Science, Technology, and Public Policy

Cyber Security Project Director Michael Sulmeyer and Project Affiliate Charley Snyder analyze the purported draft of President Trump's first executive order covering cybersecurity issues, leaked to the Washington Post and released on Friday, January 27, 2017.

Cyber Security Project Director Michael Sulmeyer and Project Affiliate Charley Snyder examine some of the most important provisions to the recently signed into law 2017 National Defense Authorization Act that the Trump Administration must grapple with during its first year in office.

Cyber Security Project Fellow Dr. Ben Buchanan discusses how the traditional concept of the "security dilemma" applies to conflict in cyberspace, arguing that as states play offense and defense in the digital domain, they risk tension no one wants.

"This article examines how executive power translates in cyberspace and assesses the president's ability to reconfigure U.S. network data flows to the global Internet during a national crisis."

"Africa's economic diplomacy will be dramatically shaped by the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) negotiations that will conclude in 2017. This builds on the Tripartite Free Trade Area covering 26 countries with 650 million people and a GDP of US$1.5 trillion. The CFTA will comprise a billion people with an initial GDP of $3 trillion. The foundations of the agreement include free trade, infrastructure development and industrialisation. This is a grand opportunity that will shape Africa's relationships with the UK, Europe and the rest of the world."

"Russia was behind the hacks into the Democratic National Committee's computer network that led to the release of thousands of internal emails just before the party's convention began, U.S. intelligence agencies have reportedly concluded."

For a summary of Prof. Juma's Twitter Q&A on this topic, click here. #AskCJuma

"Much of Africa's diplomatic agency in its relations with China is mediated through development learning. One obvious area of interest for Africa is the role of state capacity in promoting economic development. African governments are learning how to engage with China through FOFAC and other collaborative ventures. These lessons are being deployed when negotiating with other countries."

"Along with punishment and denial, entanglement is an important means of making an actor perceive that the costs of an action will exceed the benefits.  Entanglement refers to the existence of  interdependences which makes a successful attack simultaneously impose serious costs on the attacker as well as the victim. This is not unique to cyber. For example, in 2009, when the People's Liberation Army urged the Chinese government to dump some of China's massive holdings of dollar reserves to punish the United States for selling arms to Taiwan, the Central Bank pointed out that this would impose large costs on China as well and the government decided against it."

The Project on Managing the Atom offers fellowships for pre-doctoral, post-doctoral, and mid-career researchers for one year, with a possibility for renewal, in the stimulating environment of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. The online application for 2016-2017 fellowships opened December 15, 2015, and the application deadline is January 15, 2016. Recommendation letters are due by February 1, 2016.

"African leaders would like to escape the colonial trap of being viewed simply as raw material exporters. But their efforts to add value to the materials continue to be frustrated by existing EU policies."