Public lecture “Cybersecurity in the U.S.-East Asia Alliances: Alliance Evolution and Technological Change”

📍 Lossi 36-307

The lecture is in English.

Cyber conflict poses a distinct challenge to alliances, as adversaries employ digital operations to undermine alliance commitments and reshape regional security conditions. Alliance responses to these threats are not only strategic but also institutional, requiring adaptation through internal bargaining over policies, practices, and capabilities. Bridging the literatures on alliance politics, military innovation, and cyber conflict, this lecture presents a framework for how alliances respond to technological change and the forces driving that evolution. It examines the integration of cybersecurity within U.S. alliances with South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines. Across all three cases, significant cyberattacks preceded observable shifts in cooperation, with initiative often originating from the Pacific partner. While the United States sets the broad trajectory of cyber cooperation, Asian allies frequently exercise agenda-setting influence over the pace and content of alliance adaptation.

The facilitator is Dr Miguel Alberto Gomez, who is a Senior Research Fellow with the Centre on Asia and Globalisation at the National University of Singapore. His area of research is found at the intersection of technology, foreign policy, and political psychology. Specifically, he is interested in how novel technologies shape policy, strategy, and public opinion for elites and the public at large.

This lecture is moderated by Professor Eiki Berg.

In case of questions, please contact Kerli Klock (kerli.klock@ut.ee), Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies.

Estonian Doctoral School for Social Sciences.