The U.S. is seeking to enhance cooperation with India in the areas of cybersecurity and how the Internet is managed.
In their fourth “Cyber Dialogue” held at the State Department last week, U.S. cybersecurity officials met with leaders from India and high tech industry, such as Oracle and Verizon. According to a White House news release, the group discussed “cyberthreats, enhanced cybersecurity information sharing, cyberincident management … efforts to combat cybercrime, Internet governance issues, and norms of state behavior in cyberspace.”
India, which spent $7.76 million on cybersecurity in 2013 compared to $4.7 billion by the U.S., may not have much in the way of resources. But the country has taken some cues from the U.S. in terms of “state behavior” and Internet governance issues.
After the U.S. passed net neutrality this year, which reclassified Internet providers as public utilities and granted the federal government power to regulate them, India began to look at implementing the policy as well. An open comment period for Indian citizens received nearly 60,000 comments and is set to continue through Aug. 20.
India, one of the five countries represented by the BRICS Forum, which also includes Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa, is closer to the U.S. position on Internet governance than some of its allies. The BRICS group, led mainly by Russia and China, has generally called for the United Nations to play a greater role in Internet governance.
This year, the BRICS Forum passed a resolution stating that the countries wanted to “uphold the roles and responsibilities of national governments” in the “regulation and security” of Internet infrastructure. “We support the evolution of the Internet governance ecosystem … free from the influence of any unilateral considerations,” the resolution stated, in a veiled reference to unilateral control by the U.S.
Claude Barfield, a former consultant to the US. Trade Representative and currently a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said India could be a helpful ally to the U.S. on the issue.
“Though India is allied with BRICS, they are probably not fixed in their final positions,” Barfield told the Washington Examiner. “They are a relatively liberal democracy, and the U.S. is right to continue to try to win them over on Internet governance issues … we will need all the help we can get in coming years, and shouldn’t give up on any of the developing nations,” Barfield said.
Barfield said the alliance was particularly important in the area of cybersecurity. “Particularly at a time when tension between the U.S. and China is rising rapidly — now heightened even further by the recent attack on the Office of Personnel Management — it is imperative for U.S. officials to recruit and bolster potential allies in the fight against both economic and traditional cyberespionage,” he said.
Speaking for the U.S. government, U.S. Cybersecurity Coordinator Michael Daniel emphasized a similar theme, stating, “Cybersecurity is fundamentally a team endeavor, and it is essential that international partners like India and the United States work together closely, along with industry and civil society, to raise our cyberdefenses in both the short and long term, to disrupt and interrupt malicious actors in cyberspace, and to improve our ability to respond to and recover from cyberthreats.”
The next Cyber Dialogue is set to take place in Delhi next year.
