Research Catalog

Title

Crisis and escalation in cyberspace / Martin C. Libicki ; prepared for the United States Air Force.

Author

Libicki, Martin C.

Publication

• Santa Monica, CA : RAND Corporation, 2012.
• ©2012

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• United States. Air Force
• Project Air Force (U.S.)

Series Statement

Rand Corporation monograph series

Uniform Title

Rand Corporation monograph series.

Subject

• Information warfare > United States
• Escalation (Military science)
• Cyberspace > Security measures
• Crisis management > Government policy > United States
• Cyberterrorism > Prevention
• United States. Air Force > Organization
• United States. Air Force > Decision making
• Conflict management

Note

• "RAND Project Air Force"
• "MG-1215-AF"--P. [4] of cover.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

• Avoiding crises by creating norms -- Narratives, dialogues, and signaling -- Escalation management -- Strategic stability -- Conclusions and recommendations for the Air Force -- Introduction -- Some hypothetical crises -- Mutual mistrust is likely to characterize a cyber crisis -- States may have room for maneuver in a cyber crisis -- A note on methodology -- Purpose and organization -- Avoiding crises by creating norms -- What kind of norms might be useful? -- Enforce laws against hacking -- Disassociate from freelance hackers -- Discourage commercial espionage -- Be careful about the obligation to suppress cyber traffic -- How do we enforce norms? -- Confidence-building measures -- Norms for victims of cyberattacks -- Norms for war? -- Deception -- Military necessity and collateral damage -- Proportionality -- Reversibility -- Conclusions -- Narratives, dialogue, and signals -- Narratives to promote control -- A narrative framework for cyberspace --^
• Victimization, attribution, retaliation, and aggression -- Victimization -- Attribution -- Retaliation -- Aggression -- Emollients: narratives to walk back a crisis -- We did nothing -- Well, at least not on our orders -- It was an accident -- This is nothing new -- At least it does not portend anything -- Broader considerations -- Signals -- Ambiguity in signaling -- Signaling resolve -- Signaling that cyber combat is not kinetic combat -- Conclusions -- Escalation management -- Motives for escalation -- Does escalation matter? -- Escalation risks -- Escalation risks in phase -- Escalation risks for contained local conflicts -- Escalation risks for uncontained conflicts -- Managing proxy cyberattacks -- What hidden combatants imply for horizontal escalation -- Managing overt proxy conflict -- The difficulties of tit-for-tat management -- The importance of pre-planning -- Disjunctions among effort, effect, and perception -- Inadvertent escalation -- Escalation into kinetic warfare --^
• Escalation into economic warfare -- Sub rosa escalation -- Managing the third-party problem -- The need for a clean shot -- Inference and narrative -- Command and control -- Commanders -- Those they command -- Conclusions -- Implications for strategic stability -- Translating sources of cold war instability to cyberspace -- What influence can cyberwar have if nuclear weapons exist? -- Can cyberwar disarm another state's nuclear capabilities? -- Can cyberwar disarm another states cyberwarriors? -- Does cyberwar lend itself to alert-reaction cycles? -- Are cyberdefenses inherently destabilizing? -- Would a cyberspace arms races be destabilizing? -- Misperception as a source of crisis -- Side takes great exception to cyberespionage -- Defenses are misinterpreted as preparations for war -- Too much confidence in attribution -- Too much confidence in or fear of pre-emption -- Supposedly risk-free cyberattacks -- Neutrality -- Conclusions -- Can cyber crises be managed? --^
• A. Distributed denial-of-service attacks -- B. Overt, obvious, and covert cyberattacks and responses -- Can good cyberdefenses discourage attacks? -- Bibliography -- Figures -- Figure 1: Alternative postures for a master cyber narrative -- Figure 2: Sources of imprecision in tit for tat -- Figure 3: An inadvertent path to mutual escalation -- Figure A-1: Configuring networks to limit the damage of DDoS attacks -- Table -- Overt, obvious, and covert cyberattacks and responses.

ISBN

• 9780833076786 (pbk. : alk. paper)
• 0833076787 (pbk. : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^2012046227

OCLC

• 818866331
• SCSB-10302502

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library