Tech Diplomacy Floundered Under Trump. Heres Bidens Plan To Bring It Back.
© Slate photo illustration courtesy of Slate . Photo by Getty Images Plus.It is known that Trump is not a supporter of international cooperation, including technology diplomacy. We now have a better idea of how Biden picked up where his predecessor left off.
Earlier this month, the Biden administration unveiled its long-awaited national security strategy following the delay in Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Published approximately every four years, the document not only serves as a guide for government agencies, but has long been a way for governments to present their view of the world and America's foreign policy involvement in it.
The latest edition of Security Strategy covers everything from climate emergency talks to inflation. One of the most important elements of technology policy is the emphasis on using diplomacy to address digital challenges. In particular, it means working with allies to create alternatives to Chinese and Russian influence in technology and the Internet. This approach is not necessarily surprising, but given the Trump administration's direct assault on technology diplomacy, it is a major turning point that has put the United States back on track.
The United States has been dealing with technology issues internationally for decades. Toward the end of the George W. Bush administration, the administration began building a group of cyber diplomats and State Department analysts to enhance its global technology leadership. In an increasingly digital world, their mission is simple (though complex). Ensure that technology is an important part of US engagement with other countries. For example, following the Russian cyber attack on Estonia in 2007, this meant that international discussion about the country's hacking activities was provoked. The Obama White House continued this expansion of technology diplomacy by revising cyber policy early in the administration, establishing the State Department's Office of the Cyberspace Coordinator in 2011, and authoring the first national international strategy for cyberspace. . Emphasizing the Internet's ability to influence global economics and politics, the strategy envisions an "open, efficient, secure, and trusted cyber future" reflected in the so-called US Internet Freedom Agenda, which promotes the Internet as an opportunity. . liberation
This progress took a major step in January 2017, when Donald Trump took office and immediately turned his sights on US diplomacy. The Trump administration has repeatedly slashed the State Department's budget, rejected the idea of working with longtime allies, undermined staff morale and forced the resignation of many career diplomats. Despite the work of the Bush and Obama administrations, technology-based diplomacy has failed; Trump White House officials routinely cut the ground from under the feet of remaining cyber diplomats. For example, the then-president disputed the intelligence community and bipartisan congressional findings that Russia interfered in the election. As diplomats try to mount a more measured cybersecurity awareness campaign against Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, the White House is talking about Trump's political response to China and undermining diplomatic efforts to engage with other countries. In November 2019, Russia successfully passed a UN resolution for the first time to create a new treaty against cybercrime, where Russia's concept of "crime" includes journalism and anti-government speech after advocates of a free and open internet. The United States, including the United States, cannot build a diplomatic bloc to destroy it.
Given this volatility, the new national security strategy's renewed focus on diplomacy is significant. Building alliances of nations to "strengthen our collective influence" and "address common challenges" is "a central part of shaping the rules of the road for technology, cybersecurity, trade and the economy," the strategy says. The document states that in Europe or the Indo-Pacific region, the United States "highly values building a network of connections between our democratic allies and partners – in technology, trade and security" to achieve its complementary goals.
The axle of the wheel is already moving. In April, the Department of State created a new Cyber and Digital Policy Bureau to address national security, economic, and rights issues related to digital technologies and politics; In September, Nathaniel Fick was sworn in as the first US Ambassador for Cyberspace and Digital Policy, director of the new bureau. Part of his job is to help countries develop cyber defense capabilities, which the US government has done in Ukraine. The US and EU have also launched a technology trade council that will deal with everything from privacy to supply chains. Recently, U.S. officials worked for months with allies and partners to select Doreen Bogdan-Martin, the International Telecommunication Union, United Nations technology agency, against Russian candidate Rashid Ismailov. Although the ITU is a little-known organization with a minimal role in internet governance, Beijing and Moscow have been pushing for greater control over the ITU for years because, as a UN agency, it would pressure governments to top-down: a month-long US diplomatic campaign around the world. The victory of Bogdan-Martin supported by helped to prevent such consequences.
The Biden White House has a lot of work ahead of it. Strengthening technology diplomacy, especially after the erosion of America's technological credibility a few years ago, is no easy task. Despite the Putin regime being out of favor in some countries, the Chinese government continues its efforts to destroy the global Internet. In many countries, authoritarian narratives of online "sovereignty" are becoming more dominant as threats to privacy, cybersecurity, and confusion lead to increased state control over the Internet. Bogdan-Martin's ITU victory is a short-term relief for many advocates of a global and open Internet, but there is a tough road ahead as Beijing and Moscow will not stop trying to influence the organization.
The national security strategy also addresses the malicious use of American data and the threat of commercial spyware and surveillance technologies. (It doesn't specify exactly what to do about this threat.) Such calls are also laudable, but many American companies have contributed to the damage by criticizing the strategy of using boring, racist, sexist facial recognition algorithms to package Americans. Information and sold on the open market. If the US is going to send cyber diplomats around the world to talk about "techno-democracy" as the White House wants, then building trust in America means containing the damage.
So yes, the road to global technology cooperation is bumpy, but at least the new national security strategy is pointing the US in the right direction.