Making Strategic Sense of Cyber Power: Why the Sky Is Not Falling

Gray, Colin S.

ISBN 10: 158487564X / ISBN 13: 9781584875642

Published by U. S. Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute/Army War College Press, Carlisle, PA, 2013

About this Item

xi, [1], 67, [1] p. Endnotes. From an on-line posting: "Cyber is now recognized as an operational domain, but the theory that should explain it strategically is very largely missing. As the military establishment accepted the revolution in military affairs as the big organizing idea of the 1990s, then moved on to transformation in the early-2000s, so the third really big idea of the post-Cold War Era began to secure traction cyber. However, it is one thing to know how to digitize; it is quite another to understand what digitization means strategically. With respect to cyber power, Dr. Colin Gray poses and seeks to answer the most basic of the strategist s questions, So what? Dr. Colin S. Gray is Professor of International Politics and Strategic Studies at the University of Reading, England. Dr. Gray served for 5 years in the Ronald Reagan administration on the President s General Advisory Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament. A dual citizen of the United States and UK, he has served as an adviser to both the U.S. and British governments. His government work has included studies of nuclear strategy, arms control, maritime strategy, space strategy, and special forces." Very good. No dust jacket. Cover has slight wear and soiling.

Seller Inventory # 70709

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Making Strategic Sense of Cyber Power: Why the Sky Is Not Falling
• Publisher: U. S. Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute/Army War College Press, Carlisle, PA
• Publication Date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 158487564X
• ISBN 13: 9781584875642
• Binding: Wraps
• Edition: Presumed first edition/first printing.
• Seller catalogs:
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  • Counterinsurgency

About this title

Synopsis

Cyber is now recognized as an operational domain, but the theory that should explain it strategically is, for the most part, missing. It is one thing to know how to digitize; it is quite another to understand what digitization means strategically. The author maintains that, although the technical and tactical literature on cyber is abundant, strategic theoretical treatment is poor. He offers four (1) cyber power will prove useful as an enabler of joint military operationsl; (2) cyber offense is likely to achieve some success, and the harm we suffer is most unlikely to be close to lethally damaging; (3) cyber power is only information and only one way in which we collect, store, and transmit information; and (4) it is clear enough today that the sky is not falling because of cyber peril. As a constructed environment, cyberspace is very much what we choose to make it.