INTRODUCTION:
The governance of cybersecurity is one of the knottiest challenges confronting states and non-state actors today, and is bound to escalate into the future. In many ways, the benefits afforded by cyberspace are also its most potent fault lines. While he ubiquity, anonymity and freedom available in cyberspace furthers many civil liberties, the interconnectedness of cyberspace makes it very difficult to regulate, leaving significant portions of the global population, economy and infrastructure vulnerable to abuse. The common strand within debates about the governance of cyberspace concerns the difficulty of arriving at a global consensus on rules of the road for this medium.
The goal of this paper analysis assignment is to encourage students to join the debate about “the best way to secure cyberspace.” Ultimately, nations will want both network and data security, but on the specific issue of how content is protected – and indeed, what content is protected – there is bound to be wide divergence among countries. States also face an incentive problem. They are prone to exploit digital vulnerabilities to access sensitive data (cyber espionage) and/or to gain strategic advantages in a militarized conflict by, for example, temporarily incapacitating an opponent’s communication infrastructure. Therefore, states generally prefer private rent-seeking over the production of a public good (international cyber security) which has led to the securitization, militarization and increasingly fragmentation of the Internet. The consequence is a negative spiral of suspicion, mistrust and balkanization that threatens the domain in toto. States’ national securitization efforts have primarily diminished the scale returns of networks rather than their own insecurity. International institutions and organizations have tried but have not been particularly successful in providing the “rules of the game” and reducing the current cyber trust gap. Yet, the establishment of these ground rules requires trust in the first place – a classic Catch-22 –which is even more difficult to establish under the condition of a security dilemma.
Yet, something needs to change. Your assignment, therefore, is to (a) choose TWO most recent accounts or incidents of cybersecurity breaches or threats, or threats (in both public and private sectors) of a global or “globalized” nature; or, actual incidents of cyber espionage, cyberterrorism, cyber conflict, and even cyberwarfare; (b) discuss their “international” or “global” origins (actors involved), impact, effect and/or ramifications of the two events or cases; and (c) drawing from one or more of the theoretical perspectives in International Relations, address the “something needs to change” mantra, namely the feasibility or otherwise of agreement on common norms and codes of conduct to govern the cybersecurity challenges you have identified. A robust and balanced analysis would demonstrate acute awareness of the multidimensional nature of cybersecurity as a quintessential example of the “linked” and “complex security” of contemporary international relations. You must also provide clear bibliographic citations for ALL materials or sources used.
Word Limit: 1,000 words (12-point fonts, double-spaced)
