2-2-2: Special Edition
SCSP insight on the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the democracy-technology agenda
Edition 2
In this month’s special edition of 2-2-2, Special Competitive Studies Project CEO Ylli Bajraktari and Senior Director of Foreign Policy Joe Wang share their thoughts on the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the DemTech agenda.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is everyone’s focus right now, and for good reason.
We want to do something different with this edition and start by discussing why Ukraine matters on a personal level, for the world, and for SCSP.
Both of us, Ylli and Joe, are immigrants whose paths first crossed at the White House. One left war-torn Kosovo. The other left Taiwan with his family for the age-old desire to find greater opportunity. Both of us became Americans who found opportunities to serve our nation and advance the common cause in support of our democracy. In almost no other country would the stories of our two lives have converged at the highest levels of that country’s government. Our two stories are almost uniquely American, but they are also not very unique in America. People around the world look to America and are attracted to becoming American because of what this country stands for and stands against. We believe in the promise of democracy and the sanctity of individual rights. We are convinced that allies and partners united by shared values magnify our influence and security. We are reminded once again that hard power – military, technological, and economic – still matters for protecting our way of life.
We believe that the United States has a special responsibility. We think SCSP must play a role in rekindling it. SCSP is inspired by the original Special Studies Project seven decades ago. Its essential diagnosis of the Cold War remains valid for the authoritarian threat today: “Throughout this world, alive with hope and change, stalks the Communist challenge. It is a challenge organized to exploit every human hope and disappointment for its own ends. The challenge is ruthless and total. It is a challenge not merely to the power of the structure of the free nations, but to the very values and principles from which free civilization draws its meaning and vitality. Since America finds itself both guardian and protagonist of this free civilization, it is America above all that is challenged.” (Prospect for America, p.XVI)
We need the same clarity of vision and conviction in purpose now. The Ukrainian people’s fight, rooted in their desire to be free, clarifies the stakes. Putin’s aggression reflects a larger authoritarian challenge to democracy. This is a long-term competition with authoritarian rivals. Russia is the most dangerous today; China is the longer-term challenge because of its economic might, technological ambition and global aspirations to remake the world to serve its interests. To win the competition, the United States must revitalize the sources of its power and rally democracies around the values that united us.
We hope the global response against the Kremlin's aggression signals a sea change in democratic nations’ recognition of the threat. As America, Europe, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and others continue to do what we can to support Ukraine, we must also prepare for the longer-term challenge. The hard task before us at this critical moment in history is to provide a positive vision for what democracies must do to muster the totality of our economic, military, technological, and societal strengths to meet this challenge and lead the way alongside our allies and partners.
Initial Implications for Ukraine
Ukraine is not the place we imagined as a central front in this contest, but it has revealed some important implications.
Internet Freedom Still Lives and Tech Companies are in the Democratic Camp. The Ukrainians so far are winning the information battle, live-streaming Russian atrocities to remarkable effect – rallying global partners to their cause, revealing Russian soldiers’ discontent, and mobilizing citizen-cyber warriors. However, there are signs the Kremlin’s disinformation machine is warming up. The classic Soviet tool of disinformation becomes that much more powerful when amplified across today’s tech platforms, allowing it to hit the mainstream before it is debunked. At the same time, global sanctions and reputational risks have pushed key tech companies to de-platform Russia’s government-backed media and reduce their services in Russia. This presents an important moment of convergence between democratic governments and our tech companies, and may be an opportunity to more thoughtfully consider tech firms’ role in society and importance in supporting a democratic tech agenda.
Digital Bifurcation is Here and Techno-Industrial Decoupling will Accelerate. As the Kremlin consolidates Russia’s internet – from censorship to infrastructure control – to hide the truth of war from the Russian people, other authoritarian regimes are paying attention. They are watching closely how the outside world leveraged unfettered connectivity and free flowing information to the Kremlin’s detriment, as well as the Kremlin’s moves to cut this off. Global platforms' withdrawal from Russia, including cutting internet backbone services, while understandable given the sanctions and reputational risks, are nevertheless accelerating the digital bifurcation. And the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and every other authoritarian regime will see the massive sanctions costs of Russia’s economic and technological interdependence as a cautionary tale. We can be certain the CCP will do its own strategic mapping to reduce vulnerabilities and maximize areas of its own leverage for if and when Beijing sets its sights on Taiwan. Democracies should do the same vis-a-vis China to understand our points of vulnerability and identify areas of comparative advantage, should an abrupt decoupling arise.
A conclusion we face now is a more rapid hardening of technology spheres of influence, that is as consequential as the political and economic contest. Technology takes on the character of the culture and values of whoever controls it – surveillance technology can be either a tool of law enforcement in societies that respect the rule of law, or a tool of repression and genocide in societies that respect only central authority. The observations from the Russia-Ukraine war should feed into the robust ongoing democracy-technology dialogues happening today.
Building the DemTech Alliance
For SCSP, the techno-economic terrain remains the heart of the long-term contest between democracy and autocracy. Winning requires an approach to technology development that protects our values and ensures democracies retain the innovation advantage across the constellation of emerging technologies, and the underlying digital infrastructure and platforms.
The DemTech Agenda Takes Shape.
Last year, U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken captured the relationship between democracy and technology, arguing that “democracies have to pass the tech test together…to remain the world’s innovative leaders and standard setters, and ensure that universal rights and democratic values remain at the center of all the innovation that’s to come, and that it delivers real benefits in people’s lives.” To that end, democracies have launched a series of tech-related efforts to articulate norms, commit to principles, and frame the DemTech agenda. They are ambitious and overlapping – fusing the internet freedom agenda of the 2010s, with the digital infrastructure (5G) concerns of recent years, and folding in the challenges of governing data and emerging technologies like AI. Many of the efforts also expand the realm of technology diplomacy to include building values into the design, development, governance, and use of tech.
We now need to hit the accelerator and prioritize areas for action. Democracies should bury ideas of tech or digital sovereignty and embrace DemTech cooperation.
Eight DemTech Priorities.
Democracies should work together on a eight part technology strategy:
Build a Resilient Digital Infrastructure. Our ability to defend and advance our values in the digital realm depends on our ability to protect our digital infrastructure – or at least increase its resilience against coercion and sabotage. The Prague Proposals can be the blueprint for national actions. In tandem, democracies must promote a viable 5G alternative or invest now in the next generation of communications technology, so we don’t lose the next battle. Eric Schmidt and Dr. Graham Allison have argued we are not currently well-positioned to capitalize on 5G to build tomorrow’s innovation economy.
Commit to Building the Techno-industrial Base Necessary to Win the Future. National efforts – including the U.S. CHIPS Act, EU Chips Act, and South Korea’s Chips Act – to rebuild technology capacity in areas like microelectronics manufacturing and quantum computing research should be coordinated rather than competitive. Democracies must agree on the technologies, investable opportunities, and comparative advantages to garner the benefits of economies of scale. They should avoid a race to the bottom with subsidies and prevent economic competition from causing a strategic rift within the democratic bloc.
Champion an Open Internet. Redoubling our commitment to an open, interoperable, and secure internet where it still exists is crucial, as we are seeing in Ukraine. We should invest in technologies that can circumvent a closed internet, protect privacy against unlawful surveillance, and shield anyone exercising their rights to free speech in the digital realm.
Get Tech Governance Right. What democracies lack and need to agree on is a strategic framework that integrates the purpose we see for the array of emerging technologies - regulation and governance should flow from purpose. Democracies have always had different approaches to issues like free speech and the government’s role in the economy. Diversity in governance is ok, so long as it does not paralyze cooperation. And governance is welcome, as long as it does not stifle innovation.
Develop a Swing State Strategy. China has a strategy, we don’t. We need to compete and offer an alternative, compelling package of technology that plays to our strengths. Where is China weak and where are we strong? If China’s debt trap approach to assistance is bad for its target countries, how do we offer a better alternative? If China’s technology poses security vulnerabilities, how can we fill the gap?
Ensure the Private Sector Remains in the Tent. We need to seize the moment and decide governments’ and technology companies’ roles and responsibilities versus the authoritarian challenge. Governments and the private sector need to agree on clear rules of the road for reinforcing democratic values and operating in non-democratic spaces. Democracy’s future is not in the hands of governments alone and must include public private cooperation and multi-stakeholder buy-in.
Defend Against Society-Wide Threats: Even as democracies are trying to patch the existing vulnerabilities of our digital dependence and openness, we need to look over the horizon and begin building counter-measures against accelerated threats that tech developments will bring. AI will enable increasingly automated disinformation attack platforms that can inflame fissures in democratic societies. Cyber infrastructure attacks will also become more powerful as actors leverage AI-enabled platforms.
Harness Dual-use Emerging Technologies. The gap between exquisite and off-the-shelf technologies is closing in many fields - the most advanced microelectronics are not used in warfare, but in consumer electronics available in most corners of the world. At the same time, as our digital dependence increases, our digital exhaust will be used to target us with not only advertisements, but disinformation and other cyber weapons. This will require an updated understanding of dual-use controls, so we can better control the technologies that are either truly exquisite or dangerous from falling into the wrong hands. We will also need a better and deeper integration of private sector capabilities in the public sector, to make sure our warfighters and civil servants will not be outgunned, outmaneuvered, or outsmarted. And we will need to integrate some of these technologies into our warfighting concepts, even as we carefully – but importantly – figure out the norms that should guide their responsible use. As we have learned in recent weeks, it remains a hard power world, and democracies must reinvest in their defense capabilities.
Next month 2-2-2 will return and introduce our call for engagement – an opportunity for you to share your voice with us.