Cyber Escalation on the Battlefield: Evidence from Ukraine

• In Event: Cyber War in Ukraine and Beyond

Abstract

There is a longstanding academic debate over the extent to which cyberspace operations are likely to lead to the escalation of crises or disputes between rival states. Much of this literature focuses on escalation to war—whether activities in cyberspace exacerbate crisis instability and propel states across the threshold and into armed conflict. On the one hand, some hypothesize that certain attributes of cyberspace increase the risk of escalation—e.g., secrecy and plausible deniability, the potential for surprise attack, the indistinguishability of espionage activities and other cyber operations, the purported offensive advantage of cyber operations, or the vulnerability of modern societies to cyber attacks. Conversely, others posit that the ephemeral effects of cyber attacks—the relatively low damage they inflict compared to conventional capabilities, and the difficulty and unpredictability of successfully planning and implement offensive cyber operations and campaigns—reduces their escalatory impact and may even make cyber operations useful for crisis de-escalation. Overall, there is comparably little research on whether and how these competing perspectives account for escalation dynamics after the fighting has already started. By using evidence from Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, we test competing arguments about the escalatory characteristics of cyber operations in a warfighting context. To do so, we built a unique dataset of the cyber incidents surrounding the Ukraine conflict, including cyber incidents linked to Russian, Ukrainian, and third-party actors. The dataset is designed to enable researchers to test hypotheses related to the nexus between cyber and kinetic operations and battlefield dynamics, and includes coding for variables like the timing of cyber incidents by the phase of conventional military campaigns. In this paper, we explore the level of coordination between cyber operations and other kinetic and non-kinetic military operations; the efficacy of cyber operations in achieving desired objectives across tactical operations and strategic outcomes; and the extent to which belligerents retaliate against cyber operations with cyber or non-cyber means.

Authors

• Grace B. Mueller, Southern Methodist University

• Erica D. Lonergan, Columbia University

• Daniel Eerhart, United States Military Academy