The core argument of Cyber Persistence and Campaigning is straightforward: to avoid being drawn into unwanted crisis or armed conflict (or prevail in both if they emerge), policymakers must apply cyber resources through coherent continuous cyber campaigns that set and structure conditions and circumstances to their advantage. The optimal way for policymakers to do this is to conduct concurrent campaigns for cyber contingency and advantage in competition. Cyber resources are not optimized as substitutes for conventional or nuclear weapons in war, or for coercion in crisis settings. They are, rather, the anticipatory stage-setters for those contingencies. As such, they are critical to ensuring the military forces that deter and fight are always ready and able to do so, and they play a parallel, simultaneous role in advancing state interests short of those contingencies. This means that states seeking and sustaining cyber initiative will have the advantage across the competition-conflict spectrum over those that do not. Cyber persistence through campaigning combines a single logic with a 21st century artform. Those states that master this combination will thrive in the digital age.
