Iran had attacked six water and sanitation facility systems shortly after the Coronavirus outbreak and a few weeks later Israel launched a cyberattack on Iran’s largest port called Bandar Abbas. 3 months prior to the posts Iranian railway computer systems were attacked in a cyber manner and a week prior to the post that a petrol network was attacked and caused thousands of trains to cancel their trips. Iran then attacked the Hillel Yaffe hospital in Hadera, Israel forcing the staff to work manually. In October, a cyberattack occurred that disrupted gas stations, and the attack was blamed for people being angry and creating disorder and disruption. It locked out government cards that people had used to buy fuel and left long lined outside of the stations. When motorists went to get fuel with their cards, they were greeted with a message that said, “Cyberattack 64411,” which appeared to be a phone line for the office of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Nobody had claimed responsibility publicly for that cyberattack, and there were rumors of gas price increases although they weren’t true. In this Case Analysis I will argue that contractarianism shows us that the cyberwar between Israel and Iran is just because the cyber war as a whole and their war between one another.

In Boylan’s reading, there’s a theory called the “just war theory.” It’s considered a paradigm and is about inter-state conflicts among nations. It had been stretched out since World War II and it’s no longer accurate for describing intra-state warfare as well as cyber warfare. The traditional paradigm war is thought to be a state against another state’s territory through aggressive acts with an intent to gain land, resources, or a strategic advantage. It’s performed according to rules and restraints governing ad bellum and in bello. The attacking state acts immorally because it was the one that proceeded to cause the conflict and that’s an important feature of the paradigm respecting ad bellum. When the attacking state acts aggressively with their military personnel out of their interest of “might makes right” sort of agenda, it can be referred as belligerent kraterists. Kraterists are people who adopt a theory of justice such that an exercise of power that’s successful is self-justifying. The paradigm was created many centuries ago  and principally describes warfare that’s between sovereign states that’s evolved over time from a decentralized city-oriented structure based on taxation towards more powerful armies as a titular central authority to the modern state. Under the traditional paradigm, there are 2 judgements in morality that are made about states participating in a war, a judgement about origin and a judgement about how the action is taken. War is constrained by rules that are confound the belligerent kraterist. With technology and innovation changing how war works, it’s causing a permanent alteration of the traditional paradigm in many ways significantly. Although it may seem that the technology of today allows a side to have an advantage if their tech is more powerful towards an opponent that’s more physically fit but less armed, it’s still a contest.

When analyzing the case with this theory, it seems that this seems to be like the just war theory. Israel and Iran seem to be in a contest to see which of the two states is better than the other and are just firing one after another at each other to see which one hits harder. When it comes to the way they fight, they do believe that aggression is the way to go and the “might makes right” agenda and try to make their next attack stronger after being counter attacked. Both sides seem to be belligerent kraterists and wish their power to be justified because of how they’re acting upon the situation. They seem to be starting cyberwarfare to attack on the down low, since it’s almost impossible to perform sneak attacks with tanks and most planes.

When bringing contractarianism into the analysis, I feel that the countries are attacking one another because they feel the other is attacking their morality. They feel that the other is trying to break their rules, so they’re fighting back to ensure their rules are safe and aren’t tampered with by the other side. If the other got in the hands of their social structures, they feel that their societal norms will be destroyed and the states will be left in shambles, unsure of how to live with the other’s societal norms. Their cyberwar just seems to be a fight to see who’s better, while also trying to protect their own society. Attacking hospitals and banks so the employees have to change their habits and  turning off water systems to prevent water flow for a few hours seems like an attack just for power and justification. If one of the states were to send a cyberattack that took the lives of others, I feel that the one being hit first will fight back with something harder just because it’s to protect their people and their morality. The countries are doing the things they’re doing in retaliation because they fear their morality will drop and they may lose to the other country, making everything feel lost and without hope.

In Taddeo’s reading, it’s an excerpt about cyberwarfare. It states that cyber warfare is the use of ICTs within an offensive or defensive military strategy endorsed by a state and aiming at the immediate disruption or control of the resources that belong to the enemy that’s carried within the informational environment. The agents and targets are ranging both physical and non-physical domains with varying levels of violence depending on the circumstances. The definition given goes over two important aspects of this type of warfare, those being informational nature and transversality. The informational nature is a consequence of technological artifacts devoted to elaborate, to manage, and to communicate data and information. The informational revolution is a multi-faced phenomenon and rests of the development and capillary dissemination of the use of ICTs that have a wide impact on a lot of daily practices, such as working, driving, and interacting with other people. The dissemination has important philosophical implications and the informational revolution changes the way reality is understood and recognized as. The shift towards non-physical domains provides grounding for transversality in cyberwarfare. While cyberwarfare is a complex aspect, it’s better handled when compared with traditional warfare. Cyberwarfare is different from traditional warfare because it’s not violent and destructive, it can be a computer virus that can disrupt access to a database and cause damage without violence. It doesn’t involve human beings either, just being viruses attacking databases. It’s as fearful as traditional warfare because it can escalate to violent forms of warfare if it’s done the right way. It can also attack a military aerial control system and cause a plane to crash. Transversality makes cyberwarfare appealing in ethical and political standpoints, by avoiding bloodshed and human commitment it can liberate political burdens for justifying military actions to the public. Cyberwarfare should be feared just as much as traditional because it can lead to violent and destructive consequences that could be dangerous for military and civilian societies.

If this term is used to analyze the case, it definitely feels like they’re trying to see who can cause the most damage in cyberwarfare. Attacking the hospital could’ve caused lives to be lost and that could’ve made the situation violent, due to it having a destructive consequence. They want to do as much as possible without human interaction to mess with one another with a possibility of trying to make the other choose violence and cause traditional war. If they were to try traditional warfare, things wouldn’t have been done as sneakily as they’re doing them digitally. When working on a non-physical domain, they have more creativity to work with whereas if it were traditional, they’d just be causing explosions and destroying things and probably people as well. With the way that this cyberwar is going though, it feels like they’re just going back and forth to see who can pull the harder punch.

When contractarianism is used in this sense, they’re using it as a way to fight against the rules of morality and think it feels right to perform the actions. They don’t seem to care for the consequences of their actions in cyberwar and want to see how hard their attacks can hit one another before they think of another scheme to digitally attack and watch the damage ensue. They want to try to beat a fair fight and win with the most psychological and physical damage as possible without causing any traditional warfare kind of damage. Using the train systems and hospitals for easy targets are just ways they feel would attack the societal norms and break the morality of the civilians in each country. It seems to me that they see it as a game and they both seems to want to come out on top as the better country by breaking their morale and having the other step down.

Iran and Israel just seem to be trying to bug one another until one decides to declare war traditionally. Their conflict seems to only be about trying to get the upper hand in the digital world to break the morality of the other so that they can either claim victory or make their move on the broken country with a traditional warfare styled approach. They used the hospital as a target just for a way to slow down the healing process of the civilians and they used the trains to slow down the movement of the civilians who travelled far for work and schooling. If there were any type of traditional warfare added into these plays, things could’ve gotten very violent although some of the tricks they pull out of their sleeves may also cause violent consequences. Their cyberwar seems to be a game that both want to win and the ways they’re doing it could cause serious damage if they put enough of their minds to it to possibly raise the stakes to become violent and possibly harm people. The countries seem to have this cyberwar just for power and showing one another who’s boss by performing the stronger attack digitally to cause the most damage to databases and systems to possibly annoy or cause the employees to be stuck on their work. If they were to continue this, it could end up in a drastic situation that could end in possible bloodshed and we may have another out of country war within the year.