Cyber operators can learn a succinct lesson on effective deterrence from Stanley Kubrick's 1964 Cold War-era satire about nuclear war, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. In Kubrick's film, U.S. forces are committed to a first-strike nuclear attack against a seemingly vulnerable Soviet Union. As the plot thickens, Dr. Strangelove learns that the Soviet Union has in fact developed a doomsday device, or second-strike capability, which would execute a catastrophic nuclear retaliation in the event of a first strike against the Soviets. Strangelove points out that the doomsday device only would have been an effective deterrent if everyone knew about it. This principle of deterrence-the knowledge of a certain, consequential response-is what keeps hands off the red button. Today, attacks across the cyber realm go undeterred because our cyber forces have failed to specify real and tangible consequences for such attacks against the United States.
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