Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Sojuznik Snowden: A Solid Russian Investment, Jan Kallberg

Jan Kallberg

The Edward Snowden case catapulted us back to the heights of the Cold War for one single reason: His story is too manicured and well-placed to be true. As the old saying goes: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t. With the Snowden affair, many of the Russian political objectives are reached. It has has created a wedge that split the United States and Europe. Even if Vladimir Putin wears a fancy Italian suit, he is still a KGB-man, slightly better looking than the official grey suits in the heyday of the Soviet Eastern Bloc. The …

Open Data As A Foundation For Innovation: The Enabling Effect Of Free Public Sector Information For Entrepreneurs, Erik Lakomaa, Jan Kallberg

Jan Kallberg

Public open data access has a direct impact on future IT entrepreneurs' perception of ability to execute their business plans. Using high quality (50%–98% response rate) survey data from 138 Swedish IT-entrepreneurs, we find that access to public open data is considered very important for many IT-startups; 43% find open data essential for the realization of their business plan and 82% claim that access would support and strengthen the business plan. The survey also indicates a significant interest in, and willingness to pay for, public sector information data from companies that do not intend to commercialize data themselves but intend …

Societal Cyberwar Theory Applied The Disruptive Power Of State Actor Aggression For Public Sector Information Security, Jan Kallberg, Bhavani Thuraisingham, Erik Lakomaa

Jan Kallberg

Abstract – The modern welfare state faces significant challenges to be able to sustain a systematic cyber conflict that pursues the institutional destabilization of the targeted state.

Cyber defense in these advanced democracies are limited, unstructured, and focused on anecdotal cyber interchanges of marginal geopolitical value.

The factual reach of government activities once a conflict is initiated is likely to be miniscule. Therefore the information security activities, and assessments leading to cyberdefense efforts, have to be strategically pre-event coordinated within the state. This coordination should be following a framework that ensures institutional stability, public trust, and limit challenges to the …

Cyber Defense As Environmental Protection - The Broader Potential Impact Of Failed Defensive Counter Cyber Operations, Jan Kallberg, Rosemary Burk

Jan Kallberg

Key in the critique of the likelihood of cyber conflict has been the assumption that cyber does not lead to long-term and irrevocable effects – therefore it cannot be fought as a war. This might be true if cyber attacks are constrained to specific functions of a computer system or set of client computers, however, a failed cyberdefense can have wider effects than discussed in earlier debates of potential consequences and risks. The environmental aspect of cyberdefense has not drawn attention as a national security matter. We all, as people, react to threats to our living space and natural environment. …

Private Cyber Retaliation Undermines Federal Authority, Jan Kallberg

Jan Kallberg

The demarcation in cyber between the government and the private spheres is important to uphold because it influences how we see the state and the framework in which states interact. One reason we have a nation state is, in a uniform and structured way, under the guidance of a representative democracy, to deal with foreign hostility and malicious activity.

The state is given a monopoly on violence by its citizenry. The state then acts under the existing laws on behalf of the citizens to ensure the intentions of the population it represents. These powers grant the federal government an authority …

From Cyber Terrorism To State Actors’ Covert Cyber Operations, Jan Kallberg, Bhavani Thuraisingham

Jan Kallberg

Historically, since the Internet started to become a common feature in our lives, hackers have been seen as a major threat. This view has repeatedly been entrenched and distributed by media coverage and commentaries through the years. Instead the first twenty year of the Internet was acceptably secure, due to the limited abilities of the attackers, compared to the threat generated from a militarized Internet with state actors conducting cyber operations. In reality, the Internet have a reversed trajectory for its security where it has become more unsafe over time and moved from a threat to the individual to a …

Nuclear Deterrence In A Second Obama Term, Adam Lowther, Jan Kallberg

Jan Kallberg

In the months prior to the 2012 presidential election in the United States, members of the Obama administration and sympathetic organizations inside the Beltway began floating the idea that the administration would pursue – after an Obama victory – further reductions in the US nuclear arsenal. With the ink still wet on the New ST ART Treaty, efforts to reduce the American arsenal to 1000 operationally deployed strategic nuclear weapons or, as some suggest, 500, is certainly premature. These efforts illustrate a poor understanding of nuclear deterrence theory and practice and the ramifications of a United States that lacks a …

Offensive Cyber: Superiority Or Stuck In Legal Hurdles?, Jan Kallberg

Jan Kallberg

In recent years, offensive cyber operations have attracted significant interest from the non-Defense Department academic legal community, prompting numerous articles seeking to create a legal theory for cyber conflicts. Naturally, cyber operations should be used in an ethical way, but the hurdles generated by the legal community are staggering. At a time when the United States has already lost an estimated $4 trillion in intellectual property as a result of foreign cyber espionage, not to mention the loss of military advantage, focusing on what the United States cannot do in cyberspace only hinders efforts to defend the country from future …

Europe In A ‘Nato Light’ World - Building Affordable And Credible Defense For The Eu, Jan Kallberg, Adam Lowther

Jan Kallberg

From an outsider’s perspective, the Common Security and Defense Policy and the efforts of the European Defense Agency are insufficient to provide Europe with the defense it will require in coming decades. While the European Union—particularly the members of the European Monetary Union—struggle to solve prolonged fiscal challenges, viable European security alternatives to an American-dominated security architecture are conspicuously absent from the documents and discussions that are coming from the European Council and at a time when the United States is engaged in an Asia-Pacific pivot. This is not to say that no thought has been given to defense issues. …

Cyber Operations Bridging From Concept To Cyber Superiority, Jan Kallberg, Bhavani Thuraisingham

Jan Kallberg

The United States is preparing for cyber conflicts and ushering in a new era for national security. The concept of cyber operations is rapidly developing, and the time has come to transpose the conceptual heights to a broad ability to fight a strategic cyber conflict and defend the Nation in a cohesive way. Richard M. George, a former National Security Agency official, commented on recent developments: “Other countries are preparing for a cyberwar. If we’re not pushing the envelope in cyber, somebody else will.”1 Therefore, increased budgets are allocated to cyber operations research and education. The Defense Advanced Research Projects …