Cyber Warfare: An Evolution in Warfare not Just War Theory

As the Internet increasingly allows people, businesses, governments, militaries, and organizations to network computing systems, it also opens an avenue for nefarious actors to wage cyber attacks against all who use the Internet. National infrastructures, government and military systems, and financial institutions that operate as networked systems are vulnerable to cyber attacks. Nation-states or non-state actors that threaten the security of other nation-states by cyber attacks can cause lethal effects that must be evaluated for the ethical and moral impacts. The Just War Theory has played a large role in evaluating the ethical and moral use of new weapons throughout history cyber is not different. The application of Just War Theory to cyber warfare is greatly debated. While some argue that Just War Theory is irrelevant to cyber warfare, a careful analysis demonstrates that it is a useful tool for considering the morality of cyber warfare. This paper examines the application of Just War Theory to cyber warfare and contends that Just War Theory is a useful tool for considering the morality of cyber warfare.