Cyber Command’s Strategy Risks Friction With Allies

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

https://www.lawfareblog.com/cyber-commands-strategy-risks-friction-allies

By Max Smeets
Lawfare
May 28, 2019

Much has been written about the fundamental changes in U.S. cyber strategy. 
U.S. Cyber Command’s vision of “persistent engagement” and the Department of 
Defense’s new strategy of “defend forward” have, in particular, led to numerous 
critical remarks about the risks of escalation between the U.S. and its main 
adversaries in cyberspace.

These debates are worth continuing, including about what the change in strategy 
means for establishing norms in cyberspace. But commentators have so far 
ignored a key dimension: The strategy’s main implications may not reside in how 
it changes the dynamics between the U.S. and its adversaries but, instead, in 
how it affects broader alliance relationships, especially beyond the Five Eyes 
(Australia, Canada, the U.K., the U.S. and New Zealand). U.S. Cyber Command’s 
mission to cause friction in adversaries’ freedom of maneuver in cyberspace may 
end up causing significant friction in allies’ trust and confidence—and 
adversaries may be able to exploit that.


Operating “Seamlessly, Globally, and Continuously”

Cyber Command’s new strategy seeks to operate “seamlessly, globally, and 
continuously.” It states that “[s]uperiority through persistence seizes and 
maintains the initiative in cyberspace by continuously engaging and contesting 
adversaries and causing them uncertainty wherever they maneuver.” According to 
the strategy document, Cyber Command intends to do this “as close as possible 
to adversaries and their operations,” connecting persistent engagement to the 
Pentagon’s principle of “defending forward.”

In an article for Joint Force Quarterly (JFQ), NSA Director and Cyber Command 
head Gen. Paul Nakasone writes: “We must instead maneuver seamlessly across the 
interconnected battlespace, globally, as close as possible to adversaries and 
their operations, and continuously shape the battlespace to create operational 
advantage for us while denying the same to our adversaries.”

[...]

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