Science & Technology

Many observers have called for laws and norms to secure this new environment. But developing such standards in the cyber domain faces a number of difficult hurdles. Although Moore's law about the doubling of computing power every two years means that cyber time moves quickly, human habits, norms, and state practices change more slowly.

"In little more than a generation, the Internet has become the substrate of the global economy and governance worldwide. Several billion more human users will be added in the next decade, as will tens of billions of devices, ranging from thermostats to industrial control systems (the 'Internet of Things'). All of this burgeoning interdependence implies vulnerabilities that governments and non-governmental actors can exploit. At the same time, we are only beginning to come to terms with the national-security implications of this. Strategic studies of the cyber domain resemble nuclear strategy in the 1950s: analysts are still not clear about the meaning of offense, defense, deterrence, escalation, norms, and arms control."

"Though China is not attempting to upend the global order, it is now undergoing a profound — and destabilizing — transformation. With the rise of transnational issues such as climate change, terrorism, pandemics, and cyber crime — brought about by rapid technological progress and social change — power is being diffused not among states, but among a wide range of non-governmental entities. Addressing these challenges will require broad international cooperation, with China, the U.S., and Europe each playing an important role."

"The governance challenge stems from the fact that cyberspace is a combination of virtual properties, which defy geographical boundaries, and physical infrastructure, which fall under sovereign jurisdictions. Control of the physical layer can have both territorial and extraterritorial effects on the virtual layers. At the same time, attacks can be launched from the low-cost virtual realm against the physical domain, where resources are scarce and expensive."

This seminar considered how the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has reacted to nuclear crises. The IAEA often appears not just to have weathered such crises, but to have successfully leaped through windows of opportunity presented by them. This has resulted in periodic expansions of its mandate, capabilities, and resources. The 2011 Fukushima disaster appears to be a puzzling exception, raising the question of what concatenation of factors needs to be present for the IAEA to take advantage of nuclear crises.

Illicit trade from the international marketplace plays a direct role in sustaining the nuclear and missile programs of several countries, including Iran, in defiance of UN sanctions. This paper sets out what measures the private sector should take in order to manage the legal, financial and reputational risks associated with involvement in proliferation-related trade, and makes recommendations to national authorities for how for how to help the private sector identify and prevent potential proliferation.