Mobilising Cyber Power

The cyber power of a nation does not necessarily derive solely from the number of government cyber warriors it has, but rather the sum total of resources or capabilities it can leverage to support political goals. A major portion of these cyber capabilities are invariably outside of direct government control, and reside in the non-state (business and civil-society) sector. While both China and Russia can be said to co-opt and coerce their non-state cyber elements into integration with public policy, the West mostly depends on voluntary cooperation. Thus, for Western democracies, the most important aspect of cyber power might be the ability to motivate and attract its own citizens – and thus create a whole-of-nation cyber power capability based on an inward-focused soft power approach.