Resetting cyber relations with the United States

For more than two decades, successive U.S. administrations treated the UN as a necessary—if imperfect—venue for shaping global expectations of state behavior in cyberspace. The United States was a principal architect of the UN cyber framework, supporting the applicability of international law to cyberspace, articulating confidence-building measures, and defending multistakeholder engagement. Historically, U.S. international engagement in various cyber processes was driven by a strategic logic that combined normative leadership with institutional investment. In the past decade, Washington was instrumental in establishing the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise (GFCE), setting up the International Counter Ransomware Initiative (CRI), and promoting the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime.

However, this posture has become increasingly unsettled since U.S. President Donald Trump’s return to power. The 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy reflects a more instrumental view of multilateral institutions, including the UN. Engagement is no longer justified primarily by long-term order-shaping considerations and alliances but by short-term strategic return, cost efficiency, and perceived alignment with the administration’s worldviews and narrowly defined national interests.

Although he made a strong push for renewed alliances, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s remarks at the Munich Security Conference in February 2026 were another clear expression of this position. As a consequence, the UN is no longer framed as a venue for shaping global order, but rather as one forum among many—useful insofar as it delivers concrete returns and dispensable when it does not.

Read more at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace