RETHINKING CYBER WARFARE: TIMELESS, NORMLESS AND UNCONSTRAINED

Abstract

Improvements in cybernetics have made likely far reaching shifts in all areas of life. Thus, the scientific-technological developments after 1950s gave rise to “the information revolution” from which national security has quite been affected as well. The rapid growth in the fields of computing created a new realm of fantasy called cyberspace. As a phenomenon, cyberspace has the potential for enormous avails and advantages as well as unpredictable risks. There are three major dimensions all associated with cyberspace: technologies, policies and disputes. In order to analyze the real damage that a hypothetical cyber-war or individual act of cyber warfare could do to the citizens of any nation coming under attack, it is fundamental to begin with some reflections which will help us reach a full understanding of the phenomenon, and its related practical implications as well as impacts. Since cyberspace comprises many complicating matters, it is a further difficulty of developing new combative techniques, tools and norms in an area that is inherently secretive. Cyber-attackers do not announce who they are and the victims may not want to admit having been vulnerable. By this view, this research will specifically examine timeless, normless and unconstrained cyber warfare by rethinking its history, content, associated emerging policies and focus on the question of national security in light of the cyberspace phenomenon.