Understanding and countering cyber coercion

摘要

The past decade has seen the rise of cyberspace as a topic of popular, political and scholarly discourse, from the highest reaches of government to the movie screen. States are grappling with how to address the rising tide of cyber threats to their economies, to their citizens' personal information and increasingly to political and social cohesion. States are using cyber capabilities as a tool of statecraft to achieve political objectives. This paper seeks to develop an understanding of how states use cyber capabilities to coerce others for political objectives. Cyber coercion is defined as the use of cyber capabilities to compel an opponent to undertake an action it would not normally wish to perform and avoid an undesirable outcome. The paper seeks to address: how a state can employ cyber capabilities to compel another state (or non-state actor) to accommodate its ambitions; how cyber coercion might take place; and ways that the United States and its partners can recognize, respond to and counter attempts at cyber coercion. The paper examines the use of cyber operations by North Korea and Russia in recent years as part of their broader strategies to exert influence over their neighbours, showing how the context in which such operations occur is critical.