The Battlefield and the Wire: Linking Cyber and Material Conflicts, 2000–2014

Abstract This paper describes how cyber and material conflicts overlaps in the international system. Given countries’ international alliances and conflicts, as well as their technical abilities, we want to uncover whether or not countries engage in cross-domain operations. Combining a dataset collecting information on cyber interactions between rival states and ICEWS data, we analyze cyber conflict among states and contextualize it into the system of international relations using social network analysis and the tool of multiplex networks from 2000 to 2014. We find support for our hypothesis that cross-domain operations are relatively rare. Furthermore, we find that: (a) the use of cyber tools is less frequent than the use of physical force; (b) there are some localized conflictual relations in the physical world, a circumstance that does not occur in the virtual world; (c) Russia seems to balance material aggressions and cyber-attacks, whereas the US prefer material conflict, and China is more active in the cyber realm.