Science & Technology

Calder Walton recounts how Russia and China are using their intelligence agencies to reverse the outcome of the Cold War

Gabrielle Armstrong-Scott and Jim Waldo argue that machine learning tools and a better definition of "terrorist and extremist content" could help make the Web a safer place.

Technology companies and governments have spent the past decade trying to better address the evolving threat of terrorist and violent extremist content online (TVEC). This paper examines how effective these efforts have been, where we are today in managing the problem, and wherein lie gaps for improvement.

Calder Walton explains why, as the 20th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq passes, it is useful to understand how China's intelligence and national security establishment reacted at the time.

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.

Cyber attacks are both exciting and terrifying, but the ongoing obsession with ‘cyber warfare’ clouds analysis and hampers strategy development. Much commentary and analysis of cyber conflict continues to use the language of war, where actors use ‘offensive cyber operations’ to meet adversaries in ‘engagements’ striving for victory on the ‘battlefield’ in the ‘cyber domain’. This discourse persists despite a growing consensus that cyber operations are primarily relevant in conflict short of war.

Although cyber conflict has existed for thirty years, the strategic utility of cyber operations remains unclear. The subversive trilemma explains why cyber operations tend to fall short of their promise in both warfare and low-intensity competition.

During the Cold War, US grand strategy focused on containing the power of the Soviet Union. China's rise now requires America and its allies to develop a strategy that seeks not total victory over an existential threat, but rather managed competition that allows for both cooperation and rivalry within a rules-based system.

As the United States emerges from the era of so-called forever wars, it should abandon the regime change business for good. Then, Washington must understand why it failed, writes Stephen Walt.

Juliette Kayyem argues that if Trump keeps losing, the risk of future violence will abate. Keeping Trump in office until January 20 won't assuage the supporters who falsely believe that the election was stolen from him, but removing him from office a week early would emphasize that he is losing. Recruitment is easier for a winning team.