// Comparison

Introduction à la cyberstratégie vs The Hacker and the State: Which Should You Read?

Two cybersecurity books on Strategy, compared honestly: who each is for, what each does best, and which to read first.

Intermediate

3/52015

Olivier Kempf

A foundational French introduction to cyberstrategy — treating cyberspace as a domain of strategic thought — by a former officer and strategy scholar.

Beginner

5/52020

The Hacker and the State

Cyber Attacks and the New Normal of Geopolitics

Ben Buchanan

Ben Buchanan's argument that state-on-state cyber operations are not deterrence-shaped (like nuclear) but signaling-shaped: countries use cyber to shape the environment, not to threaten escalation. Builds the case from declassified incidents.

Read this if

Strategy students and analysts who want a structured French-language introduction to thinking about cyberspace strategically, in the Economica strategic-studies tradition.

Anyone trying to think clearly about state-sponsored cyber: policy staff, threat-intel analysts, journalists, and security leaders who have to brief on "the cyber threat" without resorting to vendor decks. The single best academic-grade synthesis of the last twenty years of state cyber operations.

Skip this if

Technical readers or those wanting current operational detail; it's an academic strategic introduction, and even the 2015 edition predates much recent history.

Readers wanting forensic detail on specific operations. Buchanan synthesizes; for the procedural blow-by-blow on Stuxnet, NotPetya, or the SolarWinds incident, go to Zetter, Greenberg, and the post-incident reports respectively.

Key takeaways

A clear French-language entry point to cyberspace as a strategic domain.
Sits in the academic strategic-studies tradition (Economica), complementing Boyer's more operational pair.
The second edition (2015) adds chapters on French cyberstrategy; read for the framework, not current events.

Cyber is poorly modeled by deterrence theory: states use it constantly, below the threshold of war, to shape the environment rather than to threaten escalation.
The signaling/shaping distinction (espionage, sabotage, destabilization, election interference) is the right taxonomy for analyzing modern campaigns and is the book's most reused contribution.
Attribution and accountability remain genuinely hard, and that asymmetry is itself a structural feature of cyber statecraft, not a temporary condition awaiting better tools.

How they compare

We rate The Hacker and the State higher (5/5 against 3/5 for Introduction à la cyberstratégie). For most readers, that means The Hacker and the State is the primary pick and Introduction à la cyberstratégie is a useful follow-up.

Introduction à la cyberstratégie is pitched at intermediate level. The Hacker and the State is pitched at beginner level. Read the easier one first if you're not yet comfortable with the topic.

Introduction à la cyberstratégie and The Hacker and the State both cover Strategy, Geopolitics, so reading them in sequence reinforces the same material from different angles.

Keep reading

Introduction à la cyberstratégie

→ Alternatives to Introduction à la cyberstratégie → What to read after Introduction à la cyberstratégie