Cyber ​​warfare has never been so dangerous

If the United States, for example, were attacked by an enemy of uncertain identity, one might think that it would be better don’t react at all. But this is one losing strategy. If the idea spread that President Joe Biden is not responding to the attacks, the United States would run the risk of suffering even more clandestine and difficult to attribute offensives.

Researchers they study this problem applying the game theory, the science of strategy. If you’ve ever played poker, the logic is intuitive: it doesn’t make sense to bluff and never call, but neither does it make sense to bluff and always call. Both strategies would be predictable and very expensive. The right move, however, is to call and bluff every now and againand do it unpredictably.

In the context of cyberattacks, uncertainty about the identity of the attacker pushes adversaries in a similar direction. The United States they should not react at every opportunity (because this would make them appear weak) and not always respond (because the consequences would involve too many innocent people). The best strategy is to to react some timein a somewhat unpredictable way, even if you risk responding to the wrong enemy.

The same logic drives potential attackers. For these actors to know that the United States will not retaliate to every offensive – and that it may even punish the wrong country – create an incentive to take greater risks on the front of cyber attacks, which they would not be willing to take in the case of a missile offensive.

A difficult historical passage

Even though these risks have been present for decades now, 2023 will be a different year in two respects. First, of course, theinvasion of Ukraine on Russia’s side, a large-scale and protracted conflict on the Russia-NATO border, in which the US and Western Europe actively support one side (in what for Russia may increasingly look like a proxy war). The world hasn’t been this close to a major-power war in decades.

To this are added the growing tensions between the United States and China. behind theinsistent rhetoric and growing nationalistic sentiment of China, American provocations and Chinese naval maneuvers hide a worrying aspect: for the first time ever, Chinese military investments indicate that the country is able to face the West in the South China Sea. Many experts predict a Chinese invasion of Taiwan in the next decade.

2023 will be a extremely delicate historical passage. What if the Iranian Revolutionary Guard or Kim Jong Un decide it is in their interest to launch an attack posing as China? What if extremist factions in the US or Chinese military decide to launch a provocative attack? Any misstep could lead to an escalationagainst adversaries equipped with nuclear weapons. And unlike previous decades, all sides have a new and dangerous tool – that of cyber warfare – which it further complicates the normal pursuit of peace.

This contribution originally appeared on Wired UK.