Structural Causes and Cyber Effects: A Response to Our Critics

Evidence of the emerging cyber regime is mounting every day. Increasingly, states are bringing notoriously secretive cyber issues into the realm of public debate, particularly in response to events that threaten the availability, security, and surety of cyberspace. This is not to say sovereign states have taken to playing international politics with all of their cards on the table. States will continue to protect sensitive sources and methods as they always have. However, such evidence does lend credence to the idea that even powerful states realize cooperation in cyberspace is part of the domain itself. Furthermore, nonstate actors’ attempts to influence state policy, atop the relatively anonymous platforms cyberspace offers, provide even more reason for states to cooperate in their attempts to shape and influence the information environment.