At first sight, and against certain
counterparties, cyber warfare has appeared and proved to be a phenomenally
low-cost and low-risk tool of adversarial foreign policy. But while questions
increasingly arise about exposure to reciprocal risk to the most heavily
digitized knowledge- and data-based economy and society, it has become clear
that the genie will never again return into its bottle. Strategic, legal, and
political questions will not be dodged much longer. The very advantages of
cyber warfare may easily and all too quickly be turned against a first mover,
especially one as vulnerable as a highly digitized industrial state. Its use
for asymmetric warfare increases attractiveness to non-state actors. And one of
its arguably greatest potential, the disruption of enemy economic functionality
by disruption of payment systems has regularly been vetoed in the interest of
the integrity of the global system. It may appear that the philosophy
underlying the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as well as treaties banning use
of chemical and biological weapons may provide even stronger rationales in an
understanding to ensure mutual non-aggression by digital electronic means
between major and even mid-size powers.