A fresh perspective on statecraft in the cyber domain The idea of “cyber war” has played a dominant role in both academic and popular discourse concerning the nature of statecraft in the cyber domain. However, this lens of war and its expectations for death and destruction may distort rather than help clarify the nature of cyber competition and conflict. Are cyber activities actually more like an intelligence contest, where both states and nonstate actors grapple for information advantage below the threshold of war? In Deter, Disrupt, or Deceive, Robert Chesney and Max Smeets argue that reframing cyber competition as an intelligence contest will improve our ability to analyze and strategize about cyber events and policy. The contributors to this volume debate the logics and implications of this reframing. They examine this intelligence concept across several areas of cyber security policy and in different national contexts. Taken as a whole, the chapters give rise to a unique dialogue, illustrating areas of agreement and disagreement among leading experts and placing all of it in conversation with the larger fields of international relations and intelligence studies. Deter, Disrupt, or Deceive is a must read because it offers a new way for scholars, practitioners, and students to understand statecraft in the cyber domain.

A fresh perspective on statecraft in the cyber domain The idea of “cyber war” has played a dominant role in both academic and popular discourse concerning the nature of statecraft in the cyber domain. However, this lens of war and its expectations for death and destruction may distort rather than help clarify the nature of cyber competition and conflict. Are cyber activities actually more like an intelligence contest, where both states and nonstate actors grapple for information advantage below the threshold of war? In Deter, Disrupt, or Deceive, Robert Chesney and Max Smeets argue that reframing cyber competition as an intelligence contest will improve our ability to analyze and strategize about cyber events and policy. The contributors to this volume debate the logics and implications of this reframing. They examine this intelligence concept across several areas of cyber security policy and in different national contexts. Taken as a whole, the chapters give rise to a unique dialogue, illustrating areas of agreement and disagreement among leading experts and placing all of it in conversation with the larger fields of international relations and intelligence studies. Deter, Disrupt, or Deceive is a must read because it offers a new way for scholars, practitioners, and students to understand statecraft in the cyber domain.

Over the past decade, numerous states have declared cyberspace as a new domain of warfare, sought to develop a military cyber strategy and establish a cyber command. These developments have led to much policy talk and concern about the future of warfare as well as the digital vulnerability of society. No Shortcuts provides a level-headed view of where we are in the militarization of cyberspace. In this book, Max Smeets bridges the divide between technology and policy to assess the necessary building blocks for states to develop a military cyber capacity. Smeets argues that for many states, the barriers to entry into conflict in cyberspace are currently too high. Accompanied by a wide range of empirical examples, Smeets shows why governments abilities to develop military cyber capabilities might change over time and explains the limits of capability transfer by states and private actors.

A wide range of actors have publicly identified cyber stability as a key policy goal but the meaning of stability in the context of cyber policy remains vague and contested: vague because most policymakers and experts do not define cyber stability when they use the concept; contested because they propose measures that rely - often implicitly - on divergent understandings of cyber stability. This is a thorough investigation of instability within cyberspace and of cyberspace itself. Its purpose is to reconceptualise stability and instability for cyberspace, highlight their various dimensions and thereby identify relevant policy measures. It critically examines both 'classic' notions associated with stability - for example, whether cyber operations can lead to unwanted escalation - as well as topics that have so far not been addressed in the existing cyber literature, such as the application of a decolonial lens to investigate Euro-American conceptualisations of stability in cyberspace.