网络战争不会发生的原因.docxVIP

Why a cyberwar wont happen09 September 2013 by?Thomas RidTalk of combat in the fifth domain has become a fixture in Washington. But lets not use that as an excuse to quash a free internet, says a war studies academicEXACTLY two decades ago, the RAND Corporation, an influential think tank, proclaimed that cyberwar is coming! In 2005, the US Air Force declared it would now fly, fight, and win in cyberspace. The future of war would surely play out in that fifth domain, on top of land, sea, air and space. Dark warnings of Cyber Pearl Harbor soon became a staple of Washington discourse.Leaks revealed last week that the US government spends a staggering $4.3 billion a year on cyber operations. In 2011, American intelligence agencies reportedly mounted?231 offensive operations. The US, it seems, is gearing up for cyber combat.What would an act of cyberwar look like? History suggests three features. To count as an armed attack, a computer breach would need to be violent. If it cant hurt or kill, it cant be war. An act of cyberwar would also need to be instrumental. In a military confrontation, one party generally uses force to compel the other party to do something they would otherwise not do. Finally, it would need to be political, in the sense that one opponent says, If you dont do X, well strike you. Thats the gist of two centuries of strategic thought.No past cyberattack meets these criteria. Very few meet even a single one. Never has a human been injured or hurt as an immediate consequence of a cyberattack. Never did a state coerce another state by cyberattack. Very rarely did state-sponsored offenders take credit for an attack. So if were talking about war – the real thing, not a metaphor, as in the war on drugs – then cyberwar has never happened in the past, is not taking place at present, and seems unlikely in the future.That is not to say that cyberattacks do not happen. In 2010, the US and Israel attacked Irans nuclear enrichment programme with a computer worm cal