Cyber Pearl Harbor is Not Coming: US Politics Between War and Peace

Abstract

In 2012, the US Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta warned against an inevitable ‘cyber-Pearl Harbor’, an attack that would cause physical destruction and loss of life. Even though the darkest scenarios have not come true, his words shaped the perception of conflicts in cyberspace.1 Recently, between the cyberwar and cyberpeace, states started recognizing a grey zone area – aggressive and offensive actions below the threshold of armed aggression that enable gaining strategic advantage. The aim of the article is to describe and discuss the change in the American approach to managing conflicts in the cyberspace. The focus will be on describing the current state of the concept of the grey zone in the US strategic documents, as well as the premises for forecasting the development of the grey zone in the future.