Counter Cyber Reflections

The progression of Russian military cyber capability, increasing complexity and frequency of malicious cyber action, and the threat to civilian populous through cyber effects on both military and civilian architectures garners increased attention by the NATO Alliance. NATO must doctrinally change their approach to cyberspace operations in order to effectively posture forces against Russian threats in this domain. While NATO maintains a focus on information sharing and promoting cybersecurity practice in the civilian sector, NATO must adopt an active defensive posture that can project cyber effects to stop them at their source. Additionally, NATO must also be prepared to actively defend critical national infrastructure, augmenting passive cybersecurity and cyber-hygiene measures which won’t, by themselves, defend against advanced national actors. Lastly, NATO and the EU must continue to cooperate in development of legal frameworks that balance the national sovereignty of cyberspace networks while still allowing asymmetric military advantage via execution of cyberspace operations in grey space.