Description
Cyber offensive operations have increasingly shaped the strategic thinking and practices of nation-states within the international system. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its subsequent cyber offensive targeting of allied nations, cyber resilience have become central to governmental decision-making in critical areas of national defence. In response, the UK has announced a Cyber Growth Action Plan (2025) and committed £1 billion to the development of the Digital Targeting Web (May 2025). While equipping the UK Armed Forces with advanced battlefield technologies is essential, it is equally important for policymakers to ensure that strategic decisions are not solely reliant on algorithmic outputs. Engagement in the cyber battlefield demands a deliberate, rational, and strategically sequenced decision-making process. While technological empowerment is essential, decision-making must not become fully dependent on algorithmic logic. To this end, this paper introduces Algocratic Realpolitik as a critical analytical lens that draws attention to the decisive forces of twenty-first century governance where the algorithmic infrastructures owned and operated by unelected, private actors challenges traditional democratic institutional decision making.
Drawing on academic and practitioner material, the paper starts with an overview of current approaches to offensive cyber operations. In this section it will be argued that separating offensive vs defensive operations in the algorithmic infrastructure will help government decision making. To demonstrate this, the paper will utilise case studies on select cyber events that conditioned military conflict. The paper then presents the algocratic realpolitik framework and its seven mechanisms. Given that the international order is transitioning to a new and yet unknown configuration, it is essential that states and decision makers are critically aware of the power competition and alignment between military, political and technological ecosystems. The paper concludes that the international system is governed less by the traditional power dynamics, than by the balance of power among algorithms.
