Miti e limiti della "strategic cyberwar": un’analisi del conflitto russo-ucraino

Cyberwar is a prominent issue of the information age, but conceptualizing and incorporating cyberwar into strategic planning is no easy task. While the idea of strategic cyberwar has been dominating political and media discourses since the end of the Cold War, empirical data is far from showing the expected doomsday scenarios coming from full-scale strategic cyber offensives («Cyber Pearl Harbor»). Instead, as this article will demonstrate, empirical cyberwar, including strategic cyberwar, is rooted in various interrelated ideas, born in a context where malicious cyber activity is growing, actors are increasingly interconnected, and command and control systems are becoming more vulnerable. Using the first year, particularly the initial months, of the ongoing war in Ukraine as a case study, this article explains why strategic cyberwar has failed to 'knock out' Ukrainian critical infrastructure and analyzes discontinuities and common patterns between cyberwar literature and empirical evidence, including the limits of strategic cyberwar, the value of cyber defense, and the use of information models and networks in cyberwar.