NATO’s Cyber Operations Center – Will Russia Feel Threatened?

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According to recent reporting, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) announced that its Cyber Operations Center (COC) is expected to be fully staffed and functional by 2023.  The new COC marks NATO’s understanding of the importance that cyberspace plays in conflict, particularly in times of political tensions that has resulted in cyber malfeasance that has targeted elections and critical infrastructure.  The establishment of the COC is a natural evolution in how to address cyber attacks in a more timely manner by integrating cyber actions with more conventional military capabilities.  In early 2014, after notable cyber incidents were a part of international incidents that occurred in Estonia in 2007 and Georgia in 2008, the Alliance updated its cyber defense policy to classify digital attacks as the equivalent of kinetic attacks under its collective security arrangement under Article 5 of the treaty.

In those particular instances, Russia was suspected in orchestrating or at least tacitly supporting the cyber attacks that afflicted both states.  Since then, Russia’s alleged cyber activities have only become more brazen in their scale and aggressiveness.  From suspected involvement in launching cyber attacks against Ukrainian critical infrastructure to launching a variety of cyber operations to meddle in the elections of foreign governments, Russia has taken advantage of the uncertainty of cyberspace where there is little consensus on key issues such as Internet governance, cyber norms of state behavior, or the criteria by which cyber attacks escalate to a point of war.

NATO has always provided a strong military counterpoint to Russian influence in the European region and projecting a credible threat in cyberspace is an important complement to NATO capabilities.   However, previously, NATO didn’t have any of its own cyber weapons, a significant problem given Russia’s perceived position of a near-peer level adversary of the United States.  With the establishment of the cyber command, the United States, United Kingdom, and Estonia have offered the Alliance their cyber capabilities.  As described in one news article, the alliance hopes to integrate individual nations’ cyber capabilities into alliance operations, coordinated through the COC and under the command of NATO’s top general. With this in hand, it will be interesting to see if this will serve as the deterrent it’s intended to be and how Russia may adjust their cyber activities, particularly against NATO member countries.

However, there is still the lingering problem the Alliance faces with regards to the rules of engagement.  Classifying cyber attacks under Article 5 is a start but doesn’t help provide a path forward to how NATO can and should engage and respond to cyber attacks.  While this provides NATO a certain flexibility in addressing cyber attacks allowing the Alliance to take each on a case-by-case basis in determining the extent of its response, it does not provide adversarial states an idea of tolerated and intolerable cyber activities.  This shortcoming serves only to provide states like Russia enough wiggle-room to continue their offensive cyber operations as long as they don’t cross an undefined threshold.  It’s long been hypothesized that attacks crippling critical infrastructures would meet that threshold, but as seen in Ukraine, this bar keeps being pushed a little farther each time.

The COC is a much-needed instrument in NATO’s overall toolbox, strengthening the capacity of the Alliance to deter, and where appropriate, retaliate against cyber attacks.  That said, the longer there are no clear lines of what will and will not be deemed acceptable in cyber space will keep the status quo pretty much in place.  Once fully operational, the first test of the COC will be how the it will respond and in what proportion to an attack against a member state.  And it’s at this time all eyes will turn to Russia to see how it will react and alter how and where it conducts its operations.

This is a guest post by Emilio Iasiello

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