Report Stresses Importance of Agreement to Avoid Cyber Conflict

As Chinese President Xi Jinping begins a trip to the United States that could include the first arms control accord for cyberspace between the United States and China, a new RAND report that rates the cyber warfare capabilities of the world’s two largest economies shows how important such an agreement could be. The report, which rates the capabilities of both militaries over the course of two situations, a conflict over Taiwan and one over the Spratly Islands, dedicates an entire chapter to the respective cyber capabilities of both sides. As it maps out the potential conflicts, and in turn the potential ways each country could attack the other’s network, it becomes apparent why a first agreement between President Barack Obama and President Xi might focus on the rules of the road for attacks on core infrastructure instead of on better publicized Chinese attacks aimed at gaining advantages and intellectual property for companies.

In particular, it argues unclassified networks for key infrastructure are more vulnerable than those of the military, and that broad attacks have a huge potential to cause unanticipated escalations. Even so, it says that the United States would probably do better than might be expected given the high-profile media coverage of Chinese cyberattacks.