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Cyber War Will Not Take Place
Abstract
For almost two decades, experts and defense establishments the world over have been predicting that cyber war is coming. But is it? This article argues in three steps that cyber war has never happened in the past, that cyber war does not take place in the present, and that it is unlikely that cyber war will occur in the future. It first outlines what would constitute cyber war: a potentially lethal, instrumental, and political act of force conducted through malicious code. The second part shows what cyber war is not, case-by-case. Not one single cyber offense on record constitutes an act of war on its own. The final part offers a more nuanced terminology to come to terms with cyber attacks. All politically motivated cyber attacks are merely sophisticated versions of three activities that are as old as warfare itself: sabotage, espionage, and subversion.
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“Most scholars working on cyber issues, however, argue that cyber capabilities are unlikely to be critical to warfare ( Junio 2013, Rid 2012).”
From Do Emerging Military Technologies Matter for International Politics? (2020) · cites this paper as Rid 2012
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Metadata
- Authors
- Rid, T.
- Affiliations
- King's College London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Rid, Thomas
- Venue
- Journal of Strategic Studies
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2012-02
- Volume
- 35
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 5-32
- ISSN
- 0140-2390 (ISSN-L)
- 1743-937X
- OpenAlex
- W2008906551
- Cited by
- 716
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 40 · 2025: 58 · 2024: 55 · 2023: 44 · 2022: 57 · 2021: 41 · 2020: 86 · 2019: 61 · 2018: 42 · 2017: 57 · 2016: 39 · 2015: 47 · 2014: 45 · 2013: 33 · 2012: 9
- FWCI
- 196.44
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Strategic Studies (publishedVersion)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
- Virtual Defense Library (Ministerio de Defensa) (submittedVersion)
- Research Portal (King's College London) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › International Relations and Foreign Policy
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Information and Cyber Security
- Keywords
- cyber warfare, cyberattacks, definition of war, malware, sabotage, espionage, subversion, political violence
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