Jack Caravelli & Sebastian Maier

Russia has developed one of the world’s most extensive cyber warfare capabilities and views those capabilities as a means to advance its strategic objectives in both war and peacetime. This paper examines Russia’s approach to the use of its cyber capabilities and how they are integrated into Russia’s broader objectives for dealing with its adversaries. Particular focus is placed on Russia’s unprecedented use of cyber to influence political elections in the West, including in the United States, France and Germany. To further its objectives, Russia also has used relations with outsiders such as at WikiLeaks to disseminate information considered damaging to Russian foes such as the US political campaign of Hillary Clinton. The paper concludes that there are very limited means to either deter or hold accountable Russian uses of cyber, implying Russian cyber attacks will continue and could easily expand to Middle East nations.