Ethics, Cybersecurity and the Military

Abstract

In this paper I examine the issue of cybersecurity in the context of the conventionally understood ends of the military. I start out by demonstrating that the use of military capabilities to deal with cyberthreats creates a number of headaches for conventional ethical approaches to conflict, especially just war theory. I describe a number of cases that give us cause to question the validity of cyberweapons as a legitimate military capability. And I argue that the current development of cyberweapons, and their emerging use, is a significant challenge for conventional military ethics. Then I describe three specific moral problems for the military when it comes to using cyberweapons. First is the ‘threshold’ problem which is the concern that cyber weapons will lower the threshold for resorting to war. Second is the ‘collateral harm’ problem which is the concern that cyberweapons increase the likelihood of civilians being deliberately targeted and/or becoming victims of disproportionate attacks on dual-use infrastructure. Third is the ‘accountability’ problem because of the difficulty of holding accountable military personnel or their governments for the use or misuse of a weapons system. Next I argue that conceptions of the military as an institution whose sole purpose is to ‘kill people and break things’ acts to compound the moral problems as I outline them above. This approach fails to acknowledge the necessary peacetime role played by military capabilities, gives insufficient ethical guidance for the use of these capabilities in non-war contexts and increases the risk of unnecessary collateral harm. Consequently, I suggest that the purpose of the military should be conceived more broadly. I argue that the conventional conception of the military as merely a ‘blunt instrument’ of the state whose sole purpose is to engage in hostile force against belligerents during war is too narrow in scope. I conclude by arguing that the military have a responsibility to protect and preserve the “life” of the political community it serves. I argue that the central aims for using the military’s ‘cyber-capabilities’ should be revised toward that end. I then highlight the types of cyberthreats to which this applies in order to shed light on the permissibility and obligations on the military when dealing with issues of cybersecurity.