Biblio

In NATO, an attack on one is an attack on all. In recent years, this tenet has been extended to mean that a cyberattack on one is a cyberattack on all. But does what makes sense in the physical world also make sense if extended into cyberspace? And if there is virtue in collective cyberspace defense, is NATO necessarily the right grouping - in a world where, as far as the United States and the United Kingdom are concerned, more of what constitutes cyber defense circulates within the Five Eyes coalition rather than within NATO? To explore these issues, this essay moots the creation of a Baltic-area cyberspace alliance, considers what it would do, assesses its costs and benefits for its members, and concludes by considering whether such an alliance would be also be in the interest of the U.S. Keys to this discussion are (1) the distinction between what constitutes an “attack” in a medium where occupation may result and actions in media where occupation is (currently) meaningless and effects almost always reversible, (2) what collective defense should mean in cyberspace - and where responsibilities may be best discharged within the mix of hardness, pre-emption, and deterrence that constitute defense, (3) the relationship between cyberspace defense and information warfare defense, and (4) the relevance to alliance formation of the fact that while war is dull, dirty, and dangerous, cyber war is none of these three.