The ISN at this year’s Global Media Forum
Bonn is hosting the second Global Media Forum (GMF), 3-5 June, organized by Deutsche Welle, Germany’s international broadcaster. The forum addresses conflict prevention in the multimedia age, with the...
View ArticleGlobal Media Forum Day 2: What is InJo?
“Innovation Journalism” (InJo) – the word combination does not yield any Google search results before 2002. The term was truly – and academically – introduced in 2003 by Stanford Professor David...
View ArticleIt’s the singularity, stupid!
Ray Kurzweil’s talk at a recent TED convention makes compulsive viewing for anyone interested in how information technology could shape our world. Anyone unfamiliar with Kurzweil’s work would do well...
View ArticleNew Keyword: Nanotechnology
We just added a new keyword to our content classification system: Nanotechnology. Now how is this relevant to the International Relations community, you may ask. Chatham House, the venerable British IR...
View ArticleCaution To the Wind: Engaging Terrorists Online
There has been a bit of a buzz in the counter-terrorism (CT) blogshere during the past month due to two notable exchanges between bloggers and prominent members of violent non-state groups that utilize...
View ArticleShocking Satellite Photos Open New Avenues for Conflict Prevention and Response
Within a week after sectarian riots and arson attacks tore through central Myanmar, conflict monitors and human rights advocates could see the damage via satellite images and tally the number of...
View ArticleGlobal Media Forum Day 3: Serious Games
Ever since the earliest of ages, the human being has been a player. The Dutch historian Johan Huizinga knew what he was writing when he entitled his 1938 book “Homo Ludens“. Huizinga defines the...
View ArticleWould You Download a Weapon?
3-D printing, while unknown to most of the public, has been around for quite a while. Its industrial applications range from rapid prototyping and archaeological reconstructions to medical uses in...
View ArticlePre-crime Identification – the FAST Program
The Department of Homeland Security seems to be developing technologies reminiscent of the pre-crime unit depicted in Phillip K. Dick’s “Minority Report”. The department’s so-called “FAST” project —...
View ArticleInevitable Transhumanism? How Emerging Strategic Technologies will affect the...
It is ironic and indeed counterintuitive that our own human nature has a huge potential to drive us towards physical and cognitive enhancements that may completely alter the characteristics of our...
View ArticleStudying Somalia’s War Economy From Outer Space
When we look at images of civil war such as the recent images from Syria, our gut response is that such destruction and suffering cannot and should not last. Surely war is a ‘means to an end’—and once...
View ArticleFrom Russia without Love: Russia Resumes Weapons Sales to China
In March 2013, Russian and Chinese media reported that Beijing was acquiring significant quantities of advanced military equipment from Russia. Among the multi-billion dollar systems to be bought by...
View ArticleReview – Cybersecurity and Cyberwar
Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know By: P. W. Singer and Allan Friedman New York: Oxford University Press, 2014 The year 2013 saw a number of headline news stories featuring a...
View ArticleCloaks of Invisibility: The Latest Frontier in Military Technology
Fiction and reality have meshed to incredible extents in the past decades, and it is no longer a surprise to see sci-fi-inspired inventions used in everyday life. The military field has been no...
View ArticleWhat Does “Small Footprint” Really Mean?
This article was originally published by War on the Rocks on 13 March 2014. There will be no more large-scale American counterinsurgency operations. At least, that’s what the Obama administration’s...
View ArticleIt’s Time for a Backup to GPS
This article was originally published by the Atlantic Council on April 16, 2014. If you’re not a space geek, you probably didn’t notice the total failure of the Russian satellite navigation system...
View ArticleVirtual Conflict as Cultural Catharsis: Re-fighting Vietnam 2.0
This article was originally published by Strife on 12 June 2014. Storytelling is a core part of how we communicate with each other, understand complex issues and come to terms with the world around us....
View ArticleEmerging Technologies: Security and Regulatory Concerns
Scientific research is no stranger to the battlefield. Technological breakthroughs have often started off in military research labs or prompted by military funding. The trend caught momentum during the...
View ArticleOffset 3.0, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Commercial Technology
This article was originally published by War on the Rocks on 17 November, 2014. It is part of the Beyond Offset series, a collaborative project between War on the Rocks and the Center for a New...
View ArticleWhat Are the Ethical Implications of Emerging Tech?
This article was originally published by Agenda, a blog operated by the World Economic Forum, on 4 March, 2015. In the past four decades, technology has fundamentally altered our lives: from the way we...
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