Publications

Cyber-attacks are often viewed in academic and military writings as strategic asymmetric weapons, great equalizers with the potential of leveling the battlefield between powerful nations and those less capable.  However, there has been little evidence to suggest that cyber-attacks are a genuine military option in a state-on-state conflict. In instances of actual military operations (e.g., Afghanistan, Georgia, Iraq, and Israel/Gaza), there is little accompanying evidence of a military conducting cyber-attacks against either a civilian or military target.  Given that some of the nation states that have been involved in military conflict or peacekeeping missions in hostile areas are believed to have some level of offensive cyber capability, this may be indicative. More substantive examples demonstrate that cyber-attacks have been more successful in non-military activities, as they may serve as a clandestine weapon of subterfuge better positioned to incapacitate systems without alerting the victims, veiling the orchestrator’s true identity via proxy groups and plausible deniability. Consequently, this paper provides a counter argument to the idea that cyber tools are instrumental military weapons in modern day warfare;  cyber weapons are more effective options during times of nation state tension rather than military conflict, and are more serviceable as a signaling tool than one designed to gain military advantage. In situations where state-on-state conflict exists, high value targets that need to be neutralized would most likely be attacked via conventional weapons where battle damage assessment can be easily quantified. This raises the question: are cyber weapons effective military tools?