The Impact of Cyber Capabilities on the Israeli - Iranian Relationship

Abstract

In the last decade or so, Iran and Israel have found a new domain where to translate and protract their conflictual relationship: the cyberspace. Since the discovery of Stuxnet both countries have embarked on a significant cyber capabilities build-up, in accordance with their resources, and driven as well by mutual threat and perception of threat they pose to each other. Following their own cyber strategies embedded in their respective broader foreign policy agendas, the two foes confronted each other several times in a cyber feud which lasts to present days. Through the use of Event Data methodology, it is examined quantitatively the impact of cyber conflict on the Iranian- Israeli relationship, when cyber capabilities are utilized as a foreign policy tool vis-à-vis each other. The results of the quantitative study show no significant alteration of the conflict-cooperation dynamics between the dyad of interest due to the utilization of cyber capabilities. Furthermore, the qualitative assessment of the cyber feud shows that the balance of power between the two sides is not affected by increasing cyber capabilities, since Israel has the clear upper hand in the cyberspace. Keywords Iran, Israel, Foreign Policy, Cyber Capabilities, Cyber Conflict, Event Data