Cyber conflict as “not war”

In 2012, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta drew the attention of the world—or, at least, of Western defense communities—when he claimed in a speech that the one of the biggest threats faced by the United States was that of a “cyber Pearl Harbor.” ¹ In saying this, he implied that a catastrophic and unpredicted cyber assault on the country could dramatically harm national function, potentially as part of a broader set of conflict actions taken by a foreign adversary. According to his speech, designed to highlight shortcomings in Western approaches to cyber-security at the national level, there is significant potential that a cyberwar scenario will play out in the real world in the foreseeable future.