Abstract
This paper examines the morality of cyber weapons, offering conditions under which they are not only ethical under just war theory, but morally preferred over their kinetic counterparts. When these conditions are satisfied, states not only have the option of using cyber weapons, but could even acquire a moral duty to do so over other forms of warfare. In particular, we show that states are morally obliged to use cyber weapons instead of kinetic weapons when they can be deployed for a purpose already deemed just under the law of armed conflict and without any significant loss of capability. The reason behind this moral obligation is that cyber weapons can reduce both the risk to one’s own (putatively just) military and the harm to one’s adversary and non-combatants. The paper discusses this obligation, using examples to illustrate cases where it does or does not apply. It also addresses several objections that have been raised about the use of cyber weapons, showing that they fail to fully counter the obligation to use cyber weapons derived from their reduction of risk and harm properties.
Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. The views expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.
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- 1.
Rid (2011) has recently given a philosophical argument (rather than a legal argument) that the use of cyber weapons cannot and will not constitute war. He makes this case based on an analysis of the definition of war such that any given attack must be a lethal, instrumental, and political act in order to constitute war. And he finds cyber-attacks, in isolation, would not constitute all three criteria. We set Rid’s analysis aside for the purposes of this paper.
- 2.
See Dipert (2010, p. 393) for an argument that the preemptive use of cyber weapons would likely be morally preferable over a similar preemptive kinetic attack, and possibly even morally permissible, precisely for the kinds of advantages cyber weapons have that we rely on in this paper (i.e. their general non-lethality and lesser degree of destruction). On the use of force question, see Rid (2011) noted above.
- 3.
Although we cannot pursue it here, not all have found even this modest principle uncontroversial. Uwe Steinhoff (forthcoming) argues that it is, indeed, controversial and that acceptance of it could involve several normative problems. Steinhoff’s objections to the PUR deserve response, but such a discussion lies outside of the scope of this paper.
- 4.
And, further, presume that they do not have a scarcity of resources problem such that they must reserve some particular weapons for future missions, etc.
- 5.
There are, of course, important parallels here to cases of individual self-defense, where proportionality and necessity rule. In fact, many revisionist accounts of just war theory currently on the rise today contend precisely that the moral rules of warfare should track more closely with the moral reality of individual self-defense and, as such, should impose a much stronger “necessity” clause on any given just military action (see, Rodin 2005, for example). Such a discussion, however, is far outside the scope of this paper.
- 6.
Again, see Steinhoff (2013) for a contrasting view. Presumably Steinhoff’s objections to PUR would carry over to PURH.
- 7.
See Orend (2000) for a comprehensive case for developing principles of jus post bellum.
- 8.
For a good discussion on cyber warfare attacking non-combatants and the resulting problems, see Lucas (2011b). Lucas’ work in that piece is highly compatible with the claims we make in this paper, although we disagree with Lucas over whether some specific instances of cyber-attacks would be permissible. Lucas writes, “… an act of cyber warfare is permissible if it aims primarily at harming military (rather than civilian) infrastructure, degrades an adversary’s ability to undertake highly destructive offensive kinetic operations, harms no civilians and/or destroys little or no civilian infrastructure in the process.” And, of course, we further differ from Lucas in contending that in some such instances cyber-attacks would not be merely permissible, but obligatory to use in place of similar kinetic attacks.
- 9.
Several revisionist just war theorists have recently challenged a blanket principle of non-combatant immunity and have argued that some noncombatants could be liable to harm in war. Jeff McMahan (2009) does this most prominently, but others such as Helen Frowe (2011) have also advanced a rejection of total non-combatant immunity. Note that even on these revisionists accounts, however, an attack against the entire Internet would still fall outside of the bounds of just war practices because there would be very little if any discrimination possible amongst non-combatants. Again see Lucas (2011b) for a discussion on the possibilities for discriminate cyberwarfare.
- 10.
Although in this case much of that infection did little real damage to systems it used on its way to delivering its payload. This is a more complicated question regarding what should constitute damage and how such a calculus should be used in analyzing the moral permissibility of particular attacks. We address this issue separately below in Objection 4.
- 11.
Though this need not always be the case. It is possible for a cyber-weapon to directly attack an adversary system without any mediating system whatsoever. But this will be rare.
- 12.
This is exactly what played out with the Stuxnet attack on Iran.
- 13.
Savulescu and Beauchamp (2013) argue for a similar moral gain that could be possibly had with regard to the increasing use of UAVs.
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Denning, D., Strawser, B. (2014). Moral Cyber Weapons. In: Floridi, L., Taddeo, M. (eds) The Ethics of Information Warfare. Law, Governance and Technology Series, vol 14. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04135-3_6
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