Abstract
This chapter considers how cyber-enabled diplomacy may be undertaken by the United States. While much discussion over the past decade has been dedicated to the topic of cyber warfare, less has attention has been directed at the use of cyber instruments (IT, social media, the blogosphere, etc.) in diplomatic engagement. Considered and critiqued here is the international cyber strategy enunciated by the Obama Administration in May 2011, regarding cyber issues and how that strategy factors into U.S. diplomatic initiatives. Covered are the: (a) emergence of cyberspace as venue for diplomacy; (b) framing of the strategy; (c) coverage of major incidents for consideration; and (d) prescriptive elements for policy development under the heading of cyber statecraft.
The research and views expressed in this paper are those of the individual researcher and do not necessarily represent the views of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy or Rice University.
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- 1.
On the broad concept of cyberpower, consider (Sheldon 2011b).
- 2.
The flaw indicated here is the Internet’s development from the high-trust ARPANET research network, which was constructed to an architecture largely unconcerned with malicious actors’ access to it.
- 3.
And warnings about information security issues (Johnson 2005).
- 4.
This should be the raison d’etre for State’s 21st Century Statecraft initiatives, some of which echo the ideas contained within Condoleezza Rice’s concept of Transformational Diplomacy.
- 5.
Established when the United States Information Agency merged with the Department of State in 1999.
- 6.
The term “use case” is commonly utilized in IT management and software development projects. It simply is the definition of a user directed function, for example Print or Save.
- 7.
Considering the how IT may either provide added evolutionary improvement or revolutionize the way business is done (Varian and Shapiro 1998).
- 8.
The dialog is also multi-lingual, with comments in Arabic and French as well as English. Also, not to be discounted is Tunisian press coverage of leaked U.S. Embassy Tunis cables reporting excess and splendor among the ruling elite (Black 2011).
- 9.
When a technology update was due to be undertaken by the company, a State Department official asked for the work to be delayed so that real time information would continue to flow from Tehran and other sites of protests against the election results after internal security forces silenced foreign correspondents and removed them from the country.
- 10.
The Myanmar government severed its outbound Internet service within 24 hours of the killing of Japanese photojournalist Kenji Nagai on September 27, 2007 by a Burmese soldier.
- 11.
Charney’s four categories: espionage, cybercrime, intellectual theft and cyberwar, is a useful heuristic (Charney 2010).
- 12.
There is a very blurry gray area regarding the line between corporate and national espionage especially considering the role of nationally-subsidized or state run companies in many sectors, including energy, aviation, and telecommunications.
- 13.
Cyber attacks against institutions in Estonia including telecommunications, banking and government services were precipitated by the Estonian government’s decision to move the Soviet Bronze Soldier of Tallinn monument to the Great Patriotic War to a military cemetery in Tallinn’s suburbs from a location in the city’s core.
- 14.
A botnet is a network of compromised computers that perform instructions clandestinely at the direction of an unauthorized party.
- 15.
A perfectly reasonable suggestion found in Clarke and Knake’s Cyberwar.
- 16.
Despite numerous news stories detailing the vulnerability Stuxnet exploits in the Siemens S7-series process controllers, shares of Siemens AG rose from US$60 to over US$90 over the 52-week period ending on January 21, 2011. Stuxnet, nor any other major development in understanding SCADA vulnerability appears to have harmed the company’s valuation.
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Acknowledgements
This paper was aided in no small measure by conversation and correspondence with Shiu-Kai Chin, William A. Conklin, John Dinger, Edward Djerejian, Sandro Gaycken, Gary Galloway, Rex Hughes, Kamal Jabbour, Cody Monk, Stefaan Verhulst, John Villasenor and Dan Wallach.
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Bronk, C. (2013). Between War & Peace: Considering the Statecraft of Cyberspace. In: Krüger, J., Nickolay, B., Gaycken, S. (eds) The Secure Information Society. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4763-3_1
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