A Fierce Domain: Conflict in Cyberspace, 1986 to 2012

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Jason Healey is a world-renowned strategic thinker who has focused for years on issues of importance to national security. He has served in government and industry and at the Atlantic Council, and has also dedicated a significant amount of his personal time helping lead the non-profit Cyber Conflict Studies Association (CCSA). He was one of CCSA’s founders and board members and continues to help that organization pursue goals of furthering the research agenda in the cyber domain.

One of Jason’s most recent activities has been leading the production of a new reference to cyber conflict. This book, titled “A Fierce Domain: conflict in cyberspace 1986-2012” is without a doubt the best reference to cyber conflict history available. It contains inputs and writing by many of the great cyber strategic thinkers, all knitted together in a smooth, easy to understand layout that you will enjoy reading. It covers the most important cyber conflict lessons and events of our time and brings lessons out relevant to decisions today.

Here is a blurb from an Amazon review:

A Fierce Domain: Conflict in Cyberspace, 1986-2012 is the first book of its kind- a comprehensive, accessible history of cyber conflict. A Fierce Domain reaches back to look at the major “wake-up calls,” the major conflicts that have forced the realization that cyberspace is a harsh place where nations and others contest for superiority. The book identifies the key lessons for policymakers, and, most importantly, where these lessons greatly differ from popular myths common in military and political circles.

And a few editorial reviews/endorsements:

“Conflict in cyberspace, as it turns out, is far more like conflict in the ‘real’ world than we’ve been told. If you’re a diplomat, general, or elected official that cares about the implications of cyber warfare, be sure to read this book.”
President Toomas Ilves of Estonia
“I’ve often complained that … the biggest impediment to effective cyber defense in the United States was our failure to settle on the ‘big ideas’–those macro-thoughts of law, policy and doctrine that should guide our cyber behavior. A Fierce Domain takes a giant step to meet this need by carefully (and entertainingly) laying out where we have already been on this journey. It turns out that we have a cyber history, after all, a history we can now put to work to guide our thinking and our future actions.”
General Michael Hayden, Former NSA and CIA Director
“Don’t think of A Fierce Domain as the first history book on cyber conflict, but as a practical guide to the policy questions that need to be answered to really address cyber security – not just in the U.S. but the world.”
Jeff Moss, Founder of Black Hat and DEFCON security conferences
“This is an important book. I have not seen anything this thorough about the history, and without history we are poorly equipped to understand the future. In addition, the cases well support the three main conclusions: change is gradual enough for us to learn from the past; we have spent too much attention on cyber attack rather than exploitation; and we should beware of the popular myths about ‘cyber wars’ that obscure clear thinking about policy.”
Joe Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor and Former Dean, Harvard Kennedy School
“Today the media is full of pundits and spokesmen decrying or demanding attention to cyber issues, and most exhibit a minimal understanding of where and when this all started. There is a long line of cyber warriors that labored in the technology and the policy… and yes, the warfare… long before cyber was cool. Jay is one of the few people in a position to know most of these pioneers on a first name basis and to capture their trials and tribulations…”
General Ron Keys, Former Commander of Air Combat Command
If you would like to weigh in on the critically important issues of cyber conflict and national security, or if you are an enterprise technology professional seeking to better understand the threats your organization faces, this book is a must read. Order it right away.
If you are in academia and oversee curricula or teach courses on war and peace or cyber conflict, information warfare or security, this is also a critically important book for you. It should be required reading for any cyber conflict course and many national security courses.
Note: It would be folly for me to suggest that this one book would solve all problems the nation faces regarding cyber security. This is a big issue that will require many things to come together before we can really mitigate the big issues of industrial espionage and intellectual property theft and the many other cyber conflict challenges. But this book will be among the most important in helping change the world since it hits directly at one of the biggest issues: Cyber Conflict Amnesia. If this one book is read by key government policy-makers they will enter their offices better informed and more aware. And if it is read by more of our industry leaders and citizens our whole nation will be better off. It has my strongest possible endorsement.

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