Abstract
There are numerous discussions on both the reality and impact of cyberwar. Most of the critics are based on the Clausewitzian perspective of war in which its political nature must exist, an act of war has to be characteristically violent and has instrumental purposefulness. Therefore cyberwar is generally regarded as a conduct of action that simply doesn’t match with these Clausewitzian criteria of war. However during the last two decades, with the advancement of information technology and widening connecters of the world, many incidents such as Estonian and Georgian cases of cyberattacks, Stuxnet worms, and many other politically motivated cyberattacks, show us that we need to think carefully about the terminology that being used by scholars, experts and policy makers. In this chapter, I aim to discuss about the term “cyberwar” within a broader theory of war in International Relations studies. In doing so, my aim is to bring together related International Relations Theories and the contemporary cyberwar discussion and discuss the issue within a theoretical perspective.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
International Relations starting with uppercase letters refers to the academic study of the phenomena as a branch of Social Science and will be used as IR hereafter, while international relations starting with lowercase letters refers to the events under study.
- 2.
The Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare, is a report written by an independent International Group of Experts, under NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Centre of Excellence. This report is not published yet and only available as a draft and not an official document but is the result of a three-year effort to examine how extant international law norms apply to this new form of warfare.
References
Alexander, D. (2008). Cyberwar comes of age. Military Technology, 32, 78–85.
Ambinder, M. (2010). Failure shuts down squadron of nuclear missiles. The Atlantic. Available via. URL http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/10/10/power-failure-shuts-down-sqaudron-of-icbms/65207/ Accessed 18 Dec 2012.
Arquilla, J. (2012). Cyberwar is already upon us. Available via foreign policy. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/27/cyberwar_is_already_upon_us Accessed 17 Dec 2012.
Arquilla, J., & Ronfeldt, D. (1993). Cyberwar is coming! Santa Monica: Rand Corporation.
Baldwin, D. A. (1997). The concept of security. Review of International Studies, 23, 5–26.
Beer, F. A. (2001). Meanings of war and peace. College Station: Texas A&M University Press.
Bull, H. (2002). The anarchical society (3rd ed.). New York: Columbia University Press.
Carey, J. W. (1992). Communication as culture, revised edition: essays on media and society, London: Routledge.
Cavelty, M. D. (2007). Cyber-security and threat politics: US efforts to secure the information age (1st ed.). London: Routledge.
Creveld, M. V. (1991). Technology and war: From 2000 B.C. to the present, Revised & Expansion edition. Touchstone.
Darley, W. M. (2006). Clausewitz’s theory of war and information operations. FJQ, 73–81.
Echevarria, A. J. (2007). Clausewitz and contemporary war. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Grosswiler, P. (1997). Method is the message: Rethinking mcluhan through critical theory. Montreal: Black Rose Books.
Harknett, R. J. (1996). Information warfare and deterrence. Parameters Autumn, 26, 93–107.
Holsti, K. J. (1996). The state, war, and the state of war. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kelly, R. C. (2000). Warless societies and the origin of war. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Kramer, F. D., Starr, S. H., & Wentz, L. (Eds.). (2009). Cyberpower and national security (1st ed.). Potomac Books Inc.
Lawson, S. (2011). Cyber war and the expanding definition of war. Available via Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/sites/seanlawson/2011/10/26/cyber-war-and-the-expanding-definition-of-war/ Accessed 19 Dec 2012.
Levy, J. S. (1983). War in the modern great power system, 1495–1975 (illustrated ed.). Univ Press of Kentucky.
Levy, J. S., & Thompson, W. R. (2011). The arc of war: origins, escalation, and transformation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Libicki, M. C. (2007). Conquest in cyberspace: national security and information warfare (1st ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Libicki, M. C. (2009). Cyberdeterrence and cyberwar. Santa Monica: Rand Corporation.
Libicki, M. C. (2012). Cyberspace is not a warfighting domain. I/S: A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society, 8, 325–340.
Lider, J. (1977). On the nature of war. England: Gower Pub Co.
Lifland, A. (2012). Cyberwar: The future of conflict. (AMERICAS). Harvard International Review, 33.
Lynn, W. J. (2011). The pentagon’s cyberstrategy, one year later. Available via foreign affairs. http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/68305/william-j-lynn-iii/the-pentagons-cyberstrategy-one-year-later Accessed 28 Sept 2012.
Malinowski, B. (1941). An anthropological analysis of war. American Sociological Society, 46(4), 521–550.
McLuhan, M. (2011). The gutenberg galaxy (Centennial ed.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division.
McLuhan, M., & Fiore, Q. (2001). War and peace in the global village. New York: Gingko Pr Inc.
McLuhan, M., & Fiore, Q. (2005). The medium is the massage. New York: Gingko Press.
McLuhan, M., & Powers, B. R. (1992). The global village: transformations in world life and media in the 21st century (Reprint. ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nye, J. S. (2011). Nuclear lessons for cyber security? Strategic Studies Quarterly, 5(4), 18–38.
O’Connell, M. E. (2012). Cyber security without cyberwar. Journal of Conflict and Security Law, 17, 187–209.
Ranum, M. (2003). The myth of homeland security (1st ed.). Indianapolis: Wiley.
Rid, T. (2012a). Think again: Cyberwar. Available via Foreign Policy. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/27/cyberwar. Accessed 17 Dec 2012.
Rid, T. (2012b). Cyber war will not take place. Journal of Strategic Studies, 35(1), 5–32. DOI:10.1080/01402390.2011.608939.
Sanger, D. E. (2012). Confront and conceal: Obama’s secret wars and surprising use of American power. New York: Crown.
Schmitt, M. N. (1998). Computer network attack and the use of force in international law: thoughts on a normative framework. Colum. J. Transnat’l L., 37, 885.
Schmitt, M. (2012). Tallinn manual on the international law applicable to cyber warfare. Unpublished, Tallinn.
Schmitt, E., & Shanker, T. (2011). U.S. debated cyberwarfare against Libya. Available via The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/world/africa/cyber-warfare-against-libya-was-debated-by-us.html?_r=0 Accessed 12 Dec 2012.
Schneier, B., 2010. Threat of “cyberwar” has been hugely hyped. Available via CNN. http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/07/07/schneier.cyberwar.hyped/index.html Accessed 17 Dec 2012.
Tignor, R., Adelman, J., Aron, S., Brown, P., Elman, B., Kotkin, S., Liu, X., Marchand, S., Pittman, H., Prakash, G., Shaw, B., & Tsin, M. (2010). Worlds together, worlds apart: A history of the world: 600–1850 (3rd ed.). W. W. Norton & Company.
Toffler, A. (1984). The third wave. Bantam.
Valeriano, B., & Maness, R. (2012). The fog of cyberwar. Available via Foreign Affairs. http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138443/brandon-valeriano-and-ryan-maness/the-fog-of-cyberwar Accessed 16 Dec 2012.
Vasquez, J. A. (2009). The war puzzle revisited (1st ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Von Clausewitz, C. (1989) On war (Reprint. ed.). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Walt, S. M. (2010). What does Stuxnet tell us about the future of cyber-warfare? Available via Foreign Policy Blogs. http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/node/460701 Accessed 10 Dec 2012.
Wright, Q. (1965). Study of war (2nd Revised ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Yoran, A. (2010). Cyberwar or not cyberwar? And why that is the question? Available via Forbes.http://www.forbes.com/sites/firewall/2010/03/25/cyberwar-or-not-cyberwar-and-why-that-is-the-question/ Accessed 29 Sep 2012.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Mehmetcik, H. (2014). A New Way of Conducting War: Cyberwar, Is That Real?. In: Kremer, JF., Müller, B. (eds) Cyberspace and International Relations. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37481-4_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37481-4_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-37480-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-37481-4
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)