Kenneth Geers’s scientific contributions

Today, everything that happens in the “real world” — from interpersonal conflicts to international conflicts — is mirrored in cyberspace. All political and military conflicts have a cyber dimension, whose size and impact are difficult to predict. The South East Europe (SEE) security community is no different, and its law enforcement and national security institutions will continue to be challenged by a ubiquitous and unpredictable Internet.

Cyber security has evolved from a technical discipline to a strategic, geopolitical concept. The question for national security thinkers today is not how to protect one or even a thousand computers, but millions, including the "cyberspace" around them. Strategic challenges require strategic solutions. This article considers four nation-state approaches to cyber attack mitigation. 1. Technology: Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) 2. Doctrine: Sun Tzu"s Art of War 3. Deterrence: can we prevent cyber attacks? 4. Arms control: can we limit cyber weapons? These threat mitigation strategies fall into different categories. IPv6 is a technical solution. Art of War is military. The third and fourth strategies are hybrid: deterrence is a mix of military and political considerations, while arms control is a political/technical approach. Technology and doctrine are the most likely strategies to provide short-term improvement in a nation"s cyber defense posture. Deterrence and arms control, which are more subject to outside politcial influence and current events, may offer cyber attack mitigation but only in the longer-term.

Adversary threats to critical infrastructures have always existed during times of conflict, but threat scenarios now include peacetime attacks from anonymous computer hackers. Current events, including examples from Israel and Estonia, prove that a certain level of real-world disorder can be achieved from hostile data packets alone. The astonishing achievements of cyber crime and cyber espionage – to which law enforcement and counterintelligence have found little answer – hint that more serious cyber attacks on critical infrastructures are only a matter of time. Still, national security planners should address all threats with method and objectivity. As dependence on IT and the Internet grow, governments should make proportional investments in network security, incident response, technical training, and international collaboration.

World leaders are beginning to look beyond temporary fixes to the challenge of securing the Internet. One possible solution may be an international arms control treaty for cyberspace. The 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) provides national security planners with a useful model. CWC has been ratified by 98% of the world's governments, and encompasses 95% of the world's population. It compels signatories not to produce or to use chemical weapons (CW), and they must destroy existing CW stockpiles. As a means and method of war, CW have now almost completely lost their legitimacy. This article examines the aspects of CWC that could help to contain conflict in cyberspace. It also explores the characteristics of cyber warfare that seem to defy traditional threat mitigation.

National security planners have begun to look beyond reactive, tactical cyber defense to proactive, strategic cyber defense, which may include international military deterrence. The incredible power of nuclear weapons gave birth to deterrence, a military strategy in which the purpose of armies shifted from winning wars to preventing them. Although cyber attacks per se do not compare to a nuclear explosion, they do pose a serious and increasing threat to international security. Real-world examples suggest that cyber warfare will play a lead role in future international conflicts. This article examines the two deterrence strategies available to nation-states (denial and punishment) and their three basic requirements (capability, communication, and credibility) in the light of cyber warfare. It also explores whether the two most challenging aspects of cyber attacks – attribution and asymmetry – will make cyber attack deterrence an impossible task.

In May 2010, the Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence and the Swedish National Defence College hosted the Baltic Cyber Shield (BCS) international cyber defense exercise (CDX). For two days, six Blue Teams from northern European government, military and academic institutions defended simulated power generation companies against a Red Team of 20 hostile computer hackers. The scenario described a volatile geopolitical environment in which a hired-gun Rapid Response Team of network security personnel defended Critical Information Infrastructure (CII) from cyber attacks sponsored by a non-state terrorist group. This article covers the origin and evolution of CDXs, and it describes the design, goals and lessons learned from BCS 2010.

Cyberspace is a new warfare domain. Computers and the in-formation they contain are prizes to be won during any military conflict. But the intangible nature of cyberspace can make vic-tory, defeat, and battle damage difficult to calculate. Military leaders today are looking for a way to understand and manage this new threat to national security. The most influential mili-tary treatise in history is Sun Tzu"s Art of War: its recommen-dations are flexible and have been adapted to new circumstanc-es for over 2,500 years. This article examines whether Art of War is flexible enough to encompass cyber warfare. It con-cludes that Sun Tzu provides a useful but far from perfect framework for the management of cyber war, and urges modern military strategists to consider the distinctive aspects of the cyber battlefield.