{"id":13306,"date":"2019-11-21T20:24:33","date_gmt":"2019-11-21T20:24:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/uncategorized\/2019\/11\/21\/what-is-sovereignty-in-cyberspace-depends-who-you-ask\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T17:46:40","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T17:46:40","slug":"what-is-sovereignty-in-cyberspace-depends-who-you-ask","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/battlefield-tech\/it-networks-battlefield-tech\/2019\/11\/21\/what-is-sovereignty-in-cyberspace-depends-who-you-ask\/","title":{"rendered":"What is \u2018sovereignty\u2019 in cyberspace? Depends who you ask"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As the cyber domain is more active, and actively exploited, from around the world, experts in the cyber and international legal community believe that rightful authority in cyberspace will be an issue to be reckoned with in the near future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think one of the next big areas that we need to look at is what is the meaning of \u2018sovereignty\u2019 in cyberspace,\u201d Emily Goldman, a member of the Policy Planning Staff at the Department of State, leading the cyber and emerging technology portfolios, said at CyberCon Nov. 12.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sovereignty \u2014 the notion that the affairs and entities within a territory are solely the business of that territory and no one outside \u2014 becomes far more complex when there are no physical lines. Complicating matters further, the digital domain allows for activity that impacts networks within recognized lands to take place remotely and in many cases undetected, unlike a massing of troops that threatens to forcefully penetrate an established border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goldman highlighted positions taken by key U.S. allies within the last year, adding the United States has not officially taken one yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The British attorney general acknowledged in May 2018<\/a> that a cyber operation, no matter how hostile, never violates sovereignty and the French outlined in September 2019<\/a> that remote cyber operations that cause effects are a violation of sovereignty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

International legal experts have expressed in the past that the British position potentially limits their ability to name and shame malicious actors for taking actions in cyberspace that may go against collectively agreed upon behavior. If Britain believes that there is no such thing as sovereignty in cyberspace, they have no credibility calling out others for similar actions, experts assert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is something that is going to influence how seamlessly we can operate with our partners in a space that is inherently seamless and integrated even though we as political units and as geographic units are very segmented,\u201d Goldman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some in the U.S. military community also believe that diverging views on sovereignty can limit coordination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSovereignty, we had significant diverging viewpoints \u2026 and I think that\u2019s going to limit the number of countries that we are going to coordinate operate with for quite some time,\u201d David Bailey, senior national security law advisor for Army Cyber Command, said at the CyCon U.S. conference in Arlington Nov. 19, noting that some inroads have been made with some nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn my mind, at least as an operational attorney at the more tactical operational level, the idea of blue, gray and red space \u2014 in other words, our space, the in between space and then the adversary space \u2014 is increasingly irrelevant given the way that we operate \u2026 It\u2019s like a soccer game. It\u2019s always moving everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of the problem is that the cyber domain is still so new the international community is still hashing out definitions and courses of action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn our world of cyberspace operations, we can\u2019t even agree on what a use of force is \u2026 a tremendously important concept to us, but there\u2019s no good definition,\u201d Baily said. \u201cWe do have some statements from the United States in terms of public statements by our Department of State legal advisors Harold Koh and Brian Egan over the course of several years, which purport to lay out what the U.S. government thinks about these issues and use of force, but, again, no agreed definition or framework yet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even on the operational front, the United States is still figuring things out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn our space, in CYBERCOM, there\u2019s a lot that\u2019s yet to be established. For most of the domains, you have thousands of years and millions of warriors contributing to the lessons that you\u2019re now learning in your classes. We don\u2019t have that in cyberspace,\u201d Lt. Col. Kurt Sanger, chief judge advocate for national security law at U.S. Cyber Command, said at CyCon U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sanger described some of the challenges of the legal office at Cyber Command that don\u2019t necessarily extend to the other combatant commands or domains of warfare. In one example, kept intentionally vague, he said the team determined action was absolutely legal under domestic and international law and Department of Defense regulations, but the question was raised how was the action different than what Russia or China is doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat 100 mile-an-hour conversation ground to a halt. And, ultimately, that question was raised to our general officers. They took it incredibly seriously and it ended up shaping the way we conducted business at an operational standpoint,\u201d Sanger said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United States and \u2018defend forward\u2019<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of U.S. policy, the directive from the Department of Defense to \u201cdefend forward,\u201d described as getting as close to adversaries as possible to see what they\u2019re planning as a means of informing others to prepare or take action themselves, has raised some eyebrows overseas.<\/p>\n\n\n\t