Читать книгу Russian Cyber Operations - Scott Jasper - Страница 23

Asymmetric approaches can generate significant advantage over a stronger power by leveraging vulnerabilities that are either overlooked or tolerated.¹ A 2018 report for the United States Senate noted that cyber operations are a prominent tool in the Kremlin’s asymmetric arsenal, which includes military invasions and other nonmilitary methods, such as organized crime, disinformation, corruption, and energy coercion.² The Kremlin has refined the role and use of asymmetric tools over time while increasing the production and deployment of formidable conventional and nuclear forces. In December 2015, President Putin approved a new National Security Strategy for his country. It declares that “one of the country’s fundamental long-term interests” is consolidating “Russia’s status as one of the world’s great powers.”³ The notion of great power status is a key component of Russian national identity and one that it appears impossible to relinquish.⁴ Therefore, the regime appears intent on using all means and measures, military and nonmilitary, at its disposal to achieve this status. In an energy-dependent economy constrained by Western sanctions and volatile oil prices, cyber operations are not a burden in macroeconomic terms.⁵ They are also not manpower intensive—ideal for Russia, which faces a shrinking population.⁶

In military operations, the term asymmetric infers “the application of dissimilar strategies, tactics, capabilities, and methods to circumvent or negate an opponent’s strengths while exploiting his weaknesses.”⁷ For Russia, that opponent is the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The latest Russian National Security Strategy asserts that “the U.S. and its allies are seeking to contain Russia in order to maintain their dominance of world affairs, which Russia’s independent foreign policy challenges.”⁸ In response, an asymmetric approach permeates Russian military doctrine and the state armament program to execute it. To support great power ambitions, Moscow has prioritized the building of a robust military to project power and add credibility to Russian diplomacy.⁹ The result is visible posturing of the Russian military near NATO borders that alarms force commanders and foreign ministers.¹⁰ While Russia uses its military to overawe and misdirect the West, the country is in no position to wage a real conflict.¹¹ Instead, Russia prefers to test the thresholds of armed conflict, using cyber operations and other ambiguous means in its asymmetric arsenal in continual “day-to-day” competition with the United States and its allies.¹²

Two significant early incidents signaled Russian preference for cyber operations. The first occurred in Estonia in 2007, where they were used in an independent manner in a political dispute. The second happened in Georgia in 2008, where they were integrated “into a kinetic battle, not as a standalone effect, but rather as a force multiplier.”¹³ Russian cyber operations for denial of service in Georgia were familiar in tactics and methods to their application the year prior in Estonia. The only difference was that in Estonia they served as a form of coercion, while in Georgia they acted as a component of warfare. This chapter will describe how cyber operations fit into Russian national strategy and military doctrine. It will then evaluate the role and use of Russian cyber operations in the virtual protests in Estonia and in the state conflict in Georgia. The chapter will conclude with trends in Russian investments in asymmetric weapons, which indicate that cyber operations will remain prominent in Russian strategy and doctrine.