Cyber Warfare, Asymmetry, and Responsibility

Abstract

Cyber attacks pose fresh challenges for high-level military strategy and the ethics of war. In this chapter I consider the interplay between cyber warfare, asymmetry and responsibility and the relevant implications for defence theorem. In the first section, I examine this form of technologically mediated fighting and suggest that when deployed by technologically superior states in certain contexts, it may not embody the sort of symmetry and equality that characterises just warfare. More specifically, it will be argued that cyber warfare can generate a morally problematic ‘radical asymmetry' that sets justice and fairness in conflict or competition with the initial strategic aims of such wars in that they could provoke localised terrorism or guerrilla attacks. Having considered the impact of asymmetry in this domain, I then examine the impact on the attribution of moral responsibility and how this is challenged in technologically mediated conflict.