Cyber war: Different look, same aim

[Commentary] Because large portions of life now take place on the Internet, the introduction of war into cyberspace was perhaps inevitable. As with most Defense Department projects, spending on cyberwar is ballooning under the “better safe than sorry” rubric. No one wants to be caught by surprise. And as with nuclear missiles, aircraft carriers, and drone fleets, the more impressive the cyberwarfare capabilities, the more they serve as a deterrent and persuader, even if never activated. What’s not clear is whether the threat of cyberwarfare is still largely science fiction. War is something that humans still have to learn – at the least, for self-defense and to halt injustice. But war, even in cyberspace, still has one age-old purpose: to hurt people and break things.