Nuclear Lessons for Cyber Security
Abstract
Governments learn slowly from knowledge, study, and experience, and learning occurs internationally when new knowledge gradually redefines the content of national interests and leads to new policies.3 For example, the United States and the Soviet Union took decades to learn how to adapt and respond to the prior revolution in military affairs - nuclear technology after 1945. As we try to make sense of our halting responses to the current cyber revolution, are there any lessons we can learn from our responses to the prior technological transformation? In comparison to the nuclear revolution in military affairs, strategic studies of the cyber domain are chronologically equivalent to 1960 but conceptually more equivalent to 1950. Analysts are still not clear about the lessons of offense, defense, deterrence, escalation, norms, arms control, or how they fit together into a national strategy. After a short overview of the problem of cyber security in the next section, I will suggest several general lessons and then discuss a number of international lessons that can be learned from the nuclear experience. While the two technologies are vastly different, as I will argue below, there are nonetheless useful comparisons one can make of the ways in which governments learn to respond to technological revolutions.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2011
- Accession Number
- ADA553620
Entities
People
- Joseph S. Nye Jr.
Organizations
- Air University Press