Digital Dialogues: Insights from Cyberspace Experts
Monday, October 16, 2023
3-3:30 p.m. EDT
With Dr. Michael P. Fischerkeller, research staff member in the Information, Technology and Systems Division at the Institute for Defense Analyses, author of “Cyber Persistence Theory.”
About this Webinar
On Monday, October 16, the Daytona Beach College of Arts & Sciences will welcome Dr. Michael P. Fischerkeller to the inaugural “Digital Dialogues: Illuminating Insights from Cyberspace Experts” event.
The Digital Dialogues series serves as a platform for knowledge sharing, intellectual engagement and community building among experts, students and enthusiasts in the field. In our interconnected world, cyberspace plays a vital role in various fields, including security, technology, business and communication.
In this discussion, you’ll hear from the primary author of “Cyber Persistence Theory.” This work is the structural shift cyber strategy has been searching for. No other work has made such a convincing case explaining the gap between cyber theory and observed cyber application. This alternate to the cyber deterrence paradigm provides an in-depth, academic analysis of the modern cyberspace environment. The main takeaway of this thesis is that cyberspace activity, especially exploitation, is the primary form of strategic competition, and that exploitation should be interpreted as an alternative to war wherein states quickly capitalize on other states’ cyberspace vulnerabilities rather than resorting to compellence. Accordingly, in cyberspace, states operate, at a low cost, out of a structural need to persist and a strategic incentive to achieve short-term gains, without necessarily triggering an armed attack.
Fischerkeller’s book also emphasizes that the nature of cyberspace diminishes international cooperation, leading to a state of constant competition between states. This structural feature should encourage us to view cyberspace differently from the nuclear strategic environment, while also emphasizing that strategic gains accumulate over time via successful multiple operations within campaigns. Thus, in the international system, a state employing cyber effects can gain relative power as an alternate to war.
About the Speaker
Michael P. Fischerkeller is a research staff member in the Information, Technology and Systems Division at the Institute for Defense Analyses, where he has spent over 20 years supporting the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff and Combatant and Multi-National Force commanders.