EDiplomacy

History

The first foreign ministry to establish a dedicated ediplomacy unit was the US State Department, which created the Taskforce on eDiplomacy in 2002. This Taskforce was renamed the Office of eDiplomacy and had at times up to about 80 staff members, about half of which were dedicated to ediplomacy-related work. In April 2022 the US State Department set up a new Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy (CDP). Although there is no generally accepted definition, "in this report, we consider 'cyber diplomacy' to be efforts that support U.S. interests in cyberspace internationally, led by the Department of State." Indeed, the new CDP bureau brings together the many disparate initiatives set up under the Obama Administration under the hyphenated term United States cyber-diplomacy encompassing Hillary Clinton's 21st century statecraft.