How Probable is Cyber War? Bringing IR Theory Back In to the Cyber Conflict Debate

Abstract

Many well-established explanations for war suggest that cyber weapons have a greater chance of being used offensively than other kinds of military technologies. This response article introduces a research agenda for the study of cyber war, and offers an example – principal-agent problems in cyber operations – to demonstrate how rigorous theoretical and empirical work may proceed.

Key Words:

• Cyber War
• Information Technology
• Computer Network Attack
• Principal-agent
• Command and Control

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Alex Weisiger, Jake Shapiro, Tom Mahnken, Joe Lin, and John Stevenson for their thoughts on earlier drafts.

Notes

 ¹Thomas Rid, ‘Cyber War Will Not Take Place’, Journal of Strategic Studies 35/1 (Feb. 2012), 5–32; Adam Liff, ‘Cyberwar: A New “Absolute Weapon”? The Proliferation of Cyberwarfare Capabilities and Interstate War’, Journal of Strategic Studies 35/3 (June 2012), 401–28.

 ²Rid, ‘Cyber War Will Not Take Place’, 9.

 ³Ibid.

 ⁴Ibid., 6.

 ⁵Liff, ‘Cyberwar: A New “Absolute Weapon”?, 422

 ⁶Ibid., 421.

 ⁷Jack S. Levy, ‘The Causes of War and the Conditions of Peace’, Annual Review of Political Science 1 (1998), 139–65.

 ⁸James D. Fearon, ‘Rationalist Explanations for War’, International Organization 49/3 (Summer 1995), 379–414.

 ⁹David M. Kreps, A Course in Microeconomic Theory (Princeton UP 1990).

¹⁰Scott Sagan, The Limits of Safety (Princeton UP 1995).

¹¹Vadim Koval, ‘Russian Missile Forces Have “Safe Busting” Sledgehammer’, Rianovosti, 2012.

¹²Stephen Van Evera, ‘The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War’, International Security 9/1 (1984), 58–107.

¹³Andrea Shalal-Esa, ‘Ex-US general urges frank talk on cyber weapons’, Reuters, 6 Nov. 2011; David E. Sanger, Confront and Conceal (New York: Crown 2012), 191–3.

¹⁴Interview, South Korean Cyber Command officers, Seoul, January 2012.

¹⁵Yuliang Yuliang Zhang, The Study of Campaigns [Zhanyi xue] (Beijing: National Defense UP 2006), quoted in Roger Cliff et al., Shaking the Heavens and Splitting the Earth (Santa Monica, CA: RAND 2011), 98.

¹⁶For an introduction to variation in civil-military relations, see Peter Feaver, Armed Servants (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 2003).

¹⁷‘N. Korean Ministry behind July cyber attacks: spy chief’, Yonhap News Agency, 30 Oct. 2009; Kim Sue-Young, ‘Spy chief says cyber attacks work of N Korea’, Korea Times, 30 Oct. 2009.