Last month, Microsoft published a report on the emerging lessons from the “cyber war” in Ukraine. It provides a rich storyline and a number of historical analogies and, in emphasizing the significance of the war’s cyber dimension, it falls firmly in line with commentary from many tech sector experts and government professionals. For example, Tom Burt, a Microsoft executive himself, described the conflict as a “full-scale cyberwar.” In an interview with the Washington Post, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Estonia’s former president, warned that Russia might yet launch a significant cyberattack (even if, to date, one has not occurred). Further, the US government is steadily issuing warnings to the private sector, encouraging corporations to keep their “shields up” (a slogan created by Jen Easterly, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency). Abroad, the warnings are also dire, with the Danish defense minister, Morten Bødskov, noting that “the cyber threat is constant and evolving. Cyberattacks can do great damage to our critical infrastructure, with fatal consequences.”

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The United Kingdom’s position on sovereignty has limited progress in working toward state consensus on prohibited behaviors in cyberspace. By electing to treat sovereignty as a principle rather than as a substantive rule, the U.K. maintains that violations of sovereignty do not, on their own, constitute violations of international law. This position touched off the well-known debate surrounding sovereignty, with most states rejecting the U.K.’s position and concluding that a violation of sovereignty in fact violates a state’s international law obligations.

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Imagine the following scenarios: An explosive device, an enemy fighter jet and a group of rebels are misidentified as a cardboard box, an eagle or a sheep herd. A lethal autonomous weapons system misidentifies friendly combat vehicles as enemy combat vehicles. Satellite images of a group of students in a schoolyard are misinterpreted as moving tanks. In any of these situations, the consequences of taking action are extremely frightening. This is the crux of the emerging field of adversarial machine learning.

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When, in an expansionist mood, Russia embarked on an ill-judged war of territorial conquest against its neighbor, it did so with a grandiose sense of its conquering power. Russia’s leader, who ruled nearly as an absolute monarch and held his counterpart next door in contempt, believed that his country’s interests were threatened, that Russia deserved more influence and respect. He had envisioned a scenario in which his enemy would yield quickly in the face of overwhelming odds and accede to Russian territorial demands.

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HammerCon 2022, the first National Convention of the Military Cyber Professionals Association (MCPA) featured a panel focused on the state of the cyber career fields within each military service. The event was held on 19 May 2022 in Laurel, Maryland. HammerCon.org

The panel, moderated by US Navy Captain James Caroland (former Editor in Chief of the MCPA's Cyber Magazine), included representatives from the US Army (Colonel Todd Arnold), US Navy (Captain Will Tirrell), US Air Force (Colonel Carlos Alford), US Marine Corps (Lieutenant Colonel Tony Siciliano), US Coast Guard (Commander Michael Chien), and US Space Force (Colonel Joe Wingo).

The MCPA is a volunteer-fueled 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit charity that serves the functions of a regimental association for the military cyber community including providing publications, events, and medals. Please donate to support the cause at https://public.milcyber.org/donate or join (if eligible).

Speaker's remarks should be considered their own opinions and do not necessarily reflect that of any other entity.

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Amanda Draeger (Sergeant Major of The Army Cyber Institute at West Point) presents "Talent Management is More Than Money" at HammerCon 2022, the first National Convention of the Military Cyber Professionals Association (MCPA). https://cyber.army.mil/

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“Americans have not yet grappled with just how profoundly the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution will impact our economy, national security, and welfare.”

That’s how former Google chairman Eric Schmidt and former Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work, the chair and vice chair of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI), opened their letter introducing the commission’s final report, released last year. Despite regular news stories about how various government entities are endeavoring to include AI and other technologies into their existing operations, the military is in a similar place to the rest of American society. Recently, two scholars working with the military on AI, Brandon Leshchinskiy and Andrew Bowne, said total cultural change was necessary for the military to embrace future warfare. They specifically argued that the military could not continue to apply incremental fixes to a problem that required greater creativity. At the heart of the new and creative solutions this challenge requires is managing talent.

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Russia’s war in Ukraine, now nearing its 10-week mark, has been devastating, killing thousands of civilians and forcing millions to flee their homes. Thus far, this devastation has been wrought primarily by conventional military means, without Moscow launching the “full-scale cyber assault” or “cybergeddon-scale attacks” feared early on. As various authors have pointed out, “Ukrainian air defense and aircraft didn’t appear to be affected by cyber disruptions, and there are no reports of critical infrastructure damage from cyberattacks”; “Ukraine’s electricity grid, its communications systems and other infrastructure are still largely up. Its president is streaming from his government office.” Why?

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After two decades of low-intensity conflict defined by technological overmatch and asymmetric warfare, the US military has adopted a new term of art: JADC2. Joint All-Domain Command and Control is the theoretically simple (and practically complicated) idea of linking everything to everything else, at all times, and using artificial intelligence to achieve information advantage and decision dominance in conflict. Essentially, in concept, all US military sensors would be connected to all shooters and weapons platforms, across all the services, and in all domains to empower decisive victory in a future multi-domain conflict. Despite sounding impressive and promising complete interoperability, there is little evidence that JADC2 can achieve its stated goals, or that the underlying technologies will be resilient in combat. More critically, there is (or should be) concern that JADC2’s drawbacks could make the system more of a liability than an advantage—especially if US military doctrine and strategic planning do not evolve in parallel with the technology’s employment.

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President Joe Biden has issued grave warnings that Russia might launch a cyberattack against the United States in retaliation for the punishing sanctions levied after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. He’s advised American companies to "accelerate efforts to lock their digital doors," and many officials expect an attack against critical U.S. infrastructure to be inevitable.

One way Biden and other Western leaders are attempting to deter potential Russian cyber retaliation during the Ukraine crisis is through NATO’s Article 5 collective defense pledge — that an attack on one is an attack against all. That’s because since the 2014 NATO summit in Wales (which, coincidentally, took place following another Russia-Ukraine crisis), the alliance has affirmed that Article 5 extends to cyberspace. In other words, a cyberattack against any NATO member could conceivably represent an attack against the entire alliance. The pledge is the embodiment of the allies’ security guarantee to each other and the beating heart of NATO.

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