Fighting in Cyberspace: Internet Access and the Substitutability of Cyber and Military Operations

Pundits debate whether conflict in cyberspace is more likely to trigger or preempt conflict in other domains. We consider a third possibility. Rather than directly complementing or substituting for traditional forms of conflict, the Internet could separately affect both virtual and kinetic dispute behavior. Specifically, we argue that a country’s increasing Internet access causes it to engage in aggressive cyberspace behavior more often. At the same time, economic and social changes associated with the information age reduce the utility of pursuing more traditional forms of conflict. Cyberspace offers an attractive domain in which to shape the balance of power, interests, and information in a technological era, while territorial conquest has become somewhat anachronistic. We test our theory using an innovative estimation approach, applied to panel data on cyber versus conventional disputes. Our findings confirm this indirect substitutability between cyber and conventional conflict.