If “weakness breeds aggression,” then strength deters it and fosters peace.
In this age of ever-increasing dependence on free and open access to information, U.S. strength in the information space has never been more necessary for the preservation of peace and the advancement of human welfare. We must be able to trust that the information we use is uncorrupted and accessible at all times. Trust and strength are both indispensable to preserving the peace and prosperity we have enjoyed since the end of the Cold War.
Today, no one has advanced these concepts more than Mr. Keith Krach. Which is why I am so proud to endorse his recent nomination for the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize.
I had the great pleasure of serving alongside Keith during his consequential term as undersecretary for economic growth, energy, and environment at the Department of State. Keith’s Senate confirmation opening statement detailed his journey from working with his father in a five-person machine shop in Ohio through his rapid rise up the ranks of General Motors and his visionary entrepreneurial leadership as a Silicon Valley titan. Trust was a constant theme throughout his story.
Keith is a visionary because he recognized the utility and importance of access to reliable digital information and the associated vulnerabilities presented by the digital age. Very early on, he saw the need to develop digital systems that could emulate millennia of analog trust — handshakes, signatures, the presence of witnesses, etc. In developing DocuSign, he made it possible to trust people at a distance and at the speed of light. Digital Trust was a revolutionary concept and has made all of our lives better, and increasingly prosperous.
Today, we often hear the term “service” applied to military personnel, but service comes in many forms. Answering the call to service, Keith gave up a pleasant West Coast life with his family and moved by himself to D.C., where he immediately laid out and executed a plan to advance global digital security called the Clean Network initiative. Upgrading the concept of digital trust to the level of national strategy, he led U.S. government efforts to strengthen its ability to defend our information from those who seek to deny or distort this revolutionary capability for nefarious ends.
Communication networks represent the fifth sphere of a country’s national security after land, sea, air, and space. A country that does not control its telecommunications network builds its economy on foreign soil. The events making Huawei the dominant provider of network infrastructure do not fall into the category of market competition; rather, this is a feat of political engineering and economic warcraft by Beijing; this is the basis of the Communist Party’s strategic state support for Huawei. The impact was severe; five network infrastructure companies collapsed: Nortel, Lucent, Motorola, Siemens, and Alcatel. The playbook of economic aggression, forced or illicit technology transfer, illiberal state subsidies, state financing — all driving to an Orwellian strategic end by any means necessary.
Today, increasingly aggressive authoritarian governments employ coercion to advance their own objectives. They are particularly adept at using online weapons to help themselves to the wealth of others. Open, democratic governance is a threat to authoritarians, yet they manage to use our openness against us. Keith’s efforts, particularly the Clean Network, effectively enable the open digital architecture responsible for the explosion in global prosperity while denying access to those who can’t be trusted.
Warfare in the cyber domain rages continuously and is a direct threat to peace in the physical world. Attacks in the cyber domain have escalated into physical attacks and the loss of life. Look no further than the recent ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline to get an idea of how seemingly innocuous digital threats can create great physical harm. It matters not if you die from enemy bombs and bullets or from starvation and exposure brought on by attacks on our energy grid; the outcome is the same. State-sponsored computer viruses are as great a threat to humanity as the real coronavirus pandemic that began in Wuhan, China — the authoritarian source of these attacks on nations and individuals is the same, and the grave threat to peace is the same.
Keith’s Clean Network recognized this. It restricts access to our information systems only to those who demonstrate requisite trust, while staying true to our democratic principles of openness. He expanded the Clean Network concept into a series of international “Clean” programs designed to address the growth of attack vectors on free and open access to information — Clean Carrier, Clean Cable, Clean Cloud, Clean Apps, Clean Store, Clean Infrastructure, Clean Finance — blunting attacks on everything from super-sensitive military networks to power grids, to banking networks, to your laptop and internet connection. He then traveled tirelessly to 40 countries, during the height of the pandemic, and enlisted the participation of 60 countries that represent two-thirds of global GDP.
The Internet of Things brings great opportunities. No longer do you need a doctor present to perform critical, life-saving medical interventions — remotely operated digital robots can accomplish the same thing. Self-driving cars that talk to each other will make travel easier, faster, and safer. These things are increasingly enabled by digital advances such as 5G. But as we become more dependent on the free exchange of information, we are increasingly threatened by the loss of it. Digital attacks have many of the same characteristics as other weapons of mass destruction. For instance, today, we only carry enough cash to survive a few days — we all trust in unbroken access to our digital finances; yet there are those who are prepared to disrupt this very necessary digital tool. They call this concept “unrestricted warfare,” and we are under constant attack in every domain except the military: disinformation in your news feed, corrupted data downloaded onto your computer, wholesale theft of your intellectual property and ideas. The Clean Network concept ensures peace and stability by deterring and denying these attacks.
And there is no place on Earth where all these forces come to such stark relief as Taiwan. Keith traveled to Taipei in September 2020 to demonstrate America’s explicit commitment to Taiwan’s burgeoning democracy and insistence on the peaceful resolution of the Taiwan question, further deterring cross-strait aggression. Beijing retaliated by sanctioning Keith as well as his family for his work to defend the peace. Keith Krach’s commitment to advancing peace in the Western Pacific came at great personal cost.
Today’s battle between democracy and authoritarianism is no less a global war than the 20th century’s two World Wars and the Cold War that followed. They all have existential consequences. Only a strong U.S. response to this authoritarian challenge will ensure we all continue to live in peace by deterring further aggression. Keith Krach’s selfless service and “Trust Principle” doctrine demonstrated that strength and proved yet again the indispensability of American leadership.
Dave Stilwell served alongside undersecretary Krach as the assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific.
