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.
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.
Preface
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1 - Introduction: Are Cyber Strategies Coercive?
Chapter 2 - How Rival States Employ Cyber Strategy: Disruption,
Espionage, and Degradation
Chapter 3 - The Correlates of Cyber Strategy
Chapter 4 - Cyber Coercion as a Combined Strategy
Chapter 5 - Commissars and Crooks: Russian Cyber Coercion
Chapter 6 - China and the Technology Gap: Chinese Strategic
Behavior in Cyberspace
Chapter 7 - The United States: The Cyber Reconnaissance-Strike
Complex
Chapter 8 - Conclusion: Cyber Political Warfare with Limited
Effects
Appendix 1: The Dyadic Cyber Incident and Dispute Dataset Version
1.1
Appendix 2: Cyber Strategy Summary
Appendix 3: The Dyadic Cyber Incident and Dispute Dataset (DCID),
version 1.1, summarized version
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Brandon Valeriano is the Donald Bren Chair of Armed Conflict at the
Marine Corps University and a Senior Fellow at the Niskanen Center.
He has published five books and dozens of articles in outlets
including The Washington Post, Journal of Politics, and
International Studies Quarterly. His ongoing research explores
documenting cyber events, biological examinations of cyber threat,
and repression in cyberspace.
Benjamin Jensen is an Associate Professor at Marine Corps
University and a Scholar-in-Residence at American University,
School of International Service. His research explores the changing
character of conflict as it relates to strategy and military
innovation, themes explored in his first book, Forging the Sword:
Doctrinal Change in the U.S. Army (Stanford University Press 2016)
and his "Next War" column at War on the Rocks.
Ryan C. Maness is an Assistant Professor in the Defense Analysis
Department at the Naval Postgraduate School. His research includes
cyber conflict, cyber security, cyber coercion, cyber strategies,
information warfare, Russian foreign policy, American foreign
policy, and conflict-cooperation dynamics between states using Big
Data. He is coauthor of Russia's Coercive Diplomacy: Energy, Cyber
and Maritime Policy as New Sources of Power (Palgrave Macmillan,
2015), and
Cyber War versus Cyber Realities: Cyber Conflict in the
International System (Oxford University Press, 2015).
"This hugely important work needs to be an inspiration for future
works across the cyber field. Nuanced, subtle, and extremely well
written, the work aims to explain what cyber strategy may actually
be, how it comes in diverse forms not only across issue areas but
across state interests, and whether or not cyber really does signal
an entirely new and different era in warfare. Summing up:
Essential." -- M. D. Crosston, CHOICE
"Cyber Strategy makes a compelling case that our new age of
connectivity is also one of vulnerability. Not only due to the
potential for disruption of democratic processes and theft or
ransoming of valuable information. But also because many nations
believe, perhaps mistakenly, that they can commit predatory acts in
cyberspace DL to spy, extort, or simply inflict costs upon others
DL with little fear of escalation to wider warfare. Valeriano,
Jensen,
and Maness examine these and other issues in cyber strategy,
rigorously and unflinchingly." -- John Arquilla, Distinguished
Professor of Defense Analysis, United States Naval Postgraduate
School
"The United States is dangerously insecure in cyberspace and we are
at great risk from both nation state adversaries and non-state
actors alike. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the
utility and efficacy of cyber coercion and great insight into how
we can reevaluate cyber strategy. We hope to push the United States
into a position where we can defend our nation and, if required,
impose costs on our adversaries, serious work like Cyber
Strategy provides a solid foundation for these efforts." -- Mike
Gallagher, , U.S. Representative for Wisconsin's 8th Congressional
District
"In a new era of cyber coercion, we have more to fear from
state-backed botnets manipulating our social media feed than from
cyber bombs destroying our electric grid. "Avoiding both hype and
complacency, this important book uses empirical evidence to
illuminate the strategies of disruption, espionage, and degradation
that threaten us, and to outline what we can do about it."-Joseph
S. Nye, Jr., author of The Future of Power
"Cyber Strategy brings together a tremendous amount of emerging
research in the field of cyber conflict, tying theory to observed
campaigns and data sets to tackle the big questions. Valeriano,
Jensen, and Maness clearly lay out their hypotheses and evidence on
the behavior of the main cyber powers (Russia, China, and the
United States) and the dynamics of the conflict between
them."-Jason Healey, Senior Research Scholar, School of
International and
Public Affairs, Columbia University
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