Science & Technology

The Arctic Initiative team helped kick off discussions for the International Conference on Arctic Research Planning Process 2022-2026 (ICARP IV) research priority teams at the Arctic Science Summit Week (ASSW) 2024 in Edinburgh, Scotland. 

The entanglement and feedback loops among the domestic and the geopolitical cycles of distrust have resulted in a cohesive threat to democracy: a downward political spiral that is pulling societies towards enmity. This spiral feeds on and generates destructive human emotions at massive scale, such as outrage and hatred, that lead to violence, war, and autocracy, so it can be better understood as a dangerous global maelstrom of distrust, which could sink democracy worldwide. As showcased by historical evidence, domestic and international forces do not act in isolation from each other. Democratic backsliding, the rise of authoritarianism and totalitarianism, and the politics of aggression generated feedback loops in the 1930s, that resulted in WWII. Similar forces are again working in the 2020s. If massive distrust can wreck democracy worldwide, it follows that the regeneration of trust is the path to democratic revitalization.

Stephen Walt offers some brief foreign-policy advice for the newest members of the U.S. legislature.

Joseph Nye writes: From an American perspective, it is just as dangerous to underestimate Chinese power as it is to overestimate it. While hysteria creates fear, discounting China's recent progress and future ambitions could lead the United States to squander its own long-term advantages.

For now, China's increasing nationalism and assertive government mean that the United States will probably have to spend more time managing its superpower rivalry. But by avoiding ideological demonization, shunning misleading Cold War analogies, and maintaining its alliances, America can rise to the challenge, argues Joseph S. Nye.

Calder Walton recounts the history of Cold War intelligence and explains the role of intelligence in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Joseph Nye writes that although the United States has long commanded the technological cutting edge, China is mounting a credible challenge in key areas. But, ultimately, the balance of power will be decided not by technological development but by diplomacy and strategic choices, both at home and abroad.

Joel Clement writes that because the Biden administration  has moved to repair the damage done by the Trump administration, colleagues from around the global Arctic are optimistic once again about partnering with America on solutions to regional crises .

Joel Clement details the concerns surrounding the use of solar geoengineering to mask the effects of climate change and argues for using existing technology to quickly transition away from fossil fuels.

The overarching question imparting urgency to this exploration is: Can U.S.-Russian contention in cyberspace cause the two nuclear superpowers to stumble into war? In considering this question we were constantly reminded of recent comments by a prominent U.S. arms control expert: At least as dangerous as the risk of an actual cyberattack, he observed, is cyber operations’ “blurring of the line between peace and war.” Or, as Nye wrote, “in the cyber realm, the difference between a weapon and a non-weapon may come down to a single line of code, or simply the intent of a computer program’s user.”