Cyberwarfare and Cybersecurity

Abstract

Information warfare is part of the technology-based challenge by China and Russia to the post–World War II liberal order. Russia uses traditional and social media in a long-range, systematic, worldwide disinformation campaign to undermine Western democracies and alliances and the idea of objective truth. China seeks to dominate the technology, management, and policy of the future Internet through its competitive 5G technology, so as to surpass the United States politically and technologically. It exports the techno-authoritarian system of mass surveillance and artificial intelligence that it developed to control its Uyghur minority. Like a nuclear attack, a large-scale cyberattack could spiral out of control into a cyber-apocalypse in the absence of agreed guidelines. But to authoritarian governments, the free flow of information is also a form of cyberattack, complicating negotiations. It is critically important to develop internationally agreed norms for cyberwarfare, building on the Tallinn Manual and similar efforts. This will take time.