Two world wars had raged within three decades, costing more than 100 million lives, when history’s most destructive weapon was deployed in August 1945. The horrific prospect of nuclear-fueled, mutually assured destruction has kept superpowers in check since then, and a cyber equivalent could be just what is needed as global hostilities turn digital.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been accompanied by a barrage of cyberattacks on the nation’s power and communications infrastructure, reminding everyone that the Kremlin views its digital arsenal as being no less important than its aging stock of tanks and missiles.
However, none of these incursions dealt a knock-out blow. One explanation is that Kyiv built up its defenses over the past decade and is now a world leader at fending off such online offensives.
Illustration: Mountain People
Yet there is also a sense that maybe Moscow has been holding back. Perhaps Russian President Vladimir Putin has something bigger planned, with a devastating digital weapon the world has yet to see. He has already issued veiled threats about deploying nuclear weapons as the conflict continues.
The White House is certainly cautious about cyberwarfare, and has said that the US itself is under threat due to its ongoing support for Kyiv and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
There are as many as nine members of the “nuclear club” — including those confirmed as having such weapons, and others presumed to be in possession of them.
However, there are only three countries that might be considered to be cybersuperpowers.
Among them, China has shown itself to be a proficient and aggressive hacker, but as yet has not demonstrated much evidence that it is intent on outright destruction. Most attacks widely believed to have Beijing’s implicit or explicit approval have been focused on security or industrial secrets. A few have had economic motives, such as ransomware.
Beijing has denied allegations of hacking.
Russia’s prowess is known, and legendary. Under Moscow’s guidance, or at least with its consent, cybergangs have unleashed malware that brought pipelines to a halt, released reams of sensitive data, and caused other types of widespread and malicious damage.
The 2020 SolarWinds attack, directed by Russian agencies, breached numerous US government departments and caused up to US$100 billion in damage.
Then there is the US. The narrative on Washington-led offensives differs from those carried out by China and Russia. One reason is that US agencies, including the FBI and US Department of Justice, regularly publicize attacks from overseas, perhaps as a means to gin up budgetary support and to show they are hard at work.
Beijing and Moscow, on the other hand, do not tend to admit to being a victim and generally keep such breaches to themselves. Among the more famous and destructive attacks carried out by the US is its 2009 deployment of Stuxnet against Iran nuclear facilities, in which Israel is widely believed to have played a role.
While damaging, nothing seen so far amounts to all-out destruction. They are the digital equivalent of conventional weaponry.
However, these three cybersuperpowers, along with their allies — including North Korea on one side and the UK and Australia on the other — are focused on developing even more powerful cyberarms. Canberra last month outlined a historic US$7.5 billion 10-year budget to boost Australia’s capabilities, which would include offensive tools aimed squarely at China.
There is no end in sight to this escalation, and so the attacks are unlikely to stop, but if one power can prove it possesses an overwhelming and unstoppable weapon, and others quickly catch up, then there might be hope for some kind of armistice, as happened with nuclear arms.
Once the US and former Soviet Union built enough stockpiles to destroy each other many times over, the door was open to a wind down. The first step was the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which took effect in 1970 and helped dissuade more nations from joining the nuclear club.
Although it took another 15 years — and the collapse of the Soviet Union — for the two major powers to actually halt their buildup, today’s nuclear inventory is at its lowest since 1958, and other nations have added only marginally to the stockpile.
Cyber de-escalation would not be so easy, because the ammunition is packets of data and the target is software that cannot be held or touched. Their unpredictability makes such arms harder to wield as a threat and more challenging to quantify.
“When you launch a nuclear weapon, you know it’s going to explode and have the impact that you want. When you launch a cyberweapon, you cannot be sure it’ll land or get intercepted,” said Greg Austin, senior fellow in cyber, space and future conflict at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Singapore. “We cannot count packets in cyberspace, but we could count nuclear warheads.”
Even under the shadow of an overwhelming cyberweapon there remains the possibility that proxy battles would be carried out, akin to the land wars waged in Vietnam and the Korean Peninsula, where digital combatants outsource operations and deny responsibility.
This means that realistically one could not expect to see a total cessation of all online warfare, but with a digital detente, there would at least be hope for a more peaceful world in cyberspace.
Tim Culpan is a technology columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. Based in Taipei, he writes about Asian and global businesses and trends. He previously covered the beat at Bloomberg News.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of
the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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