Camino Kavanagh is no longer with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Camino Kavanagh was a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where her research focuses on international security, governance, and emerging technologies. She is also a visiting fellow at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, where she is a member of the Cyber Security Research Group.
Kavanagh is a member of the UNIDIR advisory support team to the UN Open-Ended Working Group and Group of Governmental Experts on ICT and International Security, and was UNIDIR consultant/rapporteur to the 2016-2017 UN Group of Governmental Experts.
She has served as consultant or advisor to a number of entities, including the executive office of the UN Secretary-General, supporting the development of the Secretary-General’s Strategy on New Technologies; the UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs on digital technologies and mediation in armed conflict; the OSCE on confidence building measures and ICT; the OAS on cyber diplomacy and scenario development; and the government of Switzerland on projects relating to responsible behavior in cyberspace (the Geneva Dialogue) and preventive diplomacy. She has also advised non-governmental groups such as ICT4Peace on a range of ICT-related normative and policy initiatives.
Kavanagh’s Ph.D. was awarded by the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, and focused on information technology and the state, a topic that remains central to her research activities.
In the months preceding Russia’s invasion, many observers predicted that cyber operations would be a key component of Russia’s military strategy. Yet, while Ukraine’s infrastructure (power and telecommunications in particular) has been targeted, the internet is still largely accessible across the country.
States’ diplomatic engagements regarding information and communications technologies and cyberspace will continue to be driven by calculations of national interest. Yet the very nature of the technologies and our collective growing dependency on them requires states to look beyond national interests.
Digital technologies are changing the character of conflict, with civilians and peacekeepers increasingly at risk of their misuse and abuse.
The array of new technologies emerging on the world stage, the new threats they can pose, and the associated governance dilemmas highlight a set of common themes.
