What is cyber statecraft?
Cyber statecraft is the use of technology to achieve strategic ends. Cyber statecraft is in a government’s design of data governance regulations to punish foreign firms, in a technology company’s decision to unmask a national intelligence operation, and in the military’s use of cyber effects to support forces on a kinetic battlefield. As private firms expand their authority over internet infrastructure, content, and activities they too become influential geopolitical players. As states assimilate technology into new domains of conventional warfare, surveillance, and security regulation, they fuse choices in technology design to political debate.
This is the conduct of cyber statecraft, at the nexus of technology and geopolitics.
The insecurity of widely used technology systems, from planes, to routers, to automobiles presents a marked danger to economic and social health. Adversaries present novel threats to well-established policy processes and demand action in new domains and in new forms from policymakers. The Cyber Statecraft Initiative presents substantive analysis from those closest to the issues, leveraging the Scowcroft Center’s innate expertise and a network of fellows to shift attention from singular incidents to the slow but tectonic nature of strategic change.
Our pillars
Cyber operations and defense policy
Cyber capabilities are an increasingly common feature on modern battlefields and shape the conduct of statecraft. The development of these capabilities must now factor into debates about doctrine, force structure, and innovation. Our work looks at the broad policy landscape around cyber capabilities including the secure acquisition and operation of software intensive defense systems, modern security assistance, the proliferation of cyber capabilities, and network exploitation on the boundaries of electronic warfare.
Internet and systems security
An interconnected system of global networks, the internet provides a massive platform for conducting commerce and linking people across international community. Organizations of all shapes and sizes depend on the internet. We work to support and advise governments and the private sector working to secure the internet from degradation, malign influence, and direct harm. We advocate for US global leadership and empowered user communities by convening practitioners to ensure a free, secure, and open internet.
Communities of cyberspace
Cybersecurity continues to expand and with it the need for a trained and talented workforce in nations of all sizes. The size of this workforce continues to lag demand, particularly for those who can translate between policy and technology. Through our Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge, we seek to tackle the global cyber skills shortage with iterated crisis simulation, policy analysis, and mentorship. Part interactive learning experience, part competitive scenario exercise, Cyber 9/12 challenges student teams from a range of academic disciplines to respond to a realistic and evolving scenario. Teams analyze threats and develop responses to manage an escalating crisis, with built in feedback loops from expert judges.
Cyber safety
The convergence of the digital and physical worlds through embedded computing and the Internet of Things impacts the technology marketplace and geopolitical dynamics through systems people interact with every day. We seek to identify and influence key policy debates on the security of operational technologies across the United States, European Union, and Asia, driving collaborative efforts to focus on healthcare devices, maritime systems, and aerospace technologies.
Analysis and in-depth research
Our articles, issue briefs, and reports consist of notes from the field and analysis from our team—insights to give you practical leverage on the complex challenges of cybersecurity. A synthesis of technical systems and policy dynamics, cybersecurity demands detailed understanding to create meaningful change. These analyses dig deep into the concepts and assumptions that shape the geopolitics of cybersecurity.
Mon, Sep 28, 2020
Dude, where’s my cloud? A guide for wonks and users
Cloud computing is transforming society, from interactions between people to the ways by which companies do business, and even how militaries operate. If you have ever been curious about what exactly “the cloud” meant; if you are a policy wonk not a technologist, a user not an admin, then this report is for you.
Report by
Mon, Aug 31, 2020
Four myths about the cloud: The geopolitics of cloud computing
Cloud computing providers are more than companies—they govern vast utility infrastructure, play host to digital battlefields, and are magnificent engines of complexity. Cloud computing is embedded in contemporary geopolitics; the choices providers make are influenced by, and influential on, the behavior of states. In competition and cooperation, cloud computing is the canvas on which states conduct significant political, security, and economic activity.
Report by Trey Herr
Sun, Jul 26, 2020
Breaking trust: Shades of crisis across an insecure software supply chain
Software supply chain security remains an under-appreciated domain of national security policymaking. Working to improve the security of software supporting private sector enterprise as well as sensitive Defense and Intelligence organizations requires more coherent policy response together industry and open source communities.
In-Depth Research & Reports by
Featured content series
Cloud Security & Policy
Cloud computing is more than technology and engineering minutia—it has real social and political consequences. Cloud providers influence the pace and direction of economic growth, shape international security competition, and mediate access to technologies which today inform changes in the global balance of power.
CSI5x5 Series
A series by the Cyber Statecraft Initiative featuring pertinent questions in cybersecurity and incisive expert responses.
Breaking Trust
Software supply chain security remains an under-appreciated domain of national security policymaking. Working to improve the security of software supporting private sector enterprise as well as sensitive Defense and Intelligence organizations requires more coherent policy response together industry and open source communities. This report profiles 115 attacks and disclosures against the software supply chain from the past decade to highlight the need for action and presents recommendations to both raise the cost of these attacks and limit their harm.
Events and convening
Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge
The Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge is a one-of-a-kind cyber competition designed to provide students from across academic disciplines with a deeper understanding of the policy and strategy challenges associated with management of tradeoffs during a cyber crisis.
Cyber Risk Wednesdays
The Cyber Risk Wednesday event series, underwritten by Raytheon, provides the cognitive and physical space to help policymakers, corporate leaders, and the public navigate technology and policy interrelationships in a language that resonates with them, and to inject foresight-driven and multidisciplinary analyses into core cyber debates.
A Virtual Roundtable with the Cyberspace Solarium
A discussion focused on the Cyberspace Solarium Commission report’s findings and recommendations to improve the security of the technology ecosystem by developing better information on which policymakers, industry leaders, and consumers can base their cybersecurity decisions.
Leadership
Fellows
Experts
Content
Events
