The nominee to be the first US ambassador for cyberspace and digital policy has called for more cyber policy muscle at the US State Department.
According to Cyberscoop, Nate Fick – a former Marine leader and cybersecurity CEO – has said one of his top priorities would be to ‘assert the State Department’s rightful place in the interagency process on topics of cybersecurity and digital policy’.
Fick said, “We have not fully extended deterrence into the cyber domain. I believe that American power has been a force for stability in the world since the end of World War II and our adversaries seek to do mischief or harm us using digital means because they know what the consequences are in the physical world.”
Fick added that the State Department should play a ‘larger role in pursuing and managing partnerships with other countries’ in order to finance the deployment of secure infrastructure.
He added, “I do believe that the State Department as the nation’s lead foreign policy agency should lead on the partnership aspects of technology collaboration. I appreciate also that this is a cross-cutting issue inherently: It has defense elements, it has intelligence elements, it has economic elements. The creation of this [ambassador] role helps to elevate and integrate those functions at the State Department.”
Senator Angus King (I-ME) remarked that Fick is ‘superbly qualified’ to lead State’s cyber efforts.
King said, “Cyber Command and NSA obviously are the first line of defense in terms of active cyber conflict, but certainly there would be an important relationship on an ongoing basis. CyberComm and NSA can inform this new bureau about where the threats are, where the allies that they’ve established are, what relationships we’ve had with other countries cyber defense establishment.”
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