Rethinking Cyber Warfare

Fifteen years into the era of “cyber warfare,” are we any closer to understanding the role a major cyberattack would play in international relations – or to preventing one? Uniquely spanning disciplines and enriched by the insights of a leading practitioner, Rethinking Cyber Warfare provides a fresh understanding of the role that digital disruption plays in contemporary international security. Focusing on the critical phenomenon of major cyberattacks against wired societies, the book reconsiders central tenets that shaped global powers’ policies and explains what forces in the international system might durably restrain their use. Arming the reader with the key technological and historical context to make sense of cyberattacks, it explores how deterrence, international law, and normative taboos operate today to shape whether and how states think about causing this kind of disruption – and how soon those forces might combine to rethink those decisions entirely. The result is a comprehensive look at one of the most pressing issues in international security that also illuminates a new pathway for managing one of its greatest sources of instability.