Assessing the Efficacy of the India-Pakistan Agreement on Prohibition of Attack against Nuclear Installations/Facilities

Nasir Mehmood

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Introduction

Fighting around nuclear power plants during the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and debates about military strikes on Iran’s controversial nuclear program have highlighted resurging temptations to treat nuclear facilities as regular military targets. Attacks on nuclear sites would pose strategic risks as well as grave humanitarian and environmental consequences. These threats also highlight the limitations of relying on International Humanitarian Law (IHL), norms, and opponents’ self-restraint to spare nuclear facilities during international conflicts.

India and Pakistan, known for their enduring rivalry, signed an innovative 1988 agreement prohibiting attacks against each other’s nuclear installations and facilities.1 For the last three and a half decades on the 1 st of January each year, the two rivals have exchanged the coordinates of sites covered by the Non-Attack Agreement without discriminating between those used for peaceful and military purposes.2 The Non-Attack Agreement is the oldest and longest-surviving nuclear arms control agreement in India and Pakistan’s diplomatic history. Some commentators have cited the Indo-Pakistan agreement as a model for putting nuclear energy facilities and other nuclear sites off-limits for attacks during peacetime and war.

Setback In Sino-Indian Relations Due To Fresh Territorial And Water Disputes – Analysis

P. K. Balachandran

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Recent cartographic changes by China and its decision to dam a river in Tibet have raised the hackles in New Delhi putting recent arrived détente under strain.

Last year, regional rivals India and China reached an agreement on border patrolling, reducing tension in the Eastern Ladakh sector. Prior to that in July, the Indian government’sEconomic Survey said that “to boost Indian manufacturing and plug India into the global supply chain, it is inevitable that India plugs itself into China’s supply chain. Whether we do so by relying solely on imports or partially through Chinese investments is a choice that India has to make.”

The border détente and the idea to allow Chinese investments were interpreted as early signs of a rapprochement between the two countries that were involved in an interminable border dispute and relentless jostling for supremacy in South Asia.

But as 2025 dawned, cracks appeared in the relationship. China decided to form two “Counties” called He’an and Hekang, in the Xinjiang province, parts of which fell in the Indian territory of Ladakh. India conveyed its protest to China about the establishment of these Counties on its territory. For India this was yet another case of China’s cartographic aggression. China had earlier given its own names to various places in the Indian State of Arunachal Pradesh which it claims is “Southern Tibet” and, therefore, a part of China.

SAS had golden pass to get away with murder, inquiry told

Joel Gunter, Hannah O'Grady, and Rory Tinman

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A former senior UK Special Forces officer has told a public inquiry into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan that the SAS had a "golden pass allowing them to get away with murder".

The accusation was published by the Afghanistan Inquiry on Wednesday as part of a release of material summarising seven closed hearings with members of UK Special Forces.

The senior officer was one of several who registered concerns back in 2011 that the SAS appeared to be carrying out executions and covering them up.

The inquiry, which is examining night raids by UKSF between 2010 and 2013, follows years of reporting by BBC Panorama into allegations of murder and cover up by the SAS.

In one email from the time, the officer wrote that the SAS and murder were "regular bedfellows" and described the regiment's official descriptions of operational killings as "quite incredible".

Asked by the inquiry during the closed hearings whether he stood by his assertion that the SAS's actions amounted to murder, the officer replied: "Indeed."

The Flawed U.S. Exit from Afghanistan in 2021: Lessons Not Learned

Monte Erfourth

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Introduction

The United States' withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 was marked by chaos, tragedy, and widespread criticism, both domestically and internationally. The 20-year war ended with harrowing scenes at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport: desperate Afghans clinging to departing planes, the deadly bombing that killed 13 U.S. service members, and the abrupt Taliban takeover of the capital. Analyzing the factors leading to the disastrous withdrawal reveals a confluence of strategic missteps, intelligence failures, and political decisions. These decisions tragically often mirrored the strategic failure of Vietnam.

A Compressed Timeline

The 2021 withdrawal’s chaos stems from decisions made years earlier. In February 2020, the Trump administration signed the Doha Agreement with the Taliban, committing to a full U.S. troop withdrawal by May 2021 in exchange for Taliban promises to sever ties with al-Qaeda and negotiate with the Afghan government. Critics argued that the deal gave the Taliban significant leverage without ensuring enforceable guarantees. Despite these warnings, the agreement accelerated the momentum for withdrawal.

Pakistan: Rekindling Terror In Punjab – Analysis

Tushar Ranjan Mohanty

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On January 2, 2025, the Punjab Police (Pakistan) released its annual performance report for 2024, highlighting significant achievements in apprehending criminals and ensuring public safety. Over 137,000 fugitives and proclaimed offenders involved in serious crimes were arrested across the province, including Lahore. Among them, 104 dangerous fugitives evading justice abroad were extradited to Pakistan. The report reveals that more than 26,000 A-category and over 111,000 B-category criminals were apprehended in 2024. Furthermore, over 66,000 judicial absconders were arrested, comprising 6,907 in the A-category and 59,373 in the B-category. Intelligence-based operations (IBOs) also led to the arrest of over 35,000 habitual offenders, including 15,154 from the A-category and 20,485 from the B-category.

While Police in the province were racking up achievements relating to crimes and criminals, terrorism-related incidents in Punjab, Pakistan’s heartland province, recorded a rise in 2024, after a continuous decline over the preceding seven years, since 2017. According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), Punjab recorded a total of 59 terrorism-linked fatalities [Nine civilians, four Security Force (SF) personnel and 46 terrorists] in 27 terrorism-related incidents of killing in 2024, as against 48 fatalities (Seven civilians, four SF personnel and 37 terrorists) in 15 terrorism-related incidents of killing in 2023. Overall fatalities thus registered a 23 per cent increase. It is useful to recall, however, that the highest terrorism-related fatalities in the province were reported in 2013, at 1,656. Year 2022 registered just 11 terrorism-related fatalities (10 civilians and one terrorist), the lowest in the province since the commencement of its tryst with terrorism. The highest terrorism-related fatalities in the province were reported in 2013, at 1,656.

Know Your Rival, Know Yourself

Jude Blanchette and Ryan Hass

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Ever since the United States ascended to global leadership at the end of World War II, American leaders have regularly been stricken by bouts of anxiety that the country is in decline and losing ground to a rival. The Soviet Union’s 1957 launch of the Sputnik satellite prompted such fears, as did Soviet expansionism in the 1960s. In the 1980s, Washington was seized by the worry that American industry was incapable of competing with Japan’s economic juggernaut. Even in 1992, just after the Soviet Union collapsed, an article in the Harvard Business Review asked, “Is America in Decline?”

Today, this perception of decline is wedded to fears about new vulnerabilities in the U.S. democratic system and the burgeoning strength of China. Both of these concerns have merit. Although U.S. voters disagree on the sources of the threats to American democracy, they broadly express an anxiety that their country’s democratic institutions can no longer deliver on the American dream’s promises. An October Gallup poll found that three-quarters of Americans were dissatisfied with their country’s trajectory.

Trump Will Put the US and China Back on a Collision Course

IAN BREMMER

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US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, managed to keep US-China tensions contained in 2024. But when Donald Trump returns to the White House this month, he will end this fragile stability, drive an unmanaged decoupling of the world’s most important geopolitical relationship, and increase the risk of global economic disruption and crisis.

Trump will begin his second term by announcing fresh tariffs on Chinese goods, with the goal of forcing a new economic agreement on China. Though the new tariffs won’t reach the across-the-board 60% rate that he threatened during the campaign, the top rate on all Chinese imports is likely to double, to about 25% by the end of 2025. In the meantime, China’s leaders will respond more forcefully and offer fewer concessions than they did during Trump’s first term, despite the Chinese economy’s continuing weakness.

After all, Chinese leaders fear that a conciliatory approach will be perceived as accepting national humiliation, which would further stoke already-rising public anger within China. If a more constructive approach toward the United States in 2024 only brought the return of “Tariff Man,” why stick to that path? Trump’s threats are merely the latest aggressive gesture by the US, confirming Chinese suspicions that American policymakers are intent on containing China’s emergence as a great power.

Tehran’s proxies are on the back foot. An Iran-Russia defense pact could revive them - Opinion

Delaney Soliday and Shivane Anand

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The sudden collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government in December 2024 has led many to focus on Russia, and its inability or unwillingness to prioritize Syria due to the conflict in Ukraine. But focusing too much on Russia understates the role that Iran, and more specifically Tehran’s proxies, played in propping up Assad. After all, Russia has been at war for almost three years, but it was only when Hezbollah was preoccupied with its war against Israel and Iran was no longer willing to spare resources to prop up the failing dictator that Assad’s regime finally crumbled.

Under the proposed “comprehensive strategic partnership” between Moscow and Tehran, we are likely to see the Iran-Russia relationship strengthen over time, not just on a conventional level but in terms of Moscow’s support for Iran’s proxy forces. A renegotiated defense treaty is likely to result in Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iranian-backed Iraqi militias playing a more outsized role in the Iran-Russia relationship.

With a renewed “all-encompassing” Iran-Russia defense agreement, Iran is likely to budget more funds for its overseas proxies and increase weapons shipments, creating new opportunities for Russia to tap sources of black-market weapons and skirt sanctions. Russia has started doing this already on a small scale; in March and April 2022, Iran-backed Hashd al-Sha’bi militants shipped Iranian rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), anti-tank missiles, and Brazilian Astros II rocket launchers to Russia by sea, which were later used in Ukraine.

Fall Of Syrian Regime And Regional Implications – Analysis

Amb. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Arben P. Cici

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While the world’s eyes and attention were focused on the new Trump administration, the consequences of its policies after January 21 in Ukraine, and the raging fires of the Middle East, a new fire flared up and died down in the blink of an eye in Syria. A pending issue took suddenly an unexpected turn.

On December 8, 2024, the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime marked a historic and decisive turning point in the Syrian civil war, after nearly 14 years of conflict. This sudden defeat, despite the regime’s growing difficulties, was accelerated by the rapid and coordinated advance of rebel groups, in particular Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which launched a determined offensive from Idlib province, in the northwest of the country. The offensive, which began on November 27, 2024, benefited from the strategic and military support of Turkey, a regional power directly involved in the Syrian dynamic for several years.

A. A POST-ASSAD SYRIA

The offensive enabled the rebels to quickly take control of the main cities and strategic urban centers of “useful Syria” – including Aleppo, Hama, Homs and eventually Damascus. The capture of the Syrian capital was the final blow to the regime, which had been weakened by years of bloody fighting, international sanctions and significant military and economic exhaustion. Assad’s overthrow was further facilitated by the gradual withdrawal of his main international supporters: Russia and Iran. These two powers, which had actively supported the regime since 2015, notably through military interventions and financial aid, gradually reduced their support for various political, strategic and economic reasons, including their reorientation towards other regional or international priorities.

America Is Locked in a New Class War

Adam Tooze

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Exit polls from the U.S. presidential election indicated an approximate 15-point swing toward Donald Trump among voters earning less than $50,000 a year, the poorest block of voters in the United States. For the first time since the 1960s, a majority of Americans in that low-income bracket voted Republican. At the other end of the scale, the most affluent voters shifted to the Democrats. According to voter surveys and exit polls, Vice President Kamala Harris scored a majority of votes from those making above $100,000 a year—the top third of the income distribution.

One might wonder whether this means that the materialist class analysis of the classic kind has been turned on its head. Are we witnessing a fundamental realignment? Or is it even helpful to think in terms of “classes” voting? As the historian Tim Barker has remarked about last year’s election, “Perhaps the safest thing to say is that the working class, as a class, didn’t do anything. The vote is evidence of dealignment, not realignment: voters below $100,000 split basically down the middle.”

Europe Somehow Still Depends on Russia’s Energy - Analysis

Paul Hockenos

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Russia’s brutal, illegal war on Ukraine is lumbering into its fourth year, yet Europe still hasn’t used all its leverage against Moscow. Despite far-reaching cutbacks that have transformed global energy markets—and the European Union’s pledge to terminate all energy deals with Russia by 2027—the continent still maintains multifarious links to the Russian energy sector. Several European countries have failed to completely sever their energy ties to Russia, and the notoriously pro-Russian governments of Hungary and Slovakia are among them—but they are not alone. In 2024, only Slovakia deposited more into Russian accounts for fossil fuels than France, followed by Hungary, Austria, and Spain.

A December report from the Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD) concluded, “Although Russian fossil fuel exports to the West have decreased, glaring loopholes in the sanctions’ regime persist.” Nowhere are the failings more prominent than with liquified natural gas (LNG). In 2024, the EU imported a record 16.5 million metric tons of LNG from Russia, surpassing the 15.2 million in 2023.

The U.S. Surgeon General Has One Last Piece of Advice

Alice Park

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Dr. Vivek Murthy served two terms as U.S. Surgeon General—first under former President Obama, then under President Biden. During his tenure, Murthy was a calm and reassuring voice during COVID-19, one of the biggest health challenges the country has faced in recent years.

But most of the time, the "nation's doctor" highlighted public-health issues that usually fly under the radar: loneliness, gun violence, the dangers of social media, overwhelming parental stress.

As he prepares to leave office, Murthy wrote a "parting prescription" for the country, reflecting what he feels Americans need most to become healthier and happier. In an interview (lightly edited for clarity and length), Murthy shared with TIME his learnings and his hopes for the health of the nation.

TIME: Is a "parting prescription" a tradition for Surgeon Generals to leave behind?

Murthy: It’s not a tradition that I’m aware of. But for me, this was important to do. I realized over two terms that there were critical questions I have been grappling with. What was driving the deeper pain, the unhappiness I was seeing for years across the country?

I wanted to lay out some of the answers I have found and the path I hope we can travel down as a country to help us be healthier, happier, and more fulfilled. To me, this is the synthesis of the most important learnings that I have taken away from conversations with people all across the country, and from science and research that I have seen over my two terms.

How Canada Fell Out of Love With Trudeau

Stephen Maher

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Justin Trudeau had a special bond with Canadians, who had known him since he was born, on Christmas Day in 1971, as the son of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

That bond helped him get his Dad’s old job. In his first federal election as Liberal leader in 2015, his Conservative opponents warned Canadians that he was a lightweight, a celebrity with nice hair but no relevant work experience. Yet Trudeau had grown up in public, and he brought a welcome dose of glamor to the humdrum world of Canadian politics. Voters liked him, felt they knew him, and decided to give him a chance, in the form of a majority government.

It was a remarkable triumph, unprecedented in Canadian politics. Trudeau—a former high school teacher with an unimpressive resume—managed to take his Liberal Party from third place in 2011, its worst showing in history, to first with a resounding mandate, an echo of the “Trudeaumania” that gripped the country when his father won government in 1968.

Justin’s election was a restoration of his father’s vision of Canada as a bilingual, multicultural northern social welfare state. But in the place of his father’s Jesuitical intellectual precision, he brought glamour, openness, and fun. Trudeau promised Canadians “sunny ways” after a decade of dour, business-oriented Conservative government, and successfully pursued an ambitious progressive agenda, winning two more elections. But after nine tumultuous years as Canada’s leader, he was forced to announce his resignation on Monday to avoid a revolt from Liberal Members of Parliament, who are facing certain defeat in an election that must be called by October.

Cold Comfort: The Latest Attacks on America Follow a Familiar Playbook

Brian Michael Jenkins and Bruce Butterworth

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The tragic pickup truck ramming in New Orleans and the subsequent explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck in Las Vegas remind us that terrorist threats remain a deadly reality in the United States.

There are no indications yet that the two attacks were coordinated. More likely, they are coincidental, although that will not prevent linking them to advance political agendas or conspiracy theories. The coincidence contributes to greater public apprehension.

In the coming days, we will learn more about the perpetrators—motivation, collaborators, funding. For now, it is clear that the New Orleans attack was intended to cause high casualties. It did.

The attack in Las Vegas resulted in the death of the driver and injuries to bystanders, but the vehicle used (manufactured by Tesla) and the venue chosen (a Trump Hotel) suggest a political message.

Both attacks were premeditated, indicated by advanced preparations. The attacker in New Orleans rented a vehicle, acquired firearms, and built explosive devices. The FBI believes they worked alone.

Taking a page from Ukraine war, SDF carves out growing role for drones

Gabriel Dominguez

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Faced with an increasingly fraught security environment, rapid changes in modern warfare and dwindling troop numbers, the Self-Defense Forces have begun incorporating what they hope will be affordable yet game-changing technologies that could give them an edge in any future conflict: drones.

Whether for use in the air, on land or at sea, the SDF is gradually integrating these increasingly capable and often autonomous systems into their units as Japan takes lessons from the war in Ukraine on how the assets can act as force multipliers while minimizing human losses and operate continuously for long periods.

“It is safe to say that the unprecedented scale of unmanned aerial vehicle deployments in the Ukraine war, and their effectiveness, has been an important driver behind the interest in UAVs,” said Naoko Aoki, a Japan expert and political scientist at the Rand Corp.

“Everyone, including Japan’s potential adversaries, is looking at the role UAVs are playing in that conflict and trying to learn from it.”

Securing Supply Chain Resilience Requires a Common Vocabulary and Vision

Karl Buschmann and Fabian Villalobos

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The Biden Administration started sounding the alarm about America's supply chains just weeks after taking office in 2021 with an Executive Order, followed by the launch of the Council on Supply Chain Resilience in 2023 and additional instructions in 2024. While progress has been made on strengthening the resilience of supply chains, other gains are being left on the table. One reason why: The public and private sectors do not use a common vocabulary, leading to incomplete or misaligned incentives, priorities, and perspectives. It's time for a common vocabulary and vision. Fortunately, the inaugural Quadrennial Supply Chain Review of December 2024 lays the groundwork for an “enduring vision” for the incoming administration and for a truly common vocabulary and vision.

Let's define terms. In its simplest form, resilience is the ability to bounce back from large-scale disruption, according to supply chain expert and MIT professor Yossi Sheffi. On that much, the private sector and government agree.

However, a disconnect occurs when it comes to the term “supply chain.” In private industry, the supply chain is about logistics, transportation, distribution, and warehousing. However, in government circles, the phrase is used to indicate what industry would refer to as a “value chain (PDF)”— the multiple steps and companies that develop and assemble products. As a result, policy conversations about reshoring, derisking, and diversification focus on firm ownership, trade policy, and the role of the government in the economy. Fortunately, transportation and logistics, which are central elements to resilience in global trade, have been addressed in the “Quadrennial Supply Chain Review.”

Migration Can Work for All

Amy Pope

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Across the world, a backlash to immigration is remaking politics. In election after election, voters have backed candidates who promise to do whatever is necessary to stop the flow of unauthorized arrivals and, in many cases, send millions back to their countries of origin, no matter how war-torn or desperate. Anti-immigrant politicians and activists spread disinformation to suggest that countries are being invaded by waves of undocumented migrants. Images of migrant caravans, rickety boats at sea, and chaos at borders suggest that authorities have lost control of the migration system as a whole. With these images repeated on social media

The Internet Is Worse Than a Brainwashing Machine

Charlie Warzel and Mike Caulfield

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Try to remember for a moment how you felt on January 6, 2021. Recall the makeshift gallows erected on the Capitol grounds, the tear gas, and the sound of the riot shields colliding with hurled flagpoles. If you rewatch the video footage, you might remember the man in the Camp Auschwitz sweatshirt idling among the intruders, or the image of the Confederate flag flying in the Capitol Rotunda. The events of that day are so documented, so memed, so firmly enmeshed in our recent political history that accessing the shock and rage so many felt while the footage streamed in can be difficult. But all of it happened: men and women smashing windows, charging Capitol police, climbing the marbled edifice of one of America’s most recognizable national monuments in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

It is also hard to remember that—for at least a moment—it seemed that reason might prevail, that those in power would reach a consensus against Donald Trump, whose baseless claims of voter fraud incited the attack. Senator Lindsey Graham, a longtime Trump ally, was unequivocal as he voted to certify President Joe Biden’s victory that night: “All I can say is count me out. Enough is enough.” The New York Post, usually a pro-Trump paper, described the mob as “rightists who went berserk in Washington.” Tech platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, which had generally allowed Trump to post whatever he wanted throughout his presidency, temporarily suspended his accounts from their service. “We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote then.

A Clearer Mirror: The Promise of Combat Training Center Data

Jon Bate and Theo Lipsky

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How can the Army know itself? In November 1976 this question was on the mind of Major General Paul Gorman, the deputy chief of staff for training at US Army Training and Doctrine Command. That month he told a gathered audience at Fort Monmouth that the Army struggled to know itself because it did “not have a lot of data being turned in by ordinary units trying to do their job in a well simulated operational environment.” So Gorman proposed a radical solution that he and his influential boss, General William DePuy, had been developing: the construction of a giant combat simulation in the wilderness to train soldiers and collect that data. With such data, the Army could learn the ground truth about the state of its operational force, as if gazing in a costly but unprecedentedly clear mirror. In doing so, it could learn what worked best in simulated war, and so ready itself for the next real one.

Though the Army has built the combat training centers that Gorman proposed and so gained its clear mirrors, it does not currently look at them. That is because the Army does not systematically collect data from those training centers owing to ambiguities in regulation. To meet the current interwar moment, to transform in contact now, the Army must capture rotational training unit performance in a structured, quantified, and regular way. The task is urgent because regular training center rotations reveal the true state of operational force as no report or inspection can. In doing so these rotations point the way to needed reform, but only if studied in the aggregate. Qualitative observations of the sort one finds in reports from the Center for Army Lessons Learned alone are insufficient. Longitudinal, structured data is also needed.

Stress Test :Can a Troubled Order Survive a Disruptive Leader?

Margaret MacMillan

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Historians are skittish about predicting the future, and not only because there are too many variables and possibilities. It is also not always easy to grasp the significance of events when you are in the middle of them. When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, people grasped at once that a new era had started. But few Europeans foresaw that the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in June 1914 would precipitate a terrifying, continent-spanning war in which more than 16 million people would be killed, and even tech experts did not understand the significance of the iPhone when Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs, unveiled it in 2007.

Since Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election last November, it has been hard not to think of Isaac Asimov’s classic science fiction trilogy, The Foundation, published just at the end of World War II. In it, humanity’s future has been largely tamed by a brilliant mathematician who uses statistical laws to control human behavior and protect against catastrophic events, ensuring what is supposed to be benevolent and stable rule for centuries. But these assumptions are shattered by the appearance of the Mule, a mutant with extraordinary powers and millions of devoted followers, who threatens to overturn the order and bring back unpredictability.

European AI Regulation: Opportunities, Risks, and Future Scenarios from a Metropolitan Perspective

Marta Galceran-Vercher

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Social and technological innovation is crucial for responding to people’s needs and moving towards more inclusive and equitable local governments. Break-through technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) open up new opportunities for improving the provision of public services and managing some of the more urgent problems, among them sustainable mobility, energy transition, responsible use of water, and pollution reduction. In the coming years increasing use of AI will lead to transformation of the various branches of public administration, which will need to be prepared to deal with new challenges and risks associated with extensive use of algorithmic systems. It should be borne in mind, moreover, that local governments have a double responsibility as both “consumers” of technological solutions and “regulators” which must guarantee the development of a safe, ethical framework that would respect the laws currently in force, be compatible with social and cultural norms, and put people at the centre.

In this regard, the PAM 2024-2027 (Metropolitan Action Plan of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona) has pinpointed AI as one of the main focuses of future metropolitan policies. Metropolitan cities must be prepared to adopt algorithm-based solutions and to manage the risks this might entail, but they must also promote policy measures that would allow them to compete, and to attract and retain talent in order to advance the consolidation of the Barcelona Metropolitan Area as a digital metropolis. All this should be done bearing in mind the regulatory context in which they operate which, in future, will be conditioned by the recently approved EU Regulation on Artificial Intelligence (known as the AI Act), and also by geopolitical trends on the global scale.

The Race to Lead the Quantum Future

Charina Chou, James Manyika, and Hartmut Neven

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Over the last several years, as rapid advances in artificial intelligence have gained enormous public attention and critical scrutiny, another crucial technology has been evolving largely out of public view. Once confined to the province of abstract theory, quantum computing seeks to use operations based on quantum mechanics to crack computational problems that were previously considered unsolvable. Although the technology is still in its infancy, it is already clear that quantum computing could have profound implications for national security and the global economy in the decades to come.

Since the late 2010s, the United States and many other advanced countries have become increasingly involved in the race for leadership in quantum information science and technology, a field that encompasses quantum computing, quantum communications, and quantum sensing. Over the last decade, governments in 20 countries have announced investments in quantum development totaling more than $40 billion worldwide; China alone has committed to spend $15.3 billion over five years. In 2016, Beijing designated the development of quantum technologies as a national priority, and it has created advanced hubs for production. For its part, the United States, in 2018, enacted the National Quantum Initiative, legislation aimed at maintaining the country’s technological and scientific lead in quantum information and its applications. The U.S. government has announced $3.7 billion in unclassified funding, plus more funding for defense research and development. In addition to government-led initiatives, multiple research and development efforts are underway in the private sector and academia.

Emerging technologies and challenges to nuclear stability

Steve Fetter & Jaganath Sankaran

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Technology has long been an important factor in international security, influencing the balance between offense and defense and the strategies that states adopt to ensure their survival and security. National security, in turn, has been a driver of scientific discovery and technological innovation, and defense and intelligence are often among the first applications for new technologies. This has been particularly true in the nuclear domain, where the discovery of fission on the eve of World War II led to the development of nuclear weapons, and over subsequent decades stimulated the development of computers for weapon design, long-range jet aircraft and rockets for weapon delivery, nuclear reactors for naval propulsion, satellites to monitor adversary forces and warn of attack, and communication systems that could operate through a nuclear attack, including an early version of the Internet. Many observers believe we have entered a new era of technological innovation – a fourth industrial revolution. Like previous industrial revolutions, this one is certain to have implications for international security. The first industrial revolution was powered by coal for the production of iron and the mass production of rifles and artillery; the telegraph and steampowered railroads and ships enabled the rapid movement of information, troops, and supplies across large distances – technologies first employed on a large scale in the American Civil War. The second industrial revolution was powered by oil and electricity for the production of chemicals and steel and assembly-line production of tanks, ships, airplanes, and radios – technologies that characterized the first and second World Wars. The third industrial revolution was powered by computers, satellites, and lasers for the collection, analysis, storage, and transmission of data across worldwide networks; it produced the technologies noted above that characterized the Cold War.

Combating Disinformation: The Policy Framework

Akın Ünver & Ekin Balkan

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INTRODUCTION

Disinformation is not a new challenge for societies. Today, however, combating disinformation has become crucial as a result of structural changes in the information ecosystem. In particular, with the rise of digital news media and the proliferation of social media, the speed at which information spreads and its impact on the masses are important dynamics that increase the impact of disinformation, however it should be noted that the changes brought about by digital news media and social media platforms are not limited to these. Due to fewer constraints on content than traditional media, the removal of the requirement for content producers to be professionals, the anonymity of these content creators, social media and the digital landscape already dramatically facilitate the production and dissemination of disinformation. Moreover, the fact that consumers also play an important role in disseminating information on social platforms and in determining what other consumers see further increases both the social and political impact of disinformation. As a direct consequence, the abundance of online content, as many studies have shown, has a negative impact on consumers' attention span and cognitive abilities and thus risks making people more vulnerable to disinformation.

Artificial Intelligence: Promises, Risks, and Regulation: Something New Under the Sun

Luís Roberto Barroso

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INTRODUCTION: THE DAWN OF THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

1. A BRAVE NEW WORLD

A new Industrial Revolution looms on the horizon. The first took place in the mid-18th century and was characterized by the use of steam as a source of energy. The second Industrial Revolution, spanning the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was defined by electricity and the internal combustion engine. The third, in the late 20th century, saw digital technology replacing analog, ushering in the Technological or Digital Revolution, marked by the universal use of personal computers, smartphones, and the Internet, connecting billions worldwide.5 Now, the fourth Industrial Revolution is beginning to permeate our lives, combining AI, bio-technology, and the pervasive use of the Internet. This creates an interconnected ecosystem that encompasses people, objects, and even pets, forming an Internet of Things and Senses.

In this unraveling world, new technologies can perform our simplest day-to-day activities as well as highly complex tasks. They can clean rooms, regulate temperatures, and soon may drive cars autonomously.7 These technologies promise to reenable lost bodily movements,8 provide more accurate medical diagnoses,9 overcome neurological deficiencies, expand cognitive abilities, 10create a person's “virtual twin,”11 and even reproduce a deceased individual12 and allow people to reunite with loved ones who have passed away.13 They offer care for the elderly,14 help find friends or ideal romantic partners,15 write texts in diverse languages,16 distribute welfare aid to the most vulnerable, and deliver essential public services to underprivileged areas.17 Additionally, they can predict crime and recidivism,18 improve environmental monitoring, help plan smart cities,19 estimate job applicants' performance, assess the likelihood of loan defaults, and foresee the development of serious illnesses,20 among other issues.