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14 Seton Hall J. Dipl. & Int'l Rel. 41 (2013)
Cyber Domain Conflict in the 21st Century

handle is hein.journals/whith14 and id is 41 raw text is: Cyber Domain Conflict in the 21st Century
by Frank J. Cilluffo and Sharon L. Cardash
The U.S. military recently accorded cyberspace the status of a domain, which
means that it is a potential battle-space Eke land, sea, air, or outer space, and will be
treated accordingly, What is the nature of conflict and threats in this digital
landscape? What key policy questions will arise for the United States, as a result, and
how might these matters be best addressed? Looking forward, these emerging
questions will be top priorities for policymakers. Our aim here is to explore these
issues and help spark discussion, thereby helping to shape some of the contours of
these important policy debates as this new and distinct domain continues to touch
and impact all the others.
THE DIGITAL ECOSYSTEM: THREAT SPECTRUM
The digital revolution has unleashed and empowered a host of new actors with
previously little clout in the realms of national and international security. The added
significance and potency of these actors, together with traditional and continuing
sources of threat in the form of nation-states and their proxies, makes for a complex
ecosystem. Effective countermeasures are complicated by the anonymity that
cyberspace affords, otherwise called the attribution problem, and by the pace of
cyber activity, which includes the speed and volume of action as well as the rates of
change and development of the technologies used.
Who is behind the clickety-clack of the keyboard? It could be a foreign
intelligence service seeking to steal secrets related to national or economic security, a
criminal organization turning to online theft to make a substantial profit, a terrorist
group trying to execute an attack and instill fear in the targeted civilian population, a
hacktivist committed to a particular cause, or even a bored ankle-biter looking for
a challenge.
In terms of state actors, Russia and China currently dominate the espionage
business, siphoning out U.S. intellectual property that was the product of heavy U.S.
investment in research and development, to such an extent that the U.S. National
Counterintelligence Executive has labeled these countries a national, long-term,
strategic threat to the United States of America.1 Chinese state entities have also
Frank J. Cilluffo directs the George Washington UlniversitV Homeland Security Policy Institute
(HSPI) and co directs GWs Cyber Center for National & Economic Security (CCNES).
Sharon L. Cardash is Associate Director of HSPI and a fotnding member of CCNES.
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