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131. Resilient Alliance: Moving the U.S.-Philippines Security Relations Forward

Author:
Jeffrey Ordaniel and Carl W Baker
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Pacific Forum
Abstract:
Authors of this volume participated in the inaugural U.S.- Philippines Next-Generation Leaders Initiative, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, through the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines. With backgrounds from academia, public policy, civil society and industry, the cohort brings rich insights on the past, present, and future of the U.S.-Philippines bilateral security relations. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of their respective organizations and affiliations. Pacific Forum’s publications do not necessarily reflect the positions of its staff, donors and sponsors.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, International Cooperation, Natural Disasters, Cybersecurity, Maritime, and Alliance
Political Geography:
Philippines, North America, United States of America, and Indo-Pacific

132. Sharing Cyber Capabilities within the Alliance - Interoperability Through Structured Pre-Authorization Cyber

Author:
Jan Kalberg, Todd Arnold, and Stephen S. Hamilton
Publication Date:
07-2022
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Department of Social Sciences at West Point, United States Military Academy
Abstract:
Sharing cyber weapon/cyber capabilities requires trust between the member states, becoming a high-end policy decision due to the concerns of proliferation and the investment in designing a cyber-weapon that has a limited ’shelf-life’. The digital nature of cyber weapons creates a challenge. A cyber weapon can spread quickly, either self-propagating such as worms or via disclosure (and subsequent reuse) by malware researchers or malicious actors, raising proliferation concerns. Additionally, a cyber-weapon can be copied by the adversary or reverse engineered. Once the weapon is released, the adversary will eventually address the vulnerability, and the opportunity is gone. These factors raise the threshold between member states to share cyber weapons and cyber capabilities. Alliances, like NATO, prepare for a unified multinational, multi-domain fight; meanwhile, the national cyber forces are still operating as solitaires with limited interoperability and sharing. There is a need in the collective defence posture to integrate the multinational cyber force to achieve interoperability.
Topic:
Security, NATO, Military Strategy, Cybersecurity, and Alliance
Political Geography:
Europe and North America

133. Forecasting Iranian Government Responses to Cyberattacks

Author:
Austen Givens, Nikki Sanders, and Corye J. Douglas
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Advanced Military Studies
Institution:
Marine Corps University Press, National Defense University
Abstract:
Extant scholarship on Iranian cyber warfare emphasizes the ways in which Tehran’s cyber capabilities might be employed offensively to achieve its foreign policy objectives. Comparatively little attention, however, has been given to the ways in which Iran might leverage these same cyber assets in retaliatory strikes. This article argues that because of the unique combination of endogenous and exogenous variables affecting contemporary Iran, including diplomatic isolation and economic sanctions, as well as Iran’s historical track record of carrying out its foreign policy through proxies, Iranian cyber retaliation is likely to be executed through third parties, mostly symbolic in nature, and proportionate in scale.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Sanctions, Cybersecurity, Cryptocurrencies, and Retaliation
Political Geography:
Iran and Middle East

134. The Cyber Sea: Conflict and Security

Author:
Kevin Doherty
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Advanced Military Studies
Institution:
Marine Corps University Press, National Defense University
Abstract:
The interchange that drives world economics in the past now intersects with and will rest on the electromagnetic spectrum’s (EMS) structure that includes cyberspace. Historically, the world’s oceans played this crucial role in great power competition, but today that key geography now sits within the EMS’s exponential exchange in services between nations for maximal productivity output in free and open markets. The U.S. military must help sustain these crucial lines of communication to channel the spirit and capacity of their nation’s people into the new activities that war calls for and efficiently employ them against a threat. Sea lines of communication were of foremost importance in this regard until now, when the EMS, tapped by cyberspace, connects the most amount of people and their productivity to win the next conflict. Cyberspace has consumed the sea.
Topic:
Communications, Military Strategy, Cybersecurity, Seapower, and Non-Traditional Threats
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

135. Like the Sea, So Cyberspace: A Brief Exploration of Establishing Norms through a Maritime Lens

Author:
Travis D. Howard and Dr. Jose de Arimateia da Cruz
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Advanced Military Studies
Institution:
Marine Corps University Press, National Defense University
Abstract:
This article compares the history of establishing maritime laws, norms, customs, and standards of conduct with the rise of cyberspace as an artificial domain akin to a digital sea. A brief history of how humanity established enduring norms and standards at sea is described, followed by a comparative analysis of the world’s physical maritime domain to digital cyberspace. Recommendations are made for contextualizing cyber threats and policy issues within a naval framework. Finally, the authors offer some brief conclusions.
Topic:
Piracy, Cybersecurity, Maritime, Norms, and Cyberspace
Political Geography:
Global Focus

136. Protection of Polish critical infrastructure (CI) against air threats

Author:
Michał Piekarski and Karolina Wojtasik
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Security and Defence Quarterly
Institution:
War Studies University
Abstract:
The goal of this paper is to analyse challenges related to protecting Polish critical infrastructure (CI) against air threats, such as UAVs, as a case study in a wider discussion on protection of critical infrastructure worldwide. The Polish legal definition of critical infrastructure and laws regarding the protection of such facilities are explained in the article in order to provide context. A review of scientific literature and open-source analysis of known air attacks on CI and the capabilities of air platforms are also included, with special attention being paid to unmanned systems. The threats themselves have been divided into two groups of scenarios: peacetime threats and crisis situations that have hybrid wartime scenarios. Depending on the scenario, the different capabilities of actors must be taken into account. Peacetime air threats include the use of commercially available drones. Those devices have limited capabilities, in terms of weaponisation, due to the limited weight of their cargo and the flight range. More advanced devices, including custom–built drones and military systems, can be supplied and used by state actors. Therefore, there are different requirements regarding protection systems. In peacetime, anti-drone systems are certainly recommended due to their capabilities and safety of use for bystanders. In more dangerous scenarios, typical military systems, including Very Short-Range Air Defence, Short-Range Air Defence and Medium Range Air Defence systems have to be employed or dedicated kinetic counter-drone systems deployed.
Topic:
Security, Terrorism, Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, Hybrid Warfare, Non-Traditional Threats, and Military
Political Geography:
Europe and Poland

137. Protection of critical infrastructure in Norway – factors, actors and systems

Author:
Jakub M. Godzimirski
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Security and Defence Quarterly
Institution:
War Studies University
Abstract:
The main aim of this article is to examine how the issue of protecting critical infrastructure is addressed in Norway. To answer this question, the article addresses two important sub-questions – what is to be understood in the current historical and the specific Norwegian context as important elements of national critical infrastructure and what is the current understanding of risks and threats that this infrastructure should be protected against? This article is based on a detailed quantitative and qualitative examination of the official Norwegian documents and statements on questions related to various aspects of protecting critical infrastructure in Norway. In section one, structural factors that have played a major part in shaping Norwegian thinking about critical infrastructure are discussed. Section two provides a short summary of the current discussion on elements of critical infrastructure in Norway. In section three, the article discusses official Norwegian perceptions of threats and how they address questions related to critical infrastructure. The fourth section looks at the current official approach to protection of critical infrastructure in the country. The process of building the existing system for protecting critical infrastructure in Norway has been driven by both domestic and international concerns. The system should make it possible for citizens to meet their needs through access to various important societal functions, but it also needs to make it possible to address challenges that stem from the international environment.
Topic:
National Security, Science and Technology, International Security, Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, and Economic Security
Political Geography:
Europe and Norway

138. Intelligent terrorism as a security threat to critical infrastructure

Author:
Ossi Heino
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Security and Defence Quarterly
Institution:
War Studies University
Abstract:
This paper considers terrorism as potentially ‘intelligent’, as a threat capable of abusing the critical infrastructures of societies and the related methods for knowledge production. Respectively, it sees critical infrastructures as attractive mediums for terrorist influence. The paper describes the contrast between the logic of providing security and certainty for critical infrastructures and the threat of terrorism, which is evolving in terms of its systemic capacities and intelligence. The way security is provided within critical infrastructures and the way intelligent terrorism could operate seem to separate from each other, thereby creating vulnerability. The paper seeks to enhance the conceptual understanding of this question by describing and closing the gap created by the intellectual separation. By doing so, the article will shed light on the conceptual dimension of the (in)security that has gone unnoticed in the interface between critical infrastructures and terrorism. It outlines the aforementioned dilemma and provides conceptual understanding that makes it easier to grasp and communicate further. The paper shows that the intellectual separation has weakened the possibilities for theoretically understanding and practically recognising terrorism as a phenomenon that is becoming systemically more conscious, more intelligent and potentially increasingly capable in a form of violence that exploits the basic structures of societies and the related knowledge methods for its own purposes. As a conclusion, the paper stresses the importance of profoundly critical tools. Such tools are often perceived as being undesirable or even counter-productive in figuring out the mechanism through the very means utilised in providing for security.
Topic:
Security, Terrorism, Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, and Rationality
Political Geography:
Global Focus

139. The role of citizens and geoinformation in providing alerts and crisis information to the public

Author:
Fatime Balog and Tibor Babos
Publication Date:
12-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Security and Defence Quarterly
Institution:
War Studies University
Abstract:
Mankind has been facing constant threats and challenges from natural and civilisational disasters for centuries. The fundamental responsibility of states is to protect the lives, health, and property of their citizens. However, protection against natural and civilisational disasters is a complex task in which the population also has to take part, and the availability of geoinformation is a prerequisite for effective protection. The aim of this study is to demonstrate the combined power of both citizens and technology in the task of alerting and informing the public of the opportunities offered by virtual crowdsourcing, Web 2.0, the role of geoinformation, crisis maps, and drones through the application of a qualitative method, by analysing case studies and by searching for internal connections between different phenomena. Citizens around the world can collaborate and contribute to the sharing and collection of geoinformation to create real-time, interactive maps. These so-called crisis maps support intervention organisations in obtaining information, and they can also be used as sources of information. The use of Web 2.0, crisis maps and drones, as well as the emergence of digital humanitarian volunteering, have fundamentally changed the role of the public when it comes to responding to disasters, including alerting them using geoinformation.
Topic:
Cybersecurity, Citizenship, Crisis Management, and Crowdsourcing
Political Geography:
Global Focus

140. Assessing military cyber maturity: strategy, institutions and capability

Author:
Greg Austin and Jason Blessing
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
International Institute for Strategic Studies
Abstract:
Few governments have reached an enduring consensus on just how quickly and how deeply reforms to their military cyber forces must be made. While consensus points have been reached, these are usually tested within a short period of time by international circumstances and technological trends. The main dilemma is whether military cyber strategies and capabilities need more than routine development as just one more element of military power, or whether they warrant radical development pathways and a higher priority than others. One of the most profound influences on the evolution of a country’s military cyber forces and strategies is politics. This paper offers insights into how the governance and organisational factors of domestic politics facilitate or inhibit the dissemination of cyber concepts and capabilities throughout military forces beyond the main signals or cyber intelligence agency. There are at least three reasons to analyse military cyber maturity. The countries currently pursuing such capabilities are not satisfied with the development levels in policy and strategy they have so far reached. There is increasing potential for crippling cyber attacks on key elements of military capability or supporting infrastructure. And no country has yet succeeded in the broad dissemination of cyber capabilities through its armed forces in ways that leading military planners would like. Few governments have reached an enduring consensus on just how quickly and how deeply reforms in the armed forces must be made to satisfy national security needs. While consensus points have been reached, these are usually tested within a short period of time by inter-national circumstances and technological trends. The main dilemma is whether military cyber strategies and capabilities need more than routine development as just one more element of military power, akin to artillery or submarines; or whether they are sufficiently transformative of military power to warrant radical development pathways and a higher priority than others. This paper provides an impact matrix which can be used by governments, their armed forces and research analysts to understand the ways in which military cyber reforms can be facilitated or inhibited by governance and organisational processes.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Science and Technology, Military Strategy, Cybersecurity, and Digitization
Political Geography:
Global Focus