Over the past decade or more, autocratic regimes—and illiberal elected governments with authoritarian ambitions—have deterred independent reporting and online criticism through familiar tools like physical intimidation, censorship on moral or religious grounds, and prosecution under draconian laws on defamation or national security. Read Here – World Affairs Journal
Cyber capabilities cannot be detached from other domains of warfare, such as electromagnetic, air, land, sea, and space. The future holds two potential battlefields that overlap: one fought between high-tech adversary militaries, and another, between highly specialised military units and insurgent forces in population-dense urban environments. In both situations, cyber capabilities must be integrated into […]
Chinese enterprises are going global, venturing overseas to acquire foreign companies, know-how, and technologies. While most of these activities reflect simple business decisions, others carefully and deliberately advance China’s strategic interests, perhaps against the interests of its trading partners. Read Here – The Diplomat
Especially with the recent violent attacks against a Sikh man in Washington, an Indian immigrant in South Carolina, and two Indian engineers in Kansas, Indian Americans have found themselves jolted out of this comfortable liminal space. Read Here – The Atlantic
China’s role and influence in global markets is a big lure to Saudi Arabia. It is the world’s largest energy consumer and the second-biggest importer of crude, after the U.S. Just like the Japanese, China is driven by its need to secure sources of energy. That gives Saudi Arabia an opportunity to solidify its market […]
The acronym of the moment in Beijing is BAT: Baidu (the search engine), Alibaba (Jack Ma’s answer to Amazon), and Tencent (which is the nearest thing to Facebook). These companies are much more than clones of their US counterparts; each has shown itself to be innovative in its own right. Read Here – Boston Globe
When brilliant Soviet cyberneticist Viktor Glushkov designed a blueprint for a computerised planning system, the Soviet Union looked on track to become web pioneers. In the end, however, there was to be no digital network. Read Here – The Calvert Journal
Politicians routinely bemoan the loss of good blue-collar jobs. Work like that is correctly seen as a pillar of civil middle-class society. And it may yet be again. What if the next big blue-collar job category is already here—and it’s programming? Read Here – Wired
The clamour for security, accountability and transparency is leading to unfettered increase in the power of states. We are enacting law after law, introducing technology after technology, to render citizens transparent to the state. But at the same time, we are weakening protections and consenting to technologies in a way that makes the state less […]
That socioeconomic despair was profitably channeled to elect a president who—beyond his politics—represents a threat to most of the values the technocracy holds dear: transparency; multiculturalism; expertise; social progress. And, in the greatest of ironies, he used the tools and language of the technocracy to do it. Read Here – Wired
looking beyond borders 