One of the main fears among cyberwarfare theorists — I’d say experts, but it’s still mostly theoretical at this point — is that cyberwar could trigger war in the physical realm.

For example, if there’s an imbalance of cyber capabilities, and a country sustains significant damage — perhaps to infrastructure in a way that physically harms people — and it cannot sufficiently respond in the cyber realm, it could launch a physical attack in retaliation. That’s not a guarantee, of course, but states rarely let foreign attacks go if they have a way to respond, even if the method of response is different than the method of attack.