Is there a cyber security dilemma?

Abstract

In recent years, scholars, commentators and politicians have discussed the prospect of a ‘cyber security dilemma’. If states race to develop superior cyberattacks, how far might this escalate? Are state-led cyberattacks likely to provoke a full war? To address these related questions, I apply a multi-level Neoclassical Realist framework that progresses from systemic logic to an assessment of leader cues and cognition. This contributes much-needed coherence to debates about escalation and cyber warfare and demonstrates the framework’s utility for addressing contemporary and evolving problems in international affairs. The framework reveals that, according to both a systemic and societal cue analysis, fears regarding unchecked escalation from state competition in cyberspace to kinetic warfare are largely unfounded. Nevertheless, it also points toward one caveat and direction for further research in that cyber warfare directed at foreign leaders’ political survival may be unexpectedly provocative in a way not currently addressed by escalation models.