By Gavin Wilde
Many observers saw Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine as the first case in modern history of a great power with near-peer cyber capability waging a major conventional war. Moscow’s cyber operations to disable Ukrainian satellite communications, wipe data from several of its state and civic organizations, and peddle disinformation to its public provide ample data to consider. Analysts are already trying to measure Russia’s cyber performance against prior expectations. Were they merely concurrent with kinetic strikes, or in coordination? Which operations were failures, and which were successfully executed?
A Russia-focused examination, however, must factor in the uniquely expansive way Moscow views “information warfare,” a blanket concept entailing not only cyber operations against technical infrastructure, but also adversary hearts and minds, and public perception more broadly. Moscow has long cultivated a view of information and technology that is informed in part by its own assessments of U.S. military operations. Their takeaways have historically assigned intentionality and orchestration to events far beyond the remit of U.S. capability, resulting in grand but unrealistic expectations about how information can be weaponized — both against and on behalf of the state.
Against this historical backdrop, U.S. strategists should measure Russia’s cyber performance in Ukraine by its own yardstick. Moreover, they should take lessons from Moscow’s experience, ensuring U.S. threat perceptions of, and ambitions within, the information domain are guided as much by the practical limitations therein as by the theoretical possibilities Moscow has conjured.
Prominent Russian theorists have long surmised that the scales of conflict would tilt in favor of technology and information over physical violence in the Information Age. In 1999, NATO air operations against Serbian targets were an opportunity to test these theories. Operation Allied Force, in their view, not only followed the model of “net-centric warfare” — technological connectivity enabling superior intelligence and targeting — but likely entailed the use of new, non-kinetic weapons wielded from a computer. Meanwhile, leaks to journalists in Washington about unused yet ominous NATO cyber capacity, which putatively might have neutralized Belgrade’s air defenses with but a few keystrokes, likely further fueled such suspicions. At the same time, Western narratives about the atrocities being committed by Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević and his forces dominated cable news coverage.
This piece was originally published in War on the Rocks on July 21, 2022. Read more HERE.