Cyber Deterrence Is Dead! Long Live “Integrated Deterrence”!

The demands that Congress, some strategists, and many academics make of cyberspace deterrence are unrealistic to the extreme. Many want the Department of Defense (DOD) to freeze adversary military or influence operations or the theft of American intellectual property (IP) entirely through the simple threat of interfering with adversary computer code, presumably imperiling the function of either adversary military systems or civilian infrastructure.

Such strategic thinking is hopelessly naïve because such threats are insufficiently credible to deter malicious cyberspace activities, which generally fall below the level of armed conflict.