Power and Predation in Cyberspace

Though cyberweapons are certainly an emerging agent in warfare, it remains an open question whether they can truly “alter the dynamics of global power.” In large part, this analysis is complicated by cyberspace’s accessibility: “state[s] and nonstate actors alike… [can] hack broadly with an ever-evolving set of digital tools.” Further, these weapons can have impacts on wildly different scales and can reach into more spheres than conditional weapons. To that end, some cyberweapons are “generally considered to have the potential for massive effect,” though their impacts are radically different from those of conventional weapons of mass destruction. Still, their potential for wreaking havoc on targets, particularly those that are highly digitally dependent, cannot be understated. These targets can cut “across a wide range of digital environments,” such as power grids.
The role of so-called “CWME” (cyber-weapons of mass effect) can be examined using a “predator-prey model.” As in nature, “in world politics, actors at every level operate in a relative context” governed by cyclical interdependence between predators and prey. The same applies to cyberspace in that the development of future weapons depends on the current “behavior of actors.” In particular, cyberweapons are particularly important because they can disrupt a state’s ability to target “economic processes toward national interests.” Though the payoffs for developing CWMEs are clear to revisionist states, this development does not occur only on a state-level, complicating efforts to govern cyberweapons. As a result, making policy related to CWMEs can be challenging and will likely require cooperation across nations.