One thing that should be remembered about the Kosovo War is that the United States actually dropped bombs specifically to take down Serbia’s electrical grid. Why? One possible reason was cyberwarfare by Serbs against American computers at the time.

This war hasn’t seen the use of graphite bombs and probably won’t. However, cyberwarfare is a means to increase the cost of the other side to keep in contact with one’s own side. So, if (for example) a Saudi wants to keep out pornography from a foreign country, the two logical means to do this. He can either use a conventional filter or he can attack the foreign country’s computers and create sufficient harm to them that the foreign country decides to cut off access to Saudi computers.

If one wants to seal one’s country off, a series of cyberattacks against computers of other countries makes perfect sense. That way, any barrier will necessarily become the fault of somebody else. The act of setting up a barrier would then become a pretext for accusations of xenophobia and racism. Given the high political costs of getting tarred with the label “xenophobe” or “racist”, it makes sense to ensure that barriers and boycotts become the responsibility of the other side of a quarrel. The key in this game is to provoke the other side while looking reasonable in public.