Cyberspace: The New Battlefield - An Approach via the Analytics Hierarchy Process

The transition of the warfare mentality from the conventional domains of engagement (air, land, maritime, and space) to the cyberspace domain has not been an easy one for established organizations and institutions. The battlefield, in which now speed and stealth instead of size and budget are the determining factors that provide an edge have not well for many, especially those in the military. Now they do not clearly dictate who amongst combatants have the ‘upper hand' and represent a significant paradigm shift from factors that were very good predictors of a potential outcome of military conflicts. The battles of the past were largely over territories and resources (Landscape Metrics, 2015). We see outcomes now being influenced by a broader range of factors, including politics, culture, economy, religion, and ethnicity. These new ‘pivot points' for conflict require a very different understanding and approach to achieve desired outcomes. Technology continues to be the main enabler that has transformed the battlefield and the rules of engagement from the conventional domains to cyberspace. The issue of attribution has been a huge differentiator and looms very large in cyberspace conflicts because it is very difficult to determine within a sufficient timeframe the source of an attack and to be able to respond to or prevent attacks. Now conflicts have expanded in such a way that combatants now cross all prospective levels of society from targets to attackers or perpetrators. The low cost required to provide significant damage to a desired target environment in cyberspace has been a game changer. As a result, the rules of engagement which were much clearer in conventional domains on military fronts are much more blurred due to the new realm of combatants, and as such, has changed many of the approaches and methodologies that were standard practices in traditional campaigns. In this paper, we focus on cyber conflicts and how the cultural differences of these three communities have plagued the ability to achieve a simple and coherent response against attackers and perpetrators. We pursue the relevance of trust and deterrence and their influence on ‘warfare' tactics in the cyberspace domain. We also look at culture and the ‘new norm' and how they have required consideration of new and unconventional approaches. We see how data can better inform decision makers and those responsible for designing and implementing campaigns in this new era of conflict. Our results indicate the need for a different model to work through the differences in culture if better are to be obtained by the combatants. In addition, we see that an approach that includes cyber deterrence framed in the context of active defense provides optimism on future outcomes.