CYBERATTACKS AS ALTERNATIVES TO WAR AND ACTS OF WAR

Abstract

There is an inherent problem with the way the term cyberattack is being used. The term cyberattack is applied to any type of hostile interaction that occurs within cyberspace and presented as either act of war or a criminal act. Cyberattacks are not binary, they represent a continuum of acts both violent and non-violent. Hence, the point of this thesis is to answer What types of cyberattacks can be classified as non-violent, violent alternatives to war and acts of war? I develop a classification model that accurately classifies cyberattacks based on the scale and effect of the cyberattack. The existing literature on cyberattacks presents them as non-violent alternatives to war, as cyberattacks are non-kinetic and existing cyberattacks have not caused deaths of civilians or any level of destruction. However, such a perspective is limited, as cyberattacks have a potential to cause deaths and destruction. I remedy this by discussing what makes non-violent alternatives to war non-violent, and what makes violent alternatives violent. Furthermore, I dive into the consideration of what constitutes acts of war and develop the rule of the 3Ds, which states that for a use of force to be considered as an act of war, it needs to cause significant destruction, significant disruption, and numerous deaths. Based on these considerations, I use the severity scale of the Dyadic Cyber Incident Dataset developed by Maness, Valeriano, and Jensen (2019) to accurately establish thresholds for cyberattacks that fit within categories of non-violent alternatives to war, violent alternatives to war and acts of war. In this research I rely on the cyberattack case of Stuxnet and cyberattack cases derived from popular culture: TV series Homeland and Die Hard 4.0.