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European governments wonder if Trump will continue US support of Ukraine and NATO in a conflict with Russia that has partly played out in cyberspace. Fick’s team was instrumental in establishing a process for rapidly delivering cyber-defense aid to Ukraine’s battered government.
“I was in Ukraine right before Christmas, I was in Poland, I was in Estonia, kind of up and down NATO’s eastern flank,” he says, adding that he sensed “both a deep desire for the United States to stay engaged and a recognition that European partners are going to need to do their share—which they, by the way, increasingly are doing.”
More broadly, Fick has heard “a strong desire among many allies and partners” for the US to continue going toe to toe with China and Russia in tech and cyber discussions in international bodies like the UN and the Group of 20.
“Without the United States deeply involved, you’re going to see the Chinese more deeply involved, you’re going to see the Russians more deeply involved,” Fick says. “There’s a pretty broad view [globally] that the US needs to, for its own interests and for the interests of our allies and partners, stay engaged in multilateral organizations.”
Fick sympathizes with Republicans who consider these multilateral organizations too slow and timid, but he wants Trump’s team to “recognize that the alternative is not diminished influence of these organizations; the alternative is simply that they become playgrounds for our competitors and our adversaries.”
Celebrating “a Sea Change”
Looking back on his time as America’s cyber ambassador—which saw him spend a total of more than 200 days traveling the world on nearly 80 trips to visit key US allies and partners—Fick is proud of how his team launched an entirely new bureau inside the State Department, grew it to around 130 employees, and delivered results that he says are transforming digital diplomacy.
One of his biggest accomplishments was the launch of a foreign cyber aid fund that will support programs to deploy security assistance to hack-stricken allies, subsidize new undersea cables, and train foreign diplomats on cyber issues.
The security-assistance project saw an early test in November when Costa Rica faced another major ransomware attack. “We had people on a plane the next morning, Thanksgiving morning, with hands on keyboards alongside Costa Rican partners that night,” Fick says. “That’s amazing. That is a sea change in how we do this, and it’s going to strengthen our hand in providing support to these middle-ground states.”
Fick has also focused on preparing the Foreign Service for the modern world, meeting his goal of training at least one tech-savvy diplomat for every foreign embassy (around 237 total) and successfully lobbying to add digital fluency to the State Department’s criteria for career ambassador positions. He has also helped State counterbalance the Pentagon in White House discussions about foreign tech issues—putting “American diplomacy literally back at the table in the Situation Room on technology topics.”
And then there’s his team’s support for US cyber aid to Ukraine, from security software to satellite communications to cloud migration for vital government data—work that he says offers a template for future public-private foreign-aid partnerships.
One Final Warning
Fick has shared his thoughts about China, 5G, AI, deterrence, and other cyber issues with Trump’s transition team, and he says there’s still more to do to keep cyber diplomacy “front and center” at State. But as he prepares to leave government, he has one major piece of advice for the incoming administration.
“It is essential to have a bias for action,” he says. “We end up admiring a problem for too long rather than taking a decisive step to address it … That decisive step may be imperfect, but indecision is a decision, and the world moves on without you.”
Put another way: In an era of rapidly evolving technologies and intensifying geopolitical competition, massive bureaucracies like the State Department sometimes need to be jolted into action.
“The job of the leaders in these big organizations,” Fick says, “is to move the org to change a little bit faster than it would on its own.”
