Nathaniel Fick issues stark warning during discussion on cyber diplomacy.
By: Joe Fay
The U.S. and its allies are in a “deterrence” hole when it comes to cyber adversaries, the U.S. ambassador at large for cyberspace and digital policy told an audience at the RSA Conference in San Francisco.
Nathaniel Fick was speaking on a panel considering “The Role of Partnerships in Advancing Cyber Diplomacy”, which inevitably focused on the results of a breakdown in conventional diplomacy in the shape of the war in Ukraine.
Fick said that 20 years of diplomacy had resulted in the United Nations’ (U.N.) “norms” of responsible behavior in cyberspace. But these are principles and aspirations, and “making it real requires similar ground game diplomacy every day”.
The Netherlands’ ambassador at large for security policy and cyber, HE Nathalie Jaarsma, said the U.N. norms
set a clear yardstick on what responsible behavior was, and calling out bad behavior but there needed to be better “feedback loops”.
Cybersecurity was still often a separate silo and had to be better integrated into overall foreign policy, she said, and governments had to be more proactive on using all the instruments at their disposal, from economic, aid and military to address the challenges.