Cyberwarfare, Populism and a Multi-Polar World: Cyber False Flags
False flags have always been a popular way to deflect responsibility for starting a conflict or to drag an ally into war, I will focus on the later here.
I am going to outline a hypothetical scenario that draws on current and historical events to outline the potency that cyber operations could add to a false flag operation designed to draw an ally into war.
The actor in this scenario will be Israel and their aim will be to draw the US into a conflict with Iran with the goal of destroying Iran’s nuclear assets. The Israelis have decided that a direct cyber attack on Iran like Stuxnet will only slow them down and direct military intervention is required, opinion on targeted assassination has drawn too much negative press worldwide in the past and is likely to push the US public against intervention in Iran. They decide on using a a false flag operation along the lines of Operation Susannah hoping to elicit a US reaction not unlike the one to the 9/11 attacks, with a populist like Trump in the White House a strong US reaction is assured. The downside is that if the operation fails and the plot is uncovered then Israel will be hit with crippling economic sanctions at the very least and may even have it’s own nuclear program come under scrutiny.
In this type of situation a cyber operation is ideal. There is no need to have Israeli assets on the ground in the US, there is a high degree of deniability and while it would be difficult to secure an Iranian missile, Iranian cyber assets are out there in the wild ready to be re-purposed and launched against a US target. Couple this with a classical false flag against an Israeli target such as a bombing against a military or civilian target enabling an Israeli “counter” strike immediately and then claiming to be acting as a defender of the US as well as defending themselves the chances of the US attributing the source of the attack to Israel successfully are low. It can even be argued that in the current political climate if the attack were attributed to the Israelis as long as there was enough doubt that can be fed to the media then Republican establishment might still side with Israel.
Because of the relative ease of acquiring another nations cyber assets (e.g. the Vault 7 leak) versus getting a hold of a cruise missile or a tank combined with the ability to hit soft high-value targets on the other side of the world I foresee this type of operation becoming popular with small states and non-state actors. The chances of this occurring is also increasing with the upswing in populism including Trump in the US, Xi in China and Salvini in Italy among others.
I will end this post with a question: If a South-Korean looking cyber weapon caused the failure of a Chinese dam killing thousands and a North Korean military post is destroyed would Xi Jinping prevent Kim Jong-Un attacking the south? Would the Chinese population force Xi to attack?
