Security

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.