Science & Technology

This article presents both the fundamental changes that have taken place in Israel's strategic environment, from conventional, state-based threats to primarily asymmetrical ones, and the responses it has developed to date. It also addresses Israel's relations with the United States and other primary international actors, as well as Israel's nuclear and regional arms control policy.

For a decade now the Halifax International Security Forum has been a place to discuss the major external threats facing Western democracies and how to counter them.  One of the main themes coming out of this year's gathering of military, political and academic leaders is the biggest threat to democracy is coming from within.

"In the democratic world, many of our strongest and largest democracies are in some type of crisis," says former U.S. ambassador Nicholas Burns, who now teaches at the Kennedy School at Harvard University.

A failed assassination attempt against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Saturday was mounted with explosive-armed drones, according to news reports. Nine days earlier, and on the other side of the world, terrorists claimed to have sent an armed drone to attack the international airport in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. No one was killed in either case, and the circumstances of both remain murky. But a new and dangerous era in non-state-sponsored terrorism clearly has begun, and no one is adequately prepared to counter it.

President Trump’s effort to improve the climate for dialogue with Putin may be commendable, but his reluctance to object to Russia’s offensive digital campaigns targeting democratic processes is a cause for concern. The indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers is a sharp reminder of Russian capabilities for coming elections, writes two Swedish researchers at Harvard Kennedy School.

Ask almost any U.S. Navy officer about mine warfare and the reply most likely will center on efforts to recapitalize the service’s surface and airborne mine countermeasures capabilities. It would be unusual to receive a response that has anything to do with the actual use of maritime mines by the United States or friendly nations.

The Navy’s response has been to dedicate additional resources and intellectual firepower to countermine warfare in an effort to preserve its freedom of maneuver. However, the service has overlooked the other half of the lesson: mines are a cheap and disruptive weapon in naval warfare.

In this installment of “Conversations in Diplomacy," the Future of Diplomacy Project's Faculty Director Nicholas Burns is joined by Sir John Sawers, the former Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, for a conversation on tackling global security challenges in the digital age and the changing nature of intelligence agencies.

The military not only plans for operations, it also plans to plan. Yet there is no current plan or process in place to integrate cyber initiatives into campaign planning. The US government must determine how to integrate offensive and defensive cybercapabilities into campaign planning in order to leverage these capabilities and pair them with the military’s broad array of tools.