An Interview with Bruce McConnell, Senior Vice President of the EastWest Institute (EWI)

Trust-building is at the heart of the EastWest Institute’s work. Tell us more about your mission and how it has evolved since EWI’s founding in 1980.

EWI is an independent, multinational, non-profit, non-governmental organization. For more than three decades, we have been providing ‘thought leadership’ and mobilizing resources to address some of the critical issues facing the world. Today we bring together leaders, policy makers and policy innovators to develop new solutions to the daunting challenges they face – from promoting cooperation in cyberspace and securing a stable post-2014 Afghanistan to navigating the evolving relationships between major powers such as the United States, China and Russia.

As an organization, we were born in the Cold War. We provided private consultations and fresh thinking to support the deliberations conducted between the United States, the Soviet Union, NATO, and the Warsaw Pact. When the Cold War ended, we then shifted our focus to support political and economic liberalization in Eastern Europe, but not before the German government bestowed its highest civilian honor on our founder, John Mroz.

By 2005, EWI had begun to shift its attention to a new set of issues, including China, counterterrorism, energy security, and the Middle East. In 2008 our portfolio expanded to include cyberspace security, diplomacy and deterrence. Finally, in 2010 we became the sole NGO that works with and through the major cyber powers – government and private – to make cyberspace a safer and better place.

Can you give us one or two examples of recent EWI trust-building initiatives?

We recently completed a two-year effort to reduce tensions over a key sticking point between the US and China. Our report, “external pageThreading the Needle: Proposals for US and Chinese Actions on Arms Sales to Taiwancall_made,” was developed through extensive consultations with all the affected players, and led to a set of proposed actions that have the support of key officials in the US executive and legislative branches, and in the Chinese government.

In the case of cyberspace, we’ve recently facilitated an agreement between the US and Russia over the meaning of forty key terms that are currently being used in shaping international cybersecurity agreements. This work, incidentally, proved to be instrumental in successfully negotiating a cybersecurity confidence-building agreement between Presidents Obama and Putin last year.

EWI’s Global Cooperation in Cyberspace Initiative (GCCI) aims to minimize the negative consequences of global internet fragmentation. Can you tell us more about what this fragmentation entails and what are the concrete objectives of EWI’s initiative?

National policies governing the secure flow of information and the handling of data are increasingly endangering economic growth and international security. This problem is attributable to three influences:

• Political and Economic Concerns. (Trade issues, concerns about inappropriate or illegal Internet content, and growing public anger about government surveillance and the violation of privacy have created domestic political pressures for the “localization” of products, services and data.)
• Security Concerns. (The digitization and interconnection of society, particularly through critical infrastructures, continue to increase the risk of accidental or deliberate cyber disruptions. At the same time, international cyber criminals continue to go unpunished and a looming cyber arms race threatens stability.)
• Weak Governance. (Both national and international Internet governance institutions remain slow, weak, isolated, or even non-existent.)

If the above influences are not successfully managed, trust in the Internet will erode and a militarized, fragmented ‘Splinternet’ will emerge and 1) undermine global economic growth, and 2) promote regional and international instability. If these things happen, cyberspace will then cease to function as the premier global arena for information exchange and dialogue.

EWI’s Global Cooperation in Cyberspace Initiative is designed to prevent the above pathologies from happening, or at least minimize them. Indeed, the Initiative convenes and mobilizes government and private stakeholders to promote the following antidotes to the three just described sources of fragmentation:

• Economic and Political Development. (The goals here are to increase the global availability of secure ICT products and services; manage barriers to innovation-centered information flows; and explore cyber surveillance, privacy and big data concerns.)
• Digital Security and Stability. (The goals here are to mitigate cyber risks to critical infrastructure; modernize mutual law enforcement assistance against cyber-enabled crime; and promote ‘restraint measures’ against the development and deployment of cyber weapons.)
• Sound Governance and Management. (The goal here is to facilitate the design and testing of transparent, accountable, orderly, inclusive and agile management and governance structures that increase the predictability and trustworthiness of the Internet.)

The Global Cooperation in Cyberspace Initiative will continue to use a proven EWI process – which is designed to ‘Convene, Reframe and Mobilize’ around problems – in order to achieve our previously mentioned objectives, and thereby minimize the potential impact of the Splinternet. The process, by the way, relies on ‘breakthrough groups’ that are supported by a global network of technology/policy experts; senior officials responsible for cyberspace in governments and private organizations; and selected cyber/Internet policy and advocacy groups. Some of these individuals, and others, have already attended an invitation-only roundtable meeting recently held in San Francisco in order to launch the GCCI. A global follow-on summit, which will be co-hosted by the German Foreign Office, will then occur in Berlin from 3-5 December. The objectives of this by-invitation meeting, which will nevertheless be inclusive, interactive and engage a diverse set of old and new stakeholders, will be to 1) help rebuild trust in the Internet, and 2) help top corporate and national leaders comprehend the strategic dimensions of the cyberspace problems they face.

How does EastWest engage young people in its work?

In addition to providing internships and full-time employment opportunities, EWI hosts external pageNextgencall_made, which is a blogging network that connects young, engaged individuals with older professionals who have experience in international affairs. Nextgen, in other words, is a platform for future policy and business professionals to express their views and positions. The blog has been operating for over three years now and contains more than 200 articles on a wide range of international political, economic, and security issues.

For additional information please see:
external pageMore about EWIcall_made
external pageMore about Bruce McConnellcall_made
external pageEWI Global Cooperation in Cyberspace Initiativecall_made
external pageEWI Nextgencall_made