4 ways US can boost cyber security

The US needs a proactive cyber foreign policy that goes beyond naming and shaming. Here are four steps the US can take to bolster its diplomatic efforts to address cybersecurity threats.

3. Be more proactive

Assembling friendly states and developing a set of global norms would give the US more leverage over China, Russia, Iran, and other cyberoffenders that regularly hijack international Internet governance meetings. For example, at the December 2012 World Conference on International Telecommunications, the US and other like-minded nations struggled to defeat the myriad troubling proposals offered by Russia that empowered states to clamp down on Internet freedoms. Eventually, 55 countries, led by the US, refused to sign the agreement. 

This tense dynamic is not sustainable. Instead of being on defense, the US must be at the forefront of setting the international agenda. The US could focus positively on common ground, and put those who oppose Internet freedom on defense.

3 of 4

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.