Military Cyber Operations Research Articles

Navigating uncharted waters: Legal challenges and the future of unmanned underwater vehicles in maritime military cyber operations

The evolving landscape of maritime security is increasingly shaped by the integration of cyber technologies into naval operations, posing complex legal challenges under international maritime law. This paper examines the 2016 Bowditch incident, in which a U.S. Navy Unmanned Underwater Vehicle was detained by the Chinese navy, as a case study for comprehending the legal implications of maritime military cyber operations. The research delves into the ambiguous legal standing of unmanned underwater vehicles and their activities, particularly within the framework of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Through a detailed analysis of the incident, this study identifies significant gaps in existing legal frameworks and advocates for the urgent need to augment international law to adequately address the emergence of cyber technologies in maritime military operations. The findings underscore the crucial role of international consensus in defining the legal status of unmanned maritime systems and the norms governing maritime military cyber operations, essential for upholding global maritime security and stability.

Human-Centered AI in Military Cyber Operations

Military Cyber Operations are an integral part of modern warfare and national security strategies as they crossed the science fiction realm, represent a real operational battlefield, and developed into an option in military toolboxes. Seeing ongoing technological advancements that allow the creation and use of complex mechanisms and technologies, the increasing digitalization of critical infrastructure, the growing abundance of data collected, generated, and exchanged between multiple parties, and the rise of stakeholders engaging in building and/or executing military Cyber Operations together with the increased number of such operations being conducted all over the globe reflects important lessons that need to be learned: the core element of such operations are humans: they build, acquire, execute, and assess them while also being impacted entities by them, e.g., through (psychological or physical) injury or death, or damage or destructions of human infrastructure. Moreover, the key process governing all the life cycle phases of military Cyber Operations is human decision-making or humanly assisted/augmented decision-making relying on advanced intelligent methods built with AI. Nevertheless, building and conducting military Cyber Operations should be done in a legal, responsible, and effective way implying a deep understanding of the context and adversary, proper target and cyber weapon selection, development, and use, and a clear overview of potential effects produced. These represent important aspects that should be properly defined and tackled in this domain. Hence, this research aims to introduce the Human-Centred AI concept and approach in the military cyber domain to illustrate ways to prioritize human involvement and interaction, human understanding, effective decision-making, and ethical considerations when building and conducting military Cyber Operations. To this end, an extensive literature review is conducted in the military, cyber, and AI domains together with instantiation on military Cyber Operations.

Towards Trustworthy AI-based Military Cyber Operations

Within the dynamic realm of contemporary warfare, Artificial Intelligence (AI) emerges as a transformative force that reshapes the ways and means used to strategize, execute, and assess military operations. In this journey, the use of AI spans functions and capabilities like intelligence analysis, target engagement decision-making support, weapon autonomy, and effects analytics. Concurrently, AI enhances, e.g., the effectiveness of military plans and capabilities having the potential to reducing risks to civilians, civilian objects, and military personnel. In this rapidly evolving arena, military Cyber Operations gained unprecedented prominence due to their intrinsic digital and cross-domain nature, speed, and became a clear option to achieving military goals, and a mature set of alternatives to conventional ones. Nonetheless, they need continuous assessment, deal with different uncertainty types produced by characteristics like anonymity and can imply psychological impact. Hence, such military operations demand meticulous planning, sophisticated execution, and a deep understanding of technical, military-legal, ethical, and strategic implications and consequences. This represents a direct call for building solutions that align the potential of AI with the responsible and safe conduct of military operations in the military cyber domain: building trustworthy AI-based military Cyber Operations. While incipient efforts to tackle important dimensions of such an approach exist in this domain, a direct and unified approach that unifies them as a commitment and artefact lacks. To tackle this knowledge gap, this research aims to build a bridge between the above-mentioned dimensions by proposing a working definition and framework for building trustworthy AI-based military Cyber Operations using the Design Science Research methodology.

The Role of Civilian Cybersecurity Companies in Military Cyber Operations

Abstract The Russia-Ukraine war has clearly shown that critical infrastructures are prime targets for cyber operations in addition to the physical domain. In practice, in many cases, these critical infrastructures are protected by civilian cybersecurity companies in the context of a managed security service, so their defense operations must necessarily be coordinated with military defense activities. This includes among others the sharing of information classified under different classification systems (national, EU, NATO) between different actors in national cyber defense, the inclusion of appropriate civilian experts in the armed forces, and the usage of cutting-edge cybersecurity technologies (e.g. AI-enabled solutions) that are first introduced for civilian use, with military organizations only having access to them later or possibly not encountering them at all due to procurement difficulties. The main goal of this paper is to introduce the existing opportunities and obstacles to civilians’ involvement in military cyber operations in the areas of legislation, technology, and human resources from the European perspective. Moreover, the paper deals with the actual questions of cybersecurity intelligence sharing between civilian and military entities and the European Union’s actions in order to improve the overall cybersecurity posture of the region.

Regression Analysis of The National Cyber Security Index In The Southeast Asia Region

In the current era of the Industrial Revolution 4.0, information and communication technology is rapidly developing in all sectors. In the matrix of non-military defense implementation, technology is one of the dimensions that influence the achievement of a country's general defense policy. Technological development does not always have a positive impact. Cyber threats and attacks are an example of the negative impact in technological development. In the "Cyber Defense Guidelines," national cyber security is defined as all efforts to maintain the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information and all its supporting facilities at the national level, which are cross-sectoral in nature. According to data from the National Cyber Security Index (NCSI) survey agency, a country's National Cyber Security Index (Y) is measured based on 12 indicators, including: cyber security policy development (X1), cyber threat analysis and information (X2), education and professional development (X3), contribution to global cyber security (X4), protection of digital services (X5), protection of essential services (X6), e-identification and trust services (X7), protection of personal data (X8), cyber incident response (X9), cyber crisis management (X10), fight against cybercrime (X11), and military cyber operations (X12). In this study, a regression analysis will be conducted on the 12 indicators of the National Cyber Security Index against the Total Assessment of the National Cyber Security Index (Y) in Southeast Asia, so that the type of equation in the regression analysis can be identified.

JTF-ARES as a Model of a Persistent, Joint Cyber Task Force

Military involvement in cyberspace has traditionally been limited to operations in service of “kinetic,” or physical, missions. Military cyberoperations are therefore usually described using traditional “kinetic” descriptors and rarely articulate cyber-related goals that are independent of kinetic operations. Recently, the concepts of “persistence” and “jointness” have been increasingly used by the U.S. Cyber Command to describe cyberoperations. Persistence describes operations that focus on a target over time (in contrast to the episodic “response” concepts articulated in kinetic warfare). “Jointness” describes working across group or agency lines. This paper will investigate the effectiveness of “persistent” and “joint” task forces in accomplishing cyber-related goals by means of a case study of Joint Task Force – ARES (“JTF-ARES”). JTF-ARES was set up as a task force by the U.S. Cyber Command to disrupt ISIS cyberoperations – a singularly cyber (as opposed to kinetic) goal. By contrasting the approach of JTF-ARES with the existing history of US operations in cyberspace, militaries can apply JTF-ARES’ successful approach to accomplish future cyber-related goals that are independent of kinetic military units. After discussing a brief history of the U.S. Cyber Command and defining the terms “persistence” and “jointness,” the paper discusses JTF-ARES’ successful operation and contributing factors, most notably its organization within the U.S. Cyber Command. Next, it explores a counterfactual organization of JTF-ARES, suggesting that alternative organizational structures would likely have ended in failure and highlighting factors that may have influenced its success. Furthermore, the paper discusses the administrative challenges associated with creating a JTF, which include administration hurdles as well as collaboration and training requirements specific to joint operations. Since JTF-ARES deviates from traditional organizational structures within U.S. Cyber Command, this paper articulates criteria for creating a joint, persistent cyber task force, which militaries may find useful when considering how to implement cyber-specific goals. The first criterion concerns the operations required for the mission – namely, are reconnaissance, offensive, and defensive cyberoperations required? The second criterion asks whether the cyberoperation has a uniquely cyber-oriented end state: for missions with non-kinetic goals, it may be helpful to consider a joint, persistent task force.

Using Military Cyber Operations as a Deterrent

The Deterrence theory was formed after the World War II to describe the tensions between nuclear-armed states. Because of its origins, deterrence is mainly researched from the point of view of powerful states. However, deterrence nowadays is essential for any state to include in their strategies. The ever-increasing dependence on technology forces states to protect their sovereignty in cyberspace as well as in other domains. Cyber operations should be considered not just as a means to protect the cyber domain, but as means of deterrence. Cross domain deterrence (CDD) is a theory that includes all the warfighting domains in creating deterrence, including cyberspace. Despite these new perspectives, the use of military cyber operations as a deterrent has been studied mainly in terms of offensive strategies. Incorporating all types of military cyber operations into deterrence strategies is understudied. This study focuses on the possibilities of a small state to use cyber operations to create deterrence. The research question is: “How can a small state use cyber operations as a deterrent?” According to the Finnish understanding, cyber operations can be divided into three types: offensive, defensive and supportive operations. Using Finland as a case study, this paper argues that using military cyber operations is noteworthy for any state dependent on cyberspace, not only for military purposes, but for building CDD. The CDD theory and characteristics of cyber operations are studied in order to form better understanding of the topic and provide ideas for academic discussion. The research methods are content and SWOT analysis. The key observation presented is that each type of cyber operation has a role in forming CDD. For a small state, it´s profitable to use every type of cyber operations and thus expand the tool box for deterrence.

КІБЕРБЕЗПЕКА ЯК НАПРЯМОК ЗАХИСТУ ІНФОРМАЦІЙНОКОМУНІКАЦІЙНОГО СЕКТОРУ В СУЧАСНИХ УМОВАХ

Ensuring the protection of the information and communication sector is an important component in the country's economic growth and further progress. The issue of cyber security of the information and communication sector stands out as an important direction both at the international and at the state level. In times of war, cyber threats can have serious consequences, including financial losses, reputational damage, legal liabilities, and risks to both national security and individual sectors. It is analyzed the progress of Ukraine in cyber security based on such indicators as general security indicators, basic cyber security indicators, incident and crisis management indicators in the article. According to the Global ICT Regulatory Outlook, Ukraine ranks low in the regulation of the studied area – 78th out of 96 countries. However, Ukraine has made significant progress in cyber security, as highlighted by the Global Cyber Security Index. According to most of the general indicators, full implementation is highlighted, among the basic indicators there is a need to increase the protection of digital services, according to the indicators of incident and crisis management, military cyber operations and cyber crisis management are the least developed. Cyber threats can result in significant consequences during times of war, including financial loss, reputational damage, legal liabilities, and risks to national security. At the beginning of the war, more than 120 powerful cyber attacks on the resources of state authorities and military administration of Ukraine, as well as IT systems of critical infrastructure facilities, communication operators and mass media. Despite the positive developments, the country still faces challenges, especially in the area of protection of digital services, for which there is no competent supervisory authority. The need for cyber security in the information and communication sector and measures that can be taken to increase cyber resilience are highlighted, especially in the area of protection of digital services. Parties should cooperate with the government to improve cyber resilience. Cooperation may include sharing threat information, best practices, and resources, and coordinating incident response and recovery efforts. The issue of cyber defense of the economy in the conditions of a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine is gaining special relevance and is allocated to a separate direction of state policy.

An Outlook of Digital Twins in Offensive Military Cyber Operations

The outlook of military cyber operations is changing due to the prospects of data generation and accessibility, continuous technological advancements and their (public) availability, technological and human (inter)connections increase, plus the dynamism, needs, diverse nature, perspectives, and skills of experts involved in their planning, execution, and assessment phases respecting (inter)national aims, demands, and trends. Such operations are daily conducted and recently empowered by AI to reach or protect their targets and deal with the unintended effects produced through their engagement on them and/or collateral entities. However, these operations are governed and surrounded by different uncertainty levels e.g., intended effects prediction, consideration of effective alternatives, and understanding new dimensions of possible (strategic) future(s). Hence, the legality and ethicality of such operations should be assured; particularly, in Offensive Military Cyber Operations (OMCO), the agents involved in their design/deployment should consider, develop, and propose proper (intelligent) measures/methods. Such mechanisms can be built embedding intelligent techniques based on hardware, software, and communication data plus expert-knowledge through novel systems like digital twins. While digital twins find themselves in their infancy in military, cyber, and AI academic research and discourses, they started to show their modelling and simulation potential and effective real-time decision support in different industry applications. Nevertheless, this research aims to (i) understand what digital twins mean in OMCO context while embedding explainable AI and responsible AI perspectives, and (ii) capture challenges and benefits of their development. Accordingly, a multidisciplinary stance is considered through extensive review in the domains involved packaged in a design framework meant to assist the agents involved in their development and deployment.

An Outlook of Digital Twins in Offensive Military Cyber Operations

The outlook of military cyber operations is changing due to the prospects of data generation and accessibility, continuous technological advancements and their (public) availability, technological and human (inter)connections increase, plus the dynamism, needs, diverse nature, perspectives, and skills of experts involved in their planning, execution, and assessment phases respecting (inter)national aims, demands, and trends. Such operations are daily conducted and recently empowered by AI to reach or protect their targets and deal with the unintended effects produced through their engagement on them and/or collateral entities. However, these operations are governed and surrounded by different uncertainty levels e.g., intended effects prediction, consideration of effective alternatives, and understanding new dimensions of possible (strategic) future(s). Hence, the legality and ethicality of such operations should be assured; particularly, in Offensive Military Cyber Operations (OMCO), the agents involved in their design/deployment should consider, develop, and propose proper (intelligent) measures/methods. Such mechanisms can be built embedding intelligent techniques based on hardware, software, and communication data plus expert-knowledge through novel systems like digital twins. While digital twins find themselves in their infancy in military, cyber, and AI academic research and discourses, they started to show their modelling and simulation potential and effective real-time decision support in different industry applications. Nevertheless, this research aims to (i) understand what digital twins mean in OMCO context while embedding explainable AI and responsible AI perspectives, and (ii) capture challenges and benefits of their development. Accordingly, a multidisciplinary stance is considered through extensive review in the domains involved packaged in a design framework meant to assist the agents involved in their development and deployment.

Cybersecurity Policy-Related Developments in Latin America

Latin American countries begin to develop their national-level cyber policy including their cybersecurity strategy. The paper aims to provide a comparative analysis of the strategy development processes in six Latin American countries including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. The methodology is based on a mixed approach. For the quantitative analysis, the National Cyber Security Index and UNIDIR Cyber Policy Portal were used, while for the qualitative analysis a document analysis was carried out on the national strategies. Analysing national data based on the NCSI, Chile stands out overall, however, the country is still in the initial phase in terms of digital and essential service protection, personal data protection and cyber crisis management. Brazil’s position is interesting, standing at 3rd place overall, being the most targeted country by cyberattacks in the region. Brazil stands out in terms of cyber threat analysis and military cyber operations. Based on the document analysis, Chile and Argentina have a more holistic cybersecurity strategy, including factors such as cybersecurity education, cybercrime detection, regulatory framework, and the aim to cooperate with international and industrial partners.

On the Road to Designing Responsible AI Systems in Military Cyber Operations

Military cyber operations are increasingly integrating or relying to a specific degree on AI-based systems in one or more moments of their phases where stakeholders are involved. Although the planning and execution of such operations are complex and well-thought processes that take place in silence and with high velocity, their implications and consequences could be experienced not only by their targeted entities, but also by other collateral friendly, non-friendly, or neutral ones. This calls for a broader military-technical and socio-ethical approach when building, conducting, and assessing military Cyber Operations to make sure that the aspects and factors considered and the choices and decisions made in these phases are fair, transparent, and accountable for the stakeholders involved in these processes and the ones impacted by their actions and largely, the society. This resonates with facts currently tackled in the area of Responsible AI, an upcoming critical research area in the AI field that is scarcely present in the ongoing discourses, research, and applications in the military cyber domain. On this matter, this research aims to define and analyse Responsible AI in the context of cyber military operations with the intention of further bringing important aspects to both academic and practitioner communities involved in building and/or conducting such operations. It does that by considering a transdisciplinary approach and concrete examples captured in different phases of their life cycle. Accordingly, a definition is advanced, the components and entities involved in building responsible intelligent systems are analysed, and further challenges, solutions, and future research lines are discussed. Hence, this would allow the agents involved to understand what should be done, what they are allowed to do, and further propose and build corresponding strategies, programs, and solutions e.g., education, modelling and simulation for properly tackling, building, and applying responsible intelligent systems in the military cyber domain.

On Explainable AI Solutions for Targeting in Cyber Military Operations

Nowadays, it is hard to recall a domain, system, or problem that does not use, embed, or could be tackled through AI. From early stages of its development, its techniques and technologies were successfully implemented by military forces for different purposes in distinct military operations. Since cyberspace represents the last officially recognized operational battlefield, it also offers a direct virtual setting for implementing AI solutions for military operations conducted inside or through it. However, planning and conducting AI-based cyber military operations are actions still in the beginning of development. Thus, both practitioner and academic dedication isrequired since the impact of their use could have significant consequences which requires that the output of such intelligent solutions is explainable to the engineers developing them and also to their users e.g., military decision makers. Hence, this article starts by discussing the meaning of explainable AI in the context of targeting in military cyber operations, continues by analyzing the challenges of embedding AI solutions (e.g., intelligent cyber weapons) in different targeting phases, and is structuring them in corresponding taxonomies packaged in a design framework. It does that by crossing the targeting process focusing on target development, capability analysis, and target engagement. Moreover, this research argues that especially in such operations carried out in silence and at incredible speed, it is of major importance that the military forces involved are aware of the following. First, the decisions taken by theintelligent systems embedded. Second, are not only aware, but also able to interpret the results obtained from the AI solutions in a proper, effective, and efficient way. From there, this research draws possible technological and humanoriented methods that facilitate the successful implementation of XAI solutions for targeting in military cyber operations.

RUSSIA: THE CYBER GLOBAL PROTAGONIST

Russia has discovered by trial and error one of the most economical ways to assert foreign policy goals, conduct espionage, inflict economic loss, and conduct destabilization through disinformation on its rival powers. Although western and European cyber efforts in this regard are more covert and protected by legislation such as Official Secrets Act’s, it’s apparent that Russia has – more than any other nation – publicly engaged in cyber operations in direct support of military operations. For the Russians, cyber is a Hammer (& Sickle) and everything standing in Russia’s way is a “Nail”. The transformation of traditional Russian organized crime into sophisticated cyber-criminal gangs and their subsequent rapid accumulation of wealth deeply illustrated the potential of political and later in the evolution military cyber operations. In a very real way this set the stage for the Russians to invest, explore and trial cyber at a political and then military level over the past two decades. Due to a “cosy” relationship between Russian politicians, Oligarchs, and some - but not all - cyber-criminal groups there was a large talent pool of offensive cyber skills to leverage in Russia. Russian military and political cyber operations are both overt and covert and are very intertwined. They include some of the most sophisticated espionage campaigns ever discovered to globally destructive cyber-attacks. More recently, the information security research community has observed precision and persistent capabilities unleashed on unsuspecting organizations. This paper charts a course of Russian cyber capability development and explores the application of those cyber capabilities in both a strategic policy level to application on a tactical battlefield.

ІНФОРМАЦІЙНА ТА ЕКОНОМІЧНА БЕЗПЕКА: ОЦІНЮВАННЯ РІВНЯ ТА ВЗАЄМОЗВ’ЯЗКУ

Abstract. The article is devoted to the study of a comprehensive assessment of the level of information security as a basis for timely and reasonable determination of measures to pre-vent and overcome the negative consequences in the event of potential risks and threats. It is substantiated that in the context of information and hybrid wars, strengthening information se-curity is a prerequisite for the protection of national economic interests. The formation of a security-oriented information environment, ensuring the security of state information re-sources, information with restricted access, in particular that circulating on the objects of eco-nomic information infrastructure is the basis of the national security of the country. The absence of a unified approach to assessing the level of information security is noted and the author's approach based on the use of qualitative indicator indicators of information security with the use of quantization, smoothing and normalization methods is proposed. It is proposed to define the following subindices of the integral indicator of information security: development of the state policy in the field of information security; monitoring and analysis of threats to the infor-mation environment; education and advanced training in the field of information security, in-cluding cyberspace; contribution to global information security, protection of digital services and basic services in cyberspace, electronic identification services, personal data protection; fight against cybercrime and military cyber operations. The results of the correlation and re-gression analysis made it possible to establish that information and economic security have the potential to provide synergistic effects. The necessity of ensuring the formation of a secu-rity-oriented information environment as a basis for the realization of national interests is sub-stantiated, which creates new opportunities for strengthening the security of the national econ-omy in the face of increasing influence of internal and external destabilizing factors

Executive Summary: Avoiding civilian harm from military cyber operations during armed conflicts

In January 2020, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) invited experts from various parts of the world to share their knowledge on practical issues for the implementation of international humanitarian law (IHL) in military cyber operations. Participants included experts with experience in the development and use of military cyber operations, experience working for global IT companies and cyber threat intelligence firms, as well as lawyers and academics. Experts analysed the conduct of military cyber operations, focusing on how armed forces can understand and assess the risk of civilian harm and what measures might be effective and appropriate to avoid or mitigate such risks.The rich discussions provided an insightful picture of the ways in which armed forces consider the application of IHL when conducting cyber operations and the risks that such operations can entail for the civilian population. What emerged from the discussions is that States need to invest time and resources to develop tools, processes to assess the risks of incidental civilian harm and measures to limit these risks.

Unblurring the lines: military cyber operations and international law

ABSTRACT The bright lines between certain fundamental legal categories may appear to have dimmed in the cyber environment, especially in relation to military cyber operations. This article thus unblurs the lines between five such pairs of categories, proceeding from the general to the specific: Firstly, what separates international law from international norms as the two principal regulatory frameworks governing the conduct of military cyber operations? Secondly, what is the distinction between domain-specific and general rules of international law as they apply to military cyber operations? Thirdly, is it possible to distinguish between peacetime and armed conflict with respect to the regulation of such operations? Fourthly, once an armed conflict is underway, how do we distinguish combatants from non-combatants in cyberspace? And fifthly, what is the distinction between objects and non-objects in cyberspace, particularly with respect to computer data affected by military cyber operations during armed conflicts? Overall, the article's goal is to reduce the opacity surrounding the relationship between military cyber operations and international law. In doing so, it aims to contribute to the long-term goal of making cyberspace a more open, secure, stable, accessible and peaceful environment.

UK reveals existence of its military cyber operations unit

The UK Government has revealed the existence of a military cyber operations unit. The recently created National Cyber Force (NCF) will be operated as a partnership between the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the GCHQ signals intelligence agency.

Strategy for Determining Country Ranking by Level of Cybersecurity

The rapid development of the fourth industrial revolution contributed to the growth of computerization and digitalization of many spheres of society, which eventually led to the emergence of cybercrime. As a result, it is necessary to develop a cybersecurity strategy at the country level, which involves the development of effective measures to protect information. The purpose of this article is to determine the strategy for ranking countries by their level of cybersecurity. For its implementation, 12 indicators were selected that characterize various aspects of cybersecurity of countries: Cyber Security Policy Development, Cyber Threat Analysis and Information, Education and Professional Development, Contribution to global cyber security, Protection of digital services, Protection of essential services, E-identification and trust services, Protection of personal data, Cyber incidents response, Cyber crisis management, Fight against cybercrime, Military cyber operations. Their actual values were taken for 160 countries in 2018. The article proved that the existing method of determining the actual ranking of countries has a number of shortcomings, which are the lack of solutions to problems related to the dimensionality of data, determining the weights of the analyzed indicators, taking into account the diversity of indicators and their fundamental differences. To avoid these shortcomings, it is proposed to use multi-attribute decision-making methods, which are used in the decision-making process, but their capabilities allow the evaluation of ratings. The methods of TOPSIS, VIKOR and MAAM were used in the article. As a result, it was found that the rating by the MAAM method has about 25% similarity with the values of the ranking. Also, this method has most of the disadvantages inherent in the actual. The TOPSIS and VIKOR methods showed better results, which were less similar to the real values. It was found that VIKOR (v = 0.5) shows more balanced estimates than VIKOR (v = 1.0) in relation to the ranking of countries in terms of cybersecurity. VIKOR (v = 1.0) is more suitable for solving the problem of choosing alternatives than for rating. The TOPSIS method proved to be the most effective for ranking countries, which eliminates the shortcomings of the real assessment method and allows to determine the best and worst alternative, which facilitates the analysis separately for the indicators. Checking the effectiveness of the obtained ratings, using Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient, proved their effectiveness. Keywords: country, cybersecurity, MAAM, National Cybersecurity Index, rank, strategy, TOPSIS, VIKOR.

Reliable Old Wineskins: The Applicability of the Just War Tradition to Military Cyber Operations

This article argues that the traditional jus ad bellum and jus in bello criteria are fully capable of providing the ethical guidance needed to legitimately conduct military cyber operations. The first part examines the criteria’s foundations by focusing on the notion of liability to defensive harm worked out by revisionist just war thinkers. The second part critiques the necessity of alternative frameworks, which its proponents assert are required to at least supplement the traditional just war criteria. Using the latter, the third part evaluates ethical issues germane to responding to cyber force, including casus belli, moral aspects of “the attribution problem,” and respective rights and duties when attacks involve innocent third-party states. The fourth part addresses in bello issues, including compliance with discrimination, necessity, and civilian due care imperatives; whether civilians may be targeted with sub-“use of force” cyber-attacks and the permissibility of using civilian contractors to conduct cyber-attacks. Throughout these analyses, conclusions are brought into conversation with those of The Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare.