Meshanni, Murad. On cyber pragmatism: Comparing America’s international cybersecurity cooperation with the U.K. and Germany. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-yyph-d319
DescriptionThe United Kingdom (U.K.) and Germany represent two of the most important cyber allies of the United States (U.S.). Despite comparable degrees of broad security cooperation since the Cold War, the U.S. has demonstrated a strong preference in engendering deeper cyber cooperation with the U.K. over Germany. What explains the variance in the cyber relationship with the respective governments – is it more influenced by government policy or corporate behavior?
To answer this puzzling question, I analyze and provide propositions derived from theories of bureaucratic politics, corporate technology special interest groups (TIGs), and civil-military relations. To ascertain the validity of these propositions, I utilize a mixed methodological approach that analyzes data from thirty-two semi-structured interviews (across high-ranking bureaucrats, military personnel, and tech sector experts) in NVivo and enmesh them with paired case studies between the U.S. – U.K. and U.S. – Germany. I also examined three mini case studies (Denmark, France, and Estonia) to consider the generalization of my findings among NATO members. Those interviewed among this high-ranking group included former “cyber czars” and national cyber strategy architects. The case studies assess the cyber cooperative relationships between the identified countries from 1985 – 2024 across cybercriminality, cyberterrorism, and broad cyber(security) agreements.
My dissertation suggests that there is evidence to support the propositions derived from both the bureaucratic politics and technology special interest groups research programs, with an emphasis placed on the latter. Furthermore, my dissertation identifies four key findings: First, Civil-Military Relations is not a viable alternative in explaining the variance in cyber(security) cooperation because the military may be apprehensive about making decisions regarding dual-use technologies that may directly impact the civilian domain. Second, the historical ties between inter-connected departments and long-established companies appears to have a significant impact on America’s cyber(security) relationships. Third, there is strong evidence to suggest that the department/agency or TIG that cultivates the highest concentration of expertise will influence cyber relationships the most. Fourth, the universe of cases for TIGs is too broad; the focus should be on Microsoft and be potentially expanded to include other legacy cyber-related companies. This dissertation hopes to provide a contribution to the understanding of how and why America’s cooperative cyber(security) relationships evolve among allies over time.
CollectionGraduate School - Newark Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Organization NameRutgers, The State University of New Jersey
RightsThe author owns the copyright to this work.
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