January 12, 2022
Geopolitics Keeps Overruling Cyber Norms, So What’s the Alternative?
Whenever a new technology emerges as a national security issue, governments want to establish norms of behavior. We are seeing it with AI, with unmanned systems, with hypersonic technology — and we have seen it with cyberspace.
Setting norms can be useful. The process itself can have benefits: it requires governments to communicate and develop a better understanding of how different nations view challenging issues. When norms are agreed upon, even if voluntary and non-binding, they can make explicit what may be mutually beneficial to states.
Once governments accept the limits of political cyber norms, they can then adapt to the messier reality of cyberspace today.
Norms, however, will always struggle when they begin to hit up against the core interests of the nations involved. As cyberspace is now intrinsically tied into traditional geopolitical contests and conflicts—that is, core interests — norms can alter behavior only so much. But hope is not lost: Once governments accept the limits of political cyber norms, they can then adapt to the messier reality of cyberspace today.
Read the full article from Breaking Defense.
More from CNAS
-
Sharper: Tariffs
Commentary
The incoming Trump administration has signaled that tariffs will be a central pillar of its economic strategy, with significant implications for international trade, the Ameri...
By Eleanor Hume, Charles Horn & Gwendolyn Nowaczyk
-
Technology to Secure the AI Chip Supply Chain: A Working Paper
Reports
Advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems, built and deployed with specialized chips, show vast potential to drive economic growth and scientific progress....
By Tim Fist, Tao Burga & Vivek Chilukuri
-
How the Chip War Could Turn Under Trump
Commentary
If the new Trump administration wants to reset chip policy — and if it wants visible results within four years — it had better start soon....
By Chris Miller
-
Trump Must Rebalance America’s AI Strategy
Commentary
The disagreements about AI progress are so fundamental and held with such conviction that they have evoked comparisons to a “religious schism” among technologists....
By Bill Drexel & Ruby Scanlon
