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Book chapter
The Cyber-Grand Strategy Gap
The Great Power Competition: Cyberspace: The Fifth Domain , pp.27-47
Volume 3, Springer International Publishing
01/01/2022
Abstract
This chapter finds that America’s central cyber strategic challenge is a massively skewed risk/reward calculation that favors peer competitors. Leading proposals to address this imbalance are technical and operational, but such solutions are inadequate for an unbalanced strategic environment. This study applies a grand strategy framework to discussions of national security and cyber articulated by senior officials, military commanders, and other experts at the April 2021 Great Power Competition conference. For attackers, the consequences of being seen as a cyber threat by the United States are relatively minor compared to the rewards of hacking US systems, stealing intelligence and intellectual property, conducting information warfare, and developing capabilities to quickly devastate critical infrastructure. In short, the benefits of violating US cyber systems are specific and valuable. The costs are diffuse and, attackers seem to agree, manageable. These are classic conditions favoring offensive behavior. In response, professionals at the conference recommended operational and technical solutions. These focused on versions of deterrence, namely collective defense and defending forward. Here, collective defense refers to cooperation and collaboration among private US actors and the US government. It is designed to convince attackers to redirect their efforts because US systems are resilient and difficult to penetrate. Defending forward refers to US agencies launching persistent, offensive attacks that keep adversary resources distracted and adversary operators worried about US reprisals. Viewed in the context of grand strategy, these are necessary but not sufficient policy solutions. US planners need to bridge the gap between a current strategic context that favors challengers and a future in which that balance favors US defenders. As in prior eras of technological change, policy makers likely need to pair technical and operational prowess with statecraft and other diplomatic tools.
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Details
- Title
- The Cyber-Grand Strategy Gap
- Publication Details
- The Great Power Competition: Cyberspace: The Fifth Domain , pp.27-47
- Resource Type
- Book chapter
- Publisher
- Springer International Publishing; Cham
- Series
- Volume 3
- Copyright
- The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
- Identifiers
- 99380171983106600
- Academic Unit
- Reubin O'D. Askew Department of Government ; College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities
- Language
- English