Читать книгу Russian Cyber Operations - Scott Jasper - Страница 24

The term asymmetry in warfare denotes the use of “some sort of difference to gain an advantage over an adversary.”¹⁴ One acts, organizes, and thinks differently from opponents to maximize one’s strengths and exploit their weakness. Critical components of asymmetry are cost, means, time, will, and behavior. Asymmetric approaches are well suited for the cyber domain as cyber operations can be low cost, technically superior, and persistent over time. They are often employed by an antagonist with the will to defend its survival or vital interests. Usually the actor operates under different views on ethics or laws while demonstrating irresponsible behavior. Asymmetry in the cyber domain is often presented by scholars in the context of the offense over the defense.¹⁵ A prevailing view is that “offensive operations are low cost and have a high payoff for the offense, whereas defensive operations are expensive and ineffective.”¹⁶ Part of this assessment is based on the seemingly endless ways to exploit human and machine vulnerabilities. The attacker has to succeed only once to penetrate a system, while the defender has to install layers of security to prevent every attack vector. Gen. Joseph Votel, the commander of US Central Command, further elaborates that “the cyberspace domain provides our adversaries an asymmetric advantage where they can operate at the speed of war without bureaucratic obstacles or concern for collateral damage, and at relatively low cost.”¹⁷

Strategic theorist Everett Dolman argues that “strategy, in its simplest form, is a plan for attaining continuing advantage.”¹⁸ Advantage may take the form of material, will, and ways to employ forces to achieve aims. Professor Lukas Milevski, at the University of Leiden, asserts that strategy may be “interpreted as the generation and exploitation of asymmetry for the purposes of war.”¹⁹ His conclusion is in line with an observation by Capt. Roger W. Barnett, from the Naval War College, that “asymmetries arise if opponents enjoy greater freedom of action, or if they have weapons or techniques available to them that one does not. Perpetrators seek to void the strengths of their adversaries and to be unpredictable. They endeavor to take advantage of an ability to follow certain courses of action or to employ methods that can be neither anticipated nor countered effectively.”²⁰ Milevski argues this statement could be conceived as the “very essence of strategy.”²¹ He points out that famed military theorist Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart focused his strategic theories “on the indirect approach to create situations in which the enemy would be utterly helpless.”²² Russia continues to employ strategies designed to render the enemy hopeless and gain its surrender without undue bloodshed.

The Russian General Staff has “systematically explored the role of asymmetry in modern warfare, learned lessons from historical evidence worldwide, followed Western discourse on the subject, and generated insights from the benefits of the military theory and practice.”²³ The result of this exploration is evident in the observation by Andreas Jacobs and Guillaume Lasconjarias, at the NATO Defense College, that “Russia has developed the ability to employ non-linear and asymmetric tactics, in place of—or alongside—conventional means of warfare.”²⁴ Diego A. Ruiz Palmer, of the NATO International Staff, argues that what makes Russia’s use of asymmetric tactics and techniques different than other weaker opponents “is its scale.”²⁵ He claims that Russia has the “strategic capacity to use a mix of hard and soft power instruments to isolate and coerce weaker neighbors, while intimidating and deterring more distant, but also more capable, opponents.” Furthermore, Palmer states that Russia will apply hard and soft power “in ways that maximize asymmetric advantages for Russia, as well as minimize risks and costs.”²⁶ In an asymmetric approach, advanced technologies for military functions offer decisive advantage in the context of hostilities, while other advances in technologies for computer hacking aim to attain political advantage short of conflict.