Politics and Governance

In an interview on For Your Ears Only Franz-Stefan Gady discusses the possible causes of violent extremism in Europe, in light of the most recent terrorist attack in Oslo.

The full episode of the program is available here.

Writing for the Journal of Foreign Relations, Franz-Stefan Gady analyzes the historical overlap of literature and politics.

Click here to read Gady's piece in the Journal of Foreign Relations

Gady also analysed the latest tensions around the South China Sea disputes in an interview with Der Standard.

You can read the full interview here.

Back in the 1920s, American correspondents based in Europe were writing about a new phenomenon. "The Americanization of Europe proceeds merrily apace," Karl von Wiegand wrote in The Washington Herald on June 14, 1925. "Half in wonderment, half in protest this tired old group of nations is falling under the magic sway of that babulous 'dollar land' across the ocean." Edgar Ansel Mowrer of the Chicago Daily News added: "By the early twenties signs of Americanization were appearing all over Europe." He pointed to the introduction of mass production, mass entertainment and, in general, the opening up of the old continent to new economic and social trends pioneered by the United States.

What passed for Americanization then is, in effect, what is called "globalization" now -- the rapid spread of ideas across borders and oceans, often overwhelming national efforts to block them. But, as Americans like to say, what goes around comes around. Whatever the outcome of the political battles in Washington sparked by the current debt crisis, there is another story playing itself out here. Simply put, the United States is now as much on the receiving end of globalization as it is an initiator of that process -- and this will have profound implications for its future.

There was a time when Americans were firmly convinced that European problems -- especially their large public debts, unemployment rates that were routinely much higher than in the United States, and vastly overextended pension and social welfare systems -- were ones that they did not have to worry about. Or, at the very least, they were convinced that the scale of Europe's problems dwarfed any problems that the United States faces. But no more. Suddenly, Europe's problems don't look that remote or dissimilar, and some commentators are even warning that if Americans don't get their house in order they could end up like Greece.

To be sure, the United States, for all its worries, is still a long way from a Greek-style crisis. Its economy remains fundamentally more healthy and dynamic, and Americans can continue to take justifiable pride in their country's track record on entrepreneurship and technological innovation. Then, too, the continued growth of its population is in stark contrast to Europe's demographic decline. But even the fact that some Americans are using Greece and other ailing economies as examples of what their country should avoid marks a psychological shift. The underlying assumption is that Americans can't take for granted anymore that they are immune to the negative trends that are so evident elsewhere.

The positive side of that psychological shift is that Americans are now more open to looking to Europe for possible pointers on what they should be doing in their own country. That means examining what Europeans are doing right, and applying the lessons learned to the United States. Suddenly, Americans are openly acknowledging they don't have all the answers and aren't reluctant to search elsewhere for them.

Even looking to a place as small as Latvia. When Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis visited the U.S. recently, his story of how his country has worked its way back from near economic collapse by embarking on a bold mixture of drastic budget cuts and tax increases received serious attention. "Decisive action in Latvia helped restore confidence," wrote columnist Robert Samuelson in The Washington Post. "In the United States, government has drifted. Its inconsistencies and indecision have corroded confidence and compromised recovery."

Dombrovskis was careful not to preach, pointing out that the American fiscal crisis is "substantially smaller" than Latvia's and the specific remedies inevitably will be different. But at a lunch at the Council on Foreign Relations, he volunteered that he was struck by how much less the United States taxes energy use than Europe does. Higher energy taxes, he added, both generate substantial revenue and makes people focus on energy efficiency. While that's a message that many Americans still find hard to accept, preferring to push for greater exploitation of existing resources instead, attitudes towards what others have been doing are changing. Germany serves as one clear example. In the early days of the Obama Administration, officials were dismissive of the economic policies of Chancellor Angela Merkel, arguing that she was too timid in her stimulus efforts. But in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, Steven Rattner who served as Obama's "Car Czar" in that period, offers a glowing piece about how Germany has "reestablished its position as an economic juggernaut," relying on high-end manufacturing that fuels its exports. "Whatever its flaws, the German model shows that a developed country can remain competitive in a world where new economic giants, such as China, India, and others, are emerging," he concludes, encouraging the U.S. to learn from Germany's successes -- or risk losing out as globalization accelerates.

Whatever happens in the short-term with the debt limit, Americans recognize that much of what they took for granted about their economic future is now in jeopardy. It isn't just the federal budget that is in trouble: several state budgets have already sparked major crises -- and new austerity measures. Earlier this year, Wisconsin's Republican Governor Scott Walker mounted a major push to curtail the collective bargaining rights of trade unions, arguing that otherwise public expenditures could not be brought under control. Similar fights have erupted in Indiana and Ohio. In California, Democratic Governor Jerry Brown has so far failed to find a formula that Republicans will accept to plug his state's massive budget deficit. "Summertime, and the livin' is easy," proclaims the unforgettable opening line of the aria for George Gershwin's 1935 opera "Porgy and Bess." This very hot summer, Americans are in anything but that kind of carefree mood. No, life isn't catastrophic -- but the unease is all too prevalent. There's the growing realization that America's future well-being is tied to its ability -- or inability -- to forge political agreements that put its economy on a new firmer, more responsible footing, just like other countries that are facing similar challenges. And just like others, it must cope with globalization, or become its victim. It cannot wish any of this away.

If this means that Americans will do a better job of learning from both the positive and negative examples elsewhere, this summer of 2011 could yet prove to be a salutary one -- both for the United States, and for a world that still counts on its economic and political leadership.

Our transforming relationship with the United States presents major opportunities as well as snares. The increasing attention we receive from the US recognises as well as contributes to our growing international stature. If the US re-evaluates the potential of its relationship with India, others are spurred to do so in their own interest. If the allies and friends of the US are influenced to follow the US lead, those wary of a fortified India-US relationship because of their own differences with the US have good reason to engage India more. The US remains the world's foremost power; the quality of our relationship with it has global significance.

That in courting India the US is pursuing its own national interest should not be a reason for us to recoil from its overtures. Which country, including India, does not give primacy to national interest in formulating its foreign policy? If the national interest of the US impels it now to give depth and breadth to its relationship with India, we need not draw back with doubt and suspicion. We should protect our own national interest, without being too ready to be co- opted into promoting US goals or too cautious in exploring convergences.

Equations

Our concern should be the management of an unequal relationship. The US can more easily configure India into its foreign policy jigsaw than we can fit the US advantageously into our diplomatic play. The US is interested in incorporating India into the global political, security and economic arrangements put in place especially since the World War 2. India, a victim in these arrangements in many ways, has all these years challenged them to affirm the principle of sovereignty, equality and non-discrimination.

Our challenge is to find ways to cooperate with the US even as we continue to demand that the present international system reflect contemporay realities and not those of 1945. US and Indian expectations are misaligned here. The US views continuing Indian resistance to its blandishments either as lack of boldness in decision- making or as the toxin of non- alignment still coursing through our political veins, or, yet again, as unwillingness to accept the responsibilities that accompany great power status. The US puts across that with the nuclear deal liberating India from strategic isolation and its G- 20 membership reflecting its rising economic stature, India has already "risen", whereas india remains conscious of its vulnerabilities, is risk- averse and reluctant to involve itself more than necessary in exter- nal distractions, especially if interference in internal affairs, aggressive promotion of human rights and democracy, and the use of force are involved.

The US is most resistant actually to any formal change in global power equations, though it has to accommodate itself to the reality of other power centres emerging and the dilution of its own dominant position. This disposes the US to woo India, especially at a time when India has neither developed the sinews nor the confidence for self-assertion. It therefore offers support to make India a great power, as Condoleeza Rice did, or encourages it to assert itself in its neighborhood, in Central Asia, in West Asia, and, most notably, in the Asia-Pacific region, where China's phenomenal rise has become menacing, as Hillary Clinton did in her recent " vision for India" speech at Chennai. The US would prefer the rise of the next Asian giant to occur within the orbit of its influence.

This new found US enthusiasm for an expanded Indian geopolitical role contrasts with its strategic containing of India through China and Pakistan until now. If the bonds of democracy and shared human values are arguments today for a mutually reinforcing India- US relationship to manage global issues, they mattered little in the past in shaping US policies towards India. It is not easy to comprehend why the US kept a democratic country like India strategically trussed up as much as possible, while shoring up a powerful authoritarian behemoth like China and ignoring its nuclear and missile misconduct at India's strategic expense. Similarly, encouraging an increasingly Islamicised Pakistan to contain a secular, pluralist India and subvert its territorial integrity is not fully explicable even in the Cold War context.

Nuclear

The legacy of these policies remains alive in the US political system. The Indo-US nuclear deal was accompanied by several galling non-proliferation related restrictions that India chose to swallow. If at the non-governmental level powerful lobbies keep pursuing their malign efforts to impose more NPT related constraints on India, at the governmental level the US continues to tolerate Sino-Pakistan nuclear commerce outside the NSG framework while imposing, simultaneously, further disabilities on India in the NSG by tightening restrictions on transfer of enrichment and reprocessing technologies to non-NPT countries.

US hectoring of India on our nuclear liability Bill, with the commercial interest of US nuclear suppliers in mind, as was the case during Secretary Clinton's visit, makes the Indo-US nuclear deal appear less a strategic choice than a commercial one.

The Clinton vision of an economically integrated South Asia- Central Asia region, which could also help resolve the Afghan tangle, takes insufficient cognisance of Pakistan's truculence and the need for tougher policy options to discipline this quasi- rogue state. The US wants to "manage" its divergent India- Pakistan interests by wanting to be a strategic partner of both countries. Its balancing act between India and Pakistan continues. Exposing the ISI links of the head of the Kashmiri American Council in Washington DC should, beyond tit for tat jousting between the CIA and the ISI, lead to a re- working of US's "even-handed" Kashmir policy.

Convergences

While India should not have illusions about the extent of US strategic munificence towards it, there is much to be gained from engaging it comprehensively. Even if the US is not as yet a trusted friend, it is by no means an adversary. The US itself recognises that India will not be an ally of the US and that policy differences will remain. But it believes there are sufficient common interests to build upon-an approach that we should find congenial. If US interference in our Iran policy is a problem, its renewed Asia thrust to thwart China's hegemonic ambitions is not. Enhanced India-US cooperation in Asean, the East Asia Summit, in protecting the Indian Ocean sea lanes, in developing a new security architecture in Asia, etc is to our advantage, and so is the planned trilateral India-US-Japan dialogue.

India's relationship with the US is uniquely broad- based, covering trade, high technology, innovation, clean energy, agriculture, food security, education, health, counter-terrorism, homeland security, intensive people to people ties etc. The high- powered economic team accompanying Hillary Clinton signalled a desire to move ahead meaningfully. The US, always eager for for quick results, will push for economic reforms that give it more market access in India. We have our own priorities and demands. This normal cut and thrust of building mutualities in relationships should not make us defensive. We may be overplaying the word "strategic" to describe even the banalities of our bilateral agenda, but that our relations with the US have strategic implications for us and the rest of the world is indisputable.

Click here to read Sibal's piece in India Today

The Red Sea is bordered on the West by Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea and Djibouti, and on the East by Saudi Arabia and Yemen. In the north, touching the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea are Israel and Jordan. Somalia is not a Red Sea littoral country but, sitting on the Gulf of Aden, commands the waterway linking the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean.

The news this past week of Saudi deportation of an Eritrean Christian for proselytizing (instead of executing him) is a small glimmer of hope in an all too grim narrative of civil conflict, political repression and humanitarian problems. For example, just this month in Yemen, air strikes continued against extremists in the south of the country linked to Al Qaeda, while protesters and security forces continued violent clashes in a number of cities over political liberalization.

Linkages across the Red Sea deserve more attention. For example, President Bashir of Sudan met with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia this month to discuss the difficulties of transition by Sudan after the secession of South Sudan. These difficulties include civil conflict, repression and state-sponsored violence. Just last week, Saudi Arabia officially recognized South Sudan as an independent state, but Saudi news sources describe Sudan as a “close ally” of the kingdom. There are about half a million workers from Sudan (north and south) in Saudi Arabia.

By contrast, Eritrea is something of a pariah state among its neighbours, in large part because of its support to terrorist groups, notably Al Shahab in Somalia, and military occupation of small parts of Djibouti territory. A recently completed report by a UN Monitoring group has reportedly recommended a stiffening of UN sanctions against Eritrea. The country has just been accused by the United States of covering up a large scale humanitarian disaster.

If ever a region needed creative new thinking, new dialogue and indeed an improvement in regional collaboration, the Red Sea littoral surely is one. The active Saudi diplomacy on political unrest in Yemen and Egypt in the first half of 2011 is a key marker of the need for and potential of a stronger Red Sea political community.   

Critics might complain: do we need yet another regional organization? There is after all a number of institutions where these countries can meet to promote dialogue, common political interests and economic prosperity if they were so inclined.  For the moment, they are not even so inclined.

The pundits should not decide. Given the emergence of stronger civil society activism in some countries of the region, and given the high need for more effective policies to promote peace, security and prosperity, the idea of a Red Sea political and economic community is certainly worth canvassing at an unofficial level. Of the littoral countries, only Saudi Arabia has the resources to fund such a regional dialogue. This would be a useful course of action for the Saudi government to consider.

At the same time, there can be a useful role for external actors, either governmental or non-governmental, to promote new regional dialogues on security and economic relations among Red Sea states and communities. The idea of a Red Sea community can be used as a unifying and peace-building idea in this troubled region.

Scroll to page 7 to read Austin's piece in New Europe

One of the biggest mistakes in decision-making for war and peace is over-simplification. This is one conclusion of a profound and sadly overlooked book from 1984 called “Ideology of the Offensive” by Jack Snyder. Europe and the United States appear to have fallen into this trap of over-simplification with their Iran policy.

The danger is that policy-makers overlook the limits of their knowledge and discount the possibility that they may be inflexible. According to the book, “most public policy problems entail considerable complexity and uncertainty”. We know most elements of the problem “only in an approximate way”. The strategist develops “relatively simple but effective techniques for scanning and organizing information about the problem and for structuring and evaluating different options”. “Discrepant information is either ignored or incorporated into the belief system in a way that minimizes the need to change the system’s structure”.

The belief system (orthodox doctrine) about Iran is dominated by the idea of a “rogue state”. In the 1990s, the Clinton Administration would put Iran and Libya in that category, with others. George Bush put Iran, Iraq and North Korea into the “axis of evil”. These terms may be rhetorically useful for speech writers but they are desperately unhelpful and counter-productive for policy-makers.

President Obama tried to break the hold of such a rigid and doctrinaire approach to Iran in his Nowruz speech of 19 March 2009 but failed to do so. The explanation for failure of that overture lies not in Iran’s lack of meaningful response, but because it was just easier for senior officials in the United States and Europe to continue with the doctrinaire approach.

The suppression of anti-government demonstrations in Iran after the 2009 presidential elections only stiffened the appeal of the orthodoxy for Western officials. The persistently rejectionist approach and bellicose language of a handful of Iranian leaders toward Israel also buttressed the power in the West of the single orthodoxy about Iran. In the Western official view, the only way to deal with Iran is to see it as a rogue state. No other perspectives should intrude.

The main reason why policy-makers prefer a doctrinaire and rigid approach to Iran is that it usefully disguises the basic weakness of their position, both in respect of Iran and in respect of the region as a whole. The United States and Europe now have very few levers of power and influence anywhere in this strategically vital region and appear to many people to be in retreat, both through withdrawal of military forces and through alienating key allies on the Arabian peninsula. Moreover, domestic political orthodoxies in Europe and the United States (about subjugating foreign policy to human rights issues) and domestic interest groups (Iranian expatriates and pro-Israel groups) make it so much easier to stick with the Iran orthodoxy in foreign policy.

But by any objective standard, our policy toward Iran is lazy, is stuck in a rut and simply does not correspond to our needs. A change in policy is urgently needed. It has to be driven by a reassessment of those needs. Iran’s importance today to the West is several degrees of magnitude greater than it was a decade ago, but we have more rigid confrontational policies than at that time and we have even less room for maneuver. In addition to a reassessment of our needs, we need to search more robustly and creatively for new levers of influence. Continued and intensifying isolation of Iran defeats any opportunity for influence. Can we afford to treat Iran as a pariah state or do we need it? If we waiting and hoping for regime change, that may be bad policy because we have no way of knowing whether it will come before or after the next crisis.

Click here to read Austin's piece in New Europe

On the evening of July 13th, three near-simultaneous blasts shook India’s commercial capital: one explosion in the Zaveri Bazaar, another in the Dadar district in the city centre and a third in the Opera House business district. Twenty-one people were killed and 113 injured.

But in stark contrast to the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks of 2008 that brought peace talks to a screeching halt, both New Delhi and Islamabad worked hard to avoid that outcome this time. India’s Interior Minister P. Chidambaram said India will not blame anyone without any concrete proof, indicating that he was casting a wide net for suspects. “All groups hostile to India are on the radar,” he declared. Similarly, Pakistani leaders condemned the attacks. Foreign Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani vowed that his country and India would “not get deterred by the terrorists’ designs to derail the dialogue once again.”

The recent bomb blasts are the deadliest in Mumbai since November 2008 when ten gunmen launched a three-day coordinated raid that claimed the lives of 166 people and injured more than 700. The gunmen were affiliated with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), one of the largest terrorist organizations in South Asia with alleged links to Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). LeT began operating against the Soviets in Afghanistan and soon directed its attention towards Indian-controlled Kashmir.

So far, no group has claimed responsibility for the latest Mumbai attack, but current speculation has focused on another jihadist group called the Indian Mujahideen. This is a largely home-grown movement, although it has ties across the Pakistani border. A product of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), it was formed in 1977.  In 1986, SIMI called for the “liberation” of India's Muslims and, at some point in the 1990s, evolved into a militant organization with ties to the LeT. SIMI first claimed responsibility for serial bombings in multiple north Indian cities in 2007, and came to prominence after attacks in Ahmadabad in 2008. It has also claimed responsibility for numerous other attacks, including those in Jaipur, Bangalore, and Delhi.

There are clear links between the Indian Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Taiba. LeT provides logistical support and ideological messages to regional jihadist movements--including the Indian Mujahideen. Georgetown University Professor Christine Fair notes that “SIMI/IM appears to be an important vector of LeT infiltration and cultivation of Indian leaders and cadres.”

According to Pakistani and Indian media, the timing of the latest Mumbai attack was anything but coincidental.  Several reports focused on the fact that this attack, just like the one in 2008, was aimed at sabotaging peace talks between the two neighbors. But Indian and Pakistani officials insisted that the foreign ministers of their countries would meet as scheduled later this month.

Despite the reports that the Indian Mujahideen, with its known ties to the LeT, may be behind the attacks, this has not changed the determination of both sides to continue the dialogue. That hardly means that India and Pakistan are putting all their old enmities and suspicions aside. But it does signal a new resolve to talk rather than play the blame game--at least for now. This is a modest but important step forward.

Click here to read the article in Today's Zaman.

Some newspapers have been manufacturing anti-AK Party stories, not based on factual evidence but because of the prejudice they hold against the AK Party. Supporters of the government here at home and in the West should make a point to emphasize the untruthfulness in these deliberately misleading stories. Mediators have always had a crucial role in history as people who are able to employ rhetoric understandable to both sides. One such mediator is Zuhal Kurt.

She is on the board of directors of the EastWest Institute, a global think tank and highly effective in the US. She is also the chief executive officer of privately held Kurt Enterprises, whose investments include 6News, a satellite news video broadcast covering Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East. Kurt Enterprises even owns a race horse training company, Kurt Systems, which uses advanced technology to help improve speed and stamina in race horses.

As an experienced and ardent student of Turkey, she brings valuable insight to understanding Turkish politics and the AK Party’s popularity. She thinks that the AK Party has played a crucial role in solving Turkey’s identity crisis, which she maintains has been in place since the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. She says the country is still experiencing a paradigm shift and undergoing a process of reconstructing its identity. The most effective steps in defining Turkey’s identity have been taken by the AK Party, according to Kurt. Since the time it was founded as a new republic in 1923, Turkey has faced an identity crisis, Kurt believes. She asserts that this crisis has cost the country much in terms of constitutional, political, social and economic development.

Over the past 10 years the AK Party government has constructed a new Turkey where so many constituents are different. That alteration has resulted in new classes and rules. And for Kurt, the new order naturally has its opponents. There is group of people who have a hard time adapting to the new and transformed Turkey. “Change is not an easy thing to accept. But when we look at the overall situation, Turkey is a totally more powerful and dynamic country compared to what it was 10 years ago. In that time Turkey has tripled its national income and attained an economic growth rate that was unimaginable before. Now citizens of European countries are seeking to immigrate to Turkey. Turkey is not only a strong power in its region but one of the pivotal powers in the world. These are very positive indicators,” says Kurt.

Although there are very positive signs in Turkey about the AK Party government, and it has gained half of the voters’ trust, some of the foreign media’s interpretations of the AK Party are in no way positive. Suspicions about Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s strong personality and tendencies toward totalitarianism are hardly comprehensible for supporters of the AK Party. But Kurt thinks Erdoğan should use a calmer rhetoric and embrace the West as well as the East. The harsh attitude he took in his election campaign and on certain occasions may be understood as domineering. Kurt thinks he does not need such an attitude because he is on the right track. She also notes: “He got 50 percent of the vote in his third term. This is unprecedented in Turkey’s political history. If people think that Erdoğan has been in power for too long, they should know that this is normal for Turkey. For instance, the country’s ninth president, Süleyman Demirel, was in power for many years. Turkey’s politics do not produce as many politicians as other countries do. People do not give up political power easily.”

Kurt recalled that in his victory speech Erdoğan sent messages to different parts of the world. “While he embraced the Balkans, North Africa and neighboring regions, he mentioned Europe only once and did not mention the United States at all.” However, Kurt said she believes Erdoğan should embrace the entire world. Kurt said Erdoğan needs to be more realistic and less emotional and populist in his approach to Israel. She claims: “Turkey should see Israel as a pluralistic society not a one-dimensional state. There are so many peaceable people in Israel. When the Mavi Marmara incident happened, many Jewish citizens of Turkey became anxious. But Fethullah Gülen’s statements in The Washington Post [that the flotilla had disrespected Israel’s authority as a state], brought them relief.”

Kurt says that she gets many questions in the US on whether Turkey is becoming a fundamentalist country; she responds: “I totally disagree with this idea. Although Turkey is a conservative country, it will never be fundamentalist. In Turkey the culture of religion has never led to fundamentalism.”

She adds: “What I love most about this government is its policies to break prejudices. Ten years ago we were not able to talk about minorities and their rights. Even though there are no concrete solutions yet, we are talking about them freely. There is discomfort about Erdoğan in the Western media, but I think the prime minister can solve this problem by taking some easy steps.”

Click here to read the article in Der Standard

EWI provided advice on how countries can work together to protect cyberspace – a formidable challenge, given that a cohesive cyber policy in the U.S. alone is a work in progress, with over a dozen draft cybersecurity bills circulating Congress.

“The conversation among nations is still in its nascent stages,” said the U.S. National Security Council’s former Acting Senior Director for Cyberspace Melissa Hathaway. Hathaway is now a member of the EastWest Institute’s Board of Directors.

EWI’s Second Worldwide Cybersecurity Summit, held June 1-2 in London, was a useful model for international collaboration, according to Hathaway, who spoke along with EWI President John Mroz, Lt. General (Ret.) Harry D. Raduege, Jr., Chairman of the Deloitte Center for Cyber Innovation, and EWI Chief Technology Officer Karl Rauscher.

At the summit, more than 450 public and private-sector delegates from 43 countries worked towards practical steps for everything from fighting cyber crime to ensuring that emergency messages can traverse congested telecommunications networks.

“What encourages me is that we had senior representatives from governments and corporations,” said Raduege, adding that networking and information-sharing are vital. Raduege is a member of the EastWest Institute’s President’s Advisory Group.

The experts also emphasized the importance of private-public partnerships or, as Hathaway put it, conversation between the “geeks” (technical experts) and the “wonks” (policy leaders). The private sector should lead cybersecurity efforts, according to Rauscher, particularly when it comes to ensuring that digital hardware and software are not infected.

“The commitments of governments that they will make procurements based on better reliability and security will make a difference,” said Rauscher.

McCaul asked the experts to speak about the potential for a treaty on cyber warfare.

Mroz and Raduege both said that the first step to international agreements are bilateral and multilateral dialogues on specific cybersecurity threats. Earlier this year, EWI-led U.S.-Russia talks on “rules of the road” for cyber conflict produced an attention-getting report at the 2011 Munich Security Conference, and a team of U.S. and Chinese experts published joint recommendations on reducing spam.

Mroz cautioned, “If you’re waiting for a big treaty, it may be too late.”