In the spring of 2007, the world’s first real cyber-war commenced. Now, with hostilities in the same area of the world flaring up again, we appear to have the world’s second cyber-war. Although the history of cyber-war is still very new, it is interesting to note that in the first case cyber-war was performed in the absence of state sponsored military action, while in the second case it only supplemented the tanks, guns, and bombs that go along with conventional warfare. In the former case the damage may have been swift and shocking, but it was also temporary and somewhat ephemeral. No lives were lost, no infrastructure was permanently crippled. (There are however a lot of lessons learned – the postmortem interview with Estonia’s secretary of defense is highly recommended.) In the latter case, the war seems to be having serious geopolitical ramifications, but the effect of the cyber-attacks is as of yet unclear. All that we can currently say for certain is that it has helped to weaken the Georgian PR machine, which in this era of 24 hour news cycles, UN resolutions, and the more globally connected world, is more important during wartime than ever before. What the future of cyber-war entails I clearly can’t tell for certain, but I do have a feeling that it can’t stand on it’s own. Cyber-war may get people’s attention, force societies to alter how they function in the short term, and annoy people who can’t check their bank balances, but they don’t have serious geopolitical implications when they stand on their own. Cyber-war works best when it works in concert with conventional warfare.
