SSP Wednesday Seminar with speaker Brandon Valeriano, Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Marine Corps University. The talk will be broadcast live on the MIT Security Studies Program Youtube channel. 

This article examines the evolving nature of Russia’s use of the cyber/digital domain to disrupt, spy upon, and degrade the adversary. Cyber operations remain a potent modern manifestation of political warfare expanding competition short of war. Yet, during the full-scale invasion that is the Russo-Ukrainian war (2022- ), while we do witness an uptick in cyber operations in this crucial case, there remains limited evidence of events that demonstrate severe or significant attacks directed at an adversary during what might be characterized as total war. In fact, we see a reduction in severity after the full-scale invasion that occurred. Cyber operations that can degrade an adversary’s critical infrastructure are no substitute for conventional attacks. There is also limited evidence for coordinated multidomain operations between military and cyber operators. Despite an increase in cyber operations during the war, there remains little evidence that cyber capabilities change the course of war.