Connecting India: How roads, teledensity and electricity have improved over time

Prerna Sharma

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Connectivity is a prime factor in determining livability, employment and growth in a country. In this view, a well-connected India provides the prospect of a better India—from better access to services to better livelihoods and opportunities. Setting out to understand how connectivity in India had improved over time, we decided to track advances in three basic pillars of infrastructure and access – Roads, Teledensity and Electricity. In doing so, we relied on open-source government data to understand trends across time and states (and, where possible, districts).

The literature on the connection between all three pillars of infrastructure and economic growth is well-documented. Research shows that accessible and equitable infrastructure has long-term economic benefits. It can raise economic growth and productivity while having significant positive spillovers in increasing access to labour markets and reducing transaction costs.

South Korea, India To Continue Importing Iranian Oil

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South Korea and India agreed with the US on the outline of deals that would allow it to keep importing some Iranian oil after it asked the United States for “maximum flexibility” this week, according to Asian officials. No final decision has been made and an announcement is unlikely before US sanctions on Iran are re-imposed Nov. 5, the officials said, asking not to be identified because the information is confidential. That opens the possibility that the terms could still be modified or the deals scrapped entirely. The waivers would ensure at least some Iranian oil continues to flow to the global market, potentially calming fears of a supply crunch and further suppressing international oil prices just before mid-term elections in the US Brent crude has fallen 14 percent from over $85 a barrel last month on signs that other OPEC producers will pump more to offset any supply gap, according to Bloomberg.

Beijing engages with Pakistan's Uighurs in 'charm offensive'

ADNAN AAMIR, 
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QUETTA, Pakistan -- China is quietly launching a "charm offensive" to win over the Muslim Uighurs in Pakistan, where Beijing has invested billions of dollars through its Belt and Road Initiative. In an unprecedented development, the Chinese embassy in Islamabad recently invited a group of Uighurs in the South Asian country to meet with officials. About a dozen Uighurs attended the meeting with Chinese diplomats, based on an image in a news release issued by the embassy. Beijing has been accused by Western media of alleged human rights violations against Uighurs in China's Xinjiang autonomous region. The reports alleged that over a million Uighurs were detained in "re-education camps," which Chinese state media claimed were vocational training facilities.

At the meeting, the diplomats explained that the activities undertaken by Chinese authorities in Xinjiang were part of an "anti-terrorism stability" effort and "vocational skills education and training."

Sri Lanka: An urgent case for conflict prevention

Jeffrey Feltman

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No one following Sri Lanka could pretend that the partnership forged in 2015 between President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was either affectionate or wildly successful. Yet at least the Sri Lankan leaders seemed to understand the logic that, when you’re trying to get out of a hole, stop digging: Sirisena and Wickremesinghe oversaw halting (if insufficient) steps toward addressing issues of accountability, missing persons, governance, and land usage arising during the previous 10 years under President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Credible allegations of human rights atrocities under Rajapaksa soared during the culmination of the government’s scorched-earth campaign against the Tamil Tigers in May 2009. Indeed, both Sirisena, in his January 2015 upset, and Wickremesinghe’s parliamentary coalition, later that summer, won their elections on promises of anti-Rajapaksa policies and of reconciliation between Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese Buddhist majority and its minorities, especially the Tamils.

China Has ‘Taken the Gloves Off’ in New Hacking Attacks on US - Report

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A new report using ‘incident response’ data reveals sources inside China are leading the rapidly increasing sophistication of destructive cyber attacks against US-based targets.

On Wednesday, the US government warned that a hacking group dubbed "Cloud Hopper" has been attacking technology service providers as a means to steal client data. The hacking campaign, allegedly involved in cyber espionage and intellectual property theft, has been linked to the Chinese Ministry of State Security's Tianjin Bureau, according to Reuters. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a statement this week reporting that experts from two US cybersecurity firms are warning that Chinese hacking activity has increased amid the ongoing trade war between Washington and Beijing. The trade war escalated in June when US President Donald Trump slapped a 25 percent tariff on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods, with Beijing quickly responding in kind.

Understanding and Defeating China’s Maritime Insurgency in the South China Sea

by Hunter Stires 

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The rule of an international system that upholds the legal and philosophical principle of the “freedom of the seas” ranks among America’s most important if uncelebrated national interests. The preservation of a free and open maritime order is imperative for a country whose ability to connect with over 80 percent of the world’s population depends on overseas transportation. For nearly four centuries , the oceans have held the status in legal principle (later codified in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea ) of a global commons, over which national sovereignty is limited and based strictly on adjacent landward holdings. Yet this vital architecture is under grave threat in the South China Sea. China is working aggressively to not just gain military dominance, but even more importantly, to impose an alternative regime of governance on this vital waterway based on Chinese domestic laws and Beijing’s continental view of maritime sovereignty. The present U.S. approach to the problem does not address this core dimension of China’s aggression, for the desultory show of the flag in U.S. Freedom of Navigation operations as presently construed lacks staying power and therefore decisive strategic effect. But China’s victory thus far is by no means final. For the United States and its allies to stage a recovery, it is necessary to reframe our understanding of the Chinese campaign in the South China Sea and reorient U.S. strategy to defeat it.

How to Save Globalization Rebuilding America’s Ladder of Opportunity

By Kenneth F. Scheve and Matthew J. Slaughter

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We live in a time of protectionist backlash. U.S. President Donald Trump has started a trade war with China, upended the North American Free Trade Agreement, imposed tariffs on the United States’ closest allies, withdrawn from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and talked endlessly about building a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border. But the backlash against globalization goes far beyond Trump himself. In fact, his presidency is more a symptom of it than its cause. Even as they may decry Trump’s particular methods, many voters and politicians in both parties approve of his objectives.

Trump and the WTO's Uncertain Future

By Matthew Bey

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The Trump administration will maintain its pressure on the World Trade Organization in an effort to undermine the body's dispute settlement process, arguing that it has obstructed the range of U.S. action. Because the United States believes the WTO's rules-based order has failed to give the country the tools it needs to challenge China, Washington will continue to exert pressure on Beijing from outside the organization. Efforts to reform the WTO, as well as persuade the United States to ease its pressure on the body, will struggle under the Trump administration. In the long run, U.S. administrations are likely to push for new global trade rules that are geared more toward a 21st-century struggle with China, rather than a 20th-century fight with the Soviet Union.

China's Huawei opens up to German scrutiny ahead of 5G auctions

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FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Chinese’s Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL] will open a new information security lab in Germany next month that will enable source code reviews, in a step aimed at winning regulators’ confidence before the country’s 5G mobile spectrum auction. The move follows Australia’s decision to ban Huawei from supplying 5G equipment over concerns it could facilitate Chinese spying, and its barring from some U.S. government contracts on national security grounds. Germany, which lacks a telecoms hardware industry of its own, is keener to maintain its traditionally close trade and investment ties with Beijing without compromising on its own cyber-security, say officials. The Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) said Huawei will open the lab on Nov. 16 in Bonn, where the BSI and other key regulators are based.

Also headquartered in the former capital is Deutsche Telekom, the partly state-owned market leader that has close business ties with Huawei.

How Trump Is Helping China

YU YONGDING

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China's leaders have long known that the economy has outgrown the world market, and is desperately in need of rebalancing. But, thanks to Donald Trump’s trade war, they are now pursuing that goal with a new sense of urgency, suggesting that US pressure may well end up being a blessing in disguise for China. The Sino-American trade war, initiated early this year by US President Donald Trump’s administration, is escalating rapidly. Already, the Trump administration has imposed an additional 25% tariff on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods, and an additional 10% tariff on goods worth another $200 billion. Unless the leaders of the two countries can strike a deal at next month’s G20 meeting in Buenos Aires, the situation is likely to worsen. That’s better news for China than it is for the US.

So far, China has refused to bow to US pressure. While it has retaliated, it has kept its actions proportionate, to avoid excessive escalation. But there is no reason to think that the Trump administration – which has threatened tariffs on all Chinese products – will reverse course. After all, Trump believes that a country with a bilateral trade deficit is necessarily being taken advantage of by its partner.

Exposing China’s Overseas Lending

CARMEN M. REINHART

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China has fueled an unprecedented surge in official lending over the past 15 years. The most remarkable feature of this wave of credit, however, is not its size, but its dangerous lack of transparency. Over the past 15 years, China has fueled one of the most dramatic and geographically far-reaching surges in official peacetime lending in history. More than one hundred predominantly low-income countries have taken out Chinese loans to finance infrastructure projects, expand their productive capacity in mining or other primary commodities, or support government spending in general.

But the size of this lending wave is not its most distinctive feature. What is truly remarkable is how little anyone other than the immediate players – the Chinese government and development agencies that do the lending and the governments and state-owned enterprises that do the borrowing – knows about it. There is some information about the size and timing of Chinese loans from the financial press and a variety of private and academic sources; but information about loans’ terms and conditions is scarce to nonexistent.

Can Saudi Arabia Build a Successful Tourism Industry?

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Saudi Arabia is aiming to meet some of its foreign direct investment goals by developing its tourism sector — provided that the kingdom's reputation doesn't scare away potential partners. The country will struggle to convince global middle-class tourists to visit. It will need to differentiate itself from regional rivals and face down its image as being unwelcoming. A flood of new tourists — if Saudi Arabia can get them — will have cultural consequences for its insulated citizens, possibly helping to disrupt the kingdom's social contract if economic conditions don't improve.

When Terrorism Isn't Intended to Kill

By Scott Stewart

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The person who sent a recent series of bombs through the mail to top Democrats and others in the United States did not design the devices to explode. The inclusion of bombmaking components, shrapnel and white powder in the packages suggests that the perpetrator was attempting to scare and intimidate rather than kill. Nevertheless, the packages contained all the elements of a "destructive device" under U.S. law, meaning the sender is likely to receive lengthy prison sentences for the offenses.

On Oct. 26, law enforcement officers arrested a 56-year-old Florida resident in connection with a series of mail bombs that were sent to prominent Democratic politicians and liberal figures, including former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The suspect (whom we will purposefully not name here) has a long criminal history, including a 2002 conviction for threatening to bomb Florida Power & Light, an electric utility company. His social media accounts contained a great deal of disturbing and even threatening material directed against the media, Democratic politicians, moderate Republican politicians, celebrities and high-profile liberal figures such as George Soros.

The Big Picture

Why Turkey Isn't Burning Bridges With Saudi Arabia Over Khashoggi

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The fallout from the Khashoggi affair underlines a larger battle between Turkey and Saudi Arabia for influence throughout the Sunni world that will continue in the religious, political and economic spheres. Turkey may be trying to use its muted response to coax Saudi Arabia into stopping its cooperation with Iraqi and Syrian Kurds, or possibly into to reducing Saudi economic pressure on Qatar, Turkey's major regional ally. Their slowly growing defense and economic ties will mitigate the chances of a complete rupture between Ankara and Riyadh.

For weeks, allegations of criminality and a cover-up have consumed the Turkish media after Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed at Riyadh's consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. Three weeks later, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told parliament that Saudi authorities had planned the dissident's slaying. Erdogan has a penchant for bombast, but the speech was understated, and the president even issued a cordial appeal to Saudi King Salman to cooperate in exposing the truth in the Khashoggi affair. Conspicuously, Erdogan elected not to mention the elephant in the room: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is widely believed to have played a role in the killing.

The Big Picture

Saudi Arabia’s Empty Oil Threats

By Andrew Miller and Sahar Nowrouzzadeh

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The brazen murder of Washington Post journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi has elicited that rarest of reactions in contemporary U.S. politics: bipartisan consensus. Both Republicans and Democrats in the House and the Senate have condemned Saudi Arabia for the assassination operation in Istanbul, with the ever-colorful Lindsey Graham urging that the United States “sanction the hell out of” the Saudi government.

President Trump’s administration, however, has adopted a notably restrained response thus far: it is considering sanctioning the low-level operatives who carried out the killing but has given little indication that it will hold Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman personally responsible. One explanation for this reticence is that the administration fears that punitive steps could complicate its Iran policy. Senior administration officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, have alluded to such concerns when pressed on the Khashoggi case.

Russia’s Connection to Saudi Arabia Intensifies

By: Stephen Blank

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Even without the enormous scandal of the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi hit men allegedly operating under state auspices, late October 2018 has been especially eventful for Saudi Arabia. In particular, Riyadh announced two major investments into Russian funds (RT, October 23; Interfax, October 18) that underline increasing Saudi cooperation with Russia while, in turn, heightening Russian influence over Saudi Arabia and the wider Middle East. These investments, whatever else they may portend, also speak to Russia’s success in circumventing Western sanctions by accessing Middle Eastern sovereign wealth and other funds. Thanks to this financial strategy, Russia is able to both gain capital and acquire technologies that would otherwise be unavailable due to the economic and export restrictions imposed by the European Union and the United States (see Jamestown.org, December 20, 2017).

Angela Merkel’s Vision Problem

By Yascha Mounk

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As the head of the country’s biggest political party for eighteen years, and its chancellor for twelve, Angela Merkel has done more to shape contemporary Germany than any postwar leader other than Konrad Adenauer, Willy Brandt, and Helmut Kohl. So her recent announcement that she will hand over the leadership of her Christian Democratic Union (C.D.U.)this December, and refrain from seeking another term in federal elections expected to be held in 2021, marks the beginning of the end of an era. Since Merkel has been a deeply stabilizing force, and political extremists are lying in wait to exploit her departure, it is only natural to wonder how the country will change in the coming years. Will the C.D.U. lurch to the right after its proudly moderate leader leaves the stage? Can the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has already established itself as a major force in German politics, use the power vacuum she leaves behind to its advantage? Or might a change of political personnel actually help to calm the anger that Merkel has increasingly inspired in the past years?

A Russian Pivot to Asia?

by Alexey Khlebnikov

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In recent years, Russia has been going through quite challenging times. Economic slowdown, a collapse in oil prices and Western sanctions which have deprived Moscow of cheap money and technologies—all of these have pushed the Kremlin’s strategists to concentrate on import substitution policy, the reorganization of import supply chains, decreasing dependency on oil exports and pushing for the country’s pivot towards Asia.

In Moscow’s view, Asia is a rapidly growing alternative to the current Western-centric system of international economic and political relations. Moreover, the Kremlin sees that this system does not reflect today’s economic and political realities. This is why Russia started to invest a great deal of time and effort in building and developing lasting relations based on mutual respect and interests with partners in Asia.

The future of work won't be about college degrees, it will be about job skills

Stephane Kasriel

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According to the survey Freelancing in America 2018, released Wednesday, freelancers put more value on skills training: 93 percent of freelancers with a four-year college degree say skills training was useful versus only 79 percent who say their college education was useful to the work they do now. In addition, 70 percent of full-time freelancers participated in skills training in the past six months compared to only 49 percent of full-time non-freelancers.

The fifth annual survey, conducted by research firm Edelman Intelligence and co-commissioned by Upwork and Freelancers Union, polled 6,001 U.S. workers.

This new data points to something much larger. Rapid technological change, combined with rising education costs, have made our traditional higher-education system an increasingly anachronistic and risky path. The cost of a college education is so high now that we have reached a tipping point at which the debt incurred often isn't outweighed by future earnings potential.

If You Want Peace, Prepare for Nuclear War

By Elbridge Colby

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In a little under three decades, nuclear weapons have gone from center stage to a sideshow in U.S. defense strategy. Since the 1990s, the United States has drastically reduced its stockpile and concentrated on its conventional and irregular warfare capabilities. Nuclear weapons policy has focused overwhelmingly on stemming proliferation to countries such as Iran and North Korea, and prominent political and national security figures have even called for abolishing nuclear weapons altogether. What was once the core of the country’s Cold War strategy has been reduced to an afterthought.

Immediately after the Cold War, when the United States enjoyed unprecedented global power, this approach seemed reason­able. Washington didn’t need much of a nuclear strategy against Iraq or Serbia. But now, great-power competition has returned. Russia wants to upend the post–Cold War status quo in Europe. A rising China seeks ascendancy, first over Asia and ultimately beyond. To accomplish this, each country has developed military forces ideally suited to fight and defeat the United States in a future war. And modern, mobile nuclear capabilities are a key part of their strategies.

AFTER 10 YEARS, BITCOIN HAS CHANGED EVERYTHING—AND NOTHING

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TEN YEARS AGO today, someone using the name Satoshi Nakamoto sent an academic paper to a cryptography mailing list proposing a form of digital cash called "bitcoin." The pseudonymous Nakamoto, whose true identity remains unknown, described an idea for "mining" a limited amount of this virtual currency through a peer-to-peer scheme that wouldn't depend on a bank, government, or any other central authority. Once people started using bitcoin, it would be impossible for a government to pull the plug, as happened with previous attempts to create digital money, such as E-Gold.

Today Bitcoin is a global phenomenon. Individual bitcoins sell for thousands of dollars. The price has dropped steeply from its peak of nearly $20,000 in December 2017, but recall that, at the beginning of 2017, one bitcoin sold for less than $1,000. Meanwhile, hordes of other cryptocurrencies have launched, though none has attracted quite as much interest from users or investors as bitcoin, and venture capitalists pour millions into startups looking to capitalize on the underlying technology.

Banking After Brexit: Who Will Be the New London?

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Because of Brexit, companies in the United Kingdom's financial services sector will move some of their activities and staff to the European Union to continue operating in the single market. No single EU financial center will "replace" London, because several cities are suitable for various companies moving jobs and operations out of the United Kingdom. Europe's post-Brexit financial system will become more fragmented, and multiple competing financial poles could make the system less efficient.

The United Kingdom's approaching departure from the European Union in March 2019 has raised concerns about how the split will affect London's bustling, heavily influential financial sector. The British government is currently focused on two negotiation topics: making sure that trade in goods remains unaffected by Brexit and ensuring that the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland remains open. The European Union has offered the United Kingdom a comprehensive free trade agreement similar to the one it recently signed with Canada. However, both proposals focus primarily on goods, leaving companies in all service sectors — and especially the financial sector — with open questions about Brexit's impact.

The Future of the U.S. Dollar in a Post Iran Deal World

Michael B. Greenwald 

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The European Union’s announcement in September 2018 that it would begin to create a special payments channel with Iran in response to the US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) once again raises the question of the role of the U.S. Dollar (USD) in the international economic order. Under the surface of discussions of alternative payment mechanisms is the legitimate question of the negative impacts of American coercive economic statecraft on the USD status as the leading global reserve currency.

Some argue that if Iran shifted to Euro-denominated transactions, it could spark a broader shift within energy exporting countries that would eventually weaken the USD as the reserve currency as well as undermine the impact of future unilateral U.S. sanctions. William Rich, of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former Treasury diplomat in the United Arab Emirates, however, argues that the proposed Europe-Iran payment mechanism is “impractical because such a process would be inefficient and costly and could not guarantee European firms protection from U.S. sanctions, reputational damage, or Iranian misuse. It is most effective as public messaging to the Iranians that Europe is trying to resist American pressure.”

"Europe Needs Stronger Answers"

Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook 

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"We’re increasingly seeing 'America Alone' instead of 'America First'", said Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook, Director of the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship, on the foreign policy shift under the Trump Administration in a recent interview with "Internationale Politik."

Clüver Ashbrook also commented on National Security Advisor John Bolton’s role as a 'Falcon'. In her view, he was able to execute on President Trump’s foreign policy strategy to put China in check through enormous international pressure while rearranging the U.S.-built international order. As a consequence, she said, "it’s Putin’s number that leaders are dialing to talk about peace in their region, not that of the White House."

On Germany’s role, Clüver Ashbrook said that a new culture of strategic thinking was necessary for Germany. She urged the European country to think about building a National Security Council similar to that of the United States.

U.S. Cyber Command Targeted Russian Operatives to Deter Election Meddling. Here’s Why.

Sourec Link

Evan Perkoski is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Connecticut. Michael Poznansky is an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. You can follow them @EPerkoski and @m_poznansky. We learned last week that U.S. Cyber Command is conducting operations against Russian operatives suspected of interfering in U.S. elections. The goal according to the New York Times is “to deter them from spreading disinformation” and “[tell] them that American operatives have identified them and are tracking their work.” Direct messages were apparently sent to these individuals to erase doubt about who attacked them and why.

This episode breaks the mold of what is typically understood as traditional cyberspace behavior. Operations in this domain are rarely coupled with intentional and clear acknowledgement by the perpetrator. Instead, they usually look like Russia’s 2016 election interference where communication is nonexistent and responsibility vehemently denied. Cyber Command’s operation is different and may portend an evolution in how states utilize cyber weapons and what goals they may try to achieve. 

Turkey, Russia Resurrect a ‘Concert of Europe’ to Resolve Syrian Crisis

By: Orhan Gafarli

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hosted a summit in Istanbul, on October 27, which brought together President Vladimir Putin of Russia, President Emmanuel Macron of France and Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel. The four European leader gathered to try to formulate a solution to the Syrian crisis. Although the participating delegations broadly discussed the current and future problems, risks and threats inherent in finally bringing peace to Syria, the summit’s final Joint Statement mainly emphasized the preservation of the territorial integrity, sovereignty, and unity of the war-torn country. The four leaders committed to act in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and noted that the UN Security Council should continue to act in accordance with Resolution 2254 (2015) and agreements struck as part of the Geneva conflict resolution process (Anatolian Agency, October 27).

The Turkish side planned to hold such a summit (with the participation of leaders of France, Germany and Russia) in Istanbul about two months ago (September 7). But these initial plans were suspended because of Ankara and Moscow’s bilateral negotiations on the hostile situation in the Syrian province of Idlib. The two sides ultimately reached an agreement on September 17, in Sochi, to create a “deconfliction zone” in Idlib province (Sputnik TR, September 17).

THE AI COLD WAR THAT THREATENS US ALL

AUTHOR: NICHOLAS THOMPSON, IAN BREMMERNICHOLAS THOMPSON AND IAN 

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IN THE SPRING of 2016, an artificial intelligence system called AlphaGo defeated a world champion Go player in a match at the Four Seasons hotel in Seoul. In the US, this momentous news required some unpacking. Most Americans were unfamiliar with Go, an ancient Asian game that involves placing black and white stones on a wooden board. And the technology that had emerged victorious was even more foreign: a form of AI called machine learning, which uses large data sets to train a computer to recognize patterns and make its own strategic choices.

Still, the gist of the story was familiar enough. Computers had already mastered checkers and chess; now they had learned to dominate a still more complex game. Geeks cared, but most people didn’t. In the White House, Terah Lyons, one of Barack Obama’s science and technology policy advisers, remembers her team cheering on the fourth floor of the Eisenhower Executive Building. “We saw it as a win for technology,” she says. “The next day the rest of the White House forgot about it.”

Pentagon Doesn’t Want Real Artificial Intelligence In War, Former Official Says

BY AARON BOYD

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The term “artificial intelligence” gets thrown around a lot today, especially in government circles, where leaders are eager to get ahead of the technological curve. But the military, at least, doesn’t really want true AI, according to a former deputy defense secretary. “We are not talking about Skynets and we’re not talking about Terminators. Those are what you would call an artificial general intelligence-type weapon,” Bob Work, who served as deputy defense secretary under Presidents Obama and Trump, said Tuesday during a speech at the annual SAP NS2 Solutions Summit. “We’re looking for narrow AI systems that can compose courses of action to accomplish the tasks that the machine is given and it can choose among the courses of action.”

Harnessing Blockchain for American Business and Prosperity

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Blockchain is a game-changing technology that has the power to unleash a new era in supply chain management and communication. In this report, the CSIS Scholl Chair reviews how blockchain can be used to solve complex business problems across various sectors and areas of life, assesses myths and challenges surrounding blockchain, and discusses what the U.S. government’s policy should be regarding blockchain. Blockchain enables interactions among anonymous users without central authority, using tamper-evident data on those interactions that are visible to all users in real time. It is particularly useful in the many settings where there are large networks of players, high intermediation costs, significant informational asymmetries among the players, and concerns about fraud and veracity of data. This paper does not focus on Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies enabled by blockchain; rather, the focus here is primarily on enterprise blockchains—blockchain applications operated by a company or an organization for a specific community of users. This paper uses the term “blockchain” loosely to refer to a family of distributed ledger technologies.

Army Issues Lighter Armor For Bigger Wars

By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.

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The Army’s new body armor package, the Soldier Protection System, is designed to scale up and down depending on the tradeoff commanders want to make between protection and mobility.