Russian Cyber Strategies and Information Operations: From Cuba to Crimea and Beyond
Speaker: Drozdova, K. (Seattle Pacific University)
Date: 21 October 2020
Speaker Session Summary
SMA hosted a speaker session as a part of its SMA General Speaker Series, featuring Dr. Katya Drozdova (Seattle Pacific University).
Dr. Drozdova began her presentation by emphasizing the need to understand the complexity of Russia, particularly when assessing its cyber and information operations. Characteristically, these operations serve Russia’s broader interests and are often integrated with other means to broaden national power, military strength, and covert operations. Dr. Drozdova used the Cuban Missile Crisis as an example of a Russian information operation, as the Soviets used strategic communication with the US in an attempt to force the US to remove its nuclear weapons from Turkey. Another notable example is Crimea, where Russia is currently deploying significant elements of a cyber campaign that are tightly interweaved with special operations, election politics, etc.
Dr. Drozdova noted that as cyber capabilities grow, it is critical to think about what is new and what is not. In Russia’s case, it has learned from its own history—drawing lessons from the Cold War, especially the collapse of the Soviet Union, and applying those lessons to scenarios in Crimea and Syria. When assessing an adversary, it is critical that the US understands how that adversary thinks, Dr. Drozdova explained, and in Russia’s case, it thinks with a historical perspective. Furthermore, with the Russian brain drain leading some of its best cyber analysts and hackers to leave the country to find work, Russia is now capable of plausible deniability if it uses those individuals for its own operations. From a Russian perspective, this is a double-edged sword, however, as other actors and states could also access these cyber experts for counteroperations, Dr. Drozdova stated.
Dr. Drozdova then explained that cyber operations and information campaigns in Russia are pieces of a larger effort to pursue its strategic interests. Russia has always wanted to be recognized as a major player in international relations, which is a driving force behind its strategies. Furthermore, Russia’s cyber strategies are designed with a broader geopolitical scope. There is also a combination of different means of national power and risk-taking in certain campaigns, such as those in Cuba and Crimea, because they engage NATO and the West. This willingness to take huge risks is something to watch for, Dr. Drozdova warned, as it demonstrates the need for caution when interacting with Russia. Russia’s goal is not only to expand its power, but also to build its credibility and reputation across the world. Russia has successfully rebuilt and restored many capabilities since the fall of the Soviet Union, and what makes Russia more threatening today is the fact that there is much more secrecy surrounding and less knowledge about Russia than there was about the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Moreover, uncertainties are far greater in the information and cyber age, which adds to the risk Russia poses from a US and more general Western perspective. Dr. Drozdova concluded her presentation by encouraging the development of analytical tools to better assess cyber threats and information campaigns.
Speaker Session Recording
This speaker session will not be recorded, as per our speaker’s request.
KATYA DROZDOVA
Associate Professor of Political Science
Email: drozdova@spu.edu
Phone: 206-281-2157
Office: McKenna Hall 215
Education: BA, Stanford University, 1996; MA, Stanford University, 1998; MPhil, New York University, 2006; PhD, New York University, 2008. At SPU since 2010.
Dr. Ekaterina “Katya” Drozdova is an associate professor of political science and Scholar of the Year in the School of Business, Government, and Economics at Seattle Pacific University. She is also a visiting scholar at the University of Washington in 2017-19 and was a visiting fellow at Stanford University in 2016-17. Prof. Drozdova has conducted research; extensively lectured at various public, policy, and educational venues; and taught courses on subjects ranging from Cybersecurity and Cyberpower, International Relations, Counterterrorism, Global Security Strategy and Development to Research Methods in Social Science and International Political Economy. Katya is the author of Quantifying the Qualitative: Information Theory for Comparative Case Analysis (SAGE, 2016) and has successfully utilized qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method techniques in her research program.
An expert on cyberpower, international relations, cybersecurity, foreign policy, counterterrorism, and U.S. national and global security, Dr. Drozdova has authored numerous articles and book-chapters including, among others, journal articles on “Reducing Uncertainty” published in International Studies Quarterly and on “Early-Warning Detection of Terrorist Attacks” published in Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory as well as the chapter on “Civil Liberties and Security in Cyberspace” in The Transnational Dimension of Cyber Crime and Terrorism (Hoover Press). Professor Drozdova has earned a PhD and MPhil in Information Systems from New York University’s (NYU) Stern School of Business, Department of Information, Operations, and Management Sciences. Her MA in International Policy studies and BA in International Relations are from Stanford University.
Professor Drozdova’s current research and publications broadly focus on problems of cyber power, geopolitical strategy, global security and reciprocity in international relations, particularly emphasizing American-Russian relations and issues of counterterrorism. Katya has built a long track record in the studies of conflict, with an emphasis on asymmetric low-tech threats in the high-tech age as well as on organizations’ use of their human and technological networks to survive in hostile or otherwise challenging conditions. Her research interests are in understanding how systemic risks and technology choices affect security strategies in diverse contexts: from dealing with the issues of deconfliction among the great powers – to exploring new frontiers in space & cyberspace – to countering terrorist or insurgent networks while securing cyber, energy, and other critical infrastructures.
Katya has been actively involved with leading policy, diplomatic, military, law enforcement, and business professionals in identifying mission-critical challenges and formulating effective global responses across multiple areas. Her recent work and publications have introduced a new methodology capable of providing deeper insights into complex socio-political processes even in situations of sparse or incomplete information access – common in a broad range of real-life settings: from the ‘fog of war’ of international crises and counter-terrorism operations to strategic business planning in highly dynamic competitive markets. These and many traditional tools are then successfully utilized by Katya in policy-relevant applications that have dealt with issues of U.S. national and international security—specifically addressing the problems of hybrid and asymmetric threats as well as with optimization of human and technological networks for improved success rate in complex political, military, and business environments.
Prof. Drozdova is a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace as well as a principal investigator for “Mining Afghan Lessons from Soviet Era” (MALSE) research program, which has been funded by the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense’s (OSD) Human Social Cultural and Behavioral (HSCB) Sciences program through the Office of Naval Research’s (ONR) Expeditionary Maneuver Warfare and Combating Terrorism Department and the Naval Postgraduate School. She has been an affiliate with the Empirical Studies of Conflict Project (ESOC) at Stanford and Princeton Universities, a fellow at NYU’s Alexander Hamilton Center for Political Economy and Stanford University’s Hoover Institution as well as Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). At CISAC, Katya has also been a member of the Consortium for Research on Information Security and Policy (CRISP) funded by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), which has brought together leading scholars as well as
industry and government practitioners, including former directors of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
Before coming to SPU, Katya has had extensive experience in the private sector, which spanned the range from working for such well-established S&P 500 market leader as Computer Sciences Corp (CSC) to being the first hired employee of a start-up, specializing in defense and technology applications.
Dr. Drozdova’s recent international diplomacy engagements include the official hosting of the Prime Minister of the State of Qatar, His Excellency Sheikh Abdullah Bin Nasser Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, an SPU alumnus, during his campus visit to Seattle Pacific University in 2016.
As part of her community outreach, Dr. Drozdova has most recently led a public lecture event and conversation on “Hackers, Spies, and Freedom” with General Keith Alexander, world-renowned expert in cybersecurity, former longest-serving director of the NSA, first commander of U.S. Cyber Command, and the university’s featured speaker in 2015. Katya’s earlier interview with the former U.S. Secretary of State and United States Ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Albright can be found in Response, Summer 2014.
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