Machine-Speed Deterrence: Institutional Capacity as the Moderating Variable in AI-Driven Cyber Crises
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54938/ijemdss.2026.05.2.676Keywords:
deterrence stability, artificial intelligence, institutional capacity, cyber conflict, techno-realismAbstract
In this paper, Erosion of Deterrence in Rivalrous Dyads under Conditions of Cyber Evolution via Artificial Intelligence (AI) is advanced as moderated by absorptive institutional capacity of the receiving state, rather than by the offensive volume of cyber capability enabled by AI. Drawing on the literature on the techno-realist synthesis of technology and power (Sukma, 2024), and the cyber-deterrence literature which has been long preoccupied with the attribution issue problem (Lindsay, 2015; Nye, 2017), the paper captures three erosion processes: operational acceleration, attribution uncertainty, and signalling ambiguity, and models institutional capacity, defined in four dimensions and six observable indicators, as the variable that determines the absorption or amplification of these erosion processes. The India-Pakistan cyber competition is used as an illustrative case to illustrate the model, which is not tested. The paper's contribution is a framework that is portable and independent of the adversary, called machine-speed deterrence, to assess the stability of deterrence in an age of AI-compressed conflict, as well as policy recommendations that are geared toward institutional investment as opposed to capability investment.
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