Violence, just cyber war and information

Massimo Durante

pp. 369-385

in: Ludovica Glorioso (ed), Cyber-conflicts, Philosophy & Technology 28 (3), 2015.

Abstract

Cyber warfare has changed the scenario of war from an empirical and a theoretical viewpoint. Cyber war is no longer based on physical violence only, but on military, political, economic and ideological strategies meant to exploit a state's informational resources. This means that a deeper understanding of what cyber war is requires us to adopt an informational approach. This approach may enable us to account for the two-dimensional nature of cyber war (destruction and exploitation), to revise the notion of violence on which war is premised and to understand to what extent the traditional ideas of "just war" may apply to the scenario of cyber warfare. This point is crucial, since it concerns whether a cyber war is meant to restore a broken international political and legal order or to participate in its construction.