Cyberspace will be war creator, says varsity VC

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PANAJI: Cyberspace will inevitably become a creator of war, Goa University (GU) vice-chancellor Varun Sahni said. He was speaking on the subject of maritime geopolitics at the International Centre Goa (ICG), Dona Paula, on Thursday. 

Sahni debated on the extent to which maritime space, air space, outer space and cyber space are "global commons". He explain how "conflict has claimed maritime spaces and air columns by way of naval wars and air fights." Though, the outer space and the relatively-new cyberspace have not yet been militarized, they are being securitized by countries across the world as a precaution to any future outbreak of war, he said. 

"We are beginning to reach a stage where outer space may get militarized. It is already securitized in the sense that there are bi-sattelites and China is also conducting space experiments. The next step is to militarize their domain and if this happens, the global common will disappear," he said. 

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He also threw some light upon how internet space will become territorialized by countries. "Countries will over time come to regard the cyberspace as a new form of territory. As countries become evermore dependant on the internet for their economies, cyberspace will inevitably become a creator of war," he said. 

The internet usage has slowly risen since its public use in 1993 till date. By 2015, a total of 3.2 billion people across the planet were using the internet, which accounts for over 40% of the world's population. "This has most definitely grown since 2015," he added. 

Sahni further quoted a 2013 study by the United Nations (UN), which claimed that nations have already begun to adopt measures to claim their space on the internet. 

"More than 40 UN states have already developed some military cyber capabilities and 12 UN states have developed some capabilities to conduct offensive cyber war. Such is the situation," he said. An expert on international relations, Sahni is bringing together all these critical issues and their impact on globalization in a book that he is currently writing.