IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2023 - 44

Feature
and minds is being waged through the use of electronic
images, online discussion group postings and
hacking attacks, " claiming that " [t]he conflict ...
is, in many ways, the first Internet war " ([33]; italics
added).
Figure 1. Categorical structures for
discrete (conventional) and total warfare.
Given that cyberoperations are the result of many
motivations, (e.g., economic, political, and sociocultural
[28]), they will be integral to any contemporary
form of total warfare. Moreover, identifying
these motivational factors is critical to understanding
how aggression can be framed as morally justifiable
(e.g., virtuous violence [29]) and what ethical
and legal frameworks are applicable (e.g., Just War
Theory [30], [31]).
Totalization of warfare in sociotechnical
systems
Beyond definitions, conflicts are defined by the
unique combination of strategies and tactics used by
warring nations. While I will argue that the ongoing
Russian-Ukraine War represents the best candidate
for a Total War, precedents must also be considered.
Here, I briefly review the Kosovo War and the Second
Iraq War as Internet wars, North Korea's persistent
conflict with South Korea as a cyberwar, and the
Azerbaijan-Armenia War and Russian-Ukraine War
as candidates for modern Total Wars.
The First Internet wars: Kosovo and Iraq
The Kosovo War (1998-1999) was a conflict that
occurred between the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
and the Kosovo Liberation Army, a Kosovo-Albanian
rebel group. While employing conventional
arms, the conflict is also notable for the extent to
which the affordances of the Internet were recognized
as having strategic value. For instance, Dunn
[32] noted that " cyberspace [has been turned] into
an ethereal war zone where the battle for hearts
44
In that websites were frequently updated during
the conflict to provide information, the medium
clearly represented an important resource [34].
Alone, however, the use of the Internet in information
(psychological) warfare does not make the
Kosovo War a candidate for Total War. Rather, this
reflects a social influence campaign undertaken in
a different medium. Consider a comment made by
an activist at that time, suggesting that " [t]he whole
region is a virtual reality... Bosnia is a virtual country,
because its citizens are scattered all over the
world " [35]. In terms of conflict metaphors, ongoing
information warfare might be understood as a " cold
war. " These tactics are perhaps best seen as a persistent
feature of ethnopolitics that has been imported
into, and facilitated by, the online information environment
[36].
A critical feature of the conflict that could make
the Kosovo War a candidate for one of the first contemporary
Total Wars was the involvement of cyberattacks.
Both Serbia and Kosovo (Kosova Hackers
Group) defaced websites. However, these events do
not reflect a significant degree of disruption in that
they did not pose a real threat to civilians or to military
assets or personnel. Consequently, while they
might have occurred in parallel with armed conflict,
they are likely best consider ancillary to the conflict
[37]. As Elison [34, p. 127] noted at the time " it is
[mostly] a war of words, but it has the potential to
include hacking enemy sites and bank accounts
and appropriating official sounding or misleading
domain names. " Moreover, these tactics do not
reflect cyberweapons (e.g., distributed denial of service
(DDoS), malware), because they do not present
a legitimate threat to human agents or physical
infrastructure.
In contrast to the Kosovo War, the Internet was
used to a greater extent in the Second Iraq War
(2003-2011),4 leading some to refer to it as the first
Internet war. Much like the Kosovo War, viruses and
hackers focused on news websites (e.g., Al-Jazeera)
to deface pages or " takedown " a website or email
accounts. In fact, contemporary reports suggested
4See Gulf War (1990-1991).
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2023
