Chapter 4 Cyberconflict: Stakes of Power ¹

Strategies pursue objectives which cannot be fulfilled without a prior consideration of space, the actors, the interactions which might take place between them and the targets. The characteristics of the chosen space where the actors imagine their operations to be carried out condition the choice of these actors, the ways in which they carry out their actions and the feasibility of their projects. In cyberspace, it is indeed through cyberattacks and cyberdefense that such interactions will be implemented and the targets aimed. These are the two essential methods which will be used to reach the assigned objectives. Through battles led in cyberspace, States follow their quest for power or reconnaissance. But cyberspace cannot be controlled so easily: the rules are not entirely the same as those which reign in physical, conventional dimensions. When key concepts such as distance, time and proof tend to be eliminated, then the rules of the game can no longer be entirely identical. Cyberspace, then, slightly changes international relations, geopolitics and geostrategies, and the power struggles between different States on not just regional, but a global scale. In this chapter, we will be exploring the space of the conflict (cyberspace), the actors we can position there, the actions we might lead there, the targets we might aim there, and the approaches to power struggles between the actors.