Diplomacy and Digital Technology

// Janne Taalas

Digital technology has become increasingly important in diplomacy. In order to understand the emergence of the Cyber Diplomacy it is useful to look what drives this transformation.

The traditional view regarding foreign policy and technology considers technology as one of the parameters of the state’s international power, like size of population or economy. The rationale is that technology brings economic power and military advantage, for example development of iron, powder and nuclear weapons. This perspective is still relevant for a new digital era, but there are three new reasons which are pushing the issues related to digital technology higher on the international agenda.

First, the growth of digital infrastructure has provided unprecedented opportunities to interfere in another state’s affairs without military force. Cyber espionage: hybrid action through social media platforms and outright digital sabotage have become real possibilities for states over the last ten years or so. Such a degree of interference without the use of military force has not been seen before in human history. Further- more, these means could and are increasingly deployed in peacetime not only during armed conflict. Some states have made ample use of the new possibilities: The recent SolarWinds supply chain attack is one of the largest cyber espionage operations ever uncovered. The election meddling during the US elections and Brexit vote have also been well documented. Cyber sabotage has been less prevalent, but there are notable cases in the context of Iran's nuclear program and war in Ukraine. North Korea deserves a special mentioning as the UN reports depict it as a modern day pirate state that raids Bitcoin exchanges that bolster its ailing finances.

Another development that has pushed digital technology into the international agenda is the intensification of superpower competition: China has challenged American leadership and is using technological means to contest U.S. military dominance while simultaneously increasing its global heft. Digital technology is both a means of increasing China’s capability and a field to challenge the USA. This has brought about an intensifying struggle for the ability to define and manage the international digital infrastructure and its use (e.g. location and standards). The polarization spills over to trade relations, financing and science policy. International actors - such as states and companies - must increasingly take into account superpower competition in their actions on issues of digital technology.

The third development are more and more intrusive technologies and the growing importance of fundamental and human rights in the foreign policy of several countries such as Finland. As digital technologies are in some states increasingly applied to restrict human rights - they are particularly used in large scale digital surveillance and data collection – a fundamental gap has emerged between those that promote digital technologies to empower individuals and those that would use the new technologies to create authoritarian control state. Cyber diplomacy hence increasingly straddles a very real clash of values.

As none of the three drivers seems to be abating, it is safe to predict that the cyber diplomacy will become an ever more important aspect of state-to-state interaction in years to come. For Finland this means that we have to bolster our resilience as well as capabilities to detect and respond to malicious cyber activities by states. The work within the European Union as well as global cooperation with like minded states is of crucial importance in this respect. The EU drive to increase its digital sovereignty within a transatlantic framework is a major attempt to answers to these three interlocking developments pushing cyber issues ever higher on international agendas.

Janne Taalas Chief Executive Officer at CMI - Martti Ahtisaari Peace Foundation

Mr. Janne Taalas has worked in cyber diplomacy since 2019 and has served at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland some twenty five years. During his career he has acted as the Special Envoy to the 2020 Afghanistan Conference, Ambassador of Finland to Italy, Malta and San Marino (2015 to 2019), Deputy Permanent representative in the Finnish Mission to the United Nations in New York (2010-2015) and Director of Policy Planning in Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs (2008-2010). Ambassador Taalas holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Politics from the University of Oxford (St Antony’s College) and degrees in Politics and Economics from University of Jyväskylä.