What Do We Know about Cyber Escalation?

Download or read book What Do We Know about Cyber Escalation? written by Benjamin Jensen and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 14 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern crises bargaining involves a mix of overt and covert cross-domain signals states use to manage escalation and provide options that might help them advance their interests short of war. Unlike the Cold War in the twentieth century, this competition involves a new domain: cyberspace. Whether massive military and commercial espionage campaigns or international extortion rings and theft, the cyber domain offers an outlet for states to advance their interests. Does the resulting cyber competition create new escalation risks? Do cyber operations alter how states respond to international crises in a way that creates incentives for decision makers to cross the Rubicon and use military force to settle disputes? The answer is surprising: no. To date, cyber operations have tended to offer great powers escalatory offramps. This issue brief draws on new academic research, simulations, and survey experiments to study how cyber operations alter crisis decision-making during great power competition. Specifically, it analyzes escalation pathways and how the informed public and foreign policy actors conceptualize disruptive technologies and integrate them into larger competitive strategies. Based on the evidence, cyber operations offer a valuable escalatory offramp. Even states with more escalatory attitudes tend not to respond militarily to disputes when they have the option of imposing costs and signaling through cyberspace.