The Cybersecurity Dilemma by Ben Buchanan (Hurst and Company, £25)

HISTORICALLY, what one state deemed to be defence of the realm was likely to be denounced by its neighbours as preparation for war.

It was always tricky to distinguish genuine protection of borders from the use of spurious threat to justify aggressive expansionism.

And, according to Ben Buchanan, the waters of international relations are getting murkier.

In The Cybersecurity Dilemma, he argues that computer networks have created new uncertainties and, as result, new threats to peace and stability.

The book is a demanding read because the author explores the impact of IT on statecraft in all its complexity but its theme is increasingly important in the light of recent hacking scandals.

Consider events from the last three years — the cyberattack on the Democrats’ IT systems during the recent US election, allegedly ordered by the Kremlin, accusations of Chinese government involvement in the theft of 22 million records from the US Office of Personnel Management in 2015 and the successful incursion into the White House’s network in Autumn 2014, widely assumed to be statesponsored.

The book identifies key differences between traditional warfare and cyber conflict and establishes ways in which defensive intrusions can become beachheads for future attacks.

It also suggests a battery of cooperative solutions to tackling the ambitions of “greedy” states.

Buchanan believes we are creating an “anarchic international situation” involving spiralling mistrust, a “race to the bottom” based on secrecy and intrusion and, he implies, increased risk of conflict between states.

He sets out three pillars of the cybersecurity dilemma — the drift towards cyber intrusion to ensure states can develop effective systems in the future, states’ intrusions into rivals’ systems driven by the fear of aggressive intrusion into their own and the tendency for states to treat all intrusions as high-level threats.

Buchanan makes his detailed and demanding arguments accessible through clear, unadorned prose and a highly structured format.

There are framing chapters, an introduction setting out the high stakes of the present situation and a summary of likely outcomes and potential responses. Each chapter ends with a helpful synopsis.

The Cybersecurity Dilemma is dedicated to tackling the link between statecraft and systems and it’s easy to lose sight of the broader political and economic context in which this escalation of mistrust is playing out.

Yet while the author covers the North Korean attack on Sony, he doesn’t address in detail the role corporate power plays in interstate conflict. There are, however, useful pointers to reading on related themes in the notes.

My one criticism of the book is that the author’s intellectual objectivity sometimes leads to the use of desiccated euphemisms for the threats we face.

While this is acceptable in an academic thesis, it’s less so in a book intending to inform a wider readership. If he means war, why say “outcomes that no state wants?”

But this is a timely and rigorous examination of a vital issue and it’s entirely fitting that it ends on a pessimistic note because, as Buchanan says: “There is no easy way out.”

Andy Hedgecock