Cyber-attack as inevitable kinetic war

This paper poses the question as to whether a “cyber-attack” by a state against another state might breach of Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter. Although this question is not new, and the answers to it are either by no means consistent or far too clear for the uncertainty of a military field, this paper expresses significant concerns that some of the basic military issues may have been overlooked in contextualizing cyber-attack in United Nations Charter jurisprudence. Its methodology is delimited to discussing the nature of cyber-attack, but only on a basis between one sovereign state and another sovereign state. The paper is further delimited by reference to Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, and how that article might be considered breached. Interwoven throughout the paper is a proposition that cyber-attack is intended to be a military action in the nature of maneuver warfare as an instance of Aristotelian ethical deliberation and action, and further, it is always intended to have military consequences. The inference from this is that a cyber-attack is intended to have kinetic effects in the same way as fraud and deception infer physical effects, and therefore, is intended to have effects similar to those of conventional warfare. The paper begins with an examination of kinetic precepts underlying cyber warfare. Then, the paper looks at how attacks on information might represent a kind of warfare. With an abiding concern to include practical military thought, to represent the uncertainty of war, the paper discusses the nature of maneuver warfare, based on Lind's practical military discussion of the term. The next phase of the paper surveys the relevant international law and international law precepts, followed by a brief look at relevant case law. The paper concludes with a suggestion that the information operations inherent in cyber-attacks are essentially and necessarily a priori to a kinetic consequence.