On Escalation In Cyberspace

Escalation in Cyberspace (Part 1 of 2)

Escalation is the increase in the scope or intensity of conflict characterized by the crossing of a significant threshold by conflict participants (Morgan et al. 2008:  p.8 ). In cyberspace, escalation has been witnessed in various instances that have transitioned into disputes. The ideal control mechanism for conflicts originating from the crisis is escalation management. However, its success is mainly influenced by the preference of parties to settle for peace after a mutual exchange of terms in an agreement. Cyberspace escalation is characterized by numerous speculations due to the absence of a defined metric that would be applied to quantify cyberwar.

Ladder or Lattice

Escalation can be interpreted using two ways. First, it can be viewed as a ladder, implying that higher steps are more likely to be achieved out of an upward step. There are significant costs while moving from one conflict level to another. According to Schneider (2017), escalation could result from one side's exemplary act to force a de-escalatory impact. On the other hand, escalation is considered a lattice when the intensity increase fails to raise the further escalation odds when a different metric is used (Healey & Jervis, 2020). The concept of strategic cyberwar has been studied and analyzed using an escalation approach. This refers to systematic cyber-attacks with a social and economic objective. Scholars have reported that a nuclear retaliation could result from a cyber-attack that is sufficiently grave on the critical infrastructure. This would consequently lead to many deaths from the event and likely nuclear retaliation by the loosing side.

Naturally, there are other escalation pathways, such as cyberattacks on ports and infrastructure attacks. The receiving nation could view these as homeland attacks, thus leading to conventional attacks that may ultimately culminate into nuclear attacks.

Numerous escalation pathways implicate the previously stated analogy on the existence of a correlation between further escalation odds and intensity. Therefore, an intensity increase would not necessarily increase additional escalation odds. Libicki & Tkacheva (2020) pointed out that shifting to lattices from ladders is likely to create a complication in managing escalation by amplifying uncertainties and ambiguities. At the same time, this is mainly viewed to be disadvantageous. However, it introduces new possibilities that ultimately would lead to escalation rejection.

Cyberattacks and Escalation

At all conflict levels, cyberspace activities can potentially affect kinetic operations. The same intrusion could confound low-level and more intense kinetic confrontations and processes. The hacker's intentions are not likely to be known by the target. As a result, the target might react to a cyber-attack by a hacker intending to cause local effects like they sought to cause global effects. Multiple escalation pathways further result in even more complications in interpreting intentions. Libicki & Tkacheva (2020) observe that one side tends to forego the use of weapons that would result in conflict escalation, assuming that the other party would do the same.

Consequently, if the other party uses such weapons, it would be to their advantage and necessitate the implication that the first party is ‘weak’. In the absence of tacit agreements, there is a reinforcement of the tendency to differentiate cyberspace escalation from the expected kinetic escalation. Reports have pointed out that most cyberspace operations are strategic surprises rather than tactical. This is attributed to the failure of the targets to anticipate a possible operation by the other party that would result in negative implications. The other side is bound to perceive any form of escalation as a breach of the tacit agreement, thereby responding using the most effective means. The lack of proper definition of terms in a tacit agreement may result in different interpretations by conflict parties in this hypothetical scenario.

There is simply is also no clear agreement on what exactly marks escalation between the original effort that went into an action and the produced outcomes and effects. However, this is crucial because most failed efforts do so qualify as escalations, with the ones that are detected having impacts on further escalation. Therefore, research has revealed that escalation thresholds in cyberspace are more ambiguous than in traditional conflict.

Stay tuned for part 2 where I am introducing you to Healey's and Singh's model for cyberspace escalation.

References

Baram, G. (2013). The effect of cyberwar technologies on force buildup: the Israeli case. Military and Strategic Affairs, 5(1), 23-43.

Flock, E. (2019). Palestinians say hackers have taken down phone and Internet services. The Washington Post, URL: https://www. washingtonpost. com/blogs/blogpost/post/palestinians-say-hackers-have-taken-downphone-and-internet-services/2011/11/01/gIQATnSwcM_blog. html (дата обращения: 07.09. 2019).

Healey, J., & Jervis, R. (2020). The Escalation Inversion and Other Oddities of Situational Cyber Stability (Fall 2020). Texas National Security Review.

Libicki, M. C., & Tkacheva, O. (2020). Cyberspace Escalation: Ladders or Lattices?. Cyber Threats and NATO 2030: Horizon Scanning and Analysis, 60.

Rabaya’h, K. S., & Mansour, O. (2010). The Palestinian and Arab-Israeli Conflict in the Cyberspace: Escalation vs. Conciliation.

Saad, S., Bazan, S., & Varin, C. (2011). Asymmetric Cyber-warfare between Israel and Hezbollah: the Web as a new strategic battlefield.

Schneider, M. B. (2017, February). Escalate to De-escalate. In US Naval Institute Proceedings (Vol. 143, No. 2).

Sigholm, J. (2013). Non-state actors in cyberspace operations. Journal of Military Studies, 4(1), 1-37.