The dramatic rise in the capabilities of cyber warfare has outpaced centuries of developed American military doctrine. Cyberoperations, or activities carried out in cyberspace (the internet and computer networks), have become a preferred form of military engagement for gathering information or disrupting systems. Unfortunately, a lack of formal international laws regarding cyber warfare has complicated the issue. Existing cyber laws and ethics are extremely ambiguous. As a result, it is difficult for military leadership to conduct cyberoperations in harmony with legal and ethical expectations. The ambiguity of novel cyber capabilities may lead to miscalculations and escalated conflict if not properly codified.
Military doctrine and cyber law
Lack of a codified cyber law means that cyberoperations often violate international law, such as the Geneva Conventions, which set the standard for humanitarian treatment during war. The humanitarian principles of neutrality, distinction and proportionality are respected by kinetic – that is, conflict involving physical force – warfare, but are more likely to be violated in cyber warfare. There is no agreed-upon international law regarding acceptable cyberspace activities. While the Tallinn Manual, a well-recognized guide created by legal and military experts, suggests how international law may apply to cyber operations, it is not legally binding. And until an international cyber warfare law is codified, cyber operations will remain rife with miscalculations by decision makers.
In military doctrine, distinction means that attacks should hit only military targets and avoid harming civilians. However, the cyber domain is very interconnected, making distinctions difficult to adhere to in cyber warfare. Approximately 95% of Department of Defense telecommunication activity travels through public networks, meaning that an attack on a valid target could have an impact on civilians. For instance, broad-spectrum jamming, the deliberate disruption of frequencies to reduce a military’s ability to communicate, could negatively impact civilian emergency services. This makes a widespread cyber attack on civilian infrastructure the easiest way to cripple military targets. In addition, because of the reduced costs of striking civilian targets non-kinetically — non-physically — political actors are more likely to ignore distinction to take advantage of available targets.
Similar to the principle of distinction, the interconnectedness of the cyber domain raises problems with maintaining neutrality. Neutrality refers to the principle that countries not involved in a conflict should not be affected or targeted by the belligerent nations. However, with the development of cyberoperations, it is likely that neutrality will no longer be adhered to. The structure of the internet means that cyber attacks can be routed through several neutral nations before reaching a belligerent state. As such, carrying out a military attack via the cyber domain requires violations of neutrality, putting cyber doctrine and law into conflict with each other.
In contrast, cyber warfare adheres closely to the principle of proportionality. Proportionality outlines the requirement that the severity of military action should be proportionate between belligerents. As cyber attacks can be more or less severe according to need, there is no immediate conflict between proportionality and cyber military doctrine. So, while there is rampant disharmony between military doctrine and cyber ethics, there is also synergy between the two.
Military Doctrine and Cyber Ethics
Military doctrine demands that there exist a casus belli, a Latin term meaning “cause of war,” referring to the necessity for a justified reason to engage in conflict. Casus belli is necessary because not all attacks are equal – for instance, bombing a major city over a conflict at a border crossing is not considered justifiable. This principle applies to cyber attacks as much as it applies to kinetic strikes. As an example, let’s say a country decides to execute a Distributed Denial of Service attack (DDoS), a type of cyberattack where many computers overwhelm a website or network, to temporarily render a website unusable. It would not be a reasonable response for the receiving country to cripple the offending country’s critical infrastructure by exploiting vulnerabilities within the Internet of Things (IoT), the network of everyday devices (appliances, cameras and sensors) that oversee said infrastructure. In this way, ethics and cyber military doctrine can work in harmony in conducting cyberattacks.
At the same time, however, there can be conflict between ethics and doctrine within casus belli. While the effects of a kinetic strike, such as a bombing, are often visible and immediately felt, the details of a cyberattack may take longer to realize. This could complicate the process of a proportional response. It is not always immediately clear if a cyberattack is responsible for loss of life, a criterion that is important in determining a proportional response. Cyberattacks could have secondary or tertiary effects that result in loss of life, such as attacking a network that supports a hospital or food distribution. All of these factors obscure potential responses.
Casus belli is further complicated when considering that the effects of a cyberattack are often less visible to the average citizen. This means that the victim government cannot always rely on public outrage to justify a retaliatory strike. As a result, the ambiguity surrounding cyberattack ethics makes it difficult for decision makers to abide by expected ethical standards such as casus belli.
While doctrine provides guidance for both kinetic and non-kinetic action, it is not prescriptive. As a result, military doctrine around cyberoperations is ambiguous, especially regarding current law or ethics. Conflict between doctrine, law and ethics often depends on humanitarian principles, international law and even the willingness of adversaries to abide by these principles. Without proper codification, the continued ambiguity of this rapidly developing doctrine can lead to miscalculations and escalated conflict.
[Cheyenne Torres edited this piece.]
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
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