Professor Hollis (pictured here) described the workshop, which was held under Chatham House rules, as a “thought-exercise” designed to bring together senior officials from the State and Defense Departments as well as the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative with academics, technical experts, and social scientists to collaborate on a playbook, or menu, of “pre-positioned” consequences for unwanted cyber-behaviour by a state actor. “What we’re trying to address is that range of unfriendly behaviour by a state actor that goes up to, but doesn’t cross, the line into cyber-war,” he explained. Participants focused their attention on tools that that would be transparent and could be carried out by a multilateral coalition as non-escalatory deterrent strategies, done “more in sorrow than in anger,” as characterized by one of the experts present.

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