Observing the unobservable: Wargaming cyber deterrence

As the world becomes increasingly reliant on interconnected digital infrastructure, the urgency to understand and manage cyber conflict increases. Policy-makers have long sought to translate concepts used in the nuclear and conventional domains to state competition in the cyber domain—not least whether the concept of deterrence that underpins the nuclear realm travels. Unfortunately, analysts face two difficult challenges associated with analyzing cyber deterrence. First, using the historical record for empirical data, scholars are only able to observe deterrence failure—with no guarantee that the observed instances of deterrence failure represent a complete set. Second, the “cyber” domain is interminably difficult to both analyze and model—with similar selection effects associated with which types of cyber attacks are detected. As evidenced by our study leveraging a new experimental wargame, TANTALUS, wargaming methods can solve some of these challenges. The piece contributes to a burning and policy-relevant research question, finding that while cyber threats are just as likely to be used as their nuclear counterparts, they are less likely to induce deterrence effects.