Hackers take part in a test at the Cybersecurity Conference in Lille, France, Jan. 25, 2017 (AP photo by Michel Spingler).

It’s now well understood that many governments see their cyber capabilities as a tool to influence, coerce, deter and disrupt their enemies and rivals. Societies and states today are almost totally dependent on cyberspace to communicate, conduct routine but essential transactions, store information and make critical decisions about policy matters, from the mundane to the strategic. Yet it’s hard for people without deep technical understanding of the technology—your columnist included—to know where to fit these cyber realities into familiar categories for the conduct of national security and international relations. There’s also a risk of discussing openly how to respond to […]

Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures as he speaks at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, St. Petersburg, Russia, June 2, 2017 (AP photo by Dmitry Lovetsky).

After President Donald Trump reluctantly signed legislation in August imposing new U.S. sanctions on Moscow for its interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Russia’s parliament last month drafted a bill that would try to shield Russian banks from further sanctions by obscuring their investments in the state-controlled arms industry. The United States and the European Union have imposed multiple layers of sanctions on Russia since 2014 for its actions in Ukraine. In an email interview, William Courtney, an adjunct senior fellow at the RAND Corporation and former U.S. ambassador to Georgia and Kazakhstan, discusses the impact of Western sanctions […]