Veeneman’s Digital Battlegrounds: Evolving Hybrid Kinetic Warfare does well to examine just how warfare in the modern era has evolved through employment in both conventional and non-conventional means to support military operations. Veeneman discusses the many ways cyberspace is being utilized via non-kinetic means to achieve military strategies. From disrupting infrastructure to disabling key communications, Veeneman argues that cyber attacks can be integrated to play central roles within a
conflict, and serve as an integral coordination and management tool for decision makers. Veeneman additionally uses the real world event from the Israel-Hamas war as a real-world example of how cyber attacks can be used as a precursor to a kinetic attack. In this example, pro-Iranian hacktivists conducted a series of cyber attacks in conjunction with the deadly October “surprise” attack against Israeli civilian and
military personnel. While Veeneman is clear about the practical uses for cyber attacks in warfare, he does recognize the realities of impacting civilian lives or critical infrastructure that is vital to sustaining life, thus, bringing up the significant concerns as the cyber field continues to grow and integrate into every part of life. Throughout this case analysis, I will approach this topic amongst others through the lens of a
utilitarian. While the topic of employing cyber attacks in warfare is quite nuanced, yet it is through the utilitarian mindset that I will further examine the moral and ethical dilemmas associated with cyber warfare.

In Can There Be a Just Cyber War? Michael Boylan argues that introducing cyber warfare within traditional war creates inherent problems mostly in part to cyber attacks not necessarily “fitting” the traditional concepts of war. Among his many points, I will first explore one of the major underlying concepts of proportionality. Boylan explains the concept of proportionality as one of the most difficult facets of cyber attacks; whereas in war you can conduct a battle damage assessment (as in, what was
attacked, was the target eliminated? etc.), a cyber attack can often be much harder to assess overall damage or impact due to cyber existing in a non-physical realm. One of Boylan’s most compelling points of discussion is asking what constitutes an act of war? For a cyber attacker, it would theoretically not take much to completely disrupt vital infrastructures and cause a substantial amount of harm to a population, yet would that constitute an act of war? The point Boylan aims to make is to highlight just how far behind society is to the real threat of cyber warfare. In this case, how would any nation accurately determine how much force to use in retaliation to a cyber attack? To Veeneman’s point, the morality of each cyber attack has to be evaluated individually, regardless of what the event is in response to. From a utilitarian perspective, each individual attack must be assessed to determine if the act itself would benefit the many,
or if it would be of great detriment to humanity for little gain.

Another concept brought by Boylan with direct ties to Veeneman is the difficulties of distinction military and civilian targets while conducting cyber attacks. Things such as malware can be ruthlessly efficient at spreading through networks, yet there is no distinction between a military network and a civilian network; if an injected code is targeted to disrupt a military network and is able to proliferate, then it is almost
inevitable that civilian infrastructure gets targeted as a byproduct. This creates substantial moral and ethical concerns when it comes to cyber attacks. Another problem that arises when it comes to targeting is the inability to distinguish who the enemy combatant is; whereas in traditional warfare, identifying an enemy target may be a straightforward concept; you see a base or objective, destroy it, and move on. In the realm of cyber, it is not necessarily as easy; if you target for instance an electrical plant, well the cascading impact of taking it down may reach far beyond a military objective and impact the lives of civilians who should never be the target of a military objective. This sentiment echoes Veeneman’s point towards the difficulties with implementing cyber attacks while keeping civilians safe from the impact.

From a utilitarian perspective, it is fairly simple: if the target is justified and free of possible civilian casualties, then there is a good chance it is justifiable.
Within the same argument, Taddeo’s An Analysis for a Just Cyber-Warfare continues to further analyze the significance of cyber warfare and its ability to traverse between the physical and non-physical world, which Taddeo states “cyber warfare is transversal”. In Taddeo’s analysis, Taddeo combines the theories of just war and information ethics along with the concept of the infosphere (which was previously discussed earlier within this course). Taddeo, much like Boylan and Veeneman, identifies the intricacies
of cyberwar and the need to analyze each act of cyberwarfare to determine the ethical repercussions and impact towards civilians as a direct result of either offensive or retaliatory acts. One of the major driving concepts Taddeo impresses is the concept of transversality; Taddeo defines this as an ability to “cut across” the traditional categories warfare would typically involve.

The kill chain for conventional warfare is rather simple: a physical target needs to be eliminated, therefor a weapon must be
used to cause damage that can be measured by several factors, but typically it is either effective or non- effective. Cyberwarfare, on the other hand, is substantially hard to measure; if you wanted to stop a military manufacturing facility and used a cyber attack to shut down a power plant, well it would have several cascading effects that would negatively impact towns, villages, or even cities. This makes the ethical and moral justification rather difficult, and the measuring of its effectiveness rather challenging,
bordering on impossible. Taddeo’s argument highlights how abstract cyber warfare can be, and why the need to morally evaluate the entire chain of a cyber attack is vital.
Taddeo also involves a critical concept of an infosphere throughout her analysis. The infosphere, as argued by Taddeo, involves the entire digital environment of individuals, businesses, entities, and interactions.

This is an important concept considering cyberwarfare engages the infosphere, either directly or indirectly of an attack. As mentioned previously, the taking down of a large power plant to attack a nation’s energy grid would also severely disrupt the many processes, relationships, and livelihood of people. Transversality and the infosphere are deeply related; from a utilitarian perspective, a cyberattack would only be morally justified if its end goal would produce more benefit, with minimal harm than any other alternative. The infosphere makes things much more complicated when it comes to measuring a
response or actively attacking a cyber grid. In the scenario of taking down the power plant, many things must be analyzed: Was taking down the power grid in order to stop weapons manufacturing going to measurably weaken the military’s capability? Will it actually stop future attacks or only momentarily slow them down? Does it save lives, or prevent greater destruction? On the other side, what is the measured harm to the civilian population? Were emergency services delayed or stopped as a result of the
attack? These are all things that must be accounted for. Applied to Veeneman’s argument, the transversality and infosphere must also be taken into account when any nation’s military employs cyberwarfare to any campaign.

Veeneman’s discussion of the issues with cyberattacks in war are largely justified. While conventional warfare is outlined rather well, the issue of cyberwarfare is the abstract; there are no reliable ways to ensure the actions used towards a target of a cyber attack stays localized and has no impact to anything other than its intended recipient. Overall, all of the mentioned articles push the theme of protecting the civilian population; in traditional warfare it is much more manageable than the isometric nature of cyber.
From a utilitarian perspective, any nation state looking to employ cyber attacks must follow the strict measurement of cause, effect, benefit, and adverse impacts. The ethical implications of cyberwarfare are problematic, and are difficult to measure and enforce because to do so would require a significant buy-in from people who would likely not follow suit due to the nature and obscurity of conducting cyberwarfare.
The strategic benefits must never outweigh the potential harm caused to civilians in any campaign.