Cyberwars

The flawed analogy between nuclear and cyber deterrence

“If Internet security cannot be controlled, it’s not an exaggeration to say the effects could be no less than a nuclear bomb,” said General Fang Fenghui, Chief of General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army of China, in April 2013. General Fang is not alone in drawing comparisons between nuclear and cyber weapons during the past few years. Secretary of State John Kerry responded to a cyber security question during his confirmation hearings in January 2013 by saying, “I guess I would call it the 21st century nuclear weapons equivalent.” That same year, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin praised cyber weapons for their “first strike” capability. Since 2013, a number of leaders in the US national security establishment—including former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft in January 2015, Admiral Michael Rogers of Cyber Command in March 2015, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in February 2016—have stated that the threat posed by cyber weapons is comparable to, or greater than, that of nuclear weapons. The list of high-ranking officials who have made an analogy between the fundamentally different nuclear and cyber weapons systems, and are using this flawed analogy as a basis for policy, is a long one.