Responding to Uncertainty: The Importance of Covertness in Support for Retaliation to Cyber and Kinetic Attacks

Abstract

This paper investigates the escalation dynamics of cyber attacks. Two main theories have been advanced. First, “means-based” theory argues attack type determines response; cyber attacks are less likely to escalate than kinetic attacks. Second, “effects-based” theory argues an attack’s material consequences determine the likelihood of retaliation. We advance a third perspective, arguing that the covertness of an attack has the largest effect on its propensity towards escalation. We identify two characteristics of covertness that affect support for retaliation: the certainty of attribution and its timing. We use a survey experiment to assess public support for retaliation, while varying the means, effects, timing, and attribution certainty of attacks. We find no evidence for the effects-based approach, instead finding high levels of support for retaliation regardless of an attack’s scale. We find that the most significant contributor to support for retaliation is an attack’s covertness.

Do Proxies Provide Plausible Deniability? Evidence From Experiments on Three Surveys

“…These findings contribute to international relations research on secrecy by providing experimental evidence that both reinforces and expands on existing theories about the effects of covert action and plausible deniability on conflict, insofar as they provide some evidence that acting covertly through proxies can reduce a government’s exposure to blame and shape how citizens in a targeted country think about the appropriate response (e.g. Carnegie and Carson 2018; Carson 2016; Hedgecock and Sukin 2023; Joseph and Poznansky 2018). They also extend a nascent body of work on public opinion toward the role of non-state proxies in international politics (e.g.…”

Cyberattacks and public opinion – The effect of uncertainty in guiding preferences

“…Gross et al 2016; 2017). This may result from increased attributional uncertainty in cyberspace dampening enthusiasm for aggressive retaliatory options (Hedgecock and Sukin, 2023). If the identities of cyber attackers are inherently uncertain, people may prefer retaliatory cyberattacks to cross-domain retaliation.…”

Until consensus: Introducing the International Cyber Expression dataset

“…Theoretical predictions are ubiquitous, but testing and adjudicating between those predictions are challenging owing to the unique features of cyberspace (Gorwa and Smeets, 2019; Shore, 2022; Whyte, 2018). As Shandler and Canetti (2024) describe, ‘the [cyber] domain is complex, quality data is sparse, [and] affairs are shrouded in secrecy.’ To that end, recent work has attempted to quantify patterns in a number of important issue areas: cyber conflict and escalation (Kostyuk and Zhukov, 2019; Valeriano and Maness, 2015); strategy and capacity (Kostyuk, 2021; Valeriano et al, 2018); proxy warfare (Akoto, 2022; Borghard and Lonergan, 2016; Canfil, 2022; Herzog, 2011; Leal and Musgrave, 2022; Maurer, 2018a); psychology and decisionmaking (Gomez, 2019; Gomez and Whyte, 2022; Gomez and Villar, 2018; Hedgecock and Sukin, 2023; Kostyuk and Wayne, 2021; Shandler et al, 2021, 2022) and more. Despite this trend, the study of cyber norms has not received similar treatment.…”