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Time to Pursue an International Cyber Treaty?

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JAMES CARDEN, jamescarden09 at gmail.com
Carden is a contributing writer at The Nation and the executive editor of the American Committee for East-West Accord.

He just wrote the piece “Time to Pursue an International Cyber Treaty?

Carden writes that “perhaps now is the time to pursue an international cyber treaty that would prohibit similar intrusions in the future. As Dr. Robert G. Papp, a former director of the Center for Cyber Intelligence at the Central Intelligence Agency has recently pointed out, ‘It is in our national interest to negotiate some limits to this activity to reduce these threats and the human and financial resources needed to address them.’ …

“Other countries, particularly our main cyber-rivals, Russia and China, would seem to agree. Yet the Bush and Obama administrations rejected multiple Russian proposals for an international cyber code of conduct. …

“Harvard University political scientist Joseph Nye cites the precedent set by the 1972 Incidents at Sea Agreement that sought to limit behavior on the high seas that might lead to escalation and war. Says Nye, ‘Skeptics object that such an arrangement is impossible, owing to the differences between American and Russian values. But even greater ideological differences did not prevent agreements related to prudence during the Cold War.'”