Is Cyber War Inevitable?

Nation-states around the globe are well aware that their foes are one extended power outage, ransomware crisis, or data dump away from chaos.

- Chloe Albanesius

What’s your daily routine? Perhaps you roll over and scroll through your phone for a few minutes, ask Alexa for the weather, fire up satellite radio on your drive to work or use a credit card to purchase a train ticket, swipe a keycard at the office, and sign into a PC at your desk. You pay for lunch with Apple Pay, keep tabs on your home and pets via a security cam, and buy a few things on Amazon. At home, the kids watch Netflix or play Fortnite as a robot vacuum whirs nearby and you pay bills with a few taps on the iPad.

Most of us remember a time before these modern creature comforts. We made do with paper books, physical maps, landlines, and snail mail. N ow, it’s all but impossible to live a productive life without access to the internet, not to mention more vital resources such as electricity.

If any of these services were to go offline—briefly or for a long time—it could seriously disrupt our way of life and the economy, and our foreign adversaries know it. But it works both ways; every country with formidable cyber weapons is well aware that their foes are one extended power outage, ransomware crisis, or data dump away from chaos. Many, including the US, have already wormed their way deep into the critical infrastructure of their foreign adversaries. Russia has turned off the lights in Ukraine, the joint US-Israel Stuxnet operation messed with an Iranian nuclear facility, and North Korea crippled operations at Sony Pictures.

Still, nation-states have not yet approved the sort of attack that might signal the start of a formal cyberwar, in large part because a retaliatory strike could be worse. US policy changes at the top, however, suggest that might soon change.

THE BRAKES ARE OFF