Building Blocks and Measurement of National Cyberpower

Abstract

Cyberspace and cyber threats are increasingly recognized to pose a significant risk to a state's security. Cyberpower is central to national power and thus a driver towards the attainment of national security. The authors decompose national cyberpower by analyzing the elements of cyberspace as part of national security. David Jablonsky distinguishes between natural and social determinants of power in his discussion of national power and refers to Ray Cline's formula to determine a rough estimate of “perceived” national power by focusing primarily on a state's capacity to wage war. The authors present an adaptation of the formula for perceived power for use in cyberspace to create a similar formula for perceived cyberpower that focuses primarily on a state's capacity for cyberwarfare. Military cyberpower is one of the critical elements of cyberpower but little attention has been paid to this concept in the literature. In this chapter, concepts such as cyber effectiveness and the operationalization of military cyberpower are also addressed.