초록 열기/닫기 버튼
This paper analyzes the impact of the emerging ‘cyber-nuclear nexus’ on the structural, constitutive, and institutional elements of the international security order to examine the possibility of changes in the stability of the order. Based on the analyses, the paper argues that the cyber-nuclear nexus causes or has the potential to cause changes in the stability of the order on three levels. First, there are signs of change in the unequal distribution of power between countries based on traditional military resources and the international hierarchy, in other words, the ‘structural element’ of the order is changing accordingly, as the vulnerability of conventional military resources to cyber threats increases due to the digitalization of military resources including nuclear weapons. Second, as the influence of non-state actors as the subject of cyber-nuclear threats is expanding, the ‘constitutive element’ of the order, which originally assumes the sovereign state as the only subject and object of security, is changing. Third, as the need for combining the non-proliferation/nuclear security-related regimes and cyber security-related norms to manage the growing cyber-nuclear threats increases, changes are expected in the ‘institutional element’ of the order that is expressed through international institutions. Among the three, the changes in the structural and constitutive elements are accelerated as they interlock with the strategic competition between the U.S. and China that is already jeopardizing the stability of the existing order.
