Cyber Campaigns and Strategic Outcomes

Author(s): Richard J. Harknett, Max Smeets
Journal Title: Journal of Strategic Studies
Publisher(s): Taylor & Francis Group
Publication Year: 2020

While much focus has remained on the concept of cyberwar, what we have been observing in actual cyber behaviour are campaigns comprised of linked cyber operations, with the specific objective of achieving strategic outcomes without the need of armed attack. These campaigns are not simply transitory clever tactics, but strategic in intent. This article examines strategic cyber competition and reveals how the adoption of a different construct can pivot both explanation and policy prescription. Strategy must be unshackled from the presumption that it deals only with the realm of coercion, militarised crisis, and war in cyberspace.

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