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Cyber Threat in Interstate Relations: Case of US-Russia Cyber Tensions
Abstract
The 20 th century was overshadowed by conventional military threats, whereas the 21 st century has witnessed the preeminence of non-conventional security threats, including terrorism, transnational crime, civil wars, environmental degeneration and information/cyber insecurity.
Among these, cyber threat is the most advanced, complicated and ungoverned in the realm of interstate relations in view of technological advancement, lawlessness of cyberspace and widening scope of the arena. Thanks to globalization, advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) are diffusing across societies and internet is becoming a universal and prominent phenomenon. This necessitates increased dependence of today's society on ICTs as micro to macro level governance tends to rapidly shift into digital form. Consequently, the domain of this digital world—cyber space—constitutes an essential element of states' operational activities in social, economic, political and military arenas. Given the positive-negative use of technology, cyberspace provides opportunities to improve and facilitate human life, but simultaneously poses serious threats to both individual and national security. Cyber threats range from non-kinetic such as cybercrime, espionage, hacking and information propaganda to kinetic, viz. cyber warfare. The focus of this article is two-fold. First, it explains the degree of seriousness of cyber threat in interstate relations. Second, it illustrates the impact of alleged Russian cyber intrusion into the US electoral system on US-Russia relations, and zeroes in on the underlying cyber issues between them.
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References
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