ABSTRACT
Cyber conflict has been a hallmark of international relations —particularly between advanced industrial countries. This chapter analyses major events in the history of cyber conflict to date with a particular focus on those incidents involving the United States, China, Russia, and Israel. It describes the nature of state challenges extending from and vulnerabilities to different forms of cyber conflict before outlining the empirical contours of cyber interactions and the apparent normative realities thereof. Naturally, any summary of the history of interstate cyber conflict episodes will focus on the actions of great powers-those countries with immense capacity for conflictual operations and the geopolitical motivation to undertake them-and this section is no exception. The chapter outlines significant interstate cyber conflict episodes chronologically, explains the technical vulnerabilities and organizational challenges involved in safeguarding and building cyber-security capabilities across four main sectors of national security apparatuses—critical infrastructure, military systems, innovation and research, and the national information environment.
