Articles

21 Items

Biden HQ

CNN

Journal Article - Science

Was 'Science' on the Ballot?

| Feb. 26, 2021

On 7 November 2020, moments before Kamala Harris and Joe Biden began their victory speeches, giant screens flanking the stage proclaimed, "The people have chosen science." Yet, nearly 74 million Americans, almost half the voters, had cast their ballots for Donald Trump, thereby presumably not choosing science. Prominent scientists asserted that "science was on the ballot" and lamented that "a significant portion of America doesn't want science". But before despairing at the loss of trust in science, scholars and policymakers should be sure they are worrying about the right problem. 

Dave Johnson coal-fired power plant is silhouetted against the morning sun

AP/J. David Ake

Magazine Article - Fair Observer

Sacrificing Nature Is Not an Option

    Author:
  • Kourosh Ziabari
| Feb. 27, 2019

In this edition of "The Interview," Fair Observer talks to Professor John Holdren, former science adviser to President Barack Obama and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from 2009 to 2017 about the impacts of global warming on the United States and the government's strategies to combat climate change.

Andrew Wakefield arrives at the General Medical Council in London to face a disciplinary panel investigating allegations of serious professional misconduct.

AP

Journal Article - Science

The Science of Fake News

    Authors:
  • David Lazer
  • Matthew A Baum
  • Yochai Benkler
  • Adam J Berinsky
  • Filippo Menczer
  • Miriam J Metzger
  • Brendan Nyhan
  • Gordon Pennycook
  • David Rothschild
  • Michael Schudson
  • Steven A Sloman
  • Cass R. Sunstein
  • Emily A Thorson
  • Duncan J Watts
| Mar. 08, 2018

The rise of fake news highlights the erosion of long-standing institutional bulwarks against misinformation in the internet age. Concern over the problem is global. However, much remains unknown regarding the vulnerabilities of individuals, institutions, and society to manipulations by malicious actors. A new system of safeguards is needed.

John P. Holdren

NASA

Magazine Article - Science

Former Obama Science Adviser John Holdren on the White House Science Office and Trump's Science Policy

    Author:
  • Jeffrey Mervis
| July 12, 2017

Journal Article - Small Wars Journal

Twilight Zone Conflicts: Employing Gray Tactics in Cyber Operations

| October 27, 2016

"...[A]ctors that employ gray tactics in cyber operations need not be successful in actually infiltrating a system to further their revisionist ambitions. Rather, the sheer ramifications from the cyber action itself, has the power to disturb a nation's psyche and challenge the geopolitical status quo."

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry disembarks from his plane after traveling from Kabul, Afghanistan, to Vienna, Austria, on July 13, 2014 for allied talks with Iran about its nuclear program.

State Dept.

Journal Article - Washington Quarterly

The Fool's Errand for a Perfect Deal with Iran

| Fall 2014

"The P5+1 should set aside the effort to craft an all-at-once comprehensive bargain and instead adopt a strategy of negotiating incremental agreements. An incremental approach has a number of advantages. The negotiators could focus on one sticking point at a time, without having to coordinate agreement on all of them at once. Negotiators could defer currently intractable issues, like enrichment capacity, until greater trust is built or new opportunities arise. Most importantly, the compromises already achieved under the JPA could be maintained and consolidated, independently of the ups and downs of ongoing negotiations."

Pakistan's battlefield nuclear weapons are to be used at the India-Pakistan border much earlier in an conflict.

NUKEMAP Image

Journal Article - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Destroying Pakistan to Deter India? The Problem with Pakistan's Battlefield Nukes

| July 2014

At first glance, the main advantage of Pakistan's new battlefield nuclear weapon—known as the Nasr missile—would appear to be its ability to slowdown and stop an armored attack by the Indian Army inside Pakistan, before it reaches vital cities. But deeper examination reveals that deploying this particular weapon on the battlefield against an advancing Indian armored column would cause substantial deaths and injuries to Pakistani citizens, rendering its purpose moot.

March 8, 2012: Norwich University student Adam Marenna, of Belair, Md.  Deep in the bowels of a building on the campus of the nation's oldest private military academy, students from across the globe are being taught to fight the war of the future.

AP Photo/Toby Talbot

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

The Meaning of the Cyber Revolution: Perils to Theory and Statecraft

| Fall 2013

While decisionmakers warn about the cyber threat constantly, there is little systematic analysis of the issue from an international security studies perspective. Cyberweapons are expanding the range of possible harm between the concepts of war and peace, and give rise to enormous defense complications and dangers to strategic stability. It is detrimental to the intellectual progress and policy relevance of the security studies field to continue to avoid the cyber revolution's central questions.

Journal Article - International Journal of Communication

The Premature Death of Electronic Mail: The United States Postal Service's E-COM Program, 1978–1985

| 2013

In the late-1970s, the United States Postal Service (USPS) launched an innovative electronic mail service, "E-COM," that sought to integrate networked computing and the postal system. Postal management envisioned E-COM as a path-breaking program that would carve out a key place for postal service in the coming information age. The following examination of the ultimate failure of E-COM contributes to the history of networked computing and communications, while additionally providing a unique perspective on the current precarious state of postal service in the United States.

Magazine Article - GovInfoSecurity.com

Dim Prospects for Cybersecurity Law in 2011

| September 28, 2011

"If Congress focuses its efforts on the areas where members appear to agree reform is needed, then it is possible that a cybersecurity bill will finally become a law. The proposals, if adopted, will make incremental change and a small difference in our cybersecurity posture. Bolder steps are needed but are unlikely to be taken given the combination of this fiscally constrained environment, politically divided Congress and the upcoming presidential election cycle."