The Internet is the most robust medium of information exchange in history. Two billion people are now connected, and at current growth rates everyone with Internet access will join the Internet community within a decade. Barring technological and political disruptions, the world's populace will then be on a single common digital platform. The global medium can provide unparalleled personal well-being, economic growth and beneficial social change.
Topic:
Democratization, Economics, Globalization, Political Economy, Science and Technology, Communications, and Regime Change
In any market, buyers seek out the seller who offers the lowest prices and best terms. Government can distort markets by decreasing or increasing prices through subsidies, taxes or regulation. Compared to a free market, distortion means different sellers get the sale and at different prices.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Science and Technology
Americans are right to be dismayed with U.S. energy policy. For forty years, presidents of both parties have backed a series of fanciful "breakthrough technologies." From synfuels to Solyndra, these schemes have turned out to be costly disappointments and the source of a recurring political drama. After failures become clear, Congress sometimes conducts oversight hearings. But it welcomes each new scheme as a pretext for pork barrel politics. Neither the executive nor the legislature ever learns from past failures.
For more than two decades, cyber defenders, intelligence analysts, and policymakers have struggled to determine the source of the most damaging attacks. This "attribution problem" will only become more critical as we move into a new era of cyber conflict with even more attacks ignored, encouraged, supported, or conducted by national governments.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Science and Technology, Terrorism, International Security, and Reform
NATO's central missions of collective defense and cooperative security must be as effective in cyberspace as in the other domains of air, land, sea, and space.
Topic:
Defense Policy, International Cooperation, Science and Technology, and Reform
Over the course of 2011, the United States government released a coordinated set of policies that represents the most energetic cyber statecraft in nearly a decade.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and Science and Technology
Since the Internet makes us all neighbors, more nations are likely to be affected by conflicts in cyberspace than in the air, land, or sea. Nations are increasingly looking to limit potential cyber conflicts using the same devices that have limited more traditional wars: treaties, conventions, and norms.
Topic:
Defense Policy, International Cooperation, Science and Technology, and Reform
Experts have warned about a massive surprise cyber attack since at least 1991, when Winn Schwartau testified to Congress about the dangers of an "electronic Pearl Harbor." More recently, the analogy has changed to a "cyber 9/11" but the fear is generally the same: the dependence of modern economies and societies on cyberspace means a digital attack could fundamentally disrupt our way of life and be remembered for decades as the day everything changed.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Economics, Science and Technology, and Terrorism
The perfect is the enemy of the good in both military alliances and cyber security. The dream cyber warning network would detect most attacks before they occur and quickly detect and stop the rest, preferably automatically. Unfortunately, this is currently feasible only for extremely small and heterogeneous organizations willing to commit significant resources, such as financial institutions. The challenges for a military alliance of twenty-eight nations with widely varying budgets and needs are much harder to meet.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, NATO, and Science and Technology
The new United States defense guidance has substantial implications for transatlantic nations that must be addressed at the NATO Summit in May. Specifically, how does the longstanding transatlantic security bargain apply in this globalized world? What are the key security challenges at this strategic turning point? How should those challenges be met in a time of financial constraint? And what are the key actions the transatlantic nations should undertake?
Topic:
Foreign Policy, NATO, Science and Technology, and International Security