Description
The majority of literature focussed on the concept of conflict in cyberspace has focussed on a definitional approach, with regards to whether an action breaches the threshold required to be considered an act of war. This approach is considered to be unsatisfactory and artificially constrains the potential for how, and the importance of, conflict within cyberspace has, and can develop, in the future.
This paper takes the position that there are four clear stages in the development of conflict in cyberspace. Each stage is identifiable by a different relationship between the real and the virtual world. It is this battle for supremacy that represents the true challenge of cyberspace to the modern world; the conflict between the real world and the virtual world.
