ABSTRACT
Robert Gates, a former U.S. Secretary of Defense to two Presidents, recounts his frustration over his department’s anemic legal and ethical understanding of cyberwar. “Soon after my arrival in office, I asked the department’s deputy general counsel for a memo on what kind of cyber attack—by us or on us—would constitute an act of war justifying a response in kind or conventional military retaliation. I was still waiting for a good answer to that question three years later.” 1
