Cyber Wargame - An Indian Scenario

Maj Gen P K Mallick, VSM (Retd), Consultant, VIF

Introduction

Immediately after the first gulf war in the early 1990’s the theories of Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) and Information Warfare were being studied all over the world as a new kind of warfare. During that time, a course on Information Warfare was conducted at the National Defense University of USA. The course participants were from senior officers of the armed forces, representatives of Department of Defence and Department of State and policy makers from the government. Rand Corporation of US was conducting this course.

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India should not exclude Huawei from its 5G rollout

Ritesh Kumar Singh
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Huawei Technologies, the giant Chinese telecoms company, continues to generate controversy wherever it goes. This time, the row is in India.

New Delhi has permitted Huawei and its rival ZTE to participate in its fifth-generation, or 5G, wireless network trials despite warnings from the U.S. government, which suspects Huawei may spy on Beijing's behalf and which is engaged in an intense tech and trade war with China. Huawei denies that it is a security threat. Influential local voices have objected too.

Faced with criticism, India's telecoms minister clarified that permission has been given only for 5G trials and not for its rollout. The confusion continues.

The arguments for including Huawei, however, are stronger than those for excluding it. Cost-wise, it has a clear advantage over its competition, while potential cyber security risks associated with it are manageable.

The Revival Of Al Qaeda – Analysis

By Jami T. Forbes*

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On March 2, 2018, militants conducted near-simultaneous assaults on the French embassy and the military headquarters of Burkina Faso in Ouagadougou, the West African nation’s capital. By the end of the day, 16 people were dead and more than 80 injured.1 The attack on the military headquarters was likely aimed at targeting a gathering of senior officers, and Burkinabe officials stated the attack could have “decapitated” their military had the meeting not been moved to a different location at the last minute.2 Al Qaeda’s West Africa affiliate Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) claimed credit for the attack, stating it was a message to France and its partners in the Sahel that the group was advancing “with a resolve unhindered by wounds and pains” inflicted by French-led counterterrorism (CT) pressure in the region. The events served as an ominous reminder of an ascendant al Qaeda that targeted the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania more than 20 years ago.

Since its emergence in 2013, the so-called Islamic State (IS) has been at the forefront of the U.S. CT effort. The brash and often shocking tactics of IS largely overshadowed al Qaeda, which was weakened due to internal fissures, robust CT pressure, the death of Osama bin Laden, and battlefield losses in Afghanistan and the Middle East. Al Qaeda ceded its prominence in the Salafist jihadist world to a faster, flashier, and more aggressive movement and became a seemingly peripheral actor in the global war on terror.

4 Takeaways From the U.S. Deal With the Taliban

By Mujib Mashal and Russell Goldman
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DOHA, Qatar — The agreement just signed by American and Taliban negotiators opens the way for direct negotiations between the insurgents and other Afghans, including the country’s government, on a political future after the United States ends its military presence. The negotiations could also result in a cease-fire.

Here are the main points in the agreement, and a look at how events could unfold.

A gradual U.S. troop withdrawal will begin.

The United States has agreed to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan in exchange for assurances by the Taliban that it will deny sanctuary to terrorist groups like Al Qaeda.

Right now, the United States has about 12,000 troops in the country, down from about 100,000 at the peak of the war nearly a decade ago. They are supported by several thousand others from NATO allies.

5 Ways China Has Turned Pakistan Into a Military Monster

by Charlie Gao
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As Pakistan’s relationship has soured with the United States in the past two decades, Pakistan’s armed forces have largely looked towards Chinese suppliers for equipment. While China has long supplied Pakistan’s armed forces, the relationship has deepened in recent years, with Pakistan making major purchases of top-of-the-line Chinese export equipment.

Here are some of the most powerful weapons China has sold or licensed to Pakistan.

1. Nuclear Weapons Program

The acquisition of nuclear weapons in the 1990s is considered to be one of the largest failings of the nuclear nonproliferation regime. But, it is widely said that China provided significant assistance to the Pakistani nuclear weapons program (in addition to the A.Q. Khan’s espionage). China is alleged to have provided missile components, warhead designs, and even highly-enriched uranium. The political motive behind this is clear, Pakistan acts as an effective foil against growing Indian regional ambitions. But it is clear that nuclear assistance is the most deadly example of Chinese/Pakistani defense cooperation.

2. JF-17 Fighter

The U.S. Once Wanted Peace in Afghanistan

KATHY GILSINAN
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For George W. Bush, the goal was the destruction of al-Qaeda, the total defeat of the Taliban, and a “stable and free and peaceful” Afghanistan. For Barack Obama, it was a degraded Taliban that could be reasoned with but would have to renounce violence, respect women, and abide by the Afghan constitution. For Donald Trump, it was just a reduction in violence and a clear path to the door—the Afghans themselves would have to figure out the rest.

Over nearly two decades of war in Afghanistan, the United States government went from seeking to annihilate the Taliban, to meeting with them furtively, to negotiating with them openly, before, finally, signing a deal with them. And at each juncture, the expectations dropped.

The agreement the United States and the Taliban signed today is both truly momentous for happening at all and severely modest for what it contains. In essence, it extends a seven-day truce in which U.S. and Taliban forces refrained from attacking each other, calls for Afghans to talk among themselves, and lays out a plan for a U.S. withdrawal over 14 months. The U.S. isn’t going anywhere immediately, and neither is the Taliban; there’s not even a full cease-fire. Implicit in all of it is the larger recognition that, for the U.S., getting out of Afghanistan will mean lowering the bar.

The Coronavirus Outbreak Is the Shape of Things to Come

Stewart M. Patrick

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The Wuhan coronavirus, now officially named COVID-19, reveals how vulnerable humanity remains to virulent pathogens. A century after the devastating Spanish flu pandemic, public health officials are scrambling to prevent this latest plague—which as of Feb. 24 had infected more than 79,000 people in at least 29 countries, most of them in China—from becoming another pandemic. As they do, it’s worth taking a step back to consider the stubborn staying power of infectious disease. Far from an anomaly, this outbreak is the shape of things to come.

Humanity is currently experiencing its fourth great wave of infectious disease. The first coincided with the agricultural revolution some 10 millennia ago. A more sedentary lifestyle, higher population density, closer proximity to domesticated animals and the appearance of parasitic species like rodents and insects in human settlements enabled more pathogens to jump between species. A second great wave began during classical antiquity and lasted through the Middle Ages, as commercial and military contact among major centers of civilization exposed formerly isolated societies to new diseases and created new vectors—rats, fleas—that spread pestilence across the Mediterranean and Asia. Between the 14th and 17th centuries alone, more than 200 million people died of bubonic plague. The third phase occurred after 1500, as explorers, conquerors and colonists from Europe brought new pathogens to the Americas, Africa and Australasia, and sometimes back again, with devastating results

The Coronavirus, Oil, and Global Supply Chains

by Amy M. Jaffe

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As nations prepare for a possible health emergency, world leaders are realizing that the new coronavirus is going to be harder to contain than previously hoped. Mobilization is continuing, and concerns are mounting about both health and economic consequences. Washington, like other global capitals, is starting to worry about the economic effects of the coronavirus. Today’s reports that the city of Milan, Italy’s financial hub and its second largest city, was close to lockdown as a result of hints of a spread of the coronavirus in northern Italy was further evidence that the disease, and its economic consequences, are not under containment. Italy’s largest bank, UniCredit SpA, is among Italian firms encouraging its employees to work from home. South Korea has also been hit with the coronavirus outbreak as well as declining imports and exports to and from China. Automobiles are one of South Korea’s major export sectors and car manufacturing has been struck by the economic disruption in China. In both South Korea and Japan, major financial institutions are asking employees to work remotely from home.

A telling economic indicator that the coronavirus is starting to take a global economic toll and not just a toll on China is falling prices in global oil and gas markets. Prices for liquefied natural gas (LNG) were already on a downturn from rising supplies and mild winter weather, but now have fallen to near rock bottom levels, with a few U.S. producers willing to pay potential users to take their surplus domestic natural gas away. Oil also started dropping again on Monday as it became clear that disruptions to global shipping and trade could go beyond China.

An Expert Answers the 3 Most Common Questions About Coronavirus

by Aubree Gordon

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Editor’s note: Public health officials in the U.S. warned that the coronavirus, which has in large part spared the U.S., is coming and that the country needs to be prepared. But just what does this mean for you, as well as for public health officials? Aubree Gordon, public health scholar at the University of Michigan, explains.

1. How do we prepare for something we can’t predict?

First and foremost, people need to be prepared for their daily life to be affected by public health measures that are put into place to try to limit the spread of the virus.

This could be anything from relatively benign social distancing measures, such as canceling large gatherings, to measures that may have a larger impact on day-to-day life, such as school and business closures. It is also possible that people may be asked to remain in their homes for an extended period of time if there is a large outbreak in their local area, such as what has occurred in China.

How China Became the World’s Leader in Green Energy

By Scott Malcomson 

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China has never been the most enthusiastic party to international climate accords, but Beijing might end up saving the planet anyway. In little more than a decade, China has made itself a world leader in electric vehicles, renewable energy, and energy storage. In response to its own poisoned environment, shrinking workforce, and security fears about foreign dependence, the country has incubated a green industrial policy that is both generous and ruthless.

China did this to solve its own problems—with a lot of help from Japanese and Western companies and investors—but the results benefit everyone. For now, China’s green energy sector remains deeply connected to other, very different, economies in Asia and the West. Washington’s current policy of “decoupling” Western economies from China threatens to disrupt green-tech innovation just when we need it most. The consequence could be a blow to the environment, not just in China but throughout the world.

GETTING GREEN

Ties that Bind: Huawei and the Chinese Party-State

By Stephen Nagy

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Questions have been raised over Huawei’s relationship to the Chinese government and whether this relationship would pose a danger to users of Huawei-built 5G networks and associated systems in Western countries. These are critical considerations, as many countries around the world are currently deciding what kind of relationship they wish to have with Huawei going forward.

On the one hand we have the U.K. and the Germans who have decided that they can mitigate any risks associated with Huawei through testing facilities and rigorous procedures to limit the company’s penetration into critical systems. On the other hand, we have the U.S., Australia, and Japan which have outright rejected any place for Huawei in their emerging 5G networks out of national security concerns.

Another complexity often dismissed in discussions revolving the use of Huawei is its price competitiveness for emerging economies in South and Southeast Asia and Africa. For emerging economies, Huawei’s comparative cost advantage tends to outweigh the potential security risks associated with the technologies.

China’s Uneven High-Tech Drive: Implications for the United States

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This report, with contributions from leading U.S. and Chinese experts, provides a dispassionate assessment of China’s high-tech drive and the implications for the United States and the global economy. The first section examines the overall trajectory of Chinese innovation. The second part takes an in-depth look at several prominent cases, including 5G, artificial intelligence, and autonomous vehicles. Collectively, this analysis indicates a highly uneven record of performance, with substantial successes and major problems. The report’s final section suggests how, in light of these findings, the United States and China should address the challenges in technology innovation and their broader relationship.

This report is part of the CSIS China Innovation Policy Series (CIPS), which has been made possible by generous support from the General Electric Foundation, the Japan External Trade Organization, Medtronic, Microsoft, the Semiconductor Industry Association, SK Hynix, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Reality Check American Power in an Age of Constraints

By Jennifer Lind and Daryl G. Press 

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For the past three decades, as the United States stood at the pinnacle of global power, U.S. leaders framed their foreign policy around a single question: What should the United States seek to achieve in the world? Buoyed by their victory in the Cold War and freed of powerful adversaries abroad, successive U.S. administrations forged an ambitious agenda: spreading liberalism and Western influence around the world, integrating China into the global economy, and transforming the politics of the Middle East.

In setting these goals, Washington did, to some extent, factor in external constraints, such as the potential objections of important regional powers around the world. But for the most part, foreign policy debates focused on what a given measure might cost or on whether spreading Western institutions was desirable as a matter of principle. The interests of other countries, particularly adversaries, were secondary concerns. 

China’s Military Can’t Deliver on Humanitarian Promises

BY ELIZABETH PHU, ANISH GOEL
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All eyes have been on China as it struggles to contain the coronavirus, which, as of Feb. 26, has infected more than 80,000 people, the vast majority in China itself, and killed at least 2,700 around the world. But there has been one stark absence: the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). That is particularly odd since the PLA has traditionally played a critical role in disaster relief domestically—and has been at the forefront of China’s efforts to establish soft power through humanitarian and medical relief capabilities in recent years. 

Other countries in the region should take note, particularly if they are counting on China’s humanitarian and medical assistance in times of crisis.

China has invested heavily in a deployable medical assistance capability over the past 15 years with a clear intent of honing the soft power of medical diplomacy. While it has been developing hospital ships since the 1970s and put two in service in 1991, the PLA’s launching in 2007 of the 300-bed hospital ship Peace Ark signaled China’s intent to become a medical and humanitarian assistance powerhouse. As of July 2019, according to China’s State Council Information Office, the Peace Ark had “fulfilled 7 voyages coded as Mission Harmony and visited 43 countries” throughout Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The ship had “provided medical services to the local communities, organized medical exchanges, and helped over 230,000 people.” Additionally, the PLA has conducted medical training and exercises with U.S. allies such as Australia and Germany, including simulating a response to a cholera outbreak. Medical components of the PLA and U.S. forces have also had exchanges out in the field as well as academic discussions.

The Federal Government Needs a Military-Style Campaign Against the Coronavirus

BY CARL HENN
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A longtime infectious disease specialist says such campaigns are effective against these kinds of infectious diseases because the way viruses operate fits, conceptually. into a military model.

On Monday, Harvard University epidemiology professor Marc Lipsitch predicted that within a year, 40% to 70% of the world’s population would get the novel coronavirus and COVID-19, the disease that it causes. With a world population of 7.5 billion, that means 3 to 5 billion people globally would get the novel coronavirus, and COVID-19 would kill up to 60 to 100 million. This would make the new coronavirus the worst pandemic in history, surpassing even the Spanish Flu of 1918-19 that killed 50 million people.

More relevant to us, here in the United States, we would have up to 130 to 230 million cases of coronavirus, and up to 2.5 to 3.5 million people would die of COVID-19. These numbers are simply mind-boggling.

We obviously cannot stand by and allow this worst-case scenario to play out in America. For this reason, President Trump held a news conference Wednesday on the federal government’s response efforts, during which he named Vice President Mike Pence to lead the virus fight. But it’s unclear what level of anti-virus effort the Trump administration has in mind. President Trump said he would be happy to work with whatever level of anti-virus funding Congress deems appropriate.

Greece and Bulgaria crack down on Turkish borders as refugees arrive

Bethan McKernan 

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Hundreds of refugees in Turkey began arriving at the country’s borders with Greece and Bulgaria on Friday after Ankara suddenly indicated it would no longer block their passage to Europe.

The move prompted both neighbouring nations to shore up their borders as their governments insisted they would not allow anyone to enter. Greek police used smoke grenades at one border crossing, while Bulgaria sent an extra 1,000 troops to its frontier with Turkey.

The European Union, meanwhile, warned the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, that it expected Ankara to abide by a €6bn (£5.2bn) deal to stem migration to its member states. Under the 2016 agreement, Turkey agreed to halt the flow of people to the EU in return for funds. Turkey currently has about 3.6 million refugees from Syria. There was alarm in Brussels as footage of hundreds of refugees and migrants heading for the land and sea borders with Greece was aired by the Turkish state news agencies.

Russia and Turkey's next moves will define the Syrian war's end

How Many Bridges Can Turkey’s Erdogan Burn?

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With his sweeping overhaul of Turkey’s political system in 2017, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeared to cement his near-total control over the country. But an electoral setback in the Istanbul mayoral election in June 2019, the worst of Erdogan’s career, pointed the way to a potential rebirth of the political opposition, even as it highlighted Erdogan’s willingness to destabilize Turkey’s democracy to maintain his grip on power.

The victory by Ekrem Imamoglu of the opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, in June came after the Supreme Election Council sided with Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, to overturn an earlier ballot in March that was also narrowly won by Imamoglu over the AKP’s candidate. The Supreme Election Council’s decision underscored how severe the erosion of democratic institutions has been under Erdogan and the AKP. And Erdogan’s interference with the initial outcome points to a potential future in which the regime may no longer even look for institutional cover when it decides to subvert democratic norms.

If We Build It (They Will Break In)

By Susan Landau

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Attorney General William Barr has staked his ground in the long-running debate over law enforcement access to encrypted communications. Last fall, Barr decried end-to-end encryption as “enabling dangerous criminals to cloak their communications and activities behind an essentially impenetrable digital shield.” As the debate continues, commentators and policymakers often overlook a historical example of the problems with law enforcement access.

Barr’s position is hardly novel. For more than two decades, law enforcement has argued that end-to-end encrypted communications present an extreme public safety risk and that tech companies must build in access in the form of some variation of escrowed keys, backdoors, front doors or exceptional access. During that time, many observers have argued that creating this access for law enforcement would decrease public security, not increase it. There’s a cautionary tale about wiretapping from the 1990s that has bearing on today’s encryption battles.

America Must Shape the World’s AI Norms — or Dictators Will

BY WILLIAM COHENFORMER, LEON E. PANETTAFORMER, CHUCK HAGELFORMER 

ASH CARTERFORMER

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As Secretaries of Defense, we anticipated and addressed threats to our nation, sought strategic opportunities, exercised authority, direction, and control over the U.S. military, and executed many other tasks in order to protect the American people and our way of life. During our combined service leading the Department of Defense, we navigated historical inflection points – the end of the Cold War and its aftermath, the War on Terror, and the reemergence of great power competition.

Now, based on our collective experience, we believe the development and application of artificial intelligence and machine learning will dramatically affect every part of the Department of Defense, and will play as prominent a role in our country’s future as the many strategic shifts we witnessed while in office.

The digital revolution is changing our society at an unprecedented rate. Nearly 60 years passed between the construction of the first railroads in the United States and the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad. Smartphones were introduced just 20 years ago and have already changed how we manage our finances, connect with family members, and conduct our daily lives.

Russia’s relations with the West are not about to get any better

By Dmitri Trenin

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US-Russian relations continue to deteriorate. Expectations on both sides are extremely low. Arms control is unraveling fast, with the Trump administration seemingly more likely to let the New START treaty expire within a year than to extend it. Opens Skies may be another agreement that US President Donald Trump would like to discard. The coming US presidential election might well result in new accusations of Russian meddling, which would lead to new sanctions against Russia.

But whatever the outcome, more sanctions are a near certainty. As has been the case for the past six years, the most one can realistically achieve in the foreseeable future is to prevent an inadvertent direct military collision between Russia and the United States. In the absence of meaningful US-Russian dialogue, communication channels between the two countries’ top defense and security officers remain the only instruments of keeping the peace between the two adversaries.

How the EU Can Survive in a Geopolitical Age

STEFAN LEHNE

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For several decades, the EU has ignored power politics and concentrated on economic integration. But over the past fifteen years, as authoritarian regimes have come to power in many parts of the world and U.S. leadership has declined, geopolitics has come back with a vengeance. With its weak structures, EU foreign policy is struggling to adjust to the new reality.

However, it is not foreign policy but rather the core areas of economic integration that will determine whether the EU is torn apart by the rivalry of power blocs or succeeds in protecting the European way of life. The euro, trade and competition policy, the norm-setting power of the internal market, and the EU’s financial strength give the union the necessary means to thrive. But to fully use these instruments, the EU needs more decisive leadership, and its way of doing business will have to change.

To respond to the geopolitical challenge, the EU must use its economic strengths strategically, deploy its financial firepower, and complete important integration projects. At the same time, the union needs to understand the risks of taking on a geopolitical role and enhance its resilience and autonomy while continuing to work toward a rules-based multilateral order.

HOW EUROPE FORGOT GEOPOLITICS

Understanding Russian Subversion

by Andrew Radin, Alyssa Demus, Krystyna Marcinek

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How and why does Russia undertake subversive activities and campaigns to further its interests?

What are the characteristics of Russian subversive efforts, and how do they change based on the intended target audience?

How have states responded to and punished Russian subversion and have these measures been effective?

What policies should be adopted to address Russian subversion?

Since 2014, Russia has undertaken a wide range of subversive activities intended to influence the domestic politics of the United States, its partners, and its allies. This Perspective synthesizes previous work, discussing what subversion is and the capabilities used to undertake it today. The authors explain the interconnected Russian interests that inspire use of subversion—defense of the country and regime, being recognized as one of the world's great powers, maintaining a sphere of interest, stopping European Union and NATO enlargement, and encouraging economic prosperity. They trace the origins of Russian subversion in Soviet and post-Soviet history and examine how Russia engages in military, economic, information, cyber, and political subversion, drawing on recent events, such as attempts to influence elections in other countries, including the United States. To address Russian subversion, the authors propose focusing defensive activities on the greatest vulnerabilities, ensuring that any punishments of Russian actions are closely and clearly linked with particular acts of subversion, conducting additional research on when Russian subversion is effective, and improving rapid attribution of subversion.

Key Findings

Policy Roundtable: The Future of the Middle East

By Andrew Leber 
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1. Introduction: Ties That No Longer Bind? Present Dynamics and Future Prospects for the U.S.-Saudi Relationship

In discussions of a future U.S. foreign policy, the Middle East and North Africa loom large — whether as a proving ground for U.S. security commitments or as testament to the missed opportunities of an overly militarized foreign policy. The past year has seen Democratic presidential candidates debate the need to wind down America’s “forever wars” in the region, even as the Trump administration has veered between the president’s desire to “look tough” by confronting Iran and his fears that a broader conflict might endanger his re-election chances. Regardless of the outcome of this year’s election, however, an effective set of U.S. policies toward the Middle East must go beyond simply criticizing the invasion of Iraq (nearly 17 years past) or seeking regime change in Iran because it plays well at home.

To begin sketching out the specifics of U.S. interests in the Middle East and potential policies to achieve them, we have gathered together a group of experienced academics and practitioners. The other contributors to this roundtable — Andrew Miller, Steven Cook, Ariane Tabatabai, and Ori Rabinowitz — each emphasize the structural pressures bearing down on longstanding security arrangements in the Middle East, the means of securing them, U.S. interests in light of these pressures, and the independent security calculations of regional partners and adversaries.

Coercion Theory: A Basic Introduction for Practitioners

Tami Davis Biddle
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While coercion theory may be well understood in the academy, it is less well understood by practitioners, especially in the military. This can cause difficulties in civil-military communications and cause problems for national strategy and military outcomes. In this essay, Tami Davis Biddle clarifies, systematizes, and makes more readily accessible the language of coercion theory.

Coercion theory is one of the most fully developed bodies of theory in the social sciences, one that has advanced the field of national security by illuminating the logic that underlies threats, violence, and war. Coercion has a long history, of course, but its manifestation as a sustained point of focus in contemporary social science may arguably be traced to Thomas Crombie Schelling’s 1966 book, Arms and Influence.1 An economist by training, Schelling developed his early work at a time when debates over nuclear strategy dominated the landscape, although his work is applicable to all varieties of force.2 Over the past 50 years, scholars have embraced and built upon Schelling’s work, using it to shed light on an array of issues in defense and national security.3 If coercion theory is understood in the academy, however, it is less well understood by practitioners, especially those in the military. This is a problem for civil-military communication, and, more generally, for national strategy and military outcomes.

U.S. Media Outlets Aren’t Ready for Russia’s Election Interference

Candace Rondeaux 

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If recent history is any guide, the United States is less than a year away from a paralyzing national security crisis. Whether President Donald Trump or his Democratic challenger wins in November, revelations that Russia is once again interfering in the 2020 presidential election all but guarantee that the legitimacy of the electoral results will be called into question, potentially undermining the country’s very political stability. One way to guard against that looming threat is for media outlets, which frame how most Americans understand foreign meddling, to make a major course correction in how they cover and respond to Russia’s election interference.

Many newsrooms and journalists remain troublingly ill-equipped to deal with Russia’s information warfare, despite what happened in 2016. While many news outlets are giving their all to covering the unrelenting 2020 election news cycle fairly and rigorously, the news industry itself is woefully behind the curve on confronting the threat posed to a free press by these disinformation campaigns. Despite the preponderance of evidence that news organizations, along with social media platforms, are the central targets of Russia’s more sophisticated 21st-century efforts, many American news outlets continue to operate like they are stuck in the 20th century.

How the EU Can Survive in a Geopolitical Age

STEFAN LEHNE

Source Link

For several decades, the EU has ignored power politics and concentrated on economic integration. But over the past fifteen years, as authoritarian regimes have come to power in many parts of the world and U.S. leadership has declined, geopolitics has come back with a vengeance. With its weak structures, EU foreign policy is struggling to adjust to the new reality.

However, it is not foreign policy but rather the core areas of economic integration that will determine whether the EU is torn apart by the rivalry of power blocs or succeeds in protecting the European way of life. The euro, trade and competition policy, the norm-setting power of the internal market, and the EU’s financial strength give the union the necessary means to thrive. But to fully use these instruments, the EU needs more decisive leadership, and its way of doing business will have to change.

To respond to the geopolitical challenge, the EU must use its economic strengths strategically, deploy its financial firepower, and complete important integration projects. At the same time, the union needs to understand the risks of taking on a geopolitical role and enhance its resilience and autonomy while continuing to work toward a rules-based multilateral order.

HOW EUROPE FORGOT GEOPOLITICS

Russia’s relations with the West are not about to get any better

By Dmitri Trenin

Source Link

US-Russian relations continue to deteriorate. Expectations on both sides are extremely low. Arms control is unraveling fast, with the Trump administration seemingly more likely to let the New START treaty expire within a year than to extend it. Opens Skies may be another agreement that US President Donald Trump would like to discard. The coming US presidential election might well result in new accusations of Russian meddling, which would lead to new sanctions against Russia.

But whatever the outcome, more sanctions are a near certainty. As has been the case for the past six years, the most one can realistically achieve in the foreseeable future is to prevent an inadvertent direct military collision between Russia and the United States. In the absence of meaningful US-Russian dialogue, communication channels between the two countries’ top defense and security officers remain the only instruments of keeping the peace between the two adversaries.

Coronavirus Fears Halt U.S. Military Exercises

BY ROBBIE GRAMER, DAN HAVERTY
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Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Security Brief. What’s on tap today: The United States and South Korea have postponed plans for a joint military exercise over coronavirus fears, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo testifies before Congress on Middle East policy, and the British government unveils plans for new nukes.

Coronavirus Upends U.S. Military Plans in Asia

The United States and South Korea have postponed annual joint military exercises until further notice amid the coronavirus outbreak. The announcement comes after the U.S. military reported one its 28,500 service members stationed in South Korea tested positive for the virus the virus. The South Korean military has tracked nearly two dozen cases of the virus among its ranks.

The news presents one of the starkest examples yet of the effects of the virus on U.S. national security as it spreads across Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. South Korea has recorded over 1,500 coronavirus cases in recent days, leading the State Department to issue a warning to U.S. citizens to reconsider traveling to the country. Overall, the Center for Disease Control has tracked over 80,000 cases and 2,700 deaths globally.

The Future Of Values In Cyber Security Strategies – Analysis

By Danny Steed*

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While national cyber security strategies have proliferated worldwide in the past decade, most have been overwhelmingly focused on resilience at the expense of political values. This paper addresses the challenges that have arisen from an overly technical focus on cyber security that has failed to consider the application of value sets in strategy creation.

The efforts and public expenditures that have been committed to the pursuit of cyber security in the past decade are no doubt vast. In numerous nations these efforts have included the creation of several iterations of national cyber security strategy to guide public efforts. Despite such investment of both public monies as well as intellectual and policy capital however, it would be difficult to claim that the state of cyber security is much improved.

CISOs Participate in Cyber War Games to Hone Ransomware Response Plans at EC-Council

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The sold-out session, “CISO wargame,” included 27 senior executives from the largest managed IT service providers in the United States. The event presented the security experts with a simulated incident where an organization is hit by a ransomware attack. Participants had to work to contain the damage of the attack, which grew more complicated as the 4-hour exercise unfolded. Participants were tasked with deciding whether to pay a ransom and use ransom negotiators as well as to communicate with employees, stockholders, and the media about the breach.

The CCISO wargame, conducted by global information security certification body EC-Council as a pre-conference session at PerchyCon 2020, was inspired by the National Defense cybersecurity approaches and tactics. It encouraged participants to develop essential muscle memory to address crises, think fast, act fast, and create a commensurate response.

According to the Ninth Annual Cost of Cybercrime Study released earlier in 2019 by Accenture and the Ponemon Institute, cybercrimes are not just on the rise but are also taking more time to resolve and are becoming more expensive for organizations to recover from. The average cost of cybercrime for an organization increased $1.4 million in 2019 over the past year, to $13 million.

The Ethics of Acquiring Disruptive Military Technologies

C. Anthony Pfaff

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Technological innovation is proceeding at a rapid pace and is having a dramatic effect on warfare. Not only do technologies such as artificial intelligence, human enhancement, and cyber reduce risk to soldiers and civilians alike, they also expand the kinds of actors who can pursue policy goals through military means. As a result, their development can make the use of force more likely even while reducing individual risk. Moreover, by changing how soldiers fight, they change who a soldier is, which has broad implications not just for military recruitment and training, but also the military’s relationship with the society it defends. Managing this change will require not only an understanding of disruptive technologies but also the establishment of norms to govern their development. Disruptive technologies change how actors compete in a given venue, whether in a market or on a battlefield. What makes such technologies disruptive is not their novelty or complexity, but rather how their particular attributes interact with a specific community of users in a particular environment. This interaction can raise moral concerns through its impact on human autonomy, justice, well-being, and social disruption. These categories thus offer a framework for assessing the moral effect, necessity, and proportionality of disruptive technologies to determine whether and how they should be developed.

Any scientific advance is punished by the gods…1

–Boris Johnson