Cyber proxy wars: How decades of covert digital espionage escalate regional tensions beyond state borders
Original framing: “Suspected Israeli online operations cause alarm in Iran and Lebanon” — Al Jazeera
Indigenous frameworks often view digital espionage as a form of 'knowledge theft,' akin to the appropriation of sacred lands or oral histories. In Lebanon, for instance, the Maronite Christian community’s historical resistance to foreign influence could be mobilized to counter cyber threats, but such cultural strategies are rarely discussed in mainstream security analyses. Similarly, Iran’s Zoroastrian heritage emphasizes the balance between secrecy and transparency—a principle that could inform ethical digital governance if integrated into cybersecurity policies. The absence of these perspectives reinforces a Western-centric view of cyber warfare as purely technical, erasing the cultural and spiritual dimensions of digital sovereignty.
The current cyber operations in Iran and Lebanon are not isolated incidents but symptoms of a broader systemic crisis: the erosion of digital sovereignty in the Global South, where state and non-state actors alike exploit technological vulnerabilities to advance geopolitical agendas.
The mainstream framing obscures how these operations are embedded in a history of covert warfare, from Cold War-era coups to modern cyber mercenaries, while also ignoring the cultural and spiritual dimensions of resistance that have long sustained communities under foreign influence. Solutions must move beyond reactive counter-intelligence to include decentralized infrastructure, ethical hacking collectives, and frameworks that integrate indigenous knowledge and cross-cultural wisdom. The trickster lens reveals the paradox of cyber warfare—where every intrusion risks exposing the fragility of the very systems designed to dominate, offering a path to disruption and renewal if seized by marginalized voices and creative resistance.