Cyber Conflict: Competing National Perspectives

Chapter 10Conclusion ¹

 

 

 

Throughout the various chapters presented in this book, common issues have manifested themselves — particularly relating to the process of policy-making in terms of cyber-security and cyber-defense.

Although cyberspace emerged during the 1980s, and then really developed in the 1990s with the dawn of the publicly available Internet in a number of industrialized countries, it was not until the latter half of the last decade that concerns relating to cyberspace really seem to have been felt in terms of security and defense policies. The introduction of cyberspace into defense is the fruit of a heightened awareness of threats that States have been able to witness by way of major events:

– the attacks on Estonia in 2007;

– the waves of cyber-attacks that have blighted several governments since 2007;

– the Stuxnet worm which, in 2010, demonstrated the vulnerability of industrial systems; and

– the growing extent of intrusions for espionage purposes affecting the systems of governments and large businesses in all sectors of activity.

This realization has occurred at different paces depending on the country in question. The “slowness” of it, and its “recent” nature, are underlined many times in this book — for while the phenomenon has gained in strength in recent years, it is by no means new. Cyber-attacks have been affecting the entire world for over 20 years. Many nations, led by the US, China and Russia, have written about the offensive and defensive use ...