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Security

The MADCOM Future

Date of Editorial Board meeting: 
Publication date: 
Tuesday, September 26, 2017
Abstract in English: 
Emerging artificial intelligence (AI) tools will provide propagandists radically enhanced capabilities to manipulate human minds. Human cognition is a complex system, and AI tools are very good at decoding complex systems. Interactions on social media, browsing the Internet, and even grocery shopping provide thousands of data points from which technologists can build psychological profiles on nearly every citizen. When provided rich databases of information about us, machines will know our personalities, wants, needs, annoyances, and fears better than we know them ourselves. Over the next few years, MADCOMs—the integration of AI systems into machine-driven communications tools for use in computational propaganda—will gain enhanced ability to influence people, tailoring persuasive, distracting, or intimidating messaging toward individuals based on their unique personalities and backgrounds, a form of highly personalized propaganda.
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30
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Escalation and Deterrence in the Second Space Age

Date of Editorial Board meeting: 
Publication date: 
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Abstract in English: 
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first human-made object to orbit the Earth. Precisely 60 years later, space-faring nations face a much different space environment; one that’s more diverse, disruptive, disordered, and dangerous. Today’s space domain presents a number of asymmetries that differ from other domains, creating a specific deterrence environment with unique policy implications.

Escalation and Deterrence in the Second Space Age, a new report by the CSIS Aerospace Security Project, discusses the evolution of space as a contested domain, the changing threats to U.S. space systems, deterrence theory and its applications to the space domain, and findings from a space crisis exercise administered by CSIS last year.
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92
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Global Trendometer - Essays on medium- and long-term global trends

Date of Editorial Board meeting: 
Publication date: 
Monday, September 4, 2017
Abstract in English: 
The European Union has come through difficult years. A succession of crises, often interlinked, have been the major concern of European leaders for much of the past decade. This experience has driven home the lesson that prevention is better than the cure, and that more can be done to identify and prepare for future challenges. The EU as a whole has worked to enhance its foresight capacity, notably through the work of the inter-institutional ESPAS process. For its part, the European Parliament is placing greater emphasis on agenda-setting and on horizon scanning, both to support its work in shaping the future through legislation and to improve the quality of public policy discussion of key challenges and choices ahead.
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62
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Reforming and Reorganizing U.S. Foreign Assistance: Increased Efficiency and Effectiveness

Date of Editorial Board meeting: 
Publication date: 
Monday, July 24, 2017
Abstract in English: 
CSIS convened a bipartisan Task Force on Reforming and Reorganizing U.S. Foreign Assistance in response to the March 1, 2017, executive order asking all federal departments and agencies to submit reorganization plans that will “improve efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability” and to the president’s FY2018 budget request.1 The Trump administration is right to question whether the current foreign assistance system is optimized to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Although many Americans believe that foreign assistance makes up 25 percent or more the federal budget, it is no more than 1 percent. However small a percentage, it is important to note that these funds do not represent pure altruism; they are smart investments that contribute to the national security and prosperity of the United States.

Though it intends to align priorities, strategy, budget, and work force, the Trump administration’s first budget proposal includes significant cuts to foreign assistance funding and runs the risk of having budgeted amounts—rather than U.S. national interests—drive creation of strategy and organization. This would produce suboptimal outcomes, particularly if the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) were to be subsumed into the Department of State as some have suggested. It is not in the national interest to remove the development leg from the U.S. national security stool.
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54
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Munich Security Report 2017: "Post-Truth, Post-West, Post-Order?"

Date of Editorial Board meeting: 
Publication date: 
Wednesday, February 8, 2017
Abstract in English: 
Is the world facing an era shaped by disorder and by illberal actors? On February 13, 2017, several days ahead of the 53rd edition of the Munich Security Conference, the Munich Security Conference Foundation publishes the third edition of its annual report on key issues in international security.
Under the title "Post-Truth, Post-West, Post-Order?", the Munich Security Report offers a wide variety of analyses, data, statistics, infographics, and maps on major developments and challenges in international security.
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90
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Key challenges and opportunities for Cities and Regions and MFF post 2020

Date of Editorial Board meeting: 
Publication date: 
Wednesday, June 21, 2017
Abstract in English: 
The EU budget is indeed facing unprecedented challenges which may have profound impacts in the size and structure of the post-2020 multiannual financial framework (MFF). One of the greatest challenges will be to handle the impact of Brexit on the EU budget’s revenues. This is not only a budgetary issue; it may well entail a shift in the ambitions of EU action as well as in its focus. Part of the foundations of Brexit are also to be found in the EU budget and should not be ignored.
The EU is under pressure to deliver in critical areas such as economic growth, environmental protection, climate change, security and migration. Depending on the role the EU will be expected or have to play, this may have considerable budgetary implications.
But the challenge is also how to adapt the budget given its limited (and unlikely to be increased) size. There is also a risk that member states, rather than focusing on Europe’s changing needs, will fall prey to pork barrel politics in order to protect their receipts from the EU budget.
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90
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What if ... Conceivable crises: unpredictable in 2017, unmanageable in 2020?

Date of Editorial Board meeting: 
Publication date: 
Monday, June 19, 2017
Abstract in English: 
In a world increasingly shaped by unexpected events and developments – ranging from ‘strategic surprises’ like 9/11 or the Arab Spring to the unintended consequences of often well-meant decisions – trying to imagine contingencies that challenge current assumptions may well prove a useful exercise.
This Report presents a number of grey swan scenarios which are designed to help decision-makers think about possible responses to crises and how they can be prevented. They cover a wide variety of geographical and operational situations while never explicitly calling into question specific EU actions or policies – only general EU principles and interests.
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67
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From Shared Vision to Common Action: Implementing the EU Global Strategy

Date of Editorial Board meeting: 
Publication date: 
Monday, June 19, 2017
Abstract in English: 
We have lived through an eventful year within and beyond our European Union. Internally, we faced the United Kingdom’s referendum, a succession of key elections in several European countries, the beginning of a sustained economic recovery, and the 60th anniversary of the Rome Treaties, which both celebrated our past and projected our hopes into the future. The new US Administration is reshaping America's role in the international arena. Ongoing conflicts and tensions near and far, and the persisting threat of terrorism across all continents, including in the heart of Europe, continue to affect the daily life of ordinary citizens.

All these trends and events have made the EU Global Strategy for the European Union's foreign and security policy (EUGS), presented by High Representative and Vice President of the European Commission (HRVP) Federica Mogherini to the European Council in June 2016, a timely tool to tackle complexity within and beyond the EU’s borders. As the title of the EUGS itself suggests – Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe – the work was not meant to stop with the elaboration of a shared vision, but to trigger a new beginning through common action. This is why EU Heads of State and Government welcomed the presentation of the Strategy and invited the High Representative, the Commission and the Council to take the work forward.
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33
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Global Trends: The Paradox of Progress

Date of Editorial Board meeting: 
Publication date: 
Monday, January 16, 2017
Abstract in English: 
Thinking about the future is vital but hard. Crises keep intruding, making it all but impossible to look beyond daily headlines to what lies over the horizon. In those circumstances, thinking “outside the box,” to use the cliché, too often loses out to keeping up with the inbox. That is why every four years the National Intelligence Council (NIC) undertakes a major assessment of the forces and choices shaping the world before us over the next two decades.
This version, the sixth in the series, is titled, “Global Trends: The Paradox of Progress,” and we are proud of it. It may look like a report, but it is really an invitation, an invitation to discuss, debate and inquire further about how the future could unfold. Certainly, we do not pretend to have the definitive “answer.”
Long-term thinking is critical to framing strategy. The Global Trends series pushes us to reexamine key assumptions, expectations, and uncertainties about the future. In a very messy and interconnected world, a longer perspective requires us to ask hard questions about which issues and choices will be most consequential in the decades ahead–even if they don’t necessarily generate the biggest headlines. A longer view also is essential because issues like terrorism, cyberattacks, biotechnology, and climate change invoke high stakes and will require sustained collaboration to address.
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225
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Big Data: A Twenty-First Century Arms Race

Date of Editorial Board meeting: 
Publication date: 
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
Abstract in English: 
We are living in a world awash in data. Accelerated interconnectivity, driven by the proliferation of internet-connected devices, has led to an explosion of data—big data. A race is now underway to develop new technologies and implement innovative methods that can handle the volume, variety, velocity, and veracity of big data and apply it smartly to provide decisive advantage and help solve major challenges facing companies and governments.
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90
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