European governments are wondering whether Trump will continue to support Ukraine and NATO in a conflict with Russia that has partly played in cyberspace. Fick’s team was instrumental in establishing a process for quickly delivering cyber defense aid to Ukraine’s battered government.
“I was in Ukraine just before Christmas, I was in Poland, I was in Estonia, up and down NATO’s eastern flank,” he says, adding that he felt “both a deep desire for the United States to remain engaged and a recognition that the European partners are going to have to do their part, something that, by the way, they are doing more and more.”
More broadly, Fick has heard “a strong desire among many allies and partners” for the United States to continue to go toe-to-toe with China and Russia in debates over technology and cyber in international bodies like the UN and the Group of 20.
“Without the United States deeply involved, we will see the Chinese more deeply involved, we will see the Russians more deeply involved,” Fick says. “There is a fairly broad view (globally) that the United States needs, for its own interests and those of our allies and partners, to continue participating in multilateral organizations.”
Fick sympathizes with Republicans who see these multilateral organizations as too slow and timid, but he wants Trump’s team to “recognize that the alternative is not to diminish the influence of these organizations; The alternative is simply that they become playing fields for our competitors and our adversaries.”
Celebrating “radical change”
Looking back on his time as a U.S. cyber ambassador, in which he spent a total of more than 200 days traveling the world on nearly 80 trips to visit key U.S. allies and partners, Fick is proud of how his team launched an office completely new within the country. Department of State, increased it to about 130 employees and achieved results that he says are transforming digital diplomacy.
One of his greatest achievements was the launch of a foreign cyber aid fund that will support programs deploy security assistance to allies affected by cyber attacks, subsidize new undersea cables, and train foreign diplomats on cyber issues.
The security assistance project got an initial test in November, when Costa Rica faced another major ransomware attack. “We had people on a plane the next morning, Thanksgiving morning, with their hands on keyboards next to Costa Rican partners that night,” Fick says. “That’s amazing. “This is a radical change in the way we do this and will strengthen our position in supporting these intermediate states.”
Fick has also focused on preparing the Foreign Service for the modern world, meeting his goal of training at least one tech-savvy diplomat for every foreign embassy (about 237 in total) and successfully pushing to add digital fluency to the criteria. from the State Department for career ambassador. positions. It has also helped the state counter the Pentagon in White House discussions on foreign technology issues, putting “American diplomacy literally back on the Situation Room table on technology issues.”
And then there’s his team’s support of U.S. cyber aid to Ukraine, from security software to satellite communications and cloud migration for vital government data, work he says offers a model for future public-public partnerships. deprived of foreign aid.
One last warning
Fick has shared his thoughts on China, 5G, AI, deterrence and other cyber issues with the Trump transition team, and says there is still more to do to keep cyber diplomacy “front and center” in the state. But as he prepares to leave government, he has some important advice for the incoming administration.
“It is essential to have a predisposition to action,” he says. “We end up admiring a problem for too long instead of taking a decisive step to address it… That decisive step may be imperfect, but indecision is a decision, and the world moves on without you.”
Put another way: In an era of rapidly evolving technologies and increasingly intense geopolitical competition, it is sometimes necessary to call massive bureaucracies like the State Department into action.
“The job of the leaders of these large organizations,” Fick says, “is to make the organization change a little faster than it would on its own.”