The Subversion Aversion Paradox: Juxtaposing the Tactical and Strategic Utility of Cyber-Enabled Influence Operations

Abstract Recent work on information technology and cyber conflict in IR has turned to the rapidly expanding phenomena that is cyber-enabled influence operations (CEIO). CEIO represent a unique interaction of operational logics that diverge from the exceptions of either cyber or influence campaigns. In order to examine when states choose to deploy cyber operations in support of IO, I turn to a new dataset—the Counter-Society Influence Operations (CSIO) dataset—that seeks to represent counter-society interference in more granular terms than existing data resources. By adopting a unique coding scheme that characterizes different forms of cyber attacks leveraged to aid influence outcomes and deploying novel covariates, I confirm that the vast majority of CEIO episodes involve preparatory use of cyber intrusion that is low-intensity and likely to fall away after the first three months of an influence campaign. By contrast, few such related cyber activities involve more severe intrusion or disruption attempts. Counterintuitively, however, I find clear evidence that severe and escalatory cyber activity linked to IO is negatively associated with campaign success. Likewise, this activity is positively tied to both eventual belligerent attribution and a new measure of congruence between belligerent objectives and minor domestic political factions. I call the resulting dynamic the “subversion aversion” paradox, a situation in which the probability of performative action during IO becomes more likely as the likelihood of subversive success drops.