Just like energy and sanctions, cyber is more bark than bite in a state against state conflict.
Since the war in Ukraine began there have been plenty of discussions about threats Russia could unleash its energy weapons and cyber weapon on the West, and that the West could unleash sanctions and cyber in response. During the course of the war some of those weapons were fired, others remined loaded and trained at the enemy. Still, the takeaway form the last two years is that all these weapons have been of limited use. Energy, sanctions, and cyber are all what I would consider to be more effective in theory than in practice.
When the discussion surrounding whether or not Russia should be excluded from the SWIFT payment system serious economist and bankers predicted catastrophic, almost irreparable damage to the Russian economy but reality was that the Russian economy hummed along fine, as it continues to do now. Similarly, there were legions of people quick to predict the death of Germany industry and continent-wide energy rationing in the winter of 2022/23 when it became clear that no Russian gas would reach Europe, and while prices did rise a lot Europe survived. The barks were worse than the bites.
I feel confident that most cyberattacks from state actors are similar. Being able to remotely shut down an enemy’s electrical grid or sabotage some other critical infrastructure is a powerful weapon, but it is a trick which will only work once. As soon as you realise there is a backdoor in the system you naturally patch it out or disconnect the system from the internet so the enemy cannot remotely interfere. Just like with sanctions and energy, cyber is more powerful as a threat than a reality. Cyber is perhaps the weakest threat of the bunch, after all it wasn’t that long ago that all or society was run without the help of internet-enabled computers. Sure, running the electrical grid without modern IT equipment is more difficult, but it is by no means impossible. That’s how we did it for decades without problems.
With that said I think the threat of large scale, nation state cyberattacks will be a rare and infrequent occurrence. Cyber is the domain of crime and intelligence agencies, not the weapons of a shooting war. Of course, that is not to say that cyberattacks cannot cause harm, or that it won’t be used in state against state wars. Rather, I think that it will turn out to be a more effective threat than weapon, which means that there is a strong incentive never to actually pull the trigger.
If you liked this post you can read a previous post about the war in Ukraine here or the rest of my writings here. It'd mean a lot to me if you recommended the blog to a friend or coworker. Come back next Monday for a new post!
I've always been interested in politics, economics, and the interplay between. The blog is a place for me to explore different ideas and concepts relating to economics or politics, be that national or international. The goal for the blog is to make you think; to provide new perspectives.
Written by Karl Johansson
Cover photo by ThisIsEngineering from Pexels, edited by Karl Johansson