INSTRUMENTAL CORRECTIONS FOR A DEFINITION OF CYBERWAR - Cyberwar-Netwar: Security in the Information Age - page 25

DISCUSSION OF CHAPTER 1:
INSTRUMENTAL CORRECTIONS FOR A DEFINITION OF
CYBERWAR
Prof. Serge Azarov
with contributions from Col. D. Handy, Prof. B. Heurlin, Dr. A. Erez, Capt. L. Policarpo, Prof. S. Kolobov, Dr. A.
Gabovych, Dr. M. Valente
Handy : If we are going to define a concept of cyberwar should it not be in line with
the rationale of war itself, where there is a failure of relations between two or more
nation states? If we use that as a basis, then cyberwar should be a subset. I submit that
perhaps a better term could be cyberconflicts in the sense that you have hackers, terrorists
and other non state- sponsored entities going after national or international interests.
Azarov : There are two epigraphs: the first epigraph is that the devil sits in the details
and the second one is “reality”. We have to understand this in the context of two kinds
of civilisation. We may want to avoid the main question of the development of terrorism
for religious, ethical, civil, cultural and other reasons, but following September 11 and
now in Iraq there are many terrorist acts and these stem from cultural or moral or other
reasons. If we try to study the thinking of terrorists, our first understanding can be that
they are uneducated, and that these people do not want to understand that civilians have a
role in a common culture. We cannot fight and resist this situation nor can we destroy it.
For me there are only two facts: we have to educate countries by explaining to them that
there are rules of behaviour, rules for cultural connections and so on. But unfortunately
we have no guarantee that this will be a good way of proceeding. From a point of view
of European culture and thinking, we can explain and we can hope that we can get a
common understanding through discussion, education, collaboration, etc. This is the
greatest global problem I believe of this century. Some countries do not generally want
our understanding, and I think that here it is impossible to come to a resolution of this
problem. Perhaps in the United Nations - I do not know - but here we have to
investigate the French point of view, i.e., their understanding and definition of cyberwar.
And we have to understand that cyberterrorism unfortunately is the next stage of
cyberwar.
There are two ways to understand cyberwar. Firstly, cyberwar is part of an
intelligence service and we have always to understand this. And in your countries, if I
join with you and show that I understand you and that you also understand that I could be
a threat to you, if you really understand this, you will join with me in order to protect me.
For other countries, I do not know. For me a great surprise is the Israel/Palestinian
problem. I try to understand but I cannot understand how I can help in this question. But
I know that here is a phenomenon under the name cyberwar. I have to investigate and
explain to you what it therefore means for the future, and if you feel that I am right, we
shall have a common understanding. We can provide our common thinking to our
governments and in order to do so you have to think about it very seriously.