Gluing cybersecurity with geopolitics
This is a hot take on a recent piece by two National Law University Delhi academicians, Gunjan Chawla and Vagisha Srivastava: What are ‘offensive cyber capabilities’?
The article starts on the right note: briefly pointing out the evolution of terminology using which Western militaries have tried to circumscribe cyber operations within a quasi-legal framework.
Continue reading “The chimera of cyber offence”My talk at College of Air Warfare, Secunderabad, delivered on 17th Dec, 2019. Exquisitely titled, “In cyber, the generals should lead from behind.”
I may (or may not) do a series of quick posts highlighting the strategic challenges encountered while investigating a cyberattack like Kudankulam. They would be filed under the ‘lessons-from-kudankulam‘ tag. Since our agencies were literally caught napping, this is a good primer for understanding what nation-state-level cyber capabilities entail:
Some dumbified excerpts from my dispatches to the government:
Continue reading “Lessons from Kudankulam – Part II: Targeting, jointness & offensive toolchains”My opinion piece for Hindustan Times: https://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/on-china-it-s-time-to-consider-cyber-operations/story-crMraUyDc64taDRHMhEnhP.html.
The recent border clashes between India and China have led analysts, habituated to conventional warfare, to compare the relative strengths of the two adversaries in terms of the number of tanks, aircraft and other military paraphernalia.
It appears that Indian strategic discourse has yet again discounted cyber operations as an instrument of power projection, which could have offered a degree of flexibility when it comes to coercing, compelling and imposing costs on the contentious neighbour. This is unfortunate considering how much Indian think-tanks have glamourised the cyber domain.
Continue reading “On China, it’s time to consider cyber operations – Hindustan Times”Arindrajit Basu and Karan Saini wrote a detailed critique of my essay on cyber norms for the Modern War Institute: Setting International Norms of Cyber Conflict Is Hard, but That Doesn’t Mean We Should Stop Trying.
Here’s my rejoinder to their rejoinder:
Continue reading “A rejoinder to a rejoinder”In 2010, I led the first joint cyber operations with the Indian Air Force. Nine years too late, we have started talking about cyber jointness.
“Synergy in Joint Cyber Operations,” presented at an Indian National Defence University event, backed by the Integrated Defence Staff. The first time ever that jointness was discussed in the Indian context. Not very verbose for obvious reasons – I flagged politics and turf wars. Some shakeups are happening; the Defence Cyber Agency is up. Winds of change…
Synergy in Joint Cyber Operations – Indian National Defence University – 2019 from Pukhraj Singh