Nature of Cyber-War and Its Implications for Great Power Competition

International Security Studies
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International Security Studies
The contest between the United States and its adversaries, especially China, to shape security norms, practices, and architecture has inevitably led to cyber warfare. This results from the prodigious need to operate in and protect the cyber domain. Cyber wars between the titans can have far-reaching implications on the Great Power Competition. They could be the fertile breeding ground for a future political crisis between the United States and China, which could escalate into a full-blown armed conflict (Buchanan & Cunningham, 2020). For instance, if one country discovers that the other has been intruding and hacking its adversary’s cyber systems, it could respond to the discovery with the use of force.
In the United States and China, cyber-attack deterrence is feasible and can assume a double-pronged approach, passive or active. Passive deterrence revolves around the actions employed to secure networks from possible attacks or minimize the effects of an attack (McKenzie, 2017). Even though the actions may not actively deter cyber-attacks, they can deny adversaries any meaningful success. On the flip side, active deterrence re...