The United States is not in a cyber war and cyber war likely will never occur independently of a physical armed conflict, said James Andrew Lewis, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies' technology and public policy program.

There is cyber conflict, consisting of crime and espionage, but a war in which an enemy attacks U.S. data and physical infrastructure for political effect doesn't currently exist, Lewis said in prepared remarks delivered May 13 to the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.

Cyber attacks themselves are not without risk to the attacker, Lewis noted. "An attack on critical infrastructure in the opponent's homeland risks a significant escalation," he said. An attack originating in cyberspace can also provoke a kinetic response.

As a result, "pure cyber war, a war between two countries only involving cyber attack, is very unlikely. What would a nation gain from a series of relatively weak strikes on an opponent?"

As for non-state actors, they have not yet gained the ability to mount a cyber attack--as evidenced by the fact that they would already have used such a capability if they possessed it, Lewis said.

"The real question is how long will it take non-state actors to acquire these capabilities from the cyber crime black market. I believe this will happen in the next few years ," he added.

Information technology plays a central role in a world entering into a new multipolar era, Lewis said. However, there currently exists no framework to communicate with potential opponents about cyber conflict, unlike during the Cold War when the United States and Soviet Union were able to communicate about military activities.

International cooperation is needed to establish norms for responsible state behavior, as develop commonly-held rules--whether tacit and unspoken or not--on what would be considered an act of cyber war and what the appropriate response to a cyber attack should be Lewis said.

For more:
- the text of Lewis's prepared remarks (.pdf)

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