On domains: Cyber and the practice of warfare

Abstract

Cyberspace is a new and evolving realm of human interaction with specific security and defence concerns. Threats to commercial and government interests are being identified and many nations have accepted cyberspace as a domain of military of operations. While governments are investing in the development of military cyber capabilities, there are few examples of military cyber operations from which military doctrine can be developed.In order to bridge the gap between speculation and experience, the principles related to land, sea, and air forces can be used to provide a helpful reference for the cyber domain. The adoption of cyberspace as a domain has more to do with marketing than doctrinal consistency with physical domains. Until some future military cyber operations are categorized as armed attacks, there is insufficient cause to categorize cyberspace as a distinct domain.

Human Aspects of Air Force Operations: The Roles of Social, Cultural, and Political Knowledge and Skills in the Full Spectrum of Multidomain Operations

“…This lack of clearly identified and commonly accepted characteristics of warfighting domains appears to contribute to debates regarding the recognition of new domains. For example, many questioned whether cyberspace should be recognized as a warfighting domain, due to differing theories and judgments on domain characteristics (Libicki, 2012;McGuffin and Mitchell, 2014;Songip et al, 2013). Table B.1 lists several characteristics that a number of observers have used when referencing warfighting domains and details how these apply to traditional domains as well as a human domain.…”

SEConomy: A Framework for the Economic Assessment of Cybersecurity

“…Thus, related work focus on models analyzing economic aspects behind cyber attacks. For this reason, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) declares the cyberspace as the fifth dimension of defense areas, complementing the traditional land, water, sea, air warfare dimensions [15].…”

Cyberspace: A New Threat to the Sovereignty of the State

“…However, the media is full of similar news about virtual wars and cyber-attacks which call the attention of both legislators and regulators, for example, McGuffin and Mitchell (2014) have discussed cases, such as the 2007 cyber-attack against Estonia and the 2008 virtual war against Georgia which has a disputed territory with Russia, namely, South Ossetia. In fact, such cases require the international co-operation in combating cyberspace security violations.…”

“…Thus, in the military view, the cyberspace has been considered as the fifth domain of military operations (land, sea, air, space, and cyber). However, McGuffin and Mitchell (2014) argued that cyberspace possesses the characteristics to be a realm of human interaction but it lacks the characteristics to be considered a domain akin to the domains of land, sea, air, and space; they have also stated that there are military purposes for cyberspace as demonstrated by Russia vs. Estonia, Russia vs. Georgia, and USA vs. Iran. Accordingly, cyberspace is being used for military operations:…”