How the United States Constructs Cyber-Threat Scenarios

A cyberwar has not taken place so far but it belongs to the realm of what could and might take place. Nevertheless, U.S military and the political establishment think that a cyberwar will take place. The U.S Presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump established cyberspace-threat-scenarios. The speech acts from the Presidents as well as the Presidential documents attempt to construct a threatening image of cyberspace. Whether or not cyberspace really poses a threat is thereby not relevant, it is just the speech act that constructs the threatening image. But why is cyberspace seen as a threat? Why is such a threatening image of cyberspace presented? This paper is devoted to these questions. In order to answer them, the Copenhagen School's Theory of Securitisation will be applied to cyberspace. This will be done since the Copenhagen School offers an explanation why certain issues will become existential threats: it is the act of "securitisation" that transforms certain issues through speech acts into a matter of national security.