The West must cooperate if it is going to defeat Russia in cyberspace

“It’s not the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard, but it’s pretty close.” What is it? What is this near worst of possible ideas? This one is a whopper.

At the conclusion of the G20, the President Trump tweeted, “Putin & I discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded..” A joint Russia-US center securing the Internet, protecting our fair – American and Russian – elections, plus those many other things? Right. Fortunately a countermanding tweet followed later. No unit yet.

Of course it’s a ridiculous idea. The analogies of criticism have been moderately clever. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) wrote, “Partnering with Putin on a ‘Cyber Security Unit’ is akin to partnering with (Syrian President Bashar al) Assad on a ‘Chemical Weapons Unit’.” Former defense secretary Ash Carter said it was “like the guy who robbed your house proposing a working group on burglary.” And it “would be akin to inviting the North Koreans to participate in a commission on nonproliferation,” according to Rep. Adam Schiff, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. Idea panned.

{mosads}Realistically, could a U.S.-Russia cyber unit be made anytime soon? Probably not. National security law and rules would make working with officials of the Russian government administratively impossible for the intelligence community. I should know. I worked on the establishment of a joint bilateral intelligence center in Mexico City under the Calderon administration. I can tell you that thanks to some pretty well thought out rules about intelligence sharing, establishing mechanisms for exchanging mere narco data that overlapped with privacy, counter-terrorism, and counterinsurgency concerns was a sticky proposition. Far more sensitive than drugs, cyber-related intelligence is some of the most highly classified information in our government. It’s shared with only the closest friends.

Working with Russia was impossible five years ago and it’s just as impossible today. Setting aside the evidence of Russian malicious behavior surrounding the 2016 US presidential election, Russia can’t partner on cybersecurity without confronting a number of serious issues: its economic hacking activities aimed at US and Western firms; increasingly strict domestic information controls; and cyber attacks against Ukraine’s electrical grid. We probably would work with the Russians to stop that giant asteroid hurtling toward Earth, but that’s about it.

We tried talking to the Russians. As homeland security expert Frances Townsend opined, “#Russia #US bilateral #cyber group has been tried B4 & failed because Russians are only posturing. Will fail again & #Russia will blame #US[.]” We aren’t on the same page, even inside our own government. Putin sees two issues: cybersecurity, the preventing people from breaking into banks or nuclear power plants, and information security, the protection of the Russian public from information that is harmful or threatening to him. Russia censors the Internet and at the very least turns a blind eye to massive cyber crime campaigns undertaken by its citizens. But all is not lost.

There are ways to work with Russia, and perhaps more importantly, work with Russians. The key to engagement with Russia is in understanding and influencing the Russia’s information intelligentsia–hackers, news personalities, scientists, and other members of the civil society hairball. There’s probably nothing to be lost in high-level meetings between our State Department and Russia’s Foreign Ministry, but if Washington really wants to cooperate with Moscow it will need to create linkages to Russians who have different ideas on how their Internet should work than Vladimir Putin’s.

This is because the Russian government is an enabler of chaos on the global stage in a way that works to its benefit. Weathering the decline in oil and gas prices, international isolation due to its nearby military adventures, and the leadership of Boris Yeltsin, they’ve refined the Shock Doctrine for international relations. Right now, the West is losing to Russia because of this, and losing badly in what is not just a hacking conflict, but also an information conflict. Until such time as the US government gets this, the potential for erosion of democracy, not just ours, but all Western democracies remains high. This leads me to my humble request.

Dear Democratic Europe, please consider making a big investment in the global information ecosystem, not just cybersecurity. Mon dieu, it won’t be cheap, but developing a European information strategy that emphasizes truth and trustworthiness is in your interest to protect the more desirable attributes of democracy as we enter more deeply into the computer-Internet-cyber age. But it will be far cheaper than divisions of tanks and squadrons of fighter-bombers. Do this quickly. There is no time to waste. Moscow would much rather deal with you individually and has no problem working to scrap your European Union.

Chris Bronk, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of computer and information systems at the University of Houston. He was previously a software developer, Foreign Service Officer, and fellow at the Baker Institute for Public Policy.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.