Cyber in War: Assessing the Strategic, Tactical, and Operational Utility of Military Cyber Operations
- 2 January 2020
- Schulze, Matthias
- EN
The study analyzes the use of cyber capabilities in war and conflict situations. The research question is: What good is cyber in war? What is the utility of military cyber operations in conflict situations and what obstacles exist? The paper analyzes a small set of cases where cyber capabilities have been used for military purposes. Using the ‘three levels of warfare’ heuristic, the study outlines the potentials and operational restrictions of military cyber operations. The analysis proposes a set of variables and hypotheses, such as the timing of use of cyber capabilities and the operational complexity of a cyber operation, for further theory building.
More external publications
- Research and Analysis
3 June 2023
In this research paper, Mika Kerttunen argues that while cyber operations may be relatively ineffective for conducting war, their peacetime employment can contribute to the outbreak of conflict due to their violent nature.
31 May 2023
In this report, Sebastian Harnisch and Kerstin Zettl-Schabath present the HD-CY.CON cyberconflict dataset and shed light on autocratic and democratic use of proxies in cyberspace.