Russia vs.

The West:
Cyber-War or Cyber (in-)security?

by

El Hadji Abdoul Moussa Dia

January 2019

The Graduate Institute Geneva

Introduction

This short paper seeks to briefly assess whether Russia’s cyber-activity in relation to

Western States constitutes acts of cyber-war. It will attempt to do so by providing

definitions of the act of cyber-war and then analyzing Russia’s cyber actions according to

those definitions. For the sake of conciseness and accuracy, we will focus on one case of

Russian-led cyberattack: the Russian interference in the 2016 United States Elections.

This case has been chosen because it is recent, has profound implications, and is well

documented — thanks to the public release of the Intelligence Community Assessment’s

report on the events (ICA, 2017).

I. What is an act of cyber-war?

There are varying definitions for what consists of an act of cyber-war, however,

throughout this article, we will explore three definitions of the act war: a rather broad

definition in terms of scope, a narrower definition, and finally an even more confined
and restrictive definition of the term.

The first definition comes from Richard A. Clarke. According to Clarke, an act of cyber

war “refers to actions by a nation-state to penetrate another nation’s computers or

networks for the purposes of causing damage or disruption” (Clarke and Knake, 2010, p.

11). This definition is considered broad because many actions would fall under it,

notably cyber-espionage. But we know that espionage does not qualify as an act of war

as states spy on their enemies and their allies alike (disclosure of US global surveillance

scheme by Snowden for example).

Arquilla and Ronfeldt provide us with a more concise definition. For them, an act of

cyber-war is any act “conducting, and preparing to conduct, military operations

according to information-related principles” (Arquilla and Ronfeldt, 1993, p. 30). The

emphasis here is on “military operations” and “information-related principles”. This

means that the referent objects here are the military networks and the threats are

potential catastrophic attacks on military or state critical infrastructure, with

information gathering (internet/computer networks) being the means.

The third definition comes from Thomas Rid, who starts first by enunciating the criteria

upon which an action could be qualified as an act of war. Rid notes that war is

characterized by its violent character (the use or threat of use of violence), its

instrumental character (as it is a means to an end, violence being the means and the end

goal being the acceptance of the will of the winner by the losing party), and its political

character (war is always for political motives). Any act of war must subsequently

present those three features: it has to have the potential to be lethal; it has to be

instrumental; and it has to be political. Rid thus gives the definition of an act of cyber war

as “a potentially lethal, instrumental, and political act of force conducted through

malicious code” (Rid, 2012, p.5). His definition is considered as the most restrictive of

the three presented in this article, as he himself makes the argument that “Cyber war
has never happened in the past. Cyber war does not take place in the present. And it is

highly unlikely that cyber war will occur in the future” (Rid, 2012, p. 6).

Analyzing Russia’s actions in the lens of these three definitions will help us assess if the

Russian meddling in the US elections of 2016 truly consists of an act of war. II. The

Russian activities

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the

National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States have all assessed with confidence

that the Government of Russia, under the orders of the President Vladimir Putin,

undertook an “influence campaign” in 2016 aimed at the US Presidential Election. The

goals of Russia were to undermine the American public’s faith in the US democratic

process, and to denigrate Secretary Hilary Clinton and to harm her electability and

potential presidency (ICA, 2017). The Russian campaign, approved at the highest levels

of the Russian Government, was multi-faced and comprised covert intelligence

operations—such as cyber activity—with overt efforts by Russian Government agencies,

state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid social media users or “trolls.”

They can be summed up as follows:

∙ Cyber Espionage against US political Organizations (for example access to

Democratic National Committee (DNC) networks, and exfiltration of data by the

General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate of Russia (GRU).

∙ Release (disclosure) of sensitive information by GRU publicly before and during

elections to media outlets and through platforms such as Wikileaks. ∙ Cyber

intrusions into state and local electoral boards, although DHS assesses that the types

of systems targeted or compromised were not involved in vote tallying. ∙ Propaganda

efforts – state run propaganda via domestic media apparatus, news outlets with a

global audience such as RT and Sputnik, and a network of government hired “trolls”.

III. Are the US and Russia at War?

If we use Clarke’s definition, all of these actions,except the propaganda acts, represent

acts of cyber-war. The Cyber Espionage and the intrusion into state and local electoral

boards, with the exfiltration of data represent the “penetration of another nation’s

networks” and the disclosure of that information is an attempt at perpetrating “damage

and disruption”. This is exactly what Clarke defines as cyber-war. I said except the

propaganda acts because the media outlets and the trolls are not intrusive to the

network system but exogenous forces of influence.

However, if we consider the other two definitions, these acts alone do not stand for acts

of cyber-war. Rid’s definition disqualifies them de facto as none of these acts fulfilled the

three criteria of an act of cyber-war. Although Russia’s actions might have been

instrumental and political, they were never violent or potentially lethal. Therefore,

although their classification can be debated, they are dismissed as acts of cyber-war

according toRid’s delineation.

Arquilla and Ronfeldt would not either qualify those operations as acts of war. There is

no military dimension to Russia’s attacks, as the referent object here is the American

public’s opinion, and the threat is disinformation, or rather, targeted information. On

the other hand, they provide a classification for these sorts of action, and would qualify

them as acts of Net-war instead Cyber-warfare. According to them, a net-war is a type of

information-related conflict between nations or societies that seeks to disrupt, damage,

or modify what a target population “knows” or thinks it knows about itself and about the

world around it. “A net-war may focus on public or elite opinion, or both. It may involve

public diplomacy measures, propaganda and psychological campaigns, political and

cultural subversion, deception of or interference with local media, infiltration of

computer networks and databases, and efforts to promote a dissident or opposition

movements across computer networks” (Arquilla and Ronfeldt, 1993, p. 28). Russia’s

actions clearly consist of mass propaganda thanks to the infiltration of computer

networks and databases with the intent to influence the American population’s opinion,

and would certainly pertain to the denomination of Net-war attacks, rather than acts of

Cyber-war.

Conclusion

We have seen that the Russian activity during the 2016 US Presidential election can be

either viewed as acts of cyber-war, or not, depending on the definition adopted. If the US

government is more in line with Clarke’s acumen, then it has most-likely perceived the

Russian acts as declaration of war. The response to such a declaration could be

traditionally economic sanctions, retaliatory cyberattacks or a military strike, but in this

particular instance, the battles would be fought in cyberspace, away from the public's

eyes and knowledge. Who knows, maybe the US is at war right now, and the people do

not know it… Otherwise, if we espouse either Aguilar and Ronfeldt’s or Rid’s approach

to Cyber-warfare, Russia’s acts are merely clandestine cyber-attacks with potentially

serious consequences. One thing is for sure, Russia’s action signals a broadening

evolution of normalcy for Russia and the international system, in terms of what a country

can do, in terms of cyber activity, against another country, to meddle with their internal

affairs. Not only do I think Russia will benefit from the lessons learned during the US

Election for future influence campaigns, but I also suspect that many countries adepts of

irregular cyber activity will follow the Russian model, which will allow them to

perpetrate felonious attacks while avoiding the label of war. With trust being almost

unachievable in the underworlds of the cyber-space, away from the public eyes, where

the ruling maxim is “an eye for eye”, the challenges for future generations will certainly

be to build and maintain global cyber peace.

References:

∙ Arquilla, John and Ronfeldt, David, (1993) “Cyberwar is Coming!” Comparative Strategy,
Vol 12, No. 2, Spring 1993, Reprint by RAND pp. 2-39.
∙ Clarke, Richard A. and Knake, Robert K., (2010), “Cyber War: The Next Threat to
National Security and What to Do About It”, HarperCollins Publishers New York, NY,
USA.

∙ Intelligence Community Assessment, (2017) “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions

in Recent US Elections”, ICA 2017-01D.
∙ Rid, Thomas, (2012) “Cyber War Will Not Take Place”, Journal of Strategic Studies, 35:1,
pp. 5-32.
∙ Al-Rodhan, Nayef, (2007), The Five Dimensions of Global Security: Proposal for a
Multi-sum Security Principle, p. 15-16 (2007)

∙ Buzan, Barry (2007). People, States & Fear. Colchester, ECPR.

∙ Mathews, Jessica T., (1989), “Redefining Security”, Journal of Foreign Affairs Vol. 68,
No. 2 (Spring, 1989), pp. 162-177.
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∙ Walt, Stephen M., (1991), “The Renaissance of Security Studies”, International
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