Citation[]
Benjamin M. Jensen, Brandon Valeriano Cardiff & Ryan C. Maness, Cyber Compellence: Applying Coercion in the Information Age (Apr. 25, 2017) (full-text).
Overview[]
The paper reviews how state actors applied cyber instruments to coerce adversaries between 2000 to 2014 differentiating between cyber disruption, espionage, and degradation. Cyber disruption and espionage methods seem to achieve their goals of gathering intelligence and signaling through harassment, but do not result in an observable behavioral change in the target in the near-term. Only on limited occasion, usually associated with U.S. activity in cyberspace, does cyber coercion, often in the form of degradation, result in concessions. The idea of quick victory in the cyber domain remains elusive.