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41. When the generation gap collides with military structure: The case of the Norwegian cyber officers

Author:
Hanne Eggen Roislien
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
As the military integrates cyber into its structures, gradually more nations are recruiting and educating personnel to serve as "cyber officers". Tech-savvy men and women from ‘Generation Y’ grew up in the post-modern era, recognized not only by its individualism and erosion of overarching, coherent maxims, but also by the fact that technology is taken for granted. Thus, in the situation of the cyber officer a particular generation gap occurs, one in which the characteristics of postmodernity, military command structures and the inter-disciplinarity of cyber pull in conflicting directions. This friction creates a peculiar situation as technology and cyber contribute to sharpen the generation gap that necessarily exists between the young generation of cyber officers, and their superiors in the military. I explore this quandary through an examination of cyber officers’ testimonies. In particular, I focus on the cyber officers’ conceptualization of “cyber” and how this resonates with that of their superiors’. The data is ethnographic, based on interviews with cyber officer students at the Norwegian Defence Cyber Academy.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Military Strategy, and Cybersecurity
Political Geography:
Europe, Norway, Northern Europe, and Scandinavia

42. A Useful Pause in Arctic Drilling

Author:
Bruce M. Everett
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Until last year, drilling for oil in the Arctic was the subject of considerable discussion focused not only on the potential impacts of Arctic resources on the oil market, but also on the environmental and geopolitical implications of opening this area to development. Prospects for Arctic drilling dimmed considerably in 2015 when Shell decided to abandon its ambitious drilling efforts in the Burger Field in the Chukchi Sea, writing off several billion dollars in the process. The recent collapse in oil prices has probably put a stop to Arctic drilling for the time being, and this pause may prove useful in resolving some of the outstanding issues.
Topic:
Environment, Oil, Natural Resources, Geopolitics, and Maritime
Political Geography:
Russia, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Greenland, Arctic, United States of America, and Oceans

43. Cyber Defense: An International View

Author:
Kim Hartmann and Keir Giles
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
An overview of four different national approaches to cyber defense are discussed: those of Norway, Estonia, Germany and Sweden. While providing a useful guide for engagement with the relevant governmental and other organizations in each of these countries, the Paper also compares and contrasts the advantages and drawbacks of each national approach.
Topic:
National Security, Science and Technology, Governance, and Cybersecurity
Political Geography:
Norway, Germany, Estonia, and Sweden

44. How Should States Own? Heinisch v. Germany and the Emergence of Human Rights-Sensitive State Ownership Function

Author:
Mikko Rajavuori
Publication Date:
07-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
State ownership is thriving. Emerging economies are extending their growing economic power outward through sovereign wealth funds. State-owned multinationals have become top sources of foreign direct investment. Bailouts have recreated powerful state ownership structures in regions where private ownership has traditionally prevailed. The state is back – in shareholder capacity. Approaching the rise of state ownership from a human rights perspective, this article submits that a new conceptualization of state ownership function is emerging. State ownership provides a strong link connecting corporate actions with the international human rights system. Yet the conventional methods used to integrate state ownership in human rights treaty bodies’ discretion seem unable to grasp the changing economic role of governments in the global economy. The article suggests that the notion of the ‘public shareholder’, introduced by the European Court of Human Rights in Heinisch v. Germany (2011), provides a useful lens for interrogating how states should govern the human rights performance of corporations through ownership. When exposed to the recent practice of a range of United Nations treaty bodies, internationalizing state ownership activity becomes framed in human rights terms. In this vision, the whole ownership function becomes a site for turning companies in the state’s portfolio into responsible corporate citizens who take the impact of human rights seriously. Specifically, treaty bodies should advise states to seek human rights governance through private mechanisms in the capacity of the shareholder. In the process, human rights’ checks and balances should constitute a counterweight for market-based initiatives that regulate state activity in the capacity of the shareholder.
Topic:
Human Rights, International Law, Treaties and Agreements, Foreign Direct Investment, Economies, and Courts
Political Geography:
Europe, Norway, and Germany

45. AUra's Openings

Author:
Anna Tsing
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
AURA: Aarhus University Research on the Anthropocene
Abstract:
This opening essay has two purposes: first, to offer a small introduction to the papers by Lien, Swanson and myself that follow; and, second, to introduce Aarhus University Research on the Anthropocene (AURA) as a program for studying human-disturbed landscapes. I am in debt to Lien and Swanson for showing me catachresis as a feature of Anthropocene research. Catachresis helps me as I grope for language to describe AURA as an impossible program: a program dedicated to confusing disciplinary boundaries and to describing the challenges of life within the ruins created by modernization’s vast “improvements.” Following their guidance, I allow salmon to lead the way, saving AURA and landlocked landscapes for the sections that come after. Consider Swanson’s description of the strange Hokkaido device called an “Indian water wheel.” Hokkaido fisheries expert Ito Kazutaka visited Oregon’s Columbia River in 1886 and observed water wheels used to capture salmon; when he returned home, he combined the American technologies he noted with a Honshu-style (i.e., central Japanese rather than Hokkaido-based) fishing weir to create what he called the Indian water wheel. And what was “Indian” about this hybrid? Ito meant Native American, unselfconsciously commemorating the indigenous people whose access to salmon was interrupted by frontier-conquest technologies such as the water wheel. Certainly, “Indian” is catachresis. It usefully makes us pause. Japanese salmon are enacted in historically shifting hybrids of U.S. and Japanese frontier technologies recalled through the indigenous displacement they have in common. (In this regard, it seems useful to note that the water wheel was eventually outlawed in Oregon because it also killed off too many salmon.) Inappropriate language appropriately startles us. Connection, comparison, and displacement are wound together in forging modes of being both human and salmon; this is the condition of our times.
Topic:
Environment, Water, Fishing, and Anthropocene
Political Geography:
Europe and Norway