Emergence of Cyberwar Game Theory
Guy-Philippe Goldstein is a French management consultant with an MBA from Northwestern University. He is the author of Babel Minute Zero, a novel analyzing and discussing the reality of cyberwar in our current geopolitical topography. In a TEDxParis lecture Goldstein explains how cyberattacks, although digital, prompt armed conflicts in the physical world and present significant global security hazards. Game theory principles are applied in his TED talk to convey the advantages of the attacker in this new-world warfare.
News headlines over the past year have been flooded with stories of hackers infiltrating corporations including Sony and Lockheed Martin. A particular example – involving China and the United States regarding cyberattacks against the American company Google – brings into focus the growing anxiety over the developing warfare in cyberspace because of its potential to wreak international political havoc. These massive digital conflicts could turn into armed struggles with physical consequences.
Goldstein raises two issues with cyberwar conflicts: First, there is no way to distinguish between an offensive and a defensive cyberwar unit. For four years, the U.S. and France both have been openly investing militarily in cyberspace, apparently only to defend their IT systems. However, today both countries say the best defense is to attack. The second issue Goldstein raises is a peculiar feature of cyberweapons: they can be used without leaving a trace. Because the enemy is unidentifiable, the attacker gains a tremendous advantage. Retaliation by the defender is a huge risk because a misdirected attack may result in the addition of an enemy and/or becoming diplomatically isolated.
Goldstein cites Professor Robert Jervis of Columbia University to describe a game theory model of applicable to cyberwarfare. The model predicts four possible worlds considering the following variables in potential warfare:
-Offensive advantage
-Defensive advantage
-Offense/Defensive posture indistinguishable
-Offense/Defensive posture clear
In the case of cyberwarfare, we pair the variables of offensive, or attacker, advantage and an unclear offensive or defensive stance. This yields a world that is “doubly dangerous,” as shown in the game theory diagram below:
Jervis says this is the worst of the status-quo states. Because the offense has the advantage over the defense, attacking is the dominant strategy to protect oneself. This yields an unstable situation, or no equilibrium, where arms races are bound to develop.
The situation described above, paired with the present day emergence of many world superpowers gives rise to what Nobel Prize laureate Thomas Schelling calls the “reciprocal fear of surprise attack.” Simply put, this explains the game theory logic of a cyberwar scenario: if one does not know if an attack is impending or not, one should attack and strike first. The option to attack becomes the dominant strategy.
The cyberwarfare scenario is eminent in our world today; the U.S. government has devoted 30 billion dollars over the next five years to develop their cyberwar capabilities. To close, Goldstein explains cyberweapons don’t replace conventional warfare, rather they add a new layer to the existing system of terror. Commander of the U.S. nuclear forces General Kevin Chilton stated “In the event of cyberattacks against the U.S., all options would be on the table.”
Goldstein lecture: http://www.ted.com/talks/guy_philippe_goldstein_how_cyberattacks_threaten_real_world_peace.html
Jervis paper: http://www.personal.psu.edu/jam811/ROOT/OLD%20HOST/School%20Work%20SPR08/Jervis_security_dilemma.pdf
[…] “How cyberattacks threaten real-world peace” TEDxParis talk (a quick summary of which you can read here), Guy-Philippe Goldstein presented the following 1978 model by Rober Jervis in “Cooperation […]