To Cyberwar, Or Not to Cyberwar

Just to round up a few bits and pieces about this are-we-at-cyberwar-or-not business. Sorry for the reflexive nature of this post but there are quite a few posts that need drawing together in one place.

I’ve consistently held the view that we’re not in a cyberwar and said so in a short piece at Kings of War last week, No Cyberwar, Says White House Official. I also wrote an op-ed for The Guardian, The US is Not at Cyberwar, restating the sentiments of that post. This appeared four days after I submitted it, so was unfortunately late to the party.

In the meantime, Jeff Carr had made the not entirely unreasonable statement that “Cyber War”, By Any Other Name, Is Still a Major F’ng Problem. There is certainly a case to be made for getting proper structures in place for dealing with the problems, rather than sitting around splitting definitional hairs. The latter is not, of course, what I’m arguing we should do.

On reading the news that the UK government is taking a similarly cautious line to this whole cyberwar business, I’ve just posted again at Kings of War, Words Matter, Says UK Office of Cyber Security. I had already written an earlier piece suggesting exactly such a difference between US and UK discourse in this area, We Say Cyber, You Say Cyber. I was also lucky enough to talk about cyberwar for British Forces Radio’s Sitrep programme yesterday, and they’re hoping to look at this topic in a bit more detail soon.

I also recommend one of Jason Sigger’s recent posts, Cyber Warfare – It’s the New WMD, and the ongoing contribution of George Smith, particularly Cult of Cyberwar: When Booz Allen’s Mouthpiece Attacks. These refer to the recent Cyber ShockWave exercise / CNN tie-in that I first wrote about at the beginning of February, Coming to a Networked Device Near You: Cyberwar!

The conclusion to be drawn from my recent statements is that, contra the comments of some, I am not saying there isn’t a problem, or that responses are not required. Quite the opposite, in fact. But what I am saying is:

• not only do we have little idea of what cyberwar might look like but we have no real basis for saying we’re in one now
• there are, of course, cyber components to the wars we’re already in, but this is insufficient to justify a total ‘cyberwar’
• declaring a state of de facto cyberwar is actually counter to the political philosophy of those neo/realists who are suggesting we are (ergo, something else might be driving this agenda)
• definitions matter
• in the long run, it will be more productive and more positive to do some careful groundwork first, rather than go off half-cocked now
• things are not so bad that we can’t employ this more careful approach

I’m thinking of working up a longer piece on these issues within the context of military futurism for the newly-relaunched Current Intelligence magazine. The new site’s looking great, so get over there and check out the content and contributors.

Update 18 March: I have indeed penned a piece for Current Intelligence, Dark Visions: Cyberspace in Words and Warfare.