National Security is Everyone's Business

April 27th, 2024 | 12:50 AM ET

Tallinn Manual 2.0: Stepping Out of the Fog in Cyberspace

Posted: March 1st, 2017

Cyberspace is often portrayed as a new domain of international relations – a Wild West where there are no rules or guiding principles to govern the behavior of states. Such perceptions of anarchism have bred uncertainty over what is or is not acceptable activity among governments. This often leads to brash accusations of cyber attacks meeting the threshold of an act of war. At the same time, the blurred distinction between offensive and defensive capabilities in cyberspace creates a security dilemma, fueling a destabilizing cyber arms race.

Fortunately, there are hundreds of years of international law that can put norms surrounding cyberspace into motion. However, where does international law apply to countries’ operations in cyberspace, and what can states do to mitigate uncertainty surrounding cyber operations that lead to a potentially destabilizing cyber arms race?

“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62

Access all of The Cipher Brief’s national security-focused expert insight by becoming a Cipher Brief Subscriber+ Member.

Subscriber+

Categorized as:Tech/CyberTagged with:

Related Articles

Search

Close