Dr. Benjamin Bartlett is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and an affiliate of the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of Michigan. He is also a member of Cohort 6 of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation U.S.-Japan Network for the Future. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley and an M.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Toronto. His research interests include comparative cybersecurity policy, cybersecurity in East Asia, the role of cybersecurity in alliances, and international cooperation on cybersecurity capacity building. He has published in Journal of Cyber Policy, Asia Policy, The Pacific Review, in the Oxford Handbook of Japanese Politics, and has a co-authored piece forthcoming in Security Studies. He is also a 2022 recipient of an NEH Fellowship for Advanced Social Science Research on Japan

‍

‍

For a state that is a junior partner in an asymmetric alliance, the senior partner would seem a natural source of assistance in cyber capacity-building and for supplementing its cybersecurity. However, we often see these states relying not only on their senior partners for these benefits, but instead developing cybersecurity partnerships with non-ally states, often states whose capabilities are more similar to their own. This paper seeks to understand why this occurs. It tests three possible hypotheses. First, that states create these partnerships in order to strengthen the security position of their senior partners and their allies, usually by partnering with other junior partners of the senior partner. Second, that states create these partnerships in order to hedge against possible abandonment by the senior partner, specifically the possibility that the senior partner may reduce its commitments in cyberspace or with regard to providing cybersecurity to the junior ally. Third, that states create these partnerships to develop their cybersecurity capabilities while preserving or enhancing their autonomy vis-a-vis the senior partners in their alliances. While a senior partner may make demands regarding a junior partner's cybersecurity-related policies in return for its aid, a non-ally peer is unlikely to do the same. The paper tests these three hypotheses by looking at when, why, and with whom Australia, Japan, and South Korea have developed cybersecurity partnerships in the face of a growing threat from China and domestic political changes in the United States.

‍