Asia & the Pacific

Citizens voluntarily carry Big Brother and his relatives in their pockets. Along with big data and artificial intelligence, technology has made the problem of defending democracy from information warfare far more complicated than foreseen two decades ago. And while rule of law, trust, truth and openness make democracies asymmetrically vulnerable, they are also critical values to defend.  Any policy to defend against cyber information war must start with the Hippocratic oath: first, do no harm.

Russian cyber operations against the United States aim to both collect information and develop offensive capabilities against future targets. Washington must strengthen its defenses in response.

This paper addresses a growing concern to one of the most fundamental components of our democracy: how cybersecurity risks can influence the integrity of our elections.

How and to what degree digital technologies are transforming politics was the unifying theme of a discussion by Tony Saich, Tarek Masoud, and Archon Fung at their Harvard Kennedy School IDEASpHERE session “A Revolution in Politics? Social Media in China, Egypt, and the U.S.”

The following report presents a consensus view of the members of a bipartisan study group on the U.S.-Japan alliance. The report specifically addresses energy, economics and global trade, relations with neighbors, and security-related issues. Within these areas, the study group offers policy recommendations for Japan and the United States, which span near- and long-term time frames. These recommendations are intended to bolster the alliance as a force for peace, stability, and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.

The Internet is at a crossroads. Today it is generally open, interoperable and unified. Tomorrow, however, we may see an entirely different Internet, one not characterized by openness and global reach, but by restrictions, blockages and cleavages. In order to help ensure that the Internet continues to serve as a source of global integration, democratization, and economic growth, American policymakers must be aware of the most significant technical, political and legal challenges to a unified Internet.

Cyber-warfare is no longer science fiction and the debate among policy-makers on what norms will guide behavior in cyber-space is in full swing. The United Nations (UN) is one of the fora where this debate is taking place exhibiting an astonishing rate of norm emergence in cyber-space. Most recently, Russia together with China proposed an “International code of conduct for information security” in September 2011 after the U.S. reversed its long-standing policy position in 2010.

The recent publications on WikiLeaks reveal a story about money, fame, sex, underground hackers, and betrayal. But it also involves fundamental questions regarding cyber-security and foreign policy. This paper argues WikiLeaks is only the symptom of a new, larger problem which is the result of technological advances that allow a large quantity of data to be 'stolen' at low or no cost by one or more individuals and to be potentially made public and to go 'viral', spreading exponentially online.

Power depends upon context, and the rapid growth of cyber space is an important new context in world politics. The low price of entry, anonymity, and asymmetries in vulnerability means that smaller actors have more capacity to exercise hard and soft power in cyberspace than in many more traditional domains of world politics. The largest powers are unlikely to be able to dominate this domain as much as they have others like sea or air. But cyberspace also illustrates the point that diffusion of power does not mean equality of power or the replacement of governments as the most powerful actors in world politics.

On May 19, 2006, a roundtable discussion on "Barriers and Incentives for Hybrid Vehicles in China" was held in Beijing, organized jointly by Energy Technology Innovation Policy (ETIP) of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and the China Automotive Technology & Research Center (CATARC).