Dr. Craig Greathouse hosted the panel “American Strategic Culture and Cyber War” in the NSDMG/War College track on Friday at 11:00AM. Dr. Greathouse focused on the sociology of cyber warfare and American culture’s ability to sustain and embrace it.
The panel opened in standard lecture format, with a few basic definitions to provide a foundation for discussion. Once the audience understood the basics, Dr. Greathouse explained the fundamentals behind cyber-attacks. Different groups commit cyber-attacks: anonymous users, governments, and politically motivated citizens. Acts of computer-based offenses can take many forms including cyber-vandalism, cyber-espionage, cyber-crime, and the pure and proper cyber-attack.
Dr. Greathouse spoke about strategic culture, which is defined as the manner in which a society values security, defense, war, and punishment as a whole. He cited examples from American history, such as Manifest Destiny.
Near the end of the panel, Dr. Greathouse tied strategic culture together with cyber warfare. He analyzed American history’s motives along with its technological advances, paying close attention to the overlap when the two ideals mix, as they do in Presidential Policy Directive 20 which states that American policy, in terms of cyber warfare, should include pre-emptive and aggressive strikes rather than passive retaliation and defense.
The audience then asked questions, mostly involving military communications officers.
