Securing a Digital Future - The Case for Strengthening Transatlantic and CEE Cooperation
By Danielle Piatkiewicz this article was originally published in Centre for European Perspective, in November, 2022.
The ongoing war in Ukraine has revealed how today’s battlefield takes place, more than ever, in the digital space. We have witnessed the Kremlin targeting Ukraine’s critical infrastructure seeking to dismantle and disrupt internet and cell towers, and carrying out an onslaught of disinformation tactics aimed at changing the narrative of the war. Ukraine has been defending not only their physical borders but also its digital ones.
The war highlights the growing importance and dependence our societies have on digital technologies and how the digital space will be the new ground for strategic competition. In the next decade, emerging technologies have the potential to reshape our economies, transform militaries, influence democracies, and reshape the world. Simply put, the future is digital.
As geostrategic competitors like Russia and China continue to compete, rival, and govern the tech space, it remains vital for strategic partners to align to secure the digital space. To set the global standard and regulate the digital space, the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) should continue to focus on developing a shared set of values and democratic principles to define the digital policy space. This should include tackling the most pressing issues around digital technologies, from cyber hacking, artificial intelligence (AI), and internet regulation to data protection. However, diverging policies among the transatlantic allies have thus far prevented them from achieving a unified approach.
For countries within Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the war in Ukraine has heightened security tensions within the region. Building up their defence capabilities on land, air, space, and the digital space remain vital in countering malign actors. Seen more than ever as a geostrategic location on Europe’s eastern border, the US, EU, and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will need to work in unison in order to protect the region from any future aggression from autocratic threats.
This brief will outline some of the main challenges and opportunities the transatlantic relationship has in achieving a joint-digital future. It also highlights aspects to which the CEE region can contribute towards this future.
(Re)Aligning digital policies
The challenges faced when dealing with digital technologies vary drastically. From dealing with cyber hacking to regulating the tech space, the US and EU have approached these challenges in various ways.
In recent years, the EU has made significant progress in both achieving strategic autonomy as well as ‘digital sovereignty’23 by strengthening its resiliency and competitiveness in order to secure its digital future. The European Union has set forth goals to strengthen its security and defence policy by 2030 through its recently released Strategic Compass. The aim is to develop the EU as a stronger and more agile international actor, able to respond to threats emanating from the strategic environment in which it operates, including investing in the digital domain better to protect the EU’s security and defence interests.
The Strategic Compass focuses on countering these increased threats by developing specialised tools at its disposal (EU hybrid toolbox, Foreign Information and Manipulation Toolbox, among others). In addition, the EU has set out both the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which aims to ensure a fair and competitive online economy, along with the Digital Services Act (DSA), which limits the spread of illegal content online; both acts will alter how users and companies utilise the internet.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the Biden administration calls for the deepening of relations with allies, specifically multilateral cooperation with the EU and NATO on a range of issues, including cybersecurity. As outlined in their recently released National Security Strategy, the US ‘will strengthen democracy across the world, and multilateral institutions, as we look to the future to chart new and fair rules of the road for emerging technology, cybersecurity, and trade and economics’.24
The US under the Biden administration has struggled with balancing both ‘reinvigorate U.S. global engagement on technology while simultaneously managing new regulatory proposals for American tech giants’.25 However, this stance shifted in early October when President Biden unveiled a new AI Bill of Rights, which outlines five protections Americans should have in the AI age. It should serve as a blueprint and guide for a society that ‘protects all people from these threats — and uses technologies in ways that reinforce our highest values’.26 In par- ticular, the Bill of Rights calls for closer cooperation among the government, technology companies, and citizens to hold AI accountable.
Some critics say the ‘plan lacks teeth’ and the US needs even tougher regulation around AI.27 The EU, on the other hand, is moving towards a ‘much more restrictive regulatory approach than the US. While a compromise on a privacy shield for cross-border data flow has been reached, disagreement remains over the details of cloud governance, including an EU cybersecurity certification proposal.28
While these are just some examples of how the US and EU are taking divergent paths in facing digital challenges, progress was established in 2021 with the launch of the Trade and Technology Council (TTC), which aims to shape the rules that will govern the advance of technology. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated after inviting the US to join the EU in writing this global standard: ‘Together, we could create a digital economy rulebook that is valid worldwide. It goes from data protection and privacy to the security of critical infrastructure. A body of rules based on our values: human rights and pluralism, inclusion, and protection of privacy’.29
The TTC ‘marked a transatlantic cooperation reboot’30 in fostering cooperation to key global trade, economic, and technology issues and to deepening transatlantic trade and economic relations based on shared democratic values. As it celebrates the first anniversary of its founding, the TTC has been credited with coordinating efforts in response to Russia’s invasion and outlining substantive plans to coordinate US-EU development in emerging technologies, most notably in AI. The next TTC meeting will take place in December and will likely include a joint declaration on human rights and address concerns around AI, semiconductors, and global connectivity, among other issues.
How can the CEE shape its digital future?
While the TTC has ambitious aims to align the transatlantic agenda, it will require political will, unity, and investment from both sides to achieve a joint digital future. To achieve this, geostrategic regions such as the CEE must also be involved in shaping their respective digital futures.
The war has reaffirmed many security concerns among CEE countries, who have (rightfully) flagged Russia’s growing aggression towards the region for decades. As a result, the war has bolstered US security commitment and increased allied and NATO support in the region, including in the digital space.
The EU’s Strategic Compass outlines support for not only Ukraine but also the broader Eastern neighbourhood. This includes boosting EU cooperation in countering hostile interference by Russia. We have seen the extensive use of military instruments and hybrid tactics aimed at compromising their stability and their democratic processes, which have direct implications for the EU’s security.
As the EU develops its strategic aims to develop its security and defence capabilities as outlined in the Strategic Compass, the CEE region can play a pivotal role in building up short- and long-term defence against Russia – especially in the digital domain. For example, we have seen EU Member States step up their digital support for Ukraine. Given the experience in countering Russian hybrid threats, countries like Poland, Slovenia, Latvia, and Estonia, among several others, have joined Ukraine to fight cybercrime, counter disinformation tactics, and provide digital infrastructure. The CEE region has decades of experience in combating these cyber-threats and has a vested interest in securing the region from any further infiltration from malign actors.
However, deviating security and political objectives within the CEE region, especially regarding areas around democracy, economic growth, and investments in the energy infrastructure and digital sectors, stand to challenge the political alignment the EU is attempting to achieve.
Over the years, the Visegrad 4 members (Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland) have departed on many aspects, from migration to issues around energy. The war in Ukraine has amplified these divergences and has taken its toll on the CEE security environment. For example, Hungary has experienced diverging views on severing full ties with Russia, and mounting rule of law issues around Hungary and Poland have created further tensions within the EU. These tensions have only been temporarily hushed as Poland, for example, remains the main hub for channelling military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine and the primary destination for refugees fleeing from the conflict. If left unaddressed for much longer, future clashes between the EU and specific countries in the CEE region could escalate.
Steps for CEE to take
While the TTC aims to align US-EU digital policies, the Three Seas Initiative (3SI) remains a useful tool for the CEE region to improve connections among twelve EU Member States located between the Baltic, Adriatic, and Black Seas. Created in 2019, this politically inspired, commercially driven platform remains a vital component mechanism to boost the economic growth and resilience of the region by developing transport, energy, and digital infrastructure.31 Shortly after the war, signatories made a joint statement calling for the further development of infrastructure connections and digital services among the 3SI countries. This included investments in cybersecurity and the use of trusted solutions. Both aim to increase their security, but also to make better use of their potential to ‘promote our region as a trusted partner and supplier of proven solutions in the field of cybersecurity and telecommunications’.32
While the temptation to create new avenues of co- operation, the 3SI is an existing tool that already aligns the US-EU and the CEE region and should be further harnessed to develop interconnected- ness between the regions.
Next steps
Looking ahead at how to shape a joint digital future in which all US-EU and CEE interests are included – will be impossible. But, finding compromises and utilising both existing and new infrastructure will be key in bolstering and securing the digital space. The TTC and 3SI are examples of how this cooperation could develop further.
The CEE region will also need to do some soul- searching, especially regarding their mounting and often polarising political stances towards issues such as migration, energy, and the rule of law. Finding alignment with the US and EU on these issues will be critical in shaping the current and future orientation of their security environment, especially in the digital space.
While the conflict in Ukraine has no end date in sight, the CEE region remains vulnerable to malign actors such as Russia. The CEE region has an im- portant role in helping defend the EU and the US’s interest in defending the democratic values that bind the allies. The CEE region has the opportunity to not only help rebuild but to be an active contribu- tor to Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction – one that can ensure future guarantees that the region can defend itself from future threats.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Danielle Piatkiewicz is a research fellow at EUROPEUM focusing on issues around Transatlantic and Central and Eastern European foreign and security relations, democracy promotion and NATO. She is also an independent consultant for the Alliance of Democracies Foundation and Founder of DEP Consulting. Previously, she was a senior program coordinator for The German Marshall Fund of the United States’ (GMF) Asia and the Future of Geopolitics programs (Washington, DC) and she worked on various leadership development projects including the Young Professionals Summit at GMF’s flagship event, the Brussels Forum among others.