Conflict and Cyberspace: Challenges for Military Higher Education Institutions

Since the cyberspace is an extremely complex and large-scale social system we can consider it as a main factor with a very impressive influence on conflict and war. Therefore, study of the cyberspace related to security and defence is becoming more stringent. However, even though the diversity of matters in cyber security and defence require multidisciplinary thought and expertise, there is no a large interest to the development of cyber defence training and education initiatives. Work in cybernetics and systems science suffers from a lack of educational programs in universities. According to Herb Lin, from sociological perspective, some of the specific study topics are as following: cyber decisionmaking during times of uncertainty; socio-psychological effects of cyber warfare; cyber security awareness; cyber narratives and cross-cultural views; successful cyber-aware organizations; organizational dynamics in cyber security; organization of the national government for cyber security; command and control of offensive operations; private cyber security companies; civil liberties and cyber security etc. A permanent challenge for the military higher education institutions is to prepare sufficient high quality cyber trained people. In this respect, we express the view on role of education as main factor for enhanced digital readiness.