Thresholds in Cyberspace

Central to both the Department of Defense (DoD) Cyber Strategy and the Cyber Command Strategic Vision is an assumption that the vast majority of cyber activities will occur under a threshold of armed conflict. The 2018 Cyber Command Strategic Vision, for example, argues for a new strategy of persistent engagement to combat adversaries that "operate continuously below the threshold of armed conflict to weaken our institutions and gain strategic advantage." Meanwhile, DoD's Cyber Strategy introduced the concept of defend forward, which aims to "disrupt or halt malicious cyber activity at its source, including activity that falls below the level of armed conflict." Thresholds are therefore pivotal concepts to the effective use of DoD in U.S. cyber strategy. However, we know very little about when and why thresholds occur or persevere outside cyberspace, as well as within cyberspace itself. Schneider's analysis explores the concept of thresholds, their history within U.S. strategy, and why they are central to current DoD cyber strategy. It then covers the variables that create thresholds and explores how thresholds are created, as well as where thresholds may exist. Next, Schneider provides an overview of existing theoretical and empirical research on cyber thresholds. She concludes with recommendations about thresholds in U.S. cyber strategy as well as caveats about threshold assumptions for this strategy.

Jacquelyn Schneider is a Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution, a non-resident fellow at the Naval War College's Cyber and Innovation Policy Institute, and serves as a senior policy advisor for the Cyberspace Solarium Commission. Her research focuses on the intersection of technology, national security, and political psychology with a special interest in cybersecurity, unmanned technologies, and Northeast Asia. Schneider's work has appeared in Security Studies, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Strategic Studies Quarterly, Journal of Cybersecurity, and the Journal of Strategic Studies, and is featured in Cross Domain Deterrence: Strategy in an Era of Complexity (Oxford University Press, 2019). Her current manuscript project is The Rise of Unmanned Technologies with Julia Macdonald (upcoming, Oxford University Press). Schneider is an active member of the defense policy community and has previously held positions at the Center for a New American Security and RAND Corporation. She has degrees from Columbia University (B.A.), Arizona State University (M.A.), and George Washington University (Ph.D.).