Nuclear strategy in the cyber age
An article appearing in the most recent issue of the Air University’s Strategic Studies Quarterly (winter, 2011) draws a thick line from the nuclear age to cyber security. In Joseph S. Nye, Jr.’s article, Nuclear lessons for Cyber Security?, the strategies of the Cold War are likened to the present day battle to control the internet. This is relevant as we have already seen the use of cyber warfare by both state and non-state actors, as evinced by lead-up to the 2008 Russia-Georgia conflict and activities of the infamous ‘hacktivist’ group Anonymous.
Just as the United States and Soviet Union competed to have better nuclear weapons technology, the same is true today of security software and programming. As this new field continues to rapidly expand, I think it is likely that a similar sort of arms buildup is occurring. The threat of a cyber attack, which can be executed with no warning, at any time, from anywhere, can act mainly as a strong deterrent, much like nuclear submarines.
The Wall Street Journal reported back in 2009 that Chinese hackers had gotten into portions of U.S. electrical infrastructure to assess vulnerabilities and plant hostile coding. It is unclear if the hack was government sanctioned but China is known for using students to conduct such activity as a means of maintaining plausible deniabilit . This suggests that state actors are already preparing their virtual arsenals by looking to exploit weaknesses in others’ networks. These developments signal that someone may have a first-strike like capability, thus preventing retaliation should an opponent’s network successfully be taken down.
What does this mean for American and international security? As Dr. Nye explains, it means “Strategists need to be alert to the fact that today’s solutions may not suffice tomorrow.” This is especially true when considering that “The cyber domain is new and dynamic, but so was nuclear technology at its inception.” Cold War thinkers eventually came to realize that a nuclear confrontation was not a winnable scenario for either side, though I doubt that will be the case for cyber warfare, especially with the involvement of non-state actors.
