Abstract

This paper reconceptualizes cyberwar and cyberwarfare to include non‑kinetic cyber operations as legitimate and deliberate forms of warfare, rather than as peripheral or sub-threshold activities. It examines the evolving use of cyberwarfare as a modality of low‑intensity conflict in which foreign adversaries exploit legal ambiguity and internal political vulnerabilities within democracies such as the United States. Anchored in the theory of structural coercion, this analysis treats sustained non‑kinetic campaigns, those that degrade institutional capacity, erode public legitimacy, and impose cumulative strategic harm, as actual acts of war, even absent physical destruction or casualties. Moreover, it considers how such campaigns are increasingly used as strategic shaping operations, designed to deter or degrade the target’s capacity to project power while adversaries pursue kinetic, economic, or territorial objectives in other theaters. In this sense, cyberwarfare becomes both a tool of coercion and a force-multiplier, distracting and destabilizing high-capability adversaries like the United States to gain political and military advantage elsewhere. Drawing on real-world cases such as the 2023–2024 Volt Typhoon campaign and foreign interference in the 2024 U.S. elections, as well as detailed wargame simulations and legal scholarship, the paper argues that cyberwarfare has emerged as the preferred method for achieving wartime objectives without conventional escalation.

Introduction

Cyberwarfare increasingly exists in a legally ambiguous zone, its activities often fall below the conventional definitions of “armed attack,” yet they accomplish many of war’s strategic functions. Non-kinetic, state-directed cyber operations aim to degrade the opponent’s governance capacity, sow public distrust, and induce policy shifts, all without physical violence or traditional battlefield confrontations (Structural Coercion in Cyberspace, n.d.).

Cyber Conflict and Legal Liminality

International law defines the use of force under the UN Charter based on observable physical effects: death, destruction, or significant material damage (United Nations, 1945). Under this framework, the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) applies only when these kinetic thresholds are met. However, most cyber operations, such as disinformation campaigns, infrastructure probing, or disruptions to institutional processes, produce processual and systemic harm rather than immediate physical consequences (Structural Coercion in Cyberspace, n.d.). As a result, such operations are frequently excluded from LOAC applicability, shielding them from legal classification as acts of war and precluding collective military response.

This legal gap has contributed to the strategic normalization of cyber coercion, where adversarial states engage in persistent, deniable campaigns that erode governance, sow public distrust, and paralyze national decision-making, often without triggering international retaliation (Structural Coercion in Cyberspace, n.d.). Yet this effect-based legal model fails to account for indirect but lethal consequences of cyber actions. For instance, cyberattacks targeting electrical grids, hospitals, emergency services, and water treatment systems can result in real-world fatalities, including deaths from medical equipment failure, traffic accidents, and delayed emergency responses. These are not hypothetical risks; they represent collateral damage directly attributable to cyber actions, even in the absence of traditional kinetic force.

By maintaining a narrow focus on direct physical effects, international law overlooks the cascading and often deadly impacts of modern cyber operations on civilian populations. This oversight not only undermines accountability but also incentivizes the continued use of legally insulated but strategically lethal cyber campaigns, many of which would likely be classified as warfare under any other technological paradigm.

Internal Instability as Strategic Terrain: The Trump-Era Legacy

The Trump administration’s erosion of democratic norms, through politicization of law enforcement, undermining electoral integrity, and disinformation, created an environment ripe for exploitation. A scenario modeled in the Structural Coercion Under Internal Strain wargame imagined a future United States already weakened by a consolidating authoritarian regime, further targeted by a foreign adversary (Russia) using non-kinetic hybrid operations (Tabletop Wargame, 2023).

This internal vulnerability enables a feedback loop where foreign interference accelerates domestic dysfunction, and the state’s responses, often involving repression or over-centralization, further degrade democratic legitimacy.

Real-World Case Study 1: Volt Typhoon and Chinese Cyber Pre-Positioning

In 2023, U.S. cybersecurity agencies publicly identified Volt Typhoon, a Chinese state-sponsored cyber operation targeting critical infrastructure across multiple sectors, including communications, energy, water, and transportation (CISA, 2023). These activities emphasized long-term access and stealth, not immediate disruption, consistent with Chinese doctrine emphasizing “systems confrontation” and political warfare (CISA, 2023; War on the Rocks, 2024).

Volt Typhoon exemplifies how the People’s Republic of China (PRC) utilizes cyber pre-positioning to prepare the battlespace for potential leverage, especially in the event of an Indo-Pacific contingency such as Taiwan. These campaigns do not aim to destroy infrastructure but to undermine confidence in its reliability and increase response friction during crises (Tabletop Wargame: With Chinese Characteristics, 2024).

Real-World Case Study 2: Foreign Interference in the 2024 U.S. Elections

The 2024 U.S. presidential election again became a target for foreign influence operations, with both Russia and China exploiting partisan polarization, social media amplification, and AI-generated disinformation. While kinetic attacks were absent, intelligence reports and academic monitors documented persistent narrative manipulation, especially targeting swing-state voters and undermining trust in electoral outcomes (Metacurity, 2024).

In line with previous efforts from 2016 and 2020, these campaigns focused on:

• Amplifying distrust in voting systems;
• Discrediting political opponents with fabricated leaks;
• Echoing domestic narratives to evade attribution.

Like the Volt Typhoon activities, these tactics were strategically deniable, designed to complicate legal or diplomatic response while imposing strategic cost, not by changing votes directly, but by weakening democratic legitimacy.

Strategic Logic: War Without War

These campaigns confirm what the Structural Coercion framework predicts: adversaries engage in continuous, non-spectacular operations that degrade a state’s political and operational capacity (Structural Coercion in Cyberspace, n.d.). They aim to coerce rather than destroy, often by creating scenarios where the target state overreacts, further undermining its internal legitimacy (Tabletop Wargame, 2023).

China’s focus on systems degradation and Russia’s emphasis on information overload both seek to manipulate the tempo and credibility of U.S. decision-making. The success metric is not military victory but internal paralysis or foreign-policy self-deterrence (Tabletop Wargame: With Chinese Characteristics, 2024).

Normative Implications and Policy Recommendations

The legal tolerance of these operations is not indicative of their benign nature. Instead, their ambiguity frustrates attribution, complicates proportional response, and enables strategic erosion without triggering collective defense mechanisms like NATO’s Article 5 (Structural Coercion in Cyberspace, n.d.).

Policy reforms must address:

• The development of international norms that recognize cumulative non-kinetic harm;
• Domestic resilience investments in election integrity, critical infrastructure, and information ecosystems;
• Attribution transparency mechanisms to improve public understanding and diplomatic consensus.

Conclusion

The campaigns of Volt Typhoon and foreign electoral interference in 2024 reflect the reality that low-intensity cyber conflict is now the dominant form of great power competition. These are not isolated incidents but components of sustained, strategic warfare that avoids the battlefield while reshaping the balance of power.

If democracies fail to adapt legally, strategically, and institutionally, structural coercion will become the defining feature of 21st-century conflict, eroding sovereignty without ever firing a shot.

References

CISA. (2023). People’s Republic of China state-sponsored cyber actor living off the land to evade detection. U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. People’s Republic of China State-Sponsored Cyber Actor Living off the Land to Evade Detection | CISA

Brookings: How disinformation defined the 2024 election narrative

Structural Coercion in Cyberspace. (n.d.). Why it remains below armed conflict yet constitutes low-intensity warfare[PDF].

Tabletop Wargame: Structural Coercion With Chinese Characteristics. (2024). PRC hybrid campaign targeting U.S. system cohesion and legitimacy [PDF].

UN Charter. (1945). Charter of the United Nations. UN Charter | United Nations

War on the Rocks. (2024). China’s Three Warfares perspective. China’s ‘Three Warfares’ in Perspective