Vanguard Magazine

E conomics became a new tool to replace traditional military means of force if peaceful rela- tions deteriorated; sanctions, preferential trade and exclu- sion from financial institutions all became methods of punishment and retaliation. With the rise of the internet, the world became further interconnected, but also more vulnerable to attack through cyber- space, as critical infrastructure, finance and access to information all have come to de- pend on online systems. Warfare came to be regarded differently, with cyber-warfare expected to be the future of conflict. Yet, Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, launching a full-on conventional war. Western countries rushed to apply economic pressure, applying sanctions, excluding Russia from the SWIFT system, payment systems and banks, cutting access to the country, banning travel and a host of other harsh conditions. Meanwhile, the internet has been flooded with real-time information on www.vanguardcanada.com APRIL/MAY 2022 31 CYBER-WAR What About Cyber-War? WHAT WE HAVE SEEN AND NOT SEEN IN THE RUSSO-UKRAINIAN WAR IT HAS WIDELY BEEN ASSUMED THAT THE WESTERN WORLD SAW THE LAST OF ITS HOT CONVENTIONAL WARS WITH THE END OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR, AS THE WORLD GREW INCREASINGLY INTEGRATED ECONOMICALLY, MAKING THIS TYPE OF CONFLICT INEFFICIENT. THE LIBERAL INTERNATIONAL ORDER ASSUMED RATIONALITY WOULD PREVAIL AND COUNTRIES WOULD CHOOSE THE ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF THESE RELATIONSHIPS OVER CONFLICT. the invasion. However, disinformation and censoring are rampant, with civilians, combatants, world leaders, governments and journalists competing to post the lat- est updates. Cyber-attacks are playing a role in the conflict, though have not been the sole or even most important aspect of the hostilities; furthermore, they are coming not just from state-sponsored or- ganizations, but non-state hacker groups and even volunteer hackers on both sides. Private sector organizations were drawn into the conflict as some chose to sus- pend services to Russia or support cyber- resiliency in Ukraine. In recent years, Russia has employed many devastating cyber-attacks against Ukraine, including on the country's electricity grid in 2015, with the virus NotPetya on the Ukrainian financial system which spread globally, and other Eastern European countries. Considering Russia's extensive history of hacking and policy of information war- fare, this raises the question: Why are we not seeing a cyber-war, and will we? BY ABBY MACDONALD What is Cyber-War? Cyber-war is a fairly contested term, and not all believe that cyber-war actually ex- ists. 1 For the most part, nation states look to international law and the rules on use of force and self-defence regarding the legality of cyber-operations. 2 The Tallinn Manual and Tallin Manual 2.0 both ana- lyze extensively the legal implications of cyber-operations in the context of interna- tional law and nation states. The popular vision of cyber-war is one in which criti- cal infrastructure, telecommunications, the internet and all connected systems are completely shut down, effectively crip- pling society. We have seen this to vary- ing degrees in the aforementioned case of Russia's attacks on countries in its neigh- bourhood, as well as on infrastructure in other countries such as the Colonial pipe- line attack in the United States, but noth- ing to such a complete extent. However, despite the increasing predic- tions of this sort of cyber-war – of which there is no broadly accepted definition – it has not made an appearance thus far. There could be many reasons for this, one of which of course is that we simply don't know it's happening; after all, it is often strategically useful in a cyber-attack to re- main undetected for as long as possible. It could also be that this simply would not meet the strategic goals of the invasion. In this case, Russia has long considered Ukraine as key to its plans for many strate- gic reasons, including territory and warm

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