Proceedings of the 11th European Conference on Information ...

Explaining Politico-Strategic Cyber Security: The
Feasibility <strong>of</strong> Applying Arms Race Theory
Eli Jellenc
Verisign (iDefense Security Intelligence), London, UK
Abstract: This paper applies existing <strong>the</strong>ories <strong>of</strong> arms races to explain key
problems <strong>of</strong> cyber security among nation-states. The motivating empirical
problem (on which current <strong>the</strong>oretic approaches exhibit no grasp) is <strong>the</strong>
rapid and pervasive increase in cyber security preparations and malicious
activity in a politico-strategic context. Moreover, policy debates concerning
cyber security are fragmented, <strong>of</strong>ten incoherent, and lack consensus on
how even to judge <strong>the</strong> effectiveness <strong>of</strong> policies relative to problems. Primarily
to blame for such confusion is <strong>the</strong> absence <strong>of</strong> a common, tested
conceptual framework. To date, nei<strong>the</strong>r scholars, nor policymakers, nor
industry pr<strong>of</strong>essionals have succeeded in deriving robust <strong>the</strong>oretic approaches
to unify various islands <strong>of</strong> useful empirical research on <strong>the</strong> geopolitics
<strong>of</strong> cyber security. However, such <strong>the</strong>oretic models and approaches
are not only available, but show promise for adaptation to specific cyber
security problems. Cyber security is a new and complex class <strong>of</strong> issues, but
it is, in <strong>the</strong> end, technologically mediated social behavior, and as such, it
can be fruitfully studied as such. The increasing significance <strong>of</strong> cyber security
to <strong>the</strong> international system makes such inquiry necessary to help inform
<strong>the</strong> behavior <strong>of</strong> states, firms, and o<strong>the</strong>r stakeholders. The research
effort summarized here hypo<strong>the</strong>sizes that a cyber arms race is indeed underway,
and all available findings provide no significant disconfirming challenge.
In fact, <strong>the</strong> approaches to cyber security by <strong>the</strong> world’s major powers
(and many minor ones) indeed exhibit all <strong>the</strong> features <strong>of</strong> a novel, multilateral
arms race <strong>of</strong> hi<strong>the</strong>rto unseen complexity: a global cyber arms race.
Moreover it is improbable that anything short <strong>of</strong> revolutionary legal or
diplomatic initiatives will prevent severe, near-term increases in cyber conflict
activity. More generally, this research shows how existing <strong>the</strong>oretical
work in political science, sociology, and communications <strong>the</strong>ory can lend
new rigor to <strong>the</strong> study <strong>of</strong> cyber security as a geopolitical issue.
Keywords: cyber warfare, cyber conflict, cyber espionage, cyber security
governance, arms races, social science <strong>the</strong>ory
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