The New Battlefield

It helps in thinking about the future of cyber war if we break it into two parts: the future of cyber and the future of war.  Cyber means the collection of computers, software and connections that link people, economies and countries ever more closely together.  In cyber space, Beijing is as close as the building across the street.  Connected computers are powerful tools that we have embedded into our daily lives.  We depend on them.  That dependency will grow as we turn everything from refrigerators to jet engines into cyber devices.  The future is a more connected, more computer-dependent world that provides both superior capabilities and greater vulnerabilities.

Superior capabilities and greater vulnerabilities will change warfare.  Computers are at the core of how modern armies fight, and a military that doesn’t use them may as well ride horses into battle.  War is the use of force or the threat to use force, “compelling opponents to our will” as Clausewitz put it.  Cyber war is a new way to compel opponents or gain advantage. 

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