By Greg Austin
Collective security in cyberspace may be the only answer for middle powers.
The response by middle powers to the emerging centrality of cyber space in the conduct of future war has been slow and fragmented. Their cyber war play-books are not blank but they look very different from those of pace-setter countries. A paper that I will present at an international conference in New Delhi next week, “Securing Cyberspace: Asian and International Perspectives“, describes a number of international benchmarks which might provide guideposts for a rapid catch-up in middle power capabilities for military security in the information age (for cyber-enabled war).
On the one hand, the paper looks at the future international policy environment. It calls out major trends in the policy settings of two pacesetter countries: China and the United States. Both regard military dominance in cyber space as one of the primary determinants of success in war. Few governments among the middle powers have been prepared to canvas in public the centrality of cyber-enabled warfare or craft policies and doctrines accordingly. The discussion of the polices of China and the United States lays the foundation the paper’s review of international trends in war avoidance (preventive diplomacy) and middle power needs to shape those developments. The United States and China have taken decisions in 2015 that reveal their determination to race ahead to the next stage of development of cyber arsenals. They seek to create conditions in cyber space that in war time could undermine the effectiveness of the weapons systems, deployed units and military-related civil infrastructure of an enemy as quickly as possible. The two major powers are placing considerable attention on disabling enemy cyber systems in the early stages of hostilities, or even on a pre-emptive basis.
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