Research

Ivan Arreguin-Toft argues that non-material considerations like cyber power matter just as much as material ones in debates about U.S. retrenchment from the Middle East.

The increasing tempo of offensive cyber operations by Iran and its adversaries, including the U.S. and Israel, has led many commentators to label them as “tit-for-tat”: a cyclical action-reaction dynamic where each side seeks to respond appropriately to an earlier violation by the other. However, this interpretation has significant theoretical and empirical deficiencies. Why, then, does a tit-for-tat narrative dominate our understanding of Iranian cyber activity, and what are the consequences? This paper explores that question.

Amy Ertan and Tarah Wheeler describe how the World Health Organization is uniquely positioned to help secure all facets of vaccine information.

President-elect Joe Biden’s decision to create a new cabinet-level position for climate-related issues — and to choose so prominent a figure as former Secretary of State John Kerry to fill it — demonstrates Biden’s sincerity over putting climate at the very center of U.S. foreign policy. It is easy to understate the importance of this appointment, given the flurry of czars created by most new administrations.

China has the world’s largest army. Russia wields the most tanks. America owns the fanciest satellites. But who has the most cyber-power? A new National Cyber Power Index by the Belfer Centre at Harvard University ranks 30 countries on their level of ambition and capability. Offensive cyber-power—the ability to do harm in or through computer networks—is one measure. But so too are the strength of a country’s defences, the sophistication of its cyber-security industry and its ability to spread and counter propaganda.

As conventional wisdom goes, experts tend to rank the U.S ahead of China, U.K., Iran, North Korea, Russia, in terms of how strong it is when it comes to cyberspace. But a new study from Harvard University’s Belfer Center shows that China has closed the gap on the U.S. in three key categories: surveillance, cyber defense, and its efforts to build up its commercial cyber sector.

“A lot of people, Americans in particular, will think that the U.S., the U.K., France, Israel are more advanced than China when it comes to cyber power,” Eric Rosenbach, the Co-Director of Harvard’s Belfer Center, told CyberScoop. “Our study shows it’s just not the case and that China is very sophisticated and almost at a peer level with the U.S.”

Dan Snow is joined by Calder Walton to talk about whether there was a huge intelligence failure around the outbreak of the pandemic, but also whether our intelligence communities are properly organized to realistically evaluate the real nature of the threats to our societies. He also has a bold idea to help avoid a future recurrence.

Despite the growing profile of cyber hacks, leaks, and resulting diplomatic crises in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, conversations about policy in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) rarely address cybersecurity concerns. During the 2018-2019 academic year, a research collaboration between MEI and the Cyber Project at the Belfer Center looked to shift the dialogue.

Stephen Walt explains why the relationship between  Jeff Bezos and Mohammed bin Salman proves that, even at a time of rapid technological and economic change, you can’t buy real power.

Lauren Zabierek argues that the next stage of the US-Iran conflict may play out in cyberspace.