Science & Technology

In this paper, I propose five key science and technology areas for greater US-Australia collaboration that carry significant national security and defence risks for both countries. Rapid progress against these challenges will position us for success and strengthen our resilience against groups that seek to undermine the global rules-based order. 

With the looming threat of increased conflict in Ukraine, businesses around the world should be preparing now, write Paul R. Kolbe, Maria Robson Morrow, and Lauren Zabierek. Corporate security and intelligence teams have said they’re seeing an increase in cyber probes, and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the European Central Bank have both issued warnings about potential Russian cyberattacks. At this point, companies should be taking the following steps: 1) Review business continuity plans; 2) Closely examine supply chains; 3) Actively engage peer networks, vendors, and law enforcement around cyber intrusions; 4) Instill a security mindset in employees; and 5) Make sure corporate intelligence and IT teams are working closely together on solutions.

Joseph Nye argues that prudence results from the fear of creating unintended consequences in unpredictable systems and can develop into a norm of nonuse or limited use of certain weapons or a norm of limiting targets. Something like this happened with nuclear weapons when the superpowers came close to the brink of nuclear war in 1962, during the Cuban missile crisis. The Limited Test Ban Treaty followed a year later.

Guest Maximilian Kreter joins Right Rising to discuss how the white power music scene funds and sustains the extreme right.

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.

President-elect Joe Biden’s decision to create a new cabinet-level position for climate-related issues — and to choose so prominent a figure as former Secretary of State John Kerry to fill it — demonstrates Biden’s sincerity over putting climate at the very center of U.S. foreign policy. It is easy to understate the importance of this appointment, given the flurry of czars created by most new administrations.

Joseph Nye writes that with less preponderance and facing a more complex world, the United States must exercise power with as well as over others and use its soft power to attract their cooperation. To do that, the United States will have to rediscover the importance of the institutions Donald Trump's administration abandoned.

Stephen Walt elaborates on what to expect from the next four years, regardless of who wins the vote.