Do the Principles of War Apply to Cyber War?

The purpose of this monograph is to examine whether the Principles of War, as defined within the U.S. military's Joint Publication 3-0, Joint Operations, can be applied to cyber war. Since 2005, the U.S. military recognized cyber conflict as a new domain for conducting military operations. Consequently, in order to ensure future success on the battlefield, commanders need to understand cyberspace operations and how these operations fit within the Principles of War. The methodology of this paper is to first examine, and subsequently show the history of the Principles of War in order to provide a context from which military personnel can then categorize cyberspace within the historic model. Such an examination is relevant because not only is U.S. cyber policy and strategy currently being developed, but the United States is also standing up a United States Cyber Command for the first time in history. Having discussed the Principles of War and woven them across an understanding of cyber operations, one can then see that the current Principles of War do in fact apply to cyber war. There is no need to create new Principles of War that apply exclusively to the cyber domain.