Researching National Security in Cyberspace

A public forum on "Strategy and Statecraft in Cyberspace" is being held at the Australian National University in Canberra, 12:30pm, 8 November 2013. International security experts will discuss if we face a ‘digital Pearl Harbor’, or as I suggest in Australia's case, a Binary Bombing of Darwin.  The question is if Australia is vulnerable to a cyber attack on its national information infrastructure on a scale similar in effect to 19 February 1942, when Japanese aircraft attacked Darwin.

Strategy and Statecraft in Cyberspace

Date: Friday 8 November 2013 - 12:30 to 13:45 
Register: Register online now

Join us for a panel discussion and open forum to explore the complexities of cyberspace from a national security perspective – a domain in which states and non-state actors interact with each other in an increasingly contested environment.

This event has been organized by the ANU National Security College (NSC) as it finalises priorities for its new research program on Strategy and Statecraft in Cyberspace. The NSC has brought together leading researchers from Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom for this event which will be facilitated by the ABC’s Michael Brissenden:

• 
  Professor Roger Bradbury is a complex systems scientist with experience in international cyber issues, and is with the National Security College at ANU.
• Professor Fred Cate specialises in information privacy and security law issues, and is Director of the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research at Indiana University, USA.
• Professor Paul Cornish is an expert in cyber security and cyber war, and Professor of Strategic Studies at the Strategy and Security Institute at the University of Exeter, UK.
• Dr Jon Lindsay is an expert in international relations at the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at UC San Diego, USA.

Like the traditional domains of land, sea, air and space, states and non-state actors are using the cyberspace domain to pursue their objectives in an increasingly complex world. The panel will discuss the rise of cyberspace, which has created a number of ‘wicked’ policy problems for global security including:

the proliferation of cyber weapons to state and non-state actors

the systemic vulnerabilities in the infrastructure of globalisation and military power

the friction between private sector actors who manage the Internet and the public sector actors who are supposed to defend them

the mismatch between the pace of policy formation and the pace of technological change

the failure to coordinate among government agencies responsible for national security, law enforcement and industrial policy

major disagreements about how the Internet should be managed domestically and internationally.

Some authors foresee grave new risks of a ‘digital Pearl Harbor’, while their critics dismiss these warnings as inflating the threat. Technological complexity has amplified political complexity, which in turn has complicated political analysis. Our panel will endeavor to unpick these issues from the perspectives of social policy, security policy and the future of technology. We look forward to welcoming you at this important event focusing on an issue of critical significance.