Analogies help us think, learn, and communicate. The fourteen case studies in this volume help readers make sense of contemporary cyber conflict through historical analogies to past military-technological problems. The chapters are divided into three groups. The first--What Are Cyber Weapons Like?--examines the characteristics of cyber capabilities and how their use for intelligence gathering, signaling, and precision strike compares with earlier technologies for such missions. The second section--What Might Cyber Wars Be Like?--explores how lessons from several wars since the early 19th century, including the World Wars, could apply or not apply to cyber conflict in the 21st century. The final section--What Is Preventing and/or Managing Cyber Conflict Like?--offers lessons from 19th and 20th century cases of managing threatening actors and technologies.

What are cyber weapons like? -- Intelligence in cyber; and cyber intelligence / Michael Warner -- Non-lethal weapons and cyber capabilities / Lt. Gen. Robert Schmidle Jr. (USMC, ret.), Michael Sulmeyer, and Ben Buchanan -- Cyber weapons and precision-guided munitions / James M. Acton -- Cyber, drones, and secrecy / David E. Sanger -- What might cyber wars be like? -- Cyber war and information war a la russe / Stephen Blank -- An ounce of (virtual) prevention / John Arquilla -- Crisis instability and preemption : the 1914 railroad analogy / Francis J. Gavin -- Brits-krieg : the strategy of economic warfare / Nicholas Lambert -- Why a digital Pearl Harbor makes sense ... and is possible -- Emily O. Goldman and Michael Warner -- What are preventing and/or managing cyber conflict like? -- Cyber threats, nuclear analogies? Divergent trajectories in adapting to new dual-use technologies / Steven E. Miller -- From Pearl Harbor to "harbor lights" / John Arquilla -- Active cyber defense : applying air defense to the cyber domain / Dorothy E. Denning and Bradley J. Strawser -- "When the urgency of time and circumstances clearly does not permit ...": pre-delegation in nuclear and cyber scenarios / Peter Feaver and Kenneth Geers -- Cybersecurity and the age of privateering / Florian Egloff -- Conclusions / George Perkovich and Ariel E. Levite.