Research on France’s offensive cyber strategy features in first Cyber Arms Watch

DPhil student Arthur Laudrain’s paper on “France’s New Offensive Cyber Doctrine” has been included in the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies’ first ever Cyber Arms Watch report: An Analysis of Stated and Perceived Offensive Cyber Capabilities.  

Despite the high level of cyber conflict, relatively little is publicly known about the offensive cyber capabilities of states. Arthur’s research, alongside a handful of other sources, helps provide evidence on France’s declared and perceived cyber capabilities.

His paper states how, in recent years, France has become much more open about its offensive cyber operations policy. He cites the 2019 offensive doctrine, which integrates cyber activity into conventional military operations, as the latest development in this. He quotes French ministers who, referencing Russian threats, said that “France is ‘not afraid’ of using cyber weapons… France did not wait until now to perform or even publicly admit doing so.”

The Cyber Arms Watch seeks to create a new “Cyber Transparency Index” for the world, to foster a much-needed overview and comparison of the offensive cyber capabilities of 60 states in this first instance.

Arthur comments that “there remains much to be done on cyber arms control, not the least to define what it means and what it could realistically achieve. There is not a lot of data and analysis available on state capabilities, so this report is important as one of the first piece of scholarship in not only collating an assessment of state cyber capabilities, but also to compare it with perceptions thereof, thus allowing the creation of a metric for transparency.

 “I am very glad to see my work contributing to an important endeavour that benefits research and policy.”