Skip Nav Destination
Close Modal
Update search
NARROW
Format
Journal
Date
Availability
1-1 of 1
James M. Acton
Close
Follow your search
Access your saved searches in your account
Would you like to receive an alert when new items match your search?
Sort by
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Daedalus (2020) 149 (2): 133–149.
Published: 01 April 2020
Abstract
View article
PDF
The advent of cyber warfare exacerbates the risk of inadvertent nuclear escalation in a conventional conflict. In theory, cyber espionage and cyberattacks could enhance one state's ability to undermine another's nuclear deterrent. Regardless of how effective such operations might prove in practice, fear of them could generate escalatory “use-‘em-before-you-lose-‘em” pressures. Additionally, cyber threats could create three qualitatively new mechanisms by which a nuclear-armed state might incorrectly conclude that its nuclear deterrent was under attack. First, cyber espionage could be mistaken for a cyberattack. Second, malware could accidentally spread from systems that supported non-nuclear operations to nuclear-related systems. Third, an operation carried out by a third party could be misattributed by one state in a bilateral confrontation to its opponent. Two approaches to risk reduction are potentially viable in the short term: unilateral restraint in conducting potentially escalatory cyber operations, and bilateral or multilateral behavioral norms.