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, Mar 29, 2021
Broken trust: Lessons from Sunburst
The story of trust is an old one, but the Sunburst cyber-espionage campaign was a startling reminder of the United States’ collective cyber insecurity and the inadequacy of current US strategy to compete in a dynamic intelligence contest in cyberspace.
Report by
Mon, Mar 1, 2021
Countering cyber proliferation: Zeroing in on Access-as-a-Service
The proliferation of offensive cyber capabilities (OCC) presents an expanding set of risks to states and challenges commitments to protect openness, security, and stability in cyberspace. Access as a Service firms offer various forms of “access” to target data or systems, and through these business practices are creating and selling OCC at an alarming rate. It is imperative that governments reevaluate their approach to countering the proliferation of OCC.
Report by
Mon, Feb 1, 2021
Pathologies of obfuscation: Nobody understands cyber operations or wargaming
National security and defense professionals have long utilized wargames to better understand hypothetical conflict scenarios. With conflict in the cyber domain becoming a more prominent piece in wargames in the national security community, this issue brief seeks to identify the common pathologies, or potential pitfalls, of cyber wargaming.
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.
Breaking Trust
The Breaking Trust project seeks to catalog software supply chain intrusions and identify major trends and implications from their execution. Trust in software one did not build may be practically impossible, leaving the task of establishing and rigorously enforcing tolerable levels of distrust in others’ code. Working to improve the security of software and managing these levels of distrust is critical for private sector enterprise as well as sensitive defense and intelligence organizations. This project remains ongoing to highlight the need for a more coherent policy response together with action from industry and open-source communities.
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.
Security at the Maritime Edge
A conversation on how the US can address systemic shortfalls in maritime cybersecurity with allies and partners across the private sector.
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
Opportunities
Looking for a paid summer internship?
We are now recruiting Young Global Professionals for Summer 2021!
Applications close Friday, March 26, 2021.
Fellows
