President Muizzu To Diversify The Tourism-Dependent Maldivian Economy – Analysis

P. K. Balachandran

Source Link

New projects will supplement tourism and generate jobs for all skill sets

Maldives, which has been over-dependent on the tourism industry for decades, has begun to realize the risks of over-dependence on one sector and President Mohamed Muizzu is taking a range of steps to correct the missteps of the past.

COVID had hit tourism hard and Maldives had a hard time recovering from it. Therefore, one of the primary goals of President Muizzu government is to diversify the Maldivian economy. His administration is actively working to develop other industries, such as fisheries, agriculture, and renewable energy, an official said.

By fostering growth in these areas, the government hopes to create job opportunities, increase exports, and boost the economy’s resilience against global market fluctuations.

Fisheries

Fisheries has great potential. In 2021, nearly 71% of the animal protein consumed by Maldivians was credited to fish. The demand for fisheries and agricultural products continues to grow not only due to an increasing population, but also due to the increase in tourist arrivals, which total 2 million a year. There is tremendous scope for increasing production for consumption as well export.

Narrative Intelligence: Detecting Chinese And Russian Information Operations To Disrupt NATO Unity – Analysis

Joe Stradinger

Source Link

As geopolitical conflicts are increasingly shaped by misleading and deceptive information, Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) has become an indispensable tool in understanding adversarial information operations and being able to compete in the information environment.

Noting the value of OSINT, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) recently published a framework for the intelligence community to leverage commercially available information. Competition in the information environment among major powers is not new or unique. Today, Russia and China strategically employ information operations as part of their attempts to undermine US interests. China has actively used information operations to generate favorable strategic outcomes in Africa. Russian and Chinese messaging is also aligned in exploiting how the Israel-Hamas conflict is characterized.

In this competition space, the distinction between signal and noise is more heightened than ever. As the volume of data increases, so does the challenge of identifying what matters — the relevant information that can be synthesized into actionable intelligence. This makes OSINT crucial for tracking and analyzing security threats as well as for monitoring the ebb and flow of online narratives that can influence public opinion and shape national security policy.

Collaboration in Conflict: Interagency Cooperation Lessons from Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq

John Govern

Source Link

“Defense is from Mars, State is from Venus.” For diplomats and military leaders, this saying speaks to the apparent futility of interagency cooperation, with the two departments separated by seemingly intractable differences in character and organization. Yet, both diplomacy and military force have their own unique limitations that necessitate collaboration, difficult as it often proves to be. One important constraint of military force is that military operations should be transitory. Setting exit criteria is critical for US military planners, especially with a security handover to a local partner. To this end, interagency cooperation between the Defense Department, State Department, and other agencies is essential.

Unlike a military presence, diplomatic contingents are permanent and can further US foreign policy goals long after conflicts have ended. Civilian agencies are vital in transitioning from combat operations to stability and reconstruction. One of many examples is the work by the State Department and USAID—the US Agency for International Development—during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on civil reconstruction efforts through the two organizations’ Joint Strategic Plans. If Defense Department goals include transitioning to civil authority, US civilian agencies must be part of the plan. Nonetheless, current models of interagency cooperation can experience tension, as was the case recently during the Combined Joint Task Force–Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR) campaign in Iraq. Learning from examples like this can help integrate agencies in future conflict zones.

Railroading Russia Through Unconventional Warfare - Opinion

Doug Livermore and Alexander Noyes

Source Link

Ukrainian special operations forces are stepping up efforts to sabotage railroads and other Russian targets, which are key to Moscow's logistics strategy supporting their war of attrition in Ukraine. The United States and other like-minded allies should likewise ramp up support to organize, train, equip, and share intelligence with Ukrainian national resistance warfare efforts. Doing so could help tip the balance in Ukraine's favor.

These unconventional operations harken back to tactics used by the United States and other allies in World War II in German-occupied areas. The U.S Defense Department currently defines resistance as, "a nation's organized, whole-of-society effort," both violent and non-violent, to "reestablish independence and autonomy within its sovereign territory that has been wholly or partially occupied by a foreign power."

Ukraine has effectively used this form of irregular warfare to help repel Russia's unprovoked invasion in weeks and months following February 2022, and in currently occupied areas–approximately 18 percent of Ukraine.

The Low Fertility Fallacy

Vegard Skirbekk and Catherine Bowen

Source Link

Many politicians and pundits around the world have raised the alarm in recent years about declining fertility rates. They evoke the ominous specters of imploding populations, a “gray tsunami” of older people, the demise of the family, and even the very extinction of mankind. They can marshal a good deal of data in issuing these warnings. The world’s total fertility rate has plunged over the past 70 years from around five children per woman in 1950 to 2.25 children in 2023. In 2023, more than 100 countries had a total fertility rate below the level needed to maintain their population sizes over the long term, the so-called replacement rate, often pegged to about 2.1 children per woman.

It is true that total fertility rates in many countries have dropped to historically low levels, but those figures are, on their own, no reason for panic. Some of the decline in the total fertility rate has more to do with changes in when people have children than it does with how many children people have in their lifetimes. Fertility decline is also the product of many positive developments, including better contraception, a reduction in teenage pregnancy, and higher levels of female education. The consequences of low fertility can also be easily exaggerated. With astute planning and policies, countries can survive and even thrive as their societies grow older.

Pace of war shortens EU-based training for Ukrainian troop

SAM SKOVE

Source Link

On the monitor, a row of drone feeds piped in live footage from a war zone: Russia’s Kursk province, where Ukrainian forces have been fighting since August.

Sitting in front of the monitor, an Ukrainian officer kept an eye on the feed. Just behind him, officers clustered around an enormous paper map, on which Ukrainian and Russian forces sprawled in long sinuous lines.

The drone stream was real. The battle on the map wasn’t. The officer watching the drone feed had no soldiers to control, nor did the busy officers bustling behind him and manning computers.

The eager Ukrainian brigade staff were instead focused on a training exercise, part of a 21-day crash course run in Poland as part of the EU mission for training Ukraine’s army. The drone streams were being incorporated into the fictional exercise—although Ukrainian officers wouldn’t say how, citing operational security.

As the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine grinds into its third year, Ukraine is in desperate need of experienced troops. Western military training, like that seen in Poland, could be the answer. Western officers say their high-quality training, which emphasizes initiative, is a key advantage that their armies have over Russia.

Trump and the Future of American Power

Stephen Kotkin

Source Link

Stephen Kotkin is a preeminent historian of Russia, a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the author of an acclaimed three-volume biography of Joseph Stalin. (The third volume is forthcoming.) Kotkin has also written extensively and insightfully on geopolitics, the sources of American power, and the twists and turns of the Trump era. Executive Editor Justin Vogt spoke with Kotkin on Wednesday, November 6, in the wake of Donald Trump’s decisive victory in the U.S. presidential election.

You’ve written a number of times for Foreign Affairs about the war in Ukraine and what it means for the world and for American foreign policy. So let’s start with an obvious question. It’s impossible to know, of course, but what do you imagine Russian President Vladimir Putin is thinking right now, with Donald Trump poised to return to the White House for a second term?

I wish I knew. These opaque regimes in Moscow and Beijing don’t want us to know what they think. What we do know from their actions as well as their frequent public pronouncements is that they came to the view that America was in irreversible decline. We had the Iraq War and the shocking incompetence of the follow-up, where Washington lost the peace. And we lost the peace in Afghanistan. We had the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession. We had a lot of episodes that reinforced their view that we were in decline. They were only too happy to latch onto examples of their view that the United States and the collective West, as they call it, is in decline and, therefore, their day is going to come. They are the future; we are the past.

Trump Will Test European Solidarity on NATO, Ukraine and Trade

Steven Erlanger

Source Link

The victory of Donald J. Trump will test the ability of America’s European allies to maintain solidarity, do more to build up their own militaries and defend their economic interests.

In anticipation of a Trump victory, there have already been efforts to try to ensure continued support for Ukraine, continuity in NATO and to craft a response should Mr. Trump make good on his threat to apply blanket tariffs on goods imported into the United States.

But the Europeans have a long way to go. A second Trump presidency could serve as a catalyst for Europe to fortify itself in the face of a more undependable America. But it is far from clear the continent is prepared to seize that moment.

With both the French and German governments weakened by domestic politics, a strong European response may be difficult to construct. And even after one term of Mr. Trump and a war in Ukraine, Europeans have been slow to change.

Trump may surprise us on the Ukraine war

Mick Ryan

Source Link

The timing of the US presidential election in November and the inauguration of the next US president in January will likely coincide with a lower tempo period in the Ukraine war as both sides hunker down for the winter. This does not mean that the fighting stops, but it does mean that military activity will appear to decline relative to the higher tempo spring and summer months. It is likely neither side will be able to make decisive inroads during this time. While a re-elected Democratic administration may continue its current level of support for Ukraine even if it is unclear who is winning the war, what might a newly elected Trump administration do?

Russia’s stalled momentum

Over the last seven months, Russia has attempted to exploit the failure of the 2023 Ukrainian counter-offensive, the late 2023 civil-military crisis in the Ukrainian government, and the long debate on US aid to Ukraine that deprived the Ukrainians of much needed munitions and equipment in early 2024. The Russian military has been conducting a large-scale offensive campaign on the ground and in the air to pummel the Ukrainian military and to influence the political calculus of Ukraine’s government and its Western supporters.

But for all its efforts, and the loss of 180,000 troops in that time, Russia has only made minor territorial gains. It has not changed the willingness of the Ukrainian military to fight, or the will of the Ukrainian government to continue its defence against what they view as an existential war being waged upon them.

Trump’s Tall Task: Overcoming Domestic Division to Project Strength Abroad

Charles A. Kupchan

Source Link

President-Elect Donald Trump will have to steer a fractured America through a fractured world. These dual challenges go hand in hand. If the United States is to succeed abroad it must first get its own house in order. The steady and effective brand of U.S. statecraft that much of the world hopes Washington can provide will emerge only if the nation can get beyond its ongoing division and dysfunction. Good policy requires good politics; effective governance at home is the foundation of purposeful statecraft abroad. Washington should aim that statecraft at ending the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, safeguarding the global trading system, and adapting international order to the ongoing diffusion of power.

Strength Starts at Home

Trump’s top priority should be economic and political renewal at home. An American comeback begins with rebuilding the nation’s middle class, which will in turn ameliorate the polarization and division weakening the country. Indeed, Republicans and Democrats alike have pledged to get working Americans back up on their feet, resorting to tariffs and industrial policy to revive the nation’s manufacturing base. During the campaign, Trump promised to make the country a “manufacturing powerhouse.”

Trump’s potential impact on emerging and disruptive technologies

Sara Goudarzi

Source Link

AI regulation

What kind of AI regulation should we expect from a second Trump administration? Here are three related sources of evidence that bear on this question. First, consider the Trump campaign’s own statements. Trump has said he’d repeal the “radical leftwing” Biden Executive Order on AI on day one. It’s unclear what material effect this will have: Federal agencies will continue to exercise oversight on many aspects of AI deployment in the normal course of business. But the anti-regulatory rhetoric is very clear, and the issue is slowly being made partisan, despite widespread public support for meaningful regulation, even among Republicans. But widespread public support is insufficient to motivate regulatory action: A comfortable majority of Americans have wanted stricter gun regulation for the past decade. Second, consider likely agency staffing. Trump hasn’t said who he’ll put in charge of national AI policy in his second term, but among his most vocal backers (and funders) are Silicon Valley venture capitalists such as Marc Andreessen, a self-described “techno-optimist” and “AI accelerationist” who wants to transform humanity into a race of “technological supermen.” Such associations are very unlikely to be entirely unconsulted when the Trump administration decides who is in charge of how fast large technology companies are allowed to move, and what things they are allowed to break.

UN to conduct new study of the broad impacts of nuclear war. Not all countries want to know

François Diaz-Maurin

Source Link

The UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly last week in favor of launching a two-year study on the effects of nuclear war—the first such expert study the UN has pursued since the 1980s. A total of 144 UN member states, including only one nuclear power, China, voted in favor. Some important NATO members also voted in favor of the resolution, including Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and Greece. Russia, France, and the United Kingdom voted against the resolution, while other nuclear states, including the United States, abstained.

The resolution “Nuclear War Effects and Scientific Research,” sponsored by Ireland and New Zealand and co-sponsored by 30 countries, was submitted in mid-October at the UN General Assembly’s First Committee on Disarmament and International Security. The effort includes establishing an independent panel of scientific experts tasked with reviewing and commissioning relevant studies and publishing a comprehensive report that includes future research needs relating to the impacts of nuclear war.

Not every country sees a need for a new study.

The United Kingdom, France, and Russia did not provide official statements explaining their votes against the resolution at the United Nations. “Nuclear war would have devastating consequences for humanity. We don’t need an independent scientific panel to tell us that,” a UK Foreign Office spokesperson told The Guardian, adding, “The UK remains fully committed to its obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). The resolution does not advance this cause.” (Article 6 of the NPT includes disarmament-related obligations of the five nuclear weapons states, as well as all non-nuclear weapons states.)

10 Takeaways From the Night Trump Marched Back to the White House

Reid J. Epstein

Source Link

Americans have voted former President Donald J. Trump back into the nation’s highest office four years after he fomented a riot at the Capitol to try to block his removal from power.

His election is likely to again place the country’s democracy under enormous stress. For the last decade, he has demonstrated that he has little regard for the checks and balances that have defined American government since the dawn of the republic.

Now, after Mr. Trump’s defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris, the nation faces momentous changes certain to cut across political and cultural lines. Republicans demonstrated strength all over the map and up and down the ballot. They seized control of the Senate and could retain the House. Winning both would give Mr. Trump an important source of legislative power.

As it was during Mr. Trump’s first term, the nation is set to be governed at the whims of a president with little interest in the details of policy. But under the government he assembles, major issues like abortion rights, taxation, immigration and foreign policy will be pushed hard to the right, from not only legislation and executive orders but also the inevitable appointment of Trump-friendly judges and, potentially, more Supreme Court justices.

Ukraine accuses Google of revealing locations of its military systems

Daryna Antoniuk

Source Link

Ukraine is accusing Google of exposing the locations of its military sites in recent updates to its online mapping service.

Andrii Kovalenko, the head of the counter-disinformation department at Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, said the images were spotted last week and have already been “actively distributed” by Russians. He did not provide further details about what was specifically revealed or how Moscow could use the obtained data.

In a comment to Recorded Future News on Tuesday, Kovalenko said Google hasn’t yet fixed the maps, explaining that the process to do so is not simple. He claimed the company only responded to official letters sent by Ukraine and promised to update the maps after the story became public.

Google did not respond to requests for comment at the time of publication, but the company’s representatives in Ukraine told local media the satellite images in question were taken over a year ago and came from publicly available sources.

“We consciously avoid publishing the latest images of combat zones. We take such requests very seriously and maintain ongoing communication with Ukrainian officials,” Google Ukraine said, citing the company’s official response.

What Trump’s Win Means for Crypto

Andrew R. Chow

Source Link

This election cycle, the crypto industry poured over $100 million into races across the country, hoping to assert crypto’s relevancy as a voter issue and usher pro-crypto candidates into office. On Wednesday morning, almost all of the industry’s wishes came true. Republican candidate Donald Trump, who has lavished praise upon Bitcoin this year, won handily against his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris. And crypto PACs scored major wins in House and Senate races—most notably in Ohio, where Republican Bernie Moreno defeated crypto skeptic Sherrod Brown.

As Trump’s numbers ascended on Tuesday night, Bitcoin hit a new record high, topping $75,000. Crypto-related stocks, including Robinhood Markets and MicroStrategy, also leapt upward. Enthusiasts now believe that Trump’s Administration will strip back regulation of the crypto industry, and that a favorable Congress will pass legislation that gives the industry more room to grow.

“This is a huge victory for crypto,” Kristin Smith, the CEO of the Blockchain Association, a D.C.-based lobbying group, tells TIME. “I think we've really turned a corner, and we've got the right folks in place to get the policy settled once and for all.”

The West must respond to Russia’s rapidly escalating hybrid warfare

Doug Livermore

Source Link

According to recent reports, Russia is currently stepping up its sabotage campaign across the EU as part of Moscow’s hybrid war against the West. “Russia is conducting an intensifying campaign of hybrid attacks across our allied territories, interfering directly in our democracies, sabotaging industry, and committing violence,” stated NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on November 4. “This shows that the front line in this war is no longer solely in Ukraine. Increasingly, the front line is moving beyond borders to the Baltic region, to Western Europe, and even to the high north.”

Rutte’s claims are not new. The Russian authorities have long faced accusations of everything from cyberattacks and political manipulation to the deliberate spread of disinformation to destabilize individual countries and sow discord among Western allies. Russian hybrid warfare operations are now often kinetic operations within Western countries. Incendiary devices that ignited in Germany and the United Kingdom in July 2024 were reportedly part of a covert Russian operation that aimed to start fires aboard cargo and passenger flights heading to the US and Canada.

With the Russian invasion of Ukraine now approaching the three-year mark, Moscow’s campaign of hybrid hostilities throughout the Western world appears to be escalating. As Russia’s tactics evolve, governments and security services throughout the West must work together to identify threats and counter the Kremlin.

Trump’s victory throws diplomatic bombshell into Israel's multi-front war - analysis

TOVAH LAZAROFF

Source Link

President-elect Donald Trump’s comeback victory Tuesday weakens diplomatic efforts to end Israel’s multifront wars in the short term and calls into question US long-term support for Israel’s military campaigns against Iran and its proxies.

It’s the equivalent of a diplomatic bombshell, whose chilling effects will be felt almost immediately, and which already seems to freeze such ceasefire efforts.

Trump’s policies on all issues relating to Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran will be diametrically different than his predecessor US President Joe Biden and he will chart a new course.

That knowledge alone creates chaos in a war, in which the US had taken the diplomatic lead in ceasefire initiatives and backed Israel on the diplomatic stage. It has also headed a defensive military coalition that protects Israel from Iranian missile attacks and has supported Israel with military weaponry and supplies.

Why She Lost

Michael Hirsh

Source Link

The postmortems about U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’s loss to Donald Trump in the 2024 U.S. presidential election will go on for a long time. Many books will be written, pundits’ reputations made and unmade, and academic careers launched as the polling data behind this baffling, unprecedented election are pored over for years to come. But as a first rough draft of history, there are a few ominous road markers that stand out.

After a remarkable start to her campaign, Harris failed to close the deal rhetorically. In an unfortunate echo of Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016, Harris spent far too much time trying to argue that Trump was unfit for the presidency and too little time delivering a coherent message about why she would be better. Despite overpowering Trump in their only debate on Sept. 10 and raising more than $1 billion in donations in just three months—a new record—Harris often floundered when challenged to deliver a convincing summary of her agenda on critical issues such as the economy and immigration. She also fumbled badly in explaining her flip-flops on issues such as fracking (which she once opposed and later supported, but without pointing out the simple fact that improved technology had made it environmentally safer). That led Wall Street Journal commentator Peggy Noonan to label Harris an “artless dodger.”

What does Trump's win mean for the world?

Lawrence Freedman

Source Link

What does Donald Trump’s decisive victory in the presidential election mean for the international system? No other country matches the US in its number of alliances and partnerships, or in its ability to influence others through its economic and military policies. It has prided itself as offering an exemplary vision of the best sort of society, which it encouraged others to emulate.

Yet Trump campaigned with a darker vision of a failing country let down by its elites, and promised instead nationalist remedies – anti-immigration, protectionist, and potentially isolationist. Past advisors, veterans of his first term, have warned of how he has toyed with radical and disruptive notions, such as leaving NATO. In principle he finds the very idea of alliance, that the US must come to the defence of others if attacked, is offensive. He has shown little interest in international organisations or multilateral initiatives, while climate change is a ‘hoax’ designed to undermine the US oil industry. He abandoned the Paris accords on climate change during his first term and, although Biden rejoined, he will abandon them again.

How Trump pulled off an incredible comebac

Sarah Smith

Source Link

This is surely the most dramatic comeback in US political history.

Four years after leaving the White House, Donald Trump is set to move back in, after millions of Americans voted to give him a second chance.

The election campaign was one for the history books: he survived two assassination attempts and his original opponent President Joe Biden dropped out just months before election day.

Although final votes are still being counted, the majority of Americans in key battleground states chose to vote for him, with many citing the economy and immigration as a chief concern.

His triumph comes after a spectacular fall. He refused to accept the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to Biden, and his role in trying to overturn the election results to stay in office is still being scrutinised today.

Donald Trump just won the presidency. Our experts answer the big questions about what that means for America’s role in the world.

Source Link

Get ready for the sequel. On November 6, the Associated Press declared Donald Trump the winner of the 2024 US presidential election. A transition now kicks off as world events continue to churn. When he returns to the presidency on January 20, Trump’s inbox will be full of global challenges. How will he respond? And what will the consequences be? Below, our experts provide answers across twenty-four of the most significant policy matters awaiting the next administration.

US leadership in the world

What can we expect from a Trump 2.0 foreign policy? In defense and security policy, we can anticipate a return of a “peace through strength” approach. This will mean big investments in US defense capabilities to strengthen deterrence and use force decisively if deterrence fails. Trump will rightly ask allies to contribute more to ensure US alliances in Europe and Asia have the capabilities they need.

In economic policy, we can expect a focus on fair and reciprocal trade, prioritizing addressing China’s unfair trading practices, and an unleashing of the United States’ domestic energy potential. Values will center around an “America first, but not alone” orientation that will ensure that US global engagement benefits the peace, prosperity, and freedom of the American people and, in so doing, the broader free world.

Is the reign of tech titans coming to an end?

Steven Feldstein

Source Link

On October 25, The Washington Post dropped a bombshell on its readers, announcing that it would refrain from endorsing a presidential candidate in the upcoming election. Since 1976, when The Post backed Jimmy Carter, its editorial board had issued an endorsement for every presidential election. The news ignited a firestorm. Martin Baron, the former Post editor featured in the film “Spotlight” posted on X that the newspaper’s decision was “cowardice, with democracy as its casualty.” Famed Watergate reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein said this decision “ignores The Washington Post’s own overwhelming reportorial evidence on the treat Donald Trump poses to democracy.” It quickly emerged that The Washington Post’s billionaire tech owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, had personally decided to end the paper’s decades-long practice of endorsing presidential candidates. He became a special target of derision. Robert Kagan, who resigned from the paper’s editorial board following the announcement, characterized Bezos’ decision as “clearly a sign of pre-emptive favor currying with Trump.” Many were furious that a single individual could wield such power and muzzle one of America’s most prominent media outlets. But another narrative also took hold: Bezos’ decision to stop The Post’s endorsement indicated weakness. Bezos was so concerned about the consequences of publicly siding with Kamala Harris—in case Trump were to win reelection—that he preferred to use his power to suppress the paper’s voice than risk Trump’s ire. Bezos’ choice points to a larger question playing out today: Just how much power do tech titans wield?

Is ChatGPT's new search engine OpenAI's Google 'killer'?

Theara Coleman

Source Link

OpenAI is officially throwing its hat in the search engine ring, potentially threatening Google's status as everyone's internet inquiry go-to. With the organization's chatbot ChatGPT now integrating a search engine feature dubbed SearchGPT, some experts are pondering whether this spells the end of Google.

Generative artificial intelligence has already caused shifts in the search engine ecosystem. Google has been slowly reinventing itself to keep up with the technological shift by integrating AI-generated answers at the top of their search results, a new feature dubbed "AI overviews." It has also faced some competition with the introduction of Perplexity AI, an AI-enhanced search engine that has received "more than $400 million in funding," said The Washington Post.

ChatGPT is arguably one of the biggest names in AI, but for now, "Google remains the dominant way people find information online," the Post said. Whether or not that will remain true once SearchGPT gets going is up for debate.

Quantum Computing and state-sponsored Cyber Warfare: How quantum will transform Nation-State Cyber Attacks

Guilherme Schneider

Source Link

The rise of quantum computing is more than a technological advancement; it marks a profound shift in the world of cybersecurity, especially when considering the actions of state-sponsored cyber actors. Quantum technology has the power to upend the very foundations of digital security, promising to dismantle current encryption standards, enhance offensive capabilities, and recalibrate the balance of cyber power globally. As leading nations like China, Russia, and others intensify their investments in quantum research, the potential repercussions for cybersecurity and international relations are becoming alarmingly clear.

Imagine a world where encrypted communications, long thought to be secure, could be broken in mere seconds. Today, encryption standards such as RSA or ECC rely on complex mathematical problems that would take traditional computers thousands of years to solve. Quantum computing, however, changes this equation. Using quantum algorithms like Shor’s, a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could factorize these massive numbers, effectively rendering these encryption methods obsolete.

This capability could give state actors the ability to decrypt communications, access sensitive governmental data, and breach secure systems in real time, transforming cyber espionage. Instead of months spent infiltrating networks and monitoring data flow, quantum computing could provide immediate access to critical information, bypassing traditional defenses entirely.

Hybrid Warfare: How Cyber Warfare is Transforming International Relations

Source Link

Cyber Warfare: A Rising Force on the Global Stage

In the 1990s, the concept of soft power was introduced as a "gentle" influence strategy, allowing a nation to extend its international reach through non-coercive tools, such as culture, rather than through military or economic power [1]. This concept, introduced by American political scientist Joseph Nye, has since evolved. In 2010, Nye expanded on his original idea by introducing the concept of cyber power, which he defines as “a set of resources tied to the creation, control, and communication of electronic and computer-based information, encompassing infrastructure, networks, software, or human expertise”.

Cyber power has disrupted geopolitical balance by redefining global power dynamics. Amaël Cattaruzza, President of the French National Geography Committee, likens this transformation to a shock as profound as the industrial revolutions of the 19th and 20th centuries. This shift has led to a redistribution of power among actors: Nye points out that "low entry costs, anonymity, and asymmetrical vulnerabilities" [2] enable new actors from civil society to compete with traditional state powers that once dominated the international stage. Tech giants like Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple (GAFA), along with their Chinese counterparts Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and Xiaomi (BATX), and other digital behemoths like Uber or Booking, are challenging established social hierarchies, contributing to an erosion of governmental influence [3]. Instead of losing power, this evolution prompts states to adapt their strategies to fit into this new digital ecosystem.