Cyberweapons Aren’t Like Nuclear Weapons
Officials around the world like to compare the two—but the metaphor is incorrect, and dangerous.
“If Internet security cannot be controlled, it’s not an exaggeration to say the effects could be no less than a nuclear bomb,”
said Gen. Fang Fenghui, chief of general staff of the People’s Liberation Army of China, in April 2013. Fang is not alone in drawing comparisons between nuclear weapons and cyberweapons during the past few years. Secretary of State John Kerry responded to a cybersecurity question during his confirmation hearings in January 2013 by
saying, “I guess I would call it the 21
st century nuclear weapons equivalent.” That same year, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin
praised cyberweapons for their “first strike” capability. Since 2013, a number of leaders in the U.S. national security establishment—including former National Security Adviser
Brent Scowcroft in January 2015, Adm.
Michael Rogers of Cyber Command in March 2015, and Director of National Intelligence
James Clapper in February of this year—have stated that the threat posed by cyberweapons is comparable to, or greater than, that of nuclear weapons. The list of high-ranking officials who have made an analogy between the fundamentally different nuclear and cyberweapons systems, and are using this flawed analogy as a basis for policy, is a long one.
On the surface, the analogy is compelling. Like nuclear weapons, the most powerful cyberweapons—malware capable of permanently damaging critical infrastructure and other key assets of society—are potentially catastrophically destructive, have short delivery times across vast distances, and are nearly impossible to defend against. Moreover, only the most technically competent of states appear capable of wielding cyberweapons to strategic effect right now, creating the temporary illusion of an exclusive cyber club. To some leaders who matured during the nuclear age, these tempting similarities and the pressing nature of the strategic cyberthreat provide firm justification to use nuclear deterrence strategies in cyberspace. Indeed, Cold War–style
cyberdeterrence is one of the foundational cornerstones of the 2015 U.S. Department of Defense Cyber Strategy.
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http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2016/03/cyberweapons_are_not_like_nuclear_weapons.html
