Cyber Conflicts and Political Power in Information Societies

When asked what his goal was for the 1815 Waterloo Campaign, the Duke of Wellington answered “Why, to beat the French” (Gray 1984, 9).1 By French he meant Napoleon, and by beating him he meant defeating him for good, so that Napoleon could not pose a threat to European states any longer. A conflict was the most effective means to achieve this goal. Fast-forward two hundred years, now is China vs USA, the domain is cyberspace where China has been launching attacks against the USA for at least four years to acquire relevant information from USA companies and governmental offices. The USA would like to stop the cyber-attacks, the best response in this case is not a conflict but a diplomatic move: the American and Chinese presidents meet and define bilateral agreements to stop state-run cyber-attacks between their two countries. This conflict was not won by either of the two actors, but solved by both of them