Advancing Cyber Diplomacy
Event date
This symposium convenes senior government officials and experts from academia and the private sector to address the U.S. Department of State’s newly created Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy, the goals of American cyber diplomacy, and how major public and private international stakeholders can advance global cyber cooperation amidst threats from authoritarian states like Russia and China.
The John B. Hurford Memorial Lecture was inaugurated in 2002 in memory of CFR member John B. Hurford, and features individuals who represent critical new thinking in international affairs and foreign policy.
Virtual: John B. Hurford Memorial Lecture With Nathaniel Fick
Transcript
SEGAL: Good afternoon. I’m Adam Segal. I direct the Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program here at the Council on Foreign Relations.
And it’s a real pleasure to be able to welcome back Ambassador Nate Fick back to CFR. I’m not sure I’ve seen Nate since we rolled out the Task Force on Confronting Reality in Cyberspace. So it’s a real pleasure to have him back here today and have the chance to hear his thinking about his time as our initial ambassador-at-large for cyberspace and digital policy.
I want to remind everyone to please enroll and subscribe to all the digital and cyberspace policy products, Net Politics, the newsletter, and keep up with the cyber operations tracker, which is, as far as I know, the largest known database of State operations in cyberspace.
And I just want to take a brief second to thank the Washington Programs for helping put this on; making this a part of the Hurford Memorial Lectures; and, in particular, to thank Connor Sutherland for all his hard, great work in putting all of this together.
So, with no further ado, I’m going to turn it over to Ambassador Fick and Amna—excuse me—Nawaz to have the...
Virtual: Digital Diplomacy Around the World
Transcript
RAZI: Good afternoon and welcome to today’s Council on Foreign Relations Cybersecurity Symposium. This session is entitled “Digital Diplomacy around the World.” I’m Niloo Razi, a senior operating partner with Energy Impact Partners, and I’ll be presiding over today’s conversation.
Joining me on both the virtual and the actual stage—(laughs)—is Selena Larson, a senior threat analyst at Proofpoint and previously a cybersecurity reporter.
Ambassador Heli Tiirmaa-Klaar, who’s the director of the Digital Society Institute at the European School for Management and Technology. She’s also the former ambassador-at-large for cyber diplomacy and director-general of the cyber diplomacy department at the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
And we also have Ambassador Juliette Wilcox, who’s a cybersecurity ambassador for the U.K. defense and security exports at the Department for International Trade. She also spent over thirty years as a British diplomat.
Ladies, welcome to this conversation. It is great to have you here.
Just in order to set context, over the past five years the U.S. has taken a series of very strategic actions elevating the importance of cybersecurity. In 2018, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency was established and tasked with protecting U.S. critical infrastructure. In 2019, the National Security Agency stood...
