It’s Hard to Find a Black Cat in a Dark Room, Especially If It Isn’t There. RAND on the Search for Cyber Coercion

... inferred from practice) and claim that demands and threats expressed as part of such coercion are sometimes ambiguous, as identification of the threatening party can be. But what remains of coercion if its defining characteristics are removed? Large-scale cyber-attacks are not just a show of force but achievement of specific objectives, so they have nothing to do with coercion . The above seems to challenge the accuracy of the question asked at the beginning of the paper under review: “What is cyber coercion?” Let us first consider what coercion is. It appears to be primarily a form of policy aimed at maintaining or changing the existing order of distribution of power and wealth in the global community [ 5 ]. From this standpoint, the essence ...