The A2/AD Concept in the Fifth Operational Domain

In the last decade, the world has faced a major change of the security balance, new directions of action being drawn by the main actors of the global scene. States are trying to expand their spheres of influence, to invest in research and technological development, especially to achieve the military superiority in different operational domains, to train their armies following the evolution of the security environment and the changing trends of conducting the armed struggle and to improve their military capabilities to gain or to maintain control over certain areas of interest. This is why, in the last years, the states have invested in military assets that can assure a complete implementation of the anti-access/area denial concept. Starting from the ideas that the A2/AD concept can be applied to all operational environments and that the cyberspace is the fifth domain of the armed struggle, in this paper, after a short glance at the increased interest of three powerful countries in this particular concept, a fastidious excogitation on it will be performed in the second part, while the third part will contain information regarding the cyber operations and their role in implementing the A2/AD concept in the battlefield characterized by 0s and 1s and, lastly, the main objectives of pursuing cyber attacks will be analyzed.