. Yet, what is cyber strategy? How do actors use cyber capabilities to achieve a position of advantage against rival states? This book examines the emerging art of cyber strategy and its integration as part of a larger approach to coercion by states in the international system between 2000 and 2014. To this end, the book establishes a theoretical framework in the coercion literature for evaluating the efficacy of cyber operations. Cyber coercion represents the use of manipulation, denial, and punishment strategies in the digital frontier to achieve some strategic end. As a contemporary form of covert action and political warfare, cyber operations rarely produce concessions and tend to achieve only limited, signaling objectives. When cyber operations do produce concessions between rival states, they tend to be part of a larger integrated coercive strategy that combines network intrusions with other traditional forms of statecraft such as military threats, economic sanctions, and diplomacy. The books finds that cyber operations rarely produce concessions in isolation. They are additive instruments that complement traditional statecraft and coercive diplomacy. The book combines an analysis of cyber exchanges between rival states and broader event data on political, military, and economic interactions with case studies on the leading cyber powers: Russia, China, and the United States. The authors investigate cyber strategies in their integrated and isolated contexts, demonstrating that they are useful for maximizing informational asymmetries and disruptions, and thus are important, but limited coercive tools. This empirical foundation allows the authors to explore how leading actors employ cyber strategy and the implications for international relations in the 21st century. While most military plans involving cyber attributes remain highly classified, the authors piece together strategies based on observations of attacks over time and through the policy discussion in unclassified space. The result will be the first broad evaluation of the efficacy of various strategic options in a digital world.

This book is about the politics of cyberspace. It shows that cyberspace is no mere virtual reality but a rich geography of practices and power relations. Using concepts and methods derived from the work of Michel Foucault, Jeremy Crampton explores the construction of digital subjectivity, web identity and authenticity, as well as the nature and consequences of the digital divide between the connected and those abandoned in limbo. He demonstrates that it is by processes of mapping that we understand cyberspace and in doing so delineates the critical role maps play in constructing cyberspace as an object of knowledge. Maps, he argues, shape political thinking about cyberspace, and he deploys in-depth case studies of crime mapping, security and geo-surveillance to show how we map ourselves onto cyberspace, inexorably and indelibly. Clearly argued and vigorously written this book offers a powerful reinterpretation of cyberspace, politics, and contemporary life.