## 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]]