4.0

Average Course Rating

How, and why, do states compete in cyberspace? Scholars of war and conflict have long divided their subject into three segments: the strategic, the operational, and the technical. The most widely discussed of these, strategy, focuses on big questions like deterrence. Technical analysis is also common in specialized courses and, in a topic like cybersecurity, requires a fair amount of computer science knowledge. In contrast, with its focus on the operational dynamics at play, this course bridges the gap between strategic concepts and technical details. Over the course of the semester, we will establish a model for offensive and defensive cyber operations and introduce key terms and concepts that can be flexibly deployed to understand a wide range of incidents, actors, and pressing policy debates. We will use these models and concepts to examine how different groups of hackers performed their missions and what outcome resulted. With this solid foundation established, we will use our operational understanding to re-examine strategic ideas and policy debates like deterrence, attribution, resilience, and persistent engagement in a new and more informed light.