Foreign Policy publishes GPPi commentary on cyber-security

On October 19, GPPi fellow Tim Maurer published a commentary on the website of Foreign Policy magazine in which he argues that cyberwarfare might actually save lives compared to traditional means of war. The piece is titled The Case for Cyberwarfare.

The New York Times reported on October 17 that the Obama administration considered but did not use cyber-warfare against Libya, opting instead for conventional weapons. Officials reportedly feared that an online campaign could set a precedent and invite other countries to use similar means. US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has warned that the ​“next Pearl Harbor we confront could very well be a cyber-attack.”

In his piece, Maurer argues that cyber-warfare might not to be so bad. Evidence so far suggests that cyber-warfare costs fewer lives compared with traditional types of warfare, as shown by the cyber-attack on Estonia in 2007 and on Georgia in 2008. Even the Stuxnet virus, ​“a very different animal” that infected computer systems used in Iran’s nuclear facilities, may have actually saved rather than cost lives.

At the same time, Maurer writes that three conditions will determine whether cyber-warfare will actually reduce the human costs of war: (1) the state of security improvements, particularly regarding critical infrastructure protection, (2) the extent to which norms governing the use of cyber-warfare emerge among states, and (3) the role of non-state actors, namely terrorists.

Maurer concludes that while cyber-warfare might be how we fight the battles of the future, a digital Pearl Harbor would cost fewer lives than the attack 70 years ago.