How can nations project power in cyberspace? In light of the increasing dependency of modern society on all aspects of cyberspace, and the equally increasing breadth and scope of cyber attacks, this question is far from being merely academic. While it might seem obvious that an event as momentous as the advent of the new “cyber domain”[i] would demand new forms of policymaking, many Western liberal democracies have struggled to make the evolutionary leap so clearly required. This is particularly unfortunate not only because, superficially at least, countries such as Russia and China have seemed to aggressively harness cyberspace for national power purposes.  The paradox is that many Western governments are already dealing with the core challenges associated with cyber power – namely, how actors should work together – but it a seemingly completely unrelated field: so called “fragile states” policies. Unfortunately, the lessons learned are not being communicated, and cyber policy makers often seem to be stuck trying to reinvent the wheel.  

It is remarkable that the potentially most important dimension of cyberpower – namely the power of the non-state actors – is strongest within countries, where the state is paramount, for instance, within Russia and China.  In liberal democracies, where non-state actors play a decisive role in all aspects of cyberspace, their importance for nation-state cyberpower is only marginally understood.  This failing is even more remarkable when one considers that many of the challenges that liberal democratic policy makers face with “cyberpower”, including cooperation with non-state actors, are not unique to cyber.