Russia has a plan to temporarily disconnect its Internet servers from international servers and traffic. This isn't about cybersecurity. Instead, it's a gambit intended to scare the West into thinking Russia is preparing for war.

As ZDNet reports, the disconnect test follows a law passed last December that required Russian telecommunications companies "... to install 'technical means' to re-route all Russian Internet traffic to exchange points approved or managed by Roskomnazor, Russia's telecom watchdog. Roskomnazor will inspect the traffic to block prohibited content and make sure traffic between Russian users stays inside the country, and is not re-routed uselessly through servers abroad, where it could be intercepted."

The idea here is that insulating Russian Internet servers and traffic to Russian-only bases would prevent foreign adversaries from launching cyberattacks against Russia during a conflict. But this suggestion is absurd for two simple reasons.

For a start, the U.S. and other potential Russian adversaries have taken steps to mitigate any Russian effort to isolate its Internet servers. Just as the U.S. and Russia took steps during the Cold War to ensure their nuclear strike capabilities were survivable, the same is true of cyberwarfare platforms today. The basic point is that the U.S. could easily get inside the Russian cybercommunity even if that community was localized to Russian servers. Russia knows this, but it also knows that this kind of exercise will generate Western media attention. That, Moscow hopes, will scare Germany into opposing escalating U.S., British, and French pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But this exercise is also absurd in that it would turn the Russian Internet into a basic data delivery system rather than an information exchange system. The key here is that the Internet relies on global data flows to provide timely communication and information between different parties. To shut off Russia from the world and expect to provide the same basic service would be like a cruise ship captain shutting off his radar, compass, GPS, and lookout capabilities and driving headlong into the northern Atlantic Ocean. In short, it would be very dangerous and without obvious benefit.

So yes, this Russian cyberexercise deserves our attention. But not for what it is, rather for what Russia intends it to mean.