Cyber Warfare

When we take a look at cyberpower’s effect on war as a whole in the near term we really see it as a new weapon as opposed to a capability that changes how wars are fought. I don’t believe in my own opinion that cyber will win or lose wars, by the time a new major war kicks off countries will have the defenses in place to protect their critical infrastructure from destructive cyber capabilities. With cyber attacks making headlines and countries being more worried about cyber a whole the militaries of most world powers are hardening their networks and preparing for battle with or without cyber capability. Cyber attack will however be very prevalent in future wars and how we develop capabilities and tie them into traditional kinetic planning will decide the effectiveness as cyber war in the future.

In terms of intelligence gathering and C2 of our military’s cyber ha already changed both these landscapes completely. With many countries dependencies on cyber and the internet, intelligence gathering in this space could not be more critical. Countries will continue to pursue in peacetime exploitation of other countries networks in order to both posture for cyber espionage and cyber attack. C2 that utilizes commercial or military communications channels will need to be hardened well past current standards in order to assure the integrity of their networks and to deter enemies from cyber espionage.

War will be forever changed by the development of cyber capabilities due to the need to protect one’s networks from cyber attack, stuxnet and the attacks in estonia prove that cyber weapons can cripple the industrial control systems of a country and hamper their ability to conduct warfare.