It is complicated: cyber into the civil–military relationship

Abstract Cybersecurity and cyber defense have introduced a range of transformations in civil–military relations that remain underexplored as a distinct analytical domain. Existing scholarship often treats these dynamics in isolation, obscuring how they collectively reconfigure civil–military relations through interdependent and mutually reinforcing processes rather than as a series of discrete developments. This article addresses this gap through a three-step approach: first, it examines central debates in civil–military relations; second, it analyzes how cyber engages with its core analytical categories; and third, it synthesizes these insights to conceptualize cyber as a transformative force. In doing so, it shows how key dimensions—civilian control, nonstate actors, military–society relations, organizational dynamics, and processes of politicization and militarization—are reconfigured in tandem. This simultaneity reveals both the contours of cyber militarization and the persistence of civilian control, even as the military expands its operational footprint. Overall, these dynamics expose the limits of existing frameworks, which struggle to capture such distributed and interdependent effects.