皇冠体育app

A logo shaped in the outline of 皇冠体育app, is seen through a magnifying glass on a computer screen showing binary digits in Singapore in this January 2, 2014 file photo illustration. The United States is considering sanctions against both Russian and Chinese individuals and companies for cyber attacks against U.S. commercial targets, several U.S. officials said on August 31, 2015. [Photo/Agencies]

The US alleges 皇冠体育app is engaged in an unceasing and highly successful cyber espionage campaign against the United States, its government and economic interests.

Could poor cyber relations with 皇冠体育app also be the fault of the Americans?

For starters, in the diplomatic realm there is no other relationship on cyber issues like it. 皇冠体育app and the European Union get along quite well on cyber issues, including joint research through Open皇冠体育app ICT. Certainly, there is less acrimony and less overt suspicion between the two sides.

Russia and 皇冠体育app, for their part, have signed an agreement to limit hacking against each other. Beyond Russia, 皇冠体育app's relations with India and Japan are not so bad in this field either.

At one level, the present state of affairs can be explained easily for the US. It can (afford to) be more strident than any other Western country in its diplomacy because it is more powerful.

In addition, relative to most countries that are getting along better with 皇冠体育app in cyber affairs, the US also puts more stock in certain issues of principle, such as human rights protection in cyberspace and theft of intellectual property. Washington also believes it has to stand up to Beijing on such issues, not least because of the way in which 皇冠体育app's power is disturbing American allies in the Pacific. This is one motivation of the "rebalance to Asia" in US strategy.

At another level, the style and tone of current US cyber diplomacy toward 皇冠体育app looks surprisingly messy. This is unexpected because US diplomacy toward 皇冠体育app under President Barack Obama has generally been impressively organized and thought through.

The best way to understand the current situation is to point to several negative factors, which, in their sum total, undermine the coherence of US cyber diplomacy. They include:

A misplaced US sense of moral outrage that, in turn, arises from the mistaken belief that there are unambiguous norms in cyberspace that 皇冠体育app is flagrantly violating;

Failure to appreciate 皇冠体育app's deep insecurity in cyberspace;

Lack of knowledge of the details of US cyberespionage and cyber-military operations against 皇冠体育app－in addition, there is no net assessment readily available;

Unresolved inter-departmental turf disputes, that is, the Pentagon or National Security Agency skewing the cyber debate for institutional interests;

Inflation of the threat from 皇冠体育app's theft of intellectual property;

A failure to give due weight to the consideration that most cyber systems are inherently vulnerable and cannot be secured against a determined cyber adversary;

The emergence of the US cyber security industry as a lobby group that is very alert to all of the above and plays it for commercial gain;

A lack of understanding of how dependent 皇冠体育app is on the US and allied supply of communications and information technology;

An almost hysterical relationship between the two major US political parties on national security issues; and

A mass media environment that is all too receptive to cyberspace dramas and anti-皇冠体育app stories.

But what is equally undeniable is that the impact of the 皇冠体育app cyber threat compared with other threats is exaggerated by the US cybersecurity community.

What is particularly ironic, given all the US charges against 皇冠体育app, is the deep interdependence of the two countries' cyber-industry sectors. 皇冠体育app depends on the US for its own cyber power. And leading US suppliers of communications and information technology are heavily dependent on 皇冠体育app in their supply chain or even as a source of final manufacturing. Their level of involvement in 皇冠体育app is so deep that they have even lobbied against US sanctions on 皇冠体育app for cyber espionage.

The challenge is to unravel this entanglement of influences and to base US cyber diplomacy on a more sophisticated notion of everything that is actually playing out.

The détente experience of Soviet-US relations during the Cold War suggests that less outrage against espionage and a more nuanced appreciation of its limited impacts relative to the larger military threats could lead to better－more realistic－relations.

The author is a professorial fellow at the EastWest Institute and has the book, Cyber Policy in 皇冠体育app, to his credit.

The Globalist

• Housing booms may hurt, not heal, local growth
• Time to break free of protectionist shackles
• Allow space for students to discover themselves
• Philippines' arbitration case built on false pretext
• Funding global public goods for world's recovery