Gregory H. Winger
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science
UMBC
Joint work with: Miguel Alberto Gomez
Senior Research Fellow
Centre on Asia and Globalisation
Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy
National University of Singapore
12 noon–1pm
Friday, September 19, 2025
Remotely via WebEx: https://umbc.webex.com/meet/sherman
Recording of Talk
Abstract:
Alliances are living institutions that must adapt to changing geostrategic and technological realities to sustain their security prerogatives. While initially designed to respond to conventional military threats, alliances like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are now being tasked with extending their defensive commitments into cyberspace. Over the past decade, alliances have been quick to affirm their role in the digital domain, but it remains unclear what collective cybersecurity actually means or how it can be operationalized. Our research uses survey experiments of U.S. nationals to gauge alliance obligations in cybersecurity and how specific conditions or contexts may color the willingness to aid allies after destructive cyberattacks. We find that despite the novelty of cyber threats, there is robust support for assisting allies afflicted by cyber aggression. Treaty obligations carry motivating weight with respondents and can influence preferences when determining how to respond to a cyber incident. However, these reactions are also tempered by individual factors including familiarity with cybersecurity, and the identities of the specific countries involved. This finding is particularly significant when extended to the Indo-Pacific, where we explicitly test U.S. responses to a hypothetical Chinese cyberattack on U.S. allies and partners in the region. While still in its initial stages, this research agenda helps illuminate the distinct political challenges posed by cyber conflict and the obstacles that governments face in responding to technological threats.
About the Speaker:
Gregory H. Winger (Gregory.Winger@umbc.edu) is an associate professor in the Political Science Department at UMBC. His research examines security cooperation and how collective security institutions like alliances are responding to the challenges of cyber conflict. His research has been featured as part of NATO’s annual conference on cyber conflict, and he has directly contributed to government initiatives on cyber education at the state, national, and international levels. Dr. Winger is a former Fulbright Scholar to the Philippines and remains active in Indo-Pacific Affairs. His research has been included in NATO’s annual conference on cyber conflict, and he has directly contributed to government initiatives on cyber education at the state, national, and international levels. Dr. Winger is a former Fulbright scholar to the Philippines and remains active in Indo-Pacific Affairs.
Host:
Alan T. Sherman, sherman@umbc.edu
Support for this event was provided in part by the National Science Foundation under SFS grant DGE-1753681.
The UMBC Cyber Defense Lab meets biweekly Fridays 12-1pm. All meetings are open to the public.
Upcoming CDL meetings:
Oct 3, 2025: Md Tariqul Islam ‘Pavel’ (information systems)
Oct 17, 2025: Mohammad Mohammadisiahroudi (Math)
Oct 31, 2025: Alan Sherman, String Matching by Humans through Simultaneous Presentation
Nov 14, 2025: Fabio Anza (Physics)
Nov 28, 2025: Thanksgiving weekend
Dec 12, 2025: Alan Sherman and Enis Golazewski, Security Analysis of the SecureDNA System