NCSS: A global census of national positions on conflict, neutrality and cooperation

Abstract

The ubiquity of ICT and the increase in cyber threats have pushed countries to view cybersecurity from a national perspective and draft appropriate national strategies on the topic. While containing similar terminology, these strategies are tailored to the national contexts and hence, differ across regions, cultures, and political contexts. Previous research of these documents has been focused on comparative analysis of countries that can either be considered well developed on this topic or for specific subtopics of cybersecurity. However, some of the subtopics have not been addressed, only now having become more prevalent due to current international conflicts and national / regional socio-political scuffles that have spilled into cyberspace. In our paper, we investigate all countries that have published a National Cyber Security Strategy - NCSS - (or any similar document under a different nomenclature, e.g., policy, decree, etc.), specifically in reference to their position on war, neutrality, and international cooperation. Countries maintaining an NCSS will first be identified using international databases, upon which further study of the aforementioned topics in the NCSSs will occur. We hypothesize, that while international cooperation will be present in most, if not all NCSSs, armed conflicts and neutrality will not be addressed at all nor in depth, in those that contain any reference to them. The resulting paper will present a near-global case study of these topics, which can then signify potential areas of improvement, capacity building, and strengthening of democratic coalitions, globally.