The United States and Russia are locked in a fundamental dispute over how to counter the growing threat of cyberwar attacks that could wreak havoc on computer systems and the Internet.
Both nations agree that cyberspace is an emerging battleground. The two sides are expected to address the subject when President Barack Obama visits Russia next week and at the General Assembly of the United Nations in November, a senior State Department official said.
But there the agreement ends.
Russia favors an international treaty along the lines of those negotiated for chemical weapons, and has pushed for that approach at a series of meetings this year and in public statements by a high-ranking official.
The United States argues that a treaty isn't necessary. It instead advocates improved cooperation among international law-enforcement groups. If these groups cooperate to make cyberspace more secure against criminal intrusions, their work also will make cyberspace more secure against military campaigns, U.S. officials say.
“We really believe it's defense, defense, defense,” said the State Department official, who asked not to be identified because authorization had not been given to speak on the record. “They want to constrain offense. We needed to be able to criminalize these horrible 50,000 attacks we were getting a day.”
Any agreement on cyberspace presents special difficulties, because the matter touches on issues such as censorship of the Internet, sovereignty and rogue actors who might not be subject to a treaty.
U.S. officials said the disagreement over approach has hindered international law-enforcement cooperation, particularly given that a significant proportion of the attacks against U.S. government targets are coming from China and Russia.
From the Russian perspective, the absence of a treaty is permitting a kind of arms race with potentially dangerous consequences.
Officials around the world recognize the need to deal with the growing threat of cyberwar. Many countries, including the United States, are developing weapons for it, such as “logic bombs” that can be hidden in computers to halt them at crucial times or damage circuitry; “botnets” that can disable or spy on Web sites and networks; and microwave-radiation devices that can burn out computer circuits miles away.
The Pentagon is planning to create a military command to prepare for both defensive and offensive computer warfare.
Last month, Obama released his cybersecurity strategy, and said he would appoint a “cybersecurity coordinator” to lead efforts to protect government computers, the air-traffic-control system and other essential systems. The administration also emphasizes the benefits of building international cooperation.
The Russian and American approaches – a treaty and a law-enforcement agreement – aren't necessarily incompatible. But they represent different philosophical approaches.
In a speech March 18, Vladislav P. Sherstyuk, a deputy secretary of the Russian Security Council – a powerful body advising that country's president on national security – laid out what he described as Russia's bedrock positions on disarmament in cyberspace. Its proposed treaty would ban a country from secretly embedding malicious codes or circuitry that could be later activated from afar in the event of war.