Diario geostrategico, 23/24 novembre 2021
Buona lettura !
The Science of Where Magazine’s interviews:
– Towards sustainable AI. The Science of Where Magazine meets Abhishek Gupta, Founder and Principal Researcher, Montreal AI Ethics Institute
– The road to the “new normal” and the role of the G20. The Science of Where meets Priyadarshi Dash. Associate Professor at Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), New Delhi, he has 14 years of experience in policy research on trade, investment, infrastructure and fintech issues in the context of G20, IORA, BIMSTEC and Indo-Pacific
– Governo dei dati tra geopolitica e tutela del cittadino. The Science of Where Magazine incontra Ivana Bartoletti, Global Chief Privacy Officer a WIPRO Technologies e Visiting Policy Fellow presso l’ Università di Oxford
– Tecnologia e responsabilità: uno snodo decisivo. The Science of Where Magazine incontra Federico Cabitza, Università di Milano-Bicocca
– Inside the ethics of artificial intelligence: for a decentralized approach. The Science of Where Magazine meets James Brusseau, Philosopher, Pace University
– L’intelligenza artificiale contro le discriminazioni sul lavoro. The Science of Where Magazine incontra Keith Sonderling, Commissioner del U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
– Per Italia e Germania, il futuro è nelle nuove tecnologie. Intervista esclusiva con l’Ambasciatore d’Italia a Berlino, Armando Varricchio
– Gathering strenght, gathering storms. Visions on artificial intelligence. The Science of Where Magazine meets Michael Littman and Peter Stone
Today’s Choice
– Andrew Futter, Valdai Discussion Club: The Australia-UK-US trilateral security partnership, or AUKUS for short, has been the subject of much speculation and debate since it was announced in September 2021. While some of its provisions will take many years to reach fruition, notably building a new fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, the announcement has already had considerable impact and driven concerns about nuclear proliferation, double standards, and the security situation in the Asia-Pacific region. It has also caused a rift in between NATO allies, especially between the US and France, in part due to the way it has been handled, and has been strongly criticised by China. While we still actually have very few details about what the partnership will involve in the years ahead, and in particular how the commitment by the US and UK to “deliver a nuclear-powered submarine fleet for Australia” will unfold, it is useful to understand the different possible implications of this deal and how the technology, politics and security aspects will play out in the years ahead. – Unpacking the AUKUS Trilateral Security Partnership: Politics, Proliferation and Propulsion
Africa
– Landry Signé, Project-Syndicate: Mineral resources are a critical source of revenue for Africa. In 2019, minerals and fossil fuels accounted for more than a third of exports from at least 60% of African countries. The continent produces around 80% of the world’s platinum, two-thirds of its cobalt, half of its manganese, and a substantial amount of chromium, leaving it in a strong position to benefit from growing demand for these minerals. Moreover, Africa is believed to have some of the world’s largest untapped mineral reserves. – Digitalizing Africa’s Mines
Australia
– Teagan Westendorf, The Strategist: The US government’s recent ban of Israeli technology firm NGO Group’s Pegasus spyware has significant implications for Australian efforts to regulate digital technologies in the face of new online national security threats. Putting human rights and democratic freedoms at the centre of US foreign policy was one of Joe Biden’s key election promises. His administration has honoured that promise by blacklisting NSO Group for selling its Pegasus software to governments that used it to abuse those principles. This move put the increasing challenge for states to regulate cyber and digital technologies squarely in the middle of US policy decisions and strategy. – Pegasus spyware and the direction of Australian policing
Azerbaijan
– Liz Cookman, Al Jazeera: It has been three decades since Rasmiya Ahmadova last saw her home village in Kalbajar, a leafy district in western Azerbaijan scattered with fruit and walnut trees. Her adult children have never visited, and with a lifetime spent in temporary accommodation, the family never stopped dreaming they would one day return. – Azerbaijan’s internally displaced long to return to regained land
China
– Joel Wuthnow, The Jamestown Foundation: An intriguing aspect of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s political consolidation was the establishment of a Central National Security Commission (CNSC; 中央国家安全委员会, Zhongyang guojia anquan weiyuanhui ) at the end of 2013. The CNSC seemingly empowered Xi, who was put in charge of the new body, and through a permanent staff structure, perhaps set the stage for more effective strategic planning and crisis response. Over the last few years, subordinate National Security Commissions (NSCs) have been installed at all tiers of the party structure down to the county level. The CNSC thus sits atop a new organizational hierarchy that strengthens Xi’s ability to set the agenda and improves the party’s ability to coordinate national security affairs. While the system’s political utility for Xi is clear, its role in improving crisis response at the local level could be constrained by several factors. – Early Warning Brief: A New Chinese National Security Bureaucracy Emerges
– Brandi Vincent, Defense One: Though they are years from being fully realized, quantum technologies are altering the U.S. cyber threat landscape in serious ways and organizations should start acting now to ensure their infrastructure and data will be protected as the field evolves, according to a new report from Booz Allen Hamilton. – China May Steal Encrypted Data Now to Decrypt In Years to Come, Report Warns
– Booz Allen Hamilton: Quantum computing is evolving from the theoretical to the practical. Today, several quantum computers at global institutions can complete
certain tasks orders of magnitude faster than any classical supercomputer.
Although quantum computers’ current abilities are more demonstrative
than immediately useful, their trajectory suggests that in the coming
decades quantum computers will likely revolutionize numerous industries—from pharmaceuticals to materials science—and eventually undermine all popular current public-key encryption methods and plausibly boost the speed and power of AI. China has recently emerged as a major player in quantum computing.
Since the mid-2010s, the Chinese government has publicly identified quantum computing as a key strategic technology for its economy and national security.
China has leveraged robust human capital, monetary investment, and policy support to successfully narrow its admitted gap with the United States’ growing quantum abilities. Booz Allen analyzed how China’s emergent quantum-computing capabilities may shape its cyber operations. This paper evaluates the state of quantum computing today globally and in China and projects when different expected quantum-computing capabilities may become possible. The report then looks at these capabilities through the lens of Chinese economic and national security priorities to anticipate changing targets and objectives of Chinese state-aligned cyber operations. We assessed these issues to help CISOs manage risk related to an adversary with top-tier quantum-computing capabilities. Quantum computing is non-intuitive; understanding its security impact is challenging, and its future development timeline is murky. Our research found that China’s current capabilities and long-term goals related to quantum computing will very likely shape the near-term targets and objectives of its cyber-enabled espionage. The more CISOs know about these emerging risks, the better able they will be to address them in strategic risk-mitigation plans. – chinese-threats-quantum-era.pdf
China-USA-Australia
– Peter Jennings, The Strategist: In The Australian newspaper on Monday, Hugh White gave us a picture of democratic defeat in the face of overwhelming Chinese dominance should war break out over Taiwan. ‘Going to war with China,’ he says, ‘will more likely destroy’ US leadership. The chances of nuclear war ‘are quite high’ and ‘the chances of America winning such a war are very low’. White goes on to say that ‘America’s dwindling chances of winning’ are such that it’s all the ‘more likely that the Chinese will provoke a crisis to call America’s bluff’. – Too soon to be waving the White flag on China
Climate Action
– John Letzing, WEF: A growing number of lawsuits are targeting climate inaction; ‘Systemic’ cases have fundamentally challenged government inertia; Some victories have been notched in the form of orders for stronger commitments. – Can climate litigation help prevent a global catastrophe?
– Homi Kharas, Brookings: Negotiations at COP26 focused on green technology and finance. Governments pledged money, businesses committed to net-zero production, and ordinary citizens … did nothing! Individual activists made a lot of noise, but there was no systematic effort to organize the change in consumption patterns needed to reach our shared goal of keeping climate warming to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius. The
Chichester Festival Theater organized a crowd of eco-activists to spell out “commit,” and to pledge to reduce food waste and the like, but the lifestyle and behavior changes of individuals, especially middle-class and rich consumers, received far less attention than warranted. The richest 10 percent of consumers account for 44 percent of consumption-related carbon emissions. – Missing from COP26: Lifestyle choices of middle-class and rich consumers
Europe
– Andrey Sushentsov, Valdai Discussion Club: The paradox of the current situation is that technology is evolving much faster than our understanding of humanity and society. We have learned to mine minerals on asteroids, but we cannot overcome social problems such as depression, xenophobia and armed conflicts. Technologically, we are truly in the 21st century — however, from the point of view of social and international governance, we have not advanced further than the 1970s. – Three Foundations of Peace in Europe: An Evidence-Based European Security Policy
– Alena Bieling, Euractiv: Member states must take more concrete and legally binding steps to ensure equality in public and private institutions, and policy-making, according to experts at the recent Conference on Promoting Equality Mainstreaming on Friday 19 November. – Experts call for enhanced efforts to mainstream equality
– Janos Ammann, Euractiv: Out of 112 European banks, not one is close to fully aligning with the European Central Bank’s climate and environmental risk management guidelines, according to a new report. – EU banks largely unprepared for climate risks, ECB warns
Hong Kong
– Rachel Cheung, Al Jazeera: When Foodpanda Hong Kong announced plans to reduce payments per order by another 2 Hong Kong dollars ($0.25) earlier this month, Ahmad and hundreds of other riders went on strike. “This was the boiling point,” said Ahmad, who asked to use a pseudonym due to fears of reprisal. “Everyone was very angry. They didn’t want to work for such low pay.” – After crackdown, Hong Kong’s low paid face hurdles to organising
India
– Arundhuti Gupta, Brookings: Imagine a room full of university students in India: young men and women sitting shoulder to shoulder in equal numbers. Fast forward 10 years:
8 out of 10 of those men are likely to be active in the workforce compared to only 3 out of 10 women. This example illustrates one of the great conundrums of India’s female labor force: a low and rapidly declining participation rate—even before the COVID-19 pandemic—despite economic growth and women’s increasing enrollment across all levels of education, and in particular tertiary education – India should leverage digital mentoring to increase women’s workforce participation
Indonesia
– Gerardus Yosari, East Asia Forum: Questions remain over how Indonesia can sustain its COVID-19 economic recovery targets due to the possible difficulties its policymakers face in curbing inflation. The best-case scenario for Indonesia’s economy would be gradual inflation leading to stable growth in the coming years. – Can Indonesia sustain its COVID-19 recovery targets?
Iran-IAEA
– Maziar Motamedi, Al Jazeera: Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have agreed to maintain communication and dialogue after the nuclear watchdog’s director-general visited Tehran days before talks to restore Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal resume in Vienna. Rafael Grossi landed in the Iranian capital late on Monday and met the country’s nuclear chief, Mohammad Eslami, early on Tuesday. The two then said during a joint news conference they agreed to continue talks. – Iran, IAEA agree to continue dialogue ahead of Vienna talks
Israel-Jordan-UAE
– Bruce Reidel, Natan Sachs, Brookings: This week in Dubai, Israel, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) signed Israel and Jordan’s biggest energy and water deal since the neighbors made peace 27 years ago. If implemented, this will be a diplomatically transformative deal for a region facing some of the worst consequences of climate change, as noted by U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry, who was also present at the signing. While the scope is very modest in terms of global mitigation of climate change, it will have a huge impact on Jordan’s effort at climate adaptation. – Israel, Jordan, and the UAE’s energy deal is good news
Lebanon
– Al Jazeera: The UN children’s agency has called on Lebanon to take urgent action to protect children after it documented a spike in child labour rates and food insecurity since April. Children have been hit hard by the country’s deep economic crisis exacerbated by the global coronavirus pandemic, which has left about eight in 10 people poor and threatens the education of some 700,000 children including 260,000 Lebanese, a report by UNICEF said on Tuesday. – UNICEF: Generation of children ‘at stake’ in Lebanon crisis
Pakistan
– Shazia Khan, Al Jazeera: When my mother was two years old, she was given as a “gift-child” to a wealthy widowed aunt who did not have any children of her own. Three years later, her birth mother, who was just 26 at the time, died of leukaemia. My mother rarely saw her siblings or father, who eventually remarried, and – looking back now at my own upbringing in Odense, Denmark, I can trace the trauma I absorbed from my mother back to her own childhood. – Dreaming of escape: The Pakistani women fleeing domestic violence
Pakistan-Afghanistan
– Mohammed Ayoob, The Strategist: Recent events in Afghanistan and their fallout in Pakistan clearly demonstrate that the problems plaguing the two countries can’t be separated. That the trajectories of the two polities are closely intertwined has become very clear with the return of the Taliban to power in Kabul. Pakistan played a crucial role in the Taliban victory, among other things by providing the Taliban leadership refuge in Pakistan for the two decades they were fighting the US and the Kabul government. Islamabad’s influence in government formation in Afghanistan is evident in the sidelining of top Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and the allocation of important portfolios to the leaders of the Haqqani network, the favourite faction of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency. – Is Pakistan heading down the same path as Afghanistan?
Russia-NATO
– John R. Deny, Defense News: Russian military forces have massed on the border with Ukraine as well as in Russian-occupied Crimea. Tens of thousands of Russian troops, armored forces and elite ground units have taken up positions within 140 miles of the Ukrainian border, sometimes doing so at night to conceal their movements. Some experts consider a major Russian offensive increasingly probable. So concerned is Washington that, earlier this month, U.S. officials warned NATO allies that another Russian invasion of Ukraine may be imminent. The question now confronting NATO is whether and how to react. – If the Russian military crashes through a forest, will NATO hear a sound?
Southeast Asia
– M. Niaz Asadullah, Project-Syndicate: COVID-19 has disrupted labor markets around the world, causing a global manpower shortage. Lockdowns in the early months of the pandemic triggered an exodus of millions of rural migrant workers from booming megacities like New Delhi and Dhaka. In the Global North, the United Kingdom has experienced the largest decline in its foreign-born labor force since World War II. Countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) also have been affected: Vietnam’s labor shortage recently worsened after the easing of travel restrictions in Ho Chi Minh City led to a large outflow of migrant workers. – Southeast Asia’s Migrant Labor Dilemma
Space
– ESA: According to the World Bank, more than a third of the world’s poor live in areas affected by multiple types of natural hazards. Aside from facing an increased frequency and intensity of hazards, developing countries sometimes have substantial data gaps which undermine decision-makers and development practitioners from making appropriate investments for risk reduction and mitigation. – Using space to foster development assistance for disaster resilience
Technology
– Issie Lapowsky, Protocol: Twitter in May said it would begin prompting users who are about to tweet something nasty to either revise or delete the message before sending. The decision, the company said at the time, was based on a successful test of the messages in the run-up to the 2020 election. – Twitter hate speech: Do warnings work?
Ukraine-USA
– Patrick Tucker, Defense One: The frozen conflict between Russia and Ukraine has entered a dangerous new phase, according to Ukrainian officials. More Russian troops and arms have been sent to the Ukrainian border, and strategic bomber flights in the region are up as well. – Ukraine Wants More Exercises, Training with US
USA
– Mark Muro, Robert Maxim, Anthony F. Pipa, Yang You, and Colleen Dougherty, Brookings: Last week, the House of Representatives passed the
Build Back Better Act, which boasts an array of social and climate programs, ranging from generous support for child care, paid leave, and new health benefits to renewable electricity tax credits. – The House’s Build Back Better Act is a milestone for place-based solutions
– Mariam Baksh, Nextgov: Cloud service providers and mobile operating networks should implement technology to avert cascading impacts from compromised applications by monitoring access controls to the “containers” that are increasingly used to more efficiently manage them, according to new guidance from the National Security Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. – NSA, CISA Say Industry Should Use Attestation Technology to Secure 5G Environments
– Alexandra Kelley, Nextgov: The growth and development of tech talent within the public sector is stagnating, requiring advanced training and support for government employees to stay competitive in an increasingly digital environment, according to a new study. Released on Nov. 19 by the Government Accountability Office, a survey featuring leaders from tech sectors within government, academic, and nonprofit organizations suggests that government modernization efforts are primarily hindered by a lack of talent with expertise in burgeoning fields like artificial intelligence, robotic automation, and cybersecurity. – GAO: Cultivating a Data-Centric Culture Can Help Recruit, Retain a Digitally-Savvy Workforce
– Patience Wait, Nextgov: Those who believe that cybersecurity should occupy a more central role in national defense should keep their eyes open for the release of the 2022 National Defense Strategy, a senior Pentagon official suggested. “We’re thinking about the role of cyber as a tool in the National Defense Strategy,” said Mieke Eoyang, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for cyber policy, at CyberNext DC last week. “I think you all will be interested in what we say about this.” – Pentagon Officials Rethinking Cyber’s Role in National Defense Strategy
– Nextgov: For decades, federal agencies have struggled to meet their missions with existing technical talent, and those challenges have been exacerbated in recent years with the influx of emerging technologies and increased cyberattacks. Cloud computing, for example, introduces a host of benefits for agency leaders, but those benefits aren’t maximized unless rank-and-file IT professionals master new cloud environments. Other nascent technologies, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and automation, pose similar challenges. – The State of the Federal Tech Workforce – Nextgov
– Eric Katz, Defense One: About 90% of the federal workforce is vaccinated against COVID-19, the Biden administration announced on the deadline day for the more than 3.5 million civilian and military employees to receive their shots, with another 5% seeking a religious or medical exemption. – On Deadline Day, 90% of US Feds Are COVID-Vaxxed
– Kate Kaye, Protocol: Now that the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act has been signed into law, billions of dollars will flow toward an array of technologies intended to upgrade the country’s infrastructure, from automated construction machinery to AI to detect lithium for clean energy development. And though they are not spotlighted, automated and artificial intelligence technologies are sprinkled throughout the highly-debated 2,700-page document. – The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will boost AI companies
– Issie Lapowsky, Protocol: The pandemic has been prime time for online scammers. Since January of last year, Americans have lost more than half a billion dollars to fraud, according to the FTC. But by far the most popular category of ripoff reported to the FTC lately has been related to online shopping, with more than 50,000 complaints rolling into the FTC during that period. – What is the INFORM Consumers Act?
– Leo Shane III, Joe Gould, Defense News: If Congress is going to pass the annual defense authorization bill for a 61st consecutive year — and that’s a big if — it’s going to take a tremendous amount of work in public and behind closed doors over the next few weeks. On Friday, the Senate left town for Thanksgiving break without finalizing its draft of the sweeping $740 billion military policy measure, but with plans to do so in the last few days of November. – Will the annual defense authorization bill get passed this year?
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