Cyberwar Rules...Really???

May 2009

Experts: U.S. military’s cyberwar rules “ill-formed.” An experts panel criticized U.S. plans for cyberwarfare as “ill-formed,” “undeveloped,” and “highly uncertain”; as a result, many nuances of cyberwar have remained poorly understood, even as the military actively prepares for it. The U.S. government has yet to form a coherent policy for engaging in warfare that involves attacks on a country’s electrical power grids and other critical infrastructure, according to a non-profit group of scientists and policy advisers. They called on policy makers to actively forge rules for how and when the military goes about mounting offensive and defensive acts of cyber warfare. “The current policy and legal framework for guiding and regulating the U.S. use of cyberattack is ill-formed, undeveloped, and highly uncertain,” the report, published by the National Academy of Sciences, states. “Secrecy has impeded widespread understanding and debate about the nature and implications of U.S. cyberattack.” The many nuances of cyberwar have remained poorly understood, even as the military actively prepares for it. They include the high degree of anonymity of those who carry out such attacks, making it hard to identify those who perpetrate them. Such attacks also result in much more uncertain outcomes than traditional warfare, making it hard to predict success and collateral damage.