Is Virtual Conflict More Hype Than Reality?

Cyberwar games at West Point with Lt. Col. Robert Fanelli, left, Cadets Nathan Larsen, Mark Evinger, seated, and Marc Abbott. Michael Falco for The New York Times

Think Again: Cyberwar -- Thomas Rid, Foreign Policy

Don't fear the digital bogeyman. Virtual conflict is still more hype than reality.

"Cyberwar Is Already Upon Us."

No way. "Cyberwar is coming!" John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt predicted in a celebrated Rand paper back in 1993. Since then, it seems to have arrived -- at least by the account of the U.S. military establishment, which is busy competing over who should get what share of the fight. Cyberspace is "a domain in which the Air Force flies and fights," Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne claimed in 2006. By 2012, William J. Lynn III, the deputy defense secretary at the time, was writing that cyberwar is "just as critical to military operations as land, sea, air, and space." In January, the Defense Department vowed to equip the U.S. armed forces for "conducting a combined arms campaign across all domains -- land, air, maritime, space, and cyberspace." Meanwhile, growing piles of books and articles explore the threats of cyberwarfare, cyberterrorism, and how to survive them.

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My Comment: Is cyberwar more hype than reality .... hmmmmm .... tell that to the Iranians.