China Developing Cyber Capabilities to Disrupt U.S. Military Operations

By Martin Libicki

Martin Libicki holds the Keyser Chair of cybersecurity studies at the U.S. Naval Academy.  In addition to teaching, Libicki is an adjunct management scientist at the RAND Corporation, carrying out research in cyberwar and the general impact of information technology on domestic and national security. He previously spent 12 years at the National Defense University, three years on the Navy Staff as program sponsor for industrial preparedness, and three years at the GAO.

China is a burgeoning great power. It is continually figuring out the various dimensions of power – not least of which is power in cyberspace – and putting them to use. Like other great powers dealing in an unknown medium, it is, to quote Deng Xiaoping, crossing the river by feeling the stones.

China’s external strategies in cyberspace – as distinct from its internal social control policies – can be divided into two parts: the first, before late 2015; the second, after that point. The most notable transition, from the U.S. perspective, has been the agreement to foreswear commercial cyberespionage.

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