Fluidity, not Advantage, Conditions Cyberspace Security: An Alternative to Offense-Defense Theory
Abstract
Cyberspace scholars and policymakers claim that cyberspace is offense dominant, offense advantaged, and defense advantaged. Further, they claim that an offense-defense condition can be measured only dyadically vice systemically and, alternatively, that it cannot be measured at all. These claims, based on numerous approaches to assessing an offense-defense condition, are all dubious. In fact, core structural features of the technologies that cyberspace comprises designate a measurable systemic condition - one that, using the offense-defense taxonomy, is aptly named offense-defense fluidity. Further, this condition prescribes a cyber strategy of initiative persistence, which, in turn, argues for reformulating offense-defense theory as applied to cyberspace to reflect the strategic realities of the same. Importantly, reformulation does not undermine for cyberspace the core propositions of "properly specified" offense-defense theory that a core structural feature of the prevailing pool of technologies available to states designates a condition that impacts the efficacy of a state's security strategy, that perceptions of the prevailing condition influence states' foreign policies, and that misperceptions can lead to strategic losses and/or increased international tensions.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 03, 2023
- Accession Number
- AD1223444
Entities
People
- Jay Jacobs
- Michael P. Fischerkeller
Organizations
- Institute for Defense Analyses