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Cyberspace as a State’s Element of Power

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Cyber-Development, Cyber-Democracy and Cyber-Defense

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Abstract

Cyberspace is becoming increasingly central to states’ economies and their societies. This growing role of cyberspace has opened up new opportunities but at the same time created new threats, which states have to live with, finding ways to identify and mitigate them. Cyberthreats are created by the exploitation of vulnerabilities inherent in every manmade system to include cyberspace, by various actors which are usually grouped in four categories, namely, organized criminals, hactivists, foreign governments and terrorist groups. The last two actors are closely related to national security, in its narrow sense; they use cyber power against (other).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Caton, What do senior leaders need to know about cyberspace?

  2. 2.

    Hathaway and Klimburg, Preliminary considerations: on national cyber security, p.1.

  3. 3.

    Luiijf and Healey, Organizational structures and considerations, p.120.

  4. 4.

    Hathaway and Klimburg, op. cit., p.3.

  5. 5.

    Lindstrom and Luiijf, Political aims & policy methods, p.56.

  6. 6.

    Krepinevich, Cyber warfare: a “nuclear option”? p.8.

  7. 7.

    In 1982, an explosion tore apart a natural gas pipeline in Siberia. The planning and execution of the operation has been attributed to the CIA. Clark and Levin, Securing the information highway: how to enhance the United States’ Electronic Defenses and Libicki, 2009, Cyberdeterrence and cyberwar, p.21.

  8. 8.

    Hathaway and Klimburg, op. cit., p.8.

  9. 9.

    Betz, Cyber war is not coming, p.21.

  10. 10.

    Hathaway and Klimburg, op. cit., p.17.

  11. 11.

    This typology is adhered to by a considerable number of countries in their national cyber security strategies. For a typical example see relevant documents by the UK and New Zealand.

  12. 12.

    For an updated list of cyber incidents, including cyber espionage ones, visit www.csis.org (significant cyber events).

  13. 13.

    Humanity has not seen mercenaries since the dark ages; today, their use should not be ruled out, albeit in different form.

  14. 14.

    Liff, Cyberwar: A new ‘absolute weapon’? The proliferation of cyberwarfare capabilities and interstate war, p.423.

  15. 15.

    Marinos and Sfakianakis, ENISA threat landscape: responding to the evolving threat environment.

  16. 16.

    Liff, op. cit.

  17. 17.

    Booth, Critical security studies and world politics.

  18. 18.

    The characterization of security as “trinitarian” stems from the Clausewitz’s view of war as a “paradoxical trinity” (Clausewitz, On war, p.89), which today is used to characterize wars amongst nation-states or wars of the industrial age.

  19. 19.

    Booth, op. cit.

  20. 20.

    Nadig, Human smuggling, national security, and refugee protection; Castels and Miller, The age of migration.

  21. 21.

    Though we are generally in agreement, we would extend this state-centric approach to include the period from the Peace of Westphalia, when the modern nation-state started emerged firstly in Europe and then elsewhere.

  22. 22.

    Nadig, op. cit.

  23. 23.

    Castels and Miller, op. cit.

  24. 24.

    Clausewitz, On war.

  25. 25.

    Summers, On strategy: a critical analysis of the Vietnam War.

  26. 26.

    Douhet, The command of the air.

  27. 27.

    Ibid., p.22.

  28. 28.

    Ibid., p.20.

  29. 29.

    Steed, Cyber power and strategy: so what?

  30. 30.

    Ibid., p.23.

  31. 31.

    Libicki, op.cit., p.124.

  32. 32.

    Goodman, Cyber deterrence: tougher in theory than in practice? p.103.

  33. 33.

    Milevski, A special operation in cyberspace, p.64.

  34. 34.

    Gray, Making strategic sense of cyber power: why the sky is not falling? Nye, Cyber power.

  35. 35.

    Nye, op. cit., p.2.

  36. 36.

    Gray, op. cit., p.4.

  37. 37.

    Ibid., p.7.

  38. 38.

    Martin Libicki argues that “The establishment of the 24th Air Force and US Cyber Command marks the ascent of cyberspace as a military domain. As such, it joins the historic domains of land, sea, air, and space.” Libicki, 2009, op. cit.

  39. 39.

    Steed, op. cit.; Libicki, 2009, op. cit.

  40. 40.

    Clausewitz, op, cit.

  41. 41.

    Miller and Kuehl consider “social cohesion and political will” as one of the multiple objectives that cyberattacks will likely have (Miller and Kuehl, op. cit., p.2).

  42. 42.

    Hathaway and Klimburg, op. cit., p.7.

  43. 43.

    McAfee, Critical infrastructure protection report, March 2011.

  44. 44.

    UK Cabinet Office, The UK cyber security strategy: protecting and promoting the UK in a digital world.

  45. 45.

    www.csis.org, Significant cyber events.

  46. 46.

    Betz, op. cit., p.22.

  47. 47.

    Ibid., p.23.

  48. 48.

    Libicki, 2009, op. cit., p.176.

  49. 49.

    Nye, op. cit., p.5.

  50. 50.

    Gray, op. cit., p.41.

  51. 51.

    Ludendorff, Total war.

  52. 52.

    Nye, op. cit., p.19.

  53. 53.

    Betz, op. cit., p.23.

  54. 54.

    Gray, op. cit., p.34–35.

  55. 55.

    Betz, op. cit., p.24.

  56. 56.

    Libicki, 2009, op. cit.

  57. 57.

    Ibid., p.140.

  58. 58.

    Miller and Kuehl, Cyberspace and the “First Battle” in 21st-century war.

  59. 59.

    Milevski, op. cit.

  60. 60.

    Ibid.

  61. 61.

    Gray, op. cit., p. 30.

  62. 62.

    Milevski, op. cit.

  63. 63.

    Ibid., p.65.

  64. 64.

    New Zealand’s cyber security strategy, June 2011.

  65. 65.

    Betz, op. cit.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of the Aegean, Chios, Greece

    Nikitas Nikitakos

  2. Hellenic Army Academy, Athens, Greece

    Panos Mavropoulos

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  1. Nikitas Nikitakos
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Correspondence to Panos Mavropoulos .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Systems and Technology Management School of Business, George Washington University, Washington, District of Columbia, USA

    Elias G. Carayannis

  2. Faculty for Interdisciplinary Studies, Institute of Science Communication and Higher Education Research, University of Klagenfurt, Klagenfurt, Austria

    David F. J. Campbell

  3. Harriman Institute Columbia University & Strategy International, New York, New York, USA

    Marios Panagiotis Efthymiopoulos

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Nikitakos, N., Mavropoulos, P. (2014). Cyberspace as a State’s Element of Power. In: Carayannis, E., Campbell, D., Efthymiopoulos, M. (eds) Cyber-Development, Cyber-Democracy and Cyber-Defense. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1028-1_10

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