Facing the culture gap in operationalising cyber with a military context

Abstract

Cyber as an operational domain is widely recognised by military forces, but the process to operationalise cyber poses a number of challenges. One of the difficulties is that traditional military culture is far removed from what is commonly referred to as “cyber culture”. The latter refers to the culture amongst cybersecurity professionals (and cyber warriors). In any organisation, but particularly within the military context, it is commonly agreed that cultural understanding is one of the primary concerns, taking into account that culture is fluid rather than static and that humans express their cultural systems in a variety of ways. It can be hard to understand the cultural dynamics demonstrated in various situations. Another challenge is that cyber is present at every level and division of the military. It is thus necessary to distinguish between the different roles or presence of cyber in a military force. The modern military force should recognise the presence of cyber in every division and arm of service, in addition to incorporating or establishing specialised cyber defence and warfare units. In this paper, the authors give an overview of current views on operationalising cyber, the culture gap and how to address this gap to enable the operationalisation of cyber within the military context.