24th Parliamentary Intelligence-Security Forum – Adversarial Influence Through Coercive Diplomacy

Admiral Doug Fears described the world as increasingly VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous). Rapid advances in technological development increases the threat surface area for nation states. For example, we understand that the industrial control systems that run our pipelines and electric grids, and all these different elements of critical infrastructure, all have a cyber-threat surface area that’s exposed for adversarial manipulation, and so the ideas behind distributed denial of service affect our critical infrastructure and our ability to function. Admiral Fears commented that he would argue that in this modern age of cyber effects, many times we don’t know that we’ve been the recipient of a cyber-attack until after the fact, sometimes days after the fact; certainly attribution of the cyber effects might take you days, weeks, or months after the fact, and so your strategic and tactical warning times in this context are actually now negative.

Additionally, the persuasion of our populations through social media malign influence has been rising for years, and now coupled with artificial intelligence, influence operations are happening at scale and speed around the world. Additionally, many nations are using favorable lending terms with nation states that then use coercive diplomacy to pressure countries to make decisions that are not in their best, sovereign interest. In aggregate, these technological advancements in adversarial activity coupled with coercive diplomacy reduce a sovereign nation from fully being capable of exercising sovereignty.