Abstract: The U.S. government continues to struggle with how best to defend the country from cyber attacks. Reacting out in frustration, Senator John McCain wondered aloud if the United States should consider what lessons can be learned from a new cyber defense organization in the United Kingdom called the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC). In this paper, Stuart Russell and Michael Sulmeyer examine the NCSC, its origins, its missions, and its effectiveness. They then consider how certain aspects of the NCSC might map onto the more complicated governance structure around cyber defense in the United States. Despite important differences between the United Kingdom and the United States, they conclude that there is a great deal the United States can adapt from the United Kingdom’s efforts, particularly the NCSC’s ambitious Active Defense agenda. 

Speaker Bio: Dr. Michael Sulmeyer is the Belfer Center's Cyber Security Project Director at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is also a Contributing Editor for the national security blog Lawfare. Before Harvard, he served as the Director for Plans and Operations for Cyber Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. There, he worked closely with the Joint Staff and Cyber Command on a variety of efforts to counter malicious cyber activity against U.S. and DoD interests. For this work, he received the Secretary Medal for Exceptional Public Service.

Previously, he worked on arms control and the maintenance of strategic stability between the United States, Russia, and China. As a Marshall Scholar, Sulmeyer received his PhD (DPhil) in Politics from Oxford University, and his dissertation, "Money for Nothing: Understanding the Termination of U.S. Major Defense Acquisition Programs," won the Sir Walter Bagehot Prize for best dissertation in government and public administration. He received his B.A. and J.D. from Stanford University and his M.A. in War Studies from King's College London. In the mid-1990s, he was the System Operator (SysOp) of The Summit BBS in Santa Barbara, California.

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The factually dubious for-profit articles known as “fake news” were read and shared by millions of people during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, but little is known scientifically about who read fake news, the mechanisms by which it was disseminated, and the extent to which fact-checks reached fake news consumers. In this study, we use behavioral data to better understand the prevalence and spread of “fake news.” (Joint work with Andrew Guess and Jason Reifler.)

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Although peace operations are the main policy instrument for directly protecting civilians from severe violence, only a few are designed to reflect threatened civilians’ security needs. In a forthcoming book, Humanitarian Hypocrisy: Civilian Protection and the Design of Peace Operations, I examine how four major democracies – the US, UK, France, and Australia – contribute to this situation by facilitating gaps between a force’s ambitions to protect civilians and its resources for doing so. Although missions affected by these gaps gesture toward protecting civilians, they can actually worsen their suffering. I describe these gaps as a form of organized hypocrisy and argue that their attraction lies in their ability to help leaders balance competing normative and material pressures to protect civilians while also limiting associated costs. The argument has implications both for when these gaps are most likely and for how leaders can benefit from them politically. I support it with diverse evidence based on quantitative analysis of original data and four in-depth case studies.

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Between 2010 and 2015, EU governments negotiated consecutive reforms to the governance of the eurozone which, taken together, represent perhaps the most significant deepening of European integration in modern times. What factors determined the outcome of these negotiations? Did some countries exert greater influence than others? This paper offers the first systematic assessment of bargaining success in the reform of the eurozone. It evaluates the explanatory power of three potential sources of bargaining success – power, preferences, and coalitions – based on an analysis of new and unique data on the positions of all EU member states on all key reform proposals. Its conclusions carry general importance for our understanding of power and negotiation in Europe.

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Jonas Tallberg is Professor of Political Science at Stockholm University, where he directs the research group on global and regional governance, selected as a leading area of research at Stockholm University. His primary research interests are global governance and European Union politics. His most recent book is the The Opening Up of International Organizations: Transnational Access in Global Governance (Cambridge University Press, 2013), co-authored with Thomas Sommerer, Theresa Squatrito and Christer Jönsson. Earlier books include Leadership and Negotiation in the European Union (Cambridge University Press, 2006).

Tallberg has won numerous awards for his research, including the Forskraft Award for the best Swedish dissertation on international relations, the JCMS Prize for the best article in Journal of Common Market Studies, and the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from the German Humboldt Foundation. He has been awarded research grants from, among others, the European Research Council, Fulbright Commission, Swedish Research Council, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, and Nordic Research Academy.

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Modernization theory, institutional capacity, and rational choice institutionalism are the three candidate theories that explain how rich democratic states got to be rich and democratic. External development efforts will only be successful if he objectives or external and internal elites are complementary. This is only likely to be the case for 30-40 countries in the world. For the other 130 poorer countries the best that can be hoped for is good enough governance.

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Abstract: What is the strategic value of cyber weapons? Even though a growing body of research has addressed the destructive potential of cyber weapons, there remains a large gap in thinking about the strategic utility of these capabilities. The purpose of this paper is to partially fill this gap, by means of assessing under what conditions 'counterforce’ and ‘countervalue’ cyber weapons can be effective. I argue that cyber weapons can provide an ‘extra option’ to leaders. The discussed cases suggest that they can be used both as an important force-multiplier enabler for conventional military assets or as independent capability. Cyber weapons can also be used to achieve a form of psychological ascendancy and can be used effectively with few casualties.

Speaker Bio: Max Smeets is a cybersecurity fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and holds a DPhil in International Relations from the University of Oxford, St. John’s College. Max current book project focuses on the causes underlying cyber proliferation and restraint. The results of this research are valuable for understanding the likely changes in the future prevalence of cyber weapons. It clarifies to what degree this is an ‘inevitable’ development – and if/how it can be stopped.

Max was a College Lecturer in Politics at Keble College, University of Oxford, and Research Affiliate of the Oxford Cyber Studies Programme. He was also a Carnegie Visiting Scholar at Columbia University SIPA and a Doctoral Visiting Scholar at Sciences Po CERI. He holds an undergraduate degree from University College Roosevelt, Utrecht University, and an M.Phil in International Relations from the University of Oxford, Brasenose College.  Max has a diverse professional background, having worked for financial, political, and non-governmental organizations.