The Danger of Ignoring the ‘Espionage’ in Cyber Espionage
This week, I had the honor of delivering a keynote speech for the Global Cyber Security Leaders Conference in Berlin. The city, which decades ago was a hub of Cold War-era espionage, provided the perfect backdrop for my attempt to put its modern cousin — cyber espionage — into context. One need only…
SAARC Is Dead; Long Live SAARC
In less than two weeks, Pakistan was scheduled to host the 19th annual South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit. However, in September, after the terrorist attacks on the Indian army base in Uri, Kashmir, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided that India would boycott the…
Meet Trump’s Cabinet-in-waiting
President-elect Donald Trump does not have the traditional cadre of Washington insiders and donors to build out his Cabinet, but his transition team has spent the past several months quietly building a short list of industry titans and conservative activists who could comprise one of the more eclect…
The Guardian view on air pollution: ministers must act
On Sunday, the capital city of one of the world’s fastest growing economies was effectively shut down in an emergency act. The reason was not terrorism, but air pollution. The threat to citizens from smog in Delhi was judged so great that traffic was ratioined, coal-fired power stations cl…
Prosperity in sustainability
President John F. Kennedy inspired Americans to great undertakings by setting bold goals: to go the moon, to overcome racial discrimination, to make peace with the Soviet Union. “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man o…
Is A Pan-Asian Power Grid Possible?
After a series of massive investments into the power industry, China is now looking for ways of exporting excess electricity. This past March, the Interconnection Development & Cooperation Organization was established with the goal of creating the means to transport power across Asia. …
Is North Korea’s nuclear tech for sale?
As North Korea’s economic position worsens, the risk that it sells its nuclear weapons technology grows. Pyongyang conducted its fifth nuclear test on 9 September, accompanied by claims it has developed a warhead that can be mounted onto rockets. This test is estimated to have been at a yield o…
Diversification or specialization: What is the path to growth and development?
In general, international trade theories predict that once countries open up to trade outside their borders they will specialize in goods for which they have comparative advantage. Early theories of trade explained comparative advantage being driven by relative productivity difference (as expla…
Knowledge Is Power: The Future of Energy
Matthew Boulton, of the 18th-century engineering firm Boulton & Watt, once boasted of his company’s steam engines, “I sell here, sir, what all the world desires to have: power.” He and James Watt had demonstrated the ultimate meaning of Francis Bacon’s famous dictum “Knowledge is power.” Watt’s …
‘Everyone Needs to Act’: What Experts Expect From the Summit
When representatives of 200 nations meet at a crucial two-week climate change conference in Marrakesh, Morocco, on Monday, their goal will be to put some force behind the pledges they made a year ago in Paris to reduce the emissions responsible for global warming. But as anyone following the is…