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Technology, Policy, Law, and Ethics Regarding U.S. Acquisition and Use of Cyberattack Capabilities (2009) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix D: Views on the Use of Force in Cyberspace
Pages 356-359

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From page 356...
... to death (e.g., shutting down power to a hospital with no backup generators) ." Thus, for example, Schmitt argued that "CNA specifically intended to directly cause physical damage to tangible property or injury or death to human beings is reasonably characterized as a use of armed force," and so "pipeline destruction and the shutting of power to the hospital are examples of CNA which the actor knows can, and intends to, directly cause destruction and serious injury." He further noted that "armed coercion  Michael Schmitt, "Computer Network Attack and the Use of Force in International Law: Thoughts on a Normative Framework," Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 37:885937, 1999.
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From page 357...
... • Responsibility. If a state takes visible responsibility for any destructive act, it is more likely to be characterized as a traditional military operation; ambiguous responsibility militates for a non-military label.
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From page 358...
... New Tools, New Rules: International Law and Information Operations Another more recent analysis by Duncan Hollis argued against extending traditional laws of armed conflict (LOAC) to apply to cyberattack and other information operations. Though Hollis accepts the fundamental underlying rationale and intent of traditional LOAC (e.g., to minimize human suffering, to support reciprocity between states, to prevent morally reprehensible behavior)
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From page 359...
... Hollis concluded from his analysis that the translation difficulties and the insufficiency of traditional LOAC with respect to subnational actors call for a new legal framework for governing cyberattack and other information operations.
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Key Terms

  • network attack
  • traditional loac
  • economic coercion
  • schmitt argued
  • bad weather

  • kinetic force
  • hollis argued
  • directly cause
  • physical damage
  • schmitt provided

  • cause physical
  • immediate death
  • university computer
  • reasonably characterized
  • visible responsibility

  • ally reprehensible
  • civilian deaths
  • functional atc
  • force line
  • partial interruption

  • specific modality
  • sole province
  • hollis concluded
  • undertaken unilaterally
  • actors call

  • extraordinarily difficult
  • survive bad
  • serious injury
  • cause destruction
  • armed conflict


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