Skip to main content
Author(s):
Pavel Sharikov
Secondary Title
Springer International Publishing
Abstract

New technologies transform the nature of armed conflict. Most emerging technologies are aimed not to destroy the enemies’ armed forces, but to achieve political goals by inflicting minimum physical damage and the use of most of these technologies doesn’t constitute an armed conflict. New technologies include cyber, AI, drones, lethal autonomous weapons—those which don’t have an internationally agreed definition, and cannot be subject to arms control limitations due to their wide civilian commercial application. Nonetheless their development and possible use may have significant impact on national and international security. This poses a serious challenge to arms control, it is unclear how to deal with their production, rules of engagement, verification, export control, non-proliferation. The chapter summarizes the existing expert opinions and government positions on how to work out international rules of engagement on such technologies. The general purpose of the paper is to find the common arguments, acceptable for the key actors, including Russia, Europe, and US on the issues, in order to negotiate the possible agreement.

Concluding remarks
In the context of the Ukrainian conflict, cyber aggression will most likely remain in the “low-intensity conflict” format. These missions include reconnaissance, destruction of both military and civilian targets, diversion, and a wide range of other applications. It is extremely unlikely that a cyberattack will elevate to a large-scale conflict and will cause death or large-scale damage. James Lewis from the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, in particular, believesFootnote36 that “cyberattacks can be used to produce or amplify political effect.” He also asserts that powerful Kremlin cyber aggression against the United States is unlikely because it obviously would not alter the American position on Ukraine but would provoke large-scale response undesirable for Moscow

Reference details

DOI
10.1007/978-3-031-24673-9_9
Resource type
Miscellaneous
Year of Publication
2023
Publication Area
Civilian cybersecurity
Date Published
2023

How to cite this reference:

Sharikov, P. (2023). Contemporary Cybersecurity Challenges. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24673-9_9 (Original work published 2023)