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Cyber stability is a condition in which States are not incentivized to breach the tacit upper bound of cyber agreed competition by pursuing armed attack-equivalent cyber operations or conventional/nuclear armed attack. Cyber persistence theory predicts that States will continually seek gains in cyberspace but bounded within a range of exploitative behaviors, the cumulative effects of which do not threaten the overall integrity of cyberspace because of its systemic resilience. Instability results when an imbalance of initiative degrades a State’s relative power and the State acts to arrest relative power loss. 5G technology and artificial intelligence–enabled cyber operations may introduce instability. However, stabilizing factors exist that reduce the likelihood of escalation into armed conflict. While explicit bargaining is the primary source of non-binding, voluntary international cyber norms, tacit coordination and tacit bargaining are better suited for constructing mutual understandings of acceptable and unacceptable behaviors that could lead to binding international law.

Cyberspace is an initiative persistent environment of opportunity and vulnerability wherein States face a structural imperative to persist in seizing and maintaining the initiative to set favorable security conditions in and through cyberspace. The dominant State security-seeking behavior is exploitation below the level of armed conflict, primarily manifesting in the cyber fait accompli—a limited unilateral gain that is retained when the target is unaware of the loss or is unable or unwilling to respond. A less frequent behavior is direct cyber engagement, a mutually dependent competition for control of key cyberspace terrain, whose prevalence may increase with advances in artificial intelligence. States are strategically incentivized in cyberspace to not breach the armed-attack equivalent ceiling. This produces a dynamic of competitive interaction, not escalation, and the inter-State phenomenon of cyber agreed competition, a tacitly bounded strategic competitive space inclusive of operational restraint and exclusive of operations causing armed-attack equivalent effects.

From the outset of global networked computing, policymakers and strategic thinkers were legitimately concerned about the consequences of cyber capabilities for war and viewed cyberspace through the lens of war. The reality of State behavior and interaction in cyberspace over the past two decades has been quite different from the model of war, catastrophic attack, and coercion upon which many countries base their cyber strategies and policies. Most adversary State-sponsored cyber activity occurs outside armed conflict and has not been primarily coercive in application. Instead, we have seen the persistent use of cyber operations and continuous non-coercive cyber-based exploitation of vulnerabilities organic to and inherent in cyberspace. Cyber persistence theory assumes that exploitation will continue and that a new lexicon of concepts supporting a new theoretical logic is needed to strengthen academic research and to support more effective cyber strategy and policy.

Cyber persistence theory has important policy implications. Since exploitative campaigns below armed conflict are the dominant State cyber behavior, policymakers should adopt a “campaign mindset” when they prepare, plan, and posture, and should treat cumulative effects rather than armed attack equivalence as the primary metric of consequential behavior. Emphasis on deterrence, escalation, and altering the adversary’s decision calculus to act should yield to precluding adversary options for exploitation. Domestic policy and legal frameworks should enable cyber operational persistence, agility, and initiative rather than reinforcing inaction and restraint. Operators should strive for a continuous operational tempo, exploiting targets of opportunity now rather than holding targets at risk for future contingencies. Explicit efforts to mature this competitive space through establishing norms should be complemented by tacit approaches to building mutual understandings of acceptable and unacceptable behavior that construct new customary international law.

Cyber persistence theory introduces a new logic and lexicon aligned to the empirical experience of cyber activity in international relations. The reality of State behavior and interaction in cyberspace has been quite different from the model of war and coercion upon which many countries base their cyber strategies. This unexpected reality has developed because security in and through cyberspace rests on a distinct set of features that differ from the dominant security paradigms associated with nuclear and conventional weapons environments. Cyber persistence theory posits the existence of a distinct strategic environment supporting the logic of exploitation rather than coercion. To achieve security in this cyber strategic environment, States must engage in initiative persistence, continuously setting and maintaining the conditions of security in their favor. The theory introduces the key concept of the cyber fait accompli and addresses the potential for cyber stability through a tacit bargaining process. The book provides empirical evidence of strategic cyber campaigning and details how the cyber strategic environment can impact State behavior with a case study of the United States. The cyber strategic environment requires its own theory to achieve security. Whereas security requires States to triumph in war in the conventional environment and avoid war in the nuclear environment, States in the cyber strategic environment may have a true alternative to war in order to achieve strategically relevant outcomes. Understanding how States will leverage that alternative is the central question of early twenty-first-century international security.

Security in and through cyberspace rests on a distinct definition of security that differs from the dominant security paradigms associated with nuclear and conventional weapon environments—deterrence and warfighting. Cyber persistence theory posits that a core structural feature of interconnectedness, a core condition of constant contact, and the reinforcing structural features of macro-resilience and micro-vulnerability in combination form the basis of a distinct strategic environment, one supporting the logic of exploitation rather than coercion. To achieve security in this strategic environment, States must engage in initiative persistence, continuously setting and maintaining the conditions of security in their favor, measured as the relative balance between being cyber vulnerable to exploitation and being able to exploit the cyber vulnerabilities of others. Whereas conventional security rests in the presence of war and nuclear security rests in the absence of war, cyber security rests in an alternative to war.

A multi-method approach comprising quantitative analysis, case studies, unsealed criminal indictments, open source government reporting, and cyber security industry surveys, experiments, and trend reports supports hypotheses derived from cyber persistence theory. States have built cyber infrastructure and employed it to act persistently in and through cyberspace. Exploitation through cyber faits accomplis is the dominant behavior, with illustrative case studies of China’s cyber-enabled intellectual property theft and North Korea’s sanctions circumvention demonstrating the independent strategic significance of this behavior. Direct cyber engagement outside of armed conflict is rare, but not absent. Cyber incidents between States, including rival dyads, display no escalation dynamics. Concerns that open source materials may not be representative of proprietary and classified data are allayed with two counterfactuals that demonstrate the value of cyber persistence theory prescriptions no matter the representativeness of publicly available data.

The term “revolution in warfare” refers to a pronounced change or discontinuity in warfare that radically alters the way a military operates and improves relative military effectiveness. Revolutions in warfare emerged as a subject of considerable debate in the 1990s in the wake of the United States’s resounding victory over Iraqi military forces in the Persian Gulf War. These debates highlight three different concepts: military revolution, military-technical revolution, and revolution in military affairs. During this period, the idea of an “information technology” revolution in military affairs became deeply embedded in American defense planning and evolved into a call for “transformation,” or more precisely transformational innovation. Two lines of critique have been leveled against the revolution in warfare concept and the revolutionaries themselves. The first, advanced by Stephen Biddle, claims that an RMA is not currently under way. Rather, what we are witnessing is the continuation of a century-long increase in the importance of skill in managing complexity. The second insists that the RMA as a policy direction is a risky path for the United States to pursue because it will undermine the country’s power and influence. There are also two schools of thought that explain the causes of revolutions in warfare: the “economic determinist” school and the “contingent innovation” school. A number of questions remain unanswered that need further consideration in research, such as whether the United States and its allies should continue to prepare for a “long war” against violent extremists, or whether transformation is dead.

This article examines cross-national variation in the diffusion and adoption of military technologies and ideas. The history of warfare has been marked by periods of innovation in which the institutions and practices of war-making adapted in response to technological opportunities, and social and political developments. As information about new practices spreads, through the demonstration effects of innovating states or transnational social networks, military innovations have diffused throughout the international system. Diffusion can restructure power relations as states leverage new capabilities to increase their military power and enhance their international influence.

(2003). Introduction: Security in the information technology age. Contemporary Security Policy: Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 1-12.

What makes warfare in the information age a departure from the past is that information as warfare has become as important as information in warfare. Information is no longer just a means to boost the effectiveness of lethal technologies, but opens up the possibility of non-lethal attacks that can incapacitate, defeat, deter or coerce an adversary. The information age has also expanded the domains of IW – on the battlefield, in the marketplace, and against the infrastructure of modern society – and its purveyors –individuals and private groups in addition to national militaries. Yet despite these differences, the logic of warfare remains the same – sequencing and coordinating attacks to achieve lower order technical or ‘cyber’ goals, which are part of a broader campaign to achieve higher order political, material and/or symbolic goals. Moreover, despite the leveling affect of information technology, states and state-sponsored groups will retain certain advantages in waging information warfare because a ca...

One of the most important issues facing the post-Cold War U.S. defense establishment concerns the future allocation of combat tasks and responsibilities among different branches of the armed forces. The challenge is to reduce unnecessary redundancy across roles and missions when resources are highly constrained, without compromising military effectiveness. Defining the policy problem as one of resource allocation rather than operational effectiveness, we develop a methodology for allocating roles and missions. Our methodology focuses at the highest level of force aggregation and uses a mathematical programming model to produce cross-service cross-mission trade-offs that will yield the best total force combat and non-combat potential within resource consumption constraints.

(1999). Systemic effects of military innovation and diffusion. Security Studies: Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 79-125.

(1997). Arms control in the information age. Contemporary Security Policy: Vol. 18, ARMS CONTROL New Approoaches to Theory and Policy, pp. 25-50.

(1997). The US military in uncertain times: Organizations, ambiguity, and strategic adjustment. Journal of Strategic Studies: Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 41-74.

1. Information and Revolutions in Military Affairs 2. Information Capabilities and Military Revolutions: The 19th century experience 3. Inventing the Railroad and Rifle Revolution: Information, military innovation and the rise of Germany 4. Beyond Fire and Movement: Command, control, and information in German Blitzkrieg 5. Uncharted Waters: Information in the first modern joint campaign, Norway 1940 6. Dreadnought: "The Revolution That Never Was" 7. Maritime Airpower in the Interwar Period: The information dimension 8. Information and the Air Defense Revolution

Defense planners in the United States have been captured by the notion of a revolution in military affairs (RMA), leaping ahead to embrace emerging technologies and transform how militaries go about their business. As the U.S. military develops the doctrine and organizational structures to exploit emerging technologies, U.S. strategists must pay attention to how those innovations are being adopted and adapted elsewhere. This external dimension is critical for U.S. strategy because the diffusion of military innovation undermines military preeminence. Innovation leaders do not monopolize “their” innovations for long, and are frequently surpassed by followers.1 Leadership in effecting a military revolution is no guarantee of victory. Military revolutions are typically rooted in nonmilitary processes and so impossible to steer and control. Finally, wholesale replication of the innovations may be unnecessary to challenge or degrade the leader’s capabilities.

Leslie C. Eliason, associate professor in the Graduate School of International Policy Studies (GSIPS) at the Monterey Institute for International Studies (MIIS), passed away on April 12, 2004 after a short illness. She was only 44.