During the Cold War, American strategists developed complex doctrines of multi-layered deterrence. In the early years, figures like President Dwight Eisenhower were taken with the idea that nuclear weapons might provide the ultimate deterrent—and that conventional weapons were becoming obsolete. But over time, we learned that nuclear weapons really only deter other nuclear weapons—and that, to avoid unacceptable escalations, conventional Soviet attacks would have to be countered by conventional American responses. To provide a credible threat and effective deterrent, the United States poured resources into developing a full arsenal of graduated, flexible responses, and devoted the time and care into developing a comprehensive strategy that allowed for their swift deployment.
It is past time to do the same for the sphere of cyber-war. Weeks after the initial attacks on Sony, the hemming and hawing and internal White House debate over whether to even publicly identify North Korea as the perpetrator are no longer a sign of caution, but of dithering and poor planning. Some Pentagon shelf is no doubt stocked with contingency plans for various levels of retaliation against various levels of kinetic aggression from unfriendly states. Similar plans should have been developed in the cybersphere years ago, and the president should be prepared to deploy them. The only way to prevent future attacks is for foreign governments to know that attacks against U.S. targets—cyber or kinetic—will bring fierce, yet proportionally appropriate, responses. In order for other governments to know that the U.S. will respond, first our government must know that it will respond.
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