Cyberwars

Middle Powers and Cyber-Enabled Warfare: The Imperative of Collective Security

The response by middle powers to the emerging centrality of cyber space in the conduct of future war has been slow and fragmented. Their cyber war play-books are not blank but they look very different from those of pace-setter countries. A paper that I will present at an international conference in New Delhi next week, “Securing Cyberspace: Asian and International Perspectives“, describes a number of international benchmarks which might provide guideposts for a rapid catch-up in middle power capabilities for military security in the information age (for cyber-enabled war).

On the one hand, the paper looks at the future international policy environment. It calls out major trends in the policy settings of two pacesetter countries: China and the United States. Both regard military dominance in cyber space as one of the primary determinants of success in war.