The Future Fight: Cyberwar at the Operational Level of War

Early success of cyberspace operations opened possibilities of new avenues to deliver effects to an adversary. As the US Army begins to transition to multi-domain operations they rely on cyberspace and to support other domain operations. A question arises "How do militaries incorporate cyberspace operations to support operations in other domains?" There exist no practical planning principles backed by evidence on how to incorporate cyber operations into other domain operations. Based on initial research a hypothesis arose that cyberspace operations that support the operational level of war synchronize with physical domain and virtual-information domain operations. Using accepted US military definitions for levels of war and operating domains, case studies that have activities at the operational level are analyzed. Operation Allied Force, Iranian suppression of civil dissidence, and the Israel-Hamas conflict are analyzed by collecting the following information from each case: strategic context, cyberspace actors, cyberspace actions, and how cyberspace actions supported other domain operations. The results of analysis is that cyberspace operations at the operational level of war support other domain operations by gathering intelligence on adversaries to support future operations; denying or disrupting delivery avenues within the virtual-information domain; and affecting entities residing in the physical domain.