WIREDGOV

Speculation is mounting over how the US will act if diplomacy fails and a deal with Iran to remove the country’s nuclear capability collapses. As options are debated, ‘cyber’ remains ever elusive.

Over recent months, there has been much talk of US Cyber Command’s alleged role in turning the lights out over the Venezuelan capital of Caracas in the raid to capture the country’s president and his wife. The US has also acknowledged that cyber operations were integrated with its 2025 military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Elsewhere, the Trump administration has indicated the potential for private sector involvement in its offensive cyber operations. Taken together, these developments point in one direction: that cyber operations will occupy a more decisive and visible role in US national security objectives.

In Iran, US cyber operations could target a range of systems, from early warning to administrative government infrastructure, with an aim to disrupt, degrade and deny use of capabilities. But these effects have strategic impacts beyond immediate tactical outcomes. When calibrated and aligned to political objectives, they work to create conditions for operational friction within Iran’s security apparatus, increase the IRGC’s operational costs, reduce regime co-ordination and potentially influence decision making.

US cyber operations could structure these conditions in Iran, but they cannot unfold in a vacuum of foreign policy, and resources are neither infinite nor free. Offensive cyber operations are complex, might require years of preparation and some target systems will remain beyond reach. Regardless of the US’ expansive cyber capabilities, it is unrealistic to assume that it can do everything, all at once. This makes clarity of US political objectives in Iran essential, so as to shape how offensive cyber operations are prioritised and how they can work in concert with other tools of statecraft to achieve overarching aims.

Nearly eight months on from US military strikes against nuclear facilities in Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow, deteriorating Iranian economic conditions, and the IRGC’s reported action plan outlining an overtly offensive cyber retaliation to potential US military strikes, the margin for political miscalculation is thin.

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