>A "hot" war between two powers would be of such a great cost in human life, you would want to avoid it at all costs.
I was very careful to specify "respond with the use of force as permitted by the UN Charter and international laws and norms." In other words the UN Charter only permits a response in proportion to the offense. I do think an act of cyber warfare may legally allow us of "armed force" but it would likely have to be limited to targeting the installations where the attacks were coming from (but realistically it is a new and undeveloped area of law with respect to cyber warfare).
The problem in my opinion with failing to act is we signal that there will be no military response, and these acts of cyber warfare escalate to hacking power grids or other infrastructure than results in indirect lose of life. Then due to political pressure all out war becomes more realistic.
Wasn't this more intelligence gathering?
The appropriate response would be more akin to hacking back into China's social credit scoring company and snooping around.
I believe it raised to a level above spying and intelligence gathering. It was a state sponsored military act of cyber warfare that infringed on the US' territorial sovereignty.
>The appropriate response would be more akin to hacking back into China's social credit scoring company and snooping around.
The purpose of a proportionate response to military acts under the UN Charter and the use of force and armed conflict is not so much "an eye for an eye" (i.e. you hack me, I hack you), but to put an end to the military operations infringing on your sovereignty ...for example, assuming you believe Iraq had WMDs and chemical weapons or response is not to create stock piles of our own chemical weapons.
I agree and believe the US probably are having a hard time creating escalation mechanisms for cyberwarfare and signaling their strategic needs and interests. When the United State's entire democratic apparatus was attacked during the presidential elections and the only answer was a similar indictment of Russian hackers, enemies have a harder time knowing what is and isn't a "red line".
I was very careful to specify "respond with the use of force as permitted by the UN Charter and international laws and norms." In other words the UN Charter only permits a response in proportion to the offense. I do think an act of cyber warfare may legally allow us of "armed force" but it would likely have to be limited to targeting the installations where the attacks were coming from (but realistically it is a new and undeveloped area of law with respect to cyber warfare).
The problem in my opinion with failing to act is we signal that there will be no military response, and these acts of cyber warfare escalate to hacking power grids or other infrastructure than results in indirect lose of life. Then due to political pressure all out war becomes more realistic.