## Notes with #mythoughts
- IISS published a report on [cyber capabilities](https://www.iiss.org/blogs/research-paper/2021/06/cyber-capabilities-national-power) on 2020-06-28
- a methodology for assessing cyberpower
> Strategy and doctrine • Governance, command and control • Core cyber-intelligence capability • Cyber empowerment and dependence • Cyber security and resilience • Global leadership in cyberspace affairs • Offensive cyber capability
- US is the only tier-1 cyber power; China & Russia are tier-2; India is tier-3.
- #mythoughts on the report
- we need a framework to link cyber capabilities and cyber power to national goals, values, strengths and vulnerabilities; dosed with realism;
- we should start by re-examining the words offence and defence; and whether actions we so label in cyberspace are accurate/meaningful
- battle for cyberspace governance; while the world order is in flux; broader question -- when a new domain opens up, world order will face challenge
- whole of society approach to cyber security: paradoxical, because it is logically inconsistent and practically impossible to get whole of society to align with state objectives/interests. Whole of society can only work for international cooperation.
- besides, this means you work with non-state actors and criminals!
- *Individual privacy and data protection is the national interest in the information age*
- However, China, Russia and some political parties might think it is about defending ideological frontiers against liberal democratic Western values; so we have two ways of defining "national interest" based on our belief in the nature of values. Is individual liberty arbitrary or is it the eventual ultimate destination -- Fukuyama's "the end of history"
- *US is hacking networks, China-Russia are hacking minds*. The latter is perhaps the superior approach, to the extent that the former cannot block/counter it. US and China-Russia presume US values and narrative is dominant, which is why the former does not mind-hack, and the latter do. What if liberal values are not self-evident?
- The report accepts this: US is more likely to have been a victim than a perpetrator over the past 10 years.
- Measuring manpower is meaningful only to some extent; beyond a minimum core required, additional numbers do not necessarily mean much; and can actually have negative marginal returns.
- I am identifying the [[The big questions in technopolitik]]
## Colophon
Status: [[Brewing]]