The Cyber Pearl Harbor redux: helpful analogy or cyber hype?

Abstract

This article defends the utility of employing the Pearl Harbor analogy to characterize contemporary cyber threats, especially threats facing the United States. It suggests that despite the fact that policy-makers are keenly aware of the nature of today’s cyber threats, this knowledge does not necessarily protect them from falling victim to a strategically significant cyber surprise attack. The fact that elected officials and senior officers fall victim to strategic surprise attacks launched by known adversaries is the problematique that animates the study of intelligence failure. The article concludes with the observation that just because scholars and policy-makers can imagine a ‘Cyber Pearl Harbor’ does not guarantee that they can avoid a Cyber Pearl Harbor.