Economics & Business Archive

The U.S. Cyber-Consequences Unit has recently issued a report documenting how Russia supplemented its conventional war against Georgia last August with a massive, well-integrated and pre-planned information warfare campaign against Georgia’s Internet structure. The techniques were so successful that the unit has restricted distribution of the full report to U.S. government and certain other Internet security professionals. Only the executive summary (pdf) has been made available to the public. The U.S. Cyber-Consequences Unit is independent, non-profit research institute affiliated with the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. The report’s main author, John Bumgarner, directs research at the […]

When the global financial crisis struck roughly a year ago, the blogosphere was ablaze with all sorts of scary predictions of, and commentary regarding, ensuing conflict and wars — a rerun of the Great Depression leading to world war, as it were. Now, as global economic news brightens and recovery — surprisingly led by China and emerging markets — is the talk of the day, it’s interesting to look back over the past year and realize how globalization’s first truly worldwide recession has had virtually no impact whatsoever on the international security landscape. None of the more than three-dozen ongoing […]

We hear a lot of talk nowadays about the structural imbalance in global trade: namely, the West needs to spend less and export more (Germany excluded) and the East needs to export less and spend more (China especially). What we don’t talk about much are the structural deficits that currently stand in the way of rising Asia’s collective ascension to the role of established third pillar of global order. Instead, we place too much hope on China’s unique abilities to scale that mountain on its own, while simultaneously fearing that Beijing’s resulting ambitions will ultimately prove globally destabilizing. Ever since […]

For a variety of reasons, over the last several months the issue of cyber security has been prominently covered in the U.S. news media. But for more than a decade, the vulnerability of networked computer systems has been considered by policymakers, with worst-case scenarios running from “Electronic Pearl Harbor” to the more recent rhetorical refresh of “Cyber Katrina.” The Obama Administration and a number of congressional leaders have made preliminary moves to craft a strategy for defending the country’s computer networks, but policymaking interest may outpace technical reality. As a nation, we want to be prepared for cyberwar, but we […]

TORONTO — Canada is regarded as a refugee’s paradise. Indeed, the federal government never misses an opportunity to tout the country’s ever increasing immigrant population, thanks to annual record-breaking admittance of foreigners. Last year, 519,722 newcomers were admitted, a 21 percent increase from the previous year’s 429,649. This has been the trend since the turn of the millennium, according to Citizenship and Immigration Canada. However, a breakdown of the numbers reveals that 247,202 of those admitted last year were landed immigrants, 193,061 were temporary foreign workers and 79,459 were foreign students. Refugee numbers are rarely included in the annual statistics. […]

The American defense community has properly reacted with nonchalance to the appearance of two Russian nuclear-powered submarines off the U.S. East Coast. Neither the submarines nor the rest of the Russian Navy presently represent a major threat to the United States. In a formal statement, the U.S. Northern Command confirmed the subs’ unusual presence, but pointed out they remained outside U.S. territorial waters and engaged in legally permissible transit and other non-threatening activities. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell later explained that, “So long as they are operating in international waters, as, frankly, we do around the world, and are behaving in […]

Speaking in Accra, Ghana, last month, President Barack Obama declared, “The 21st century will be shaped by what happens not just in Rome or Moscow or Washington, but by what happens in Accra, as well.” His speech was designed to highlight America’s commitment to Africa and the opportunity for closer relations. On the heels of Obama’s trip to Ghana, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Africa this week. Her seven-nation tour — with stops in Kenya, South Africa, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Liberia, and Cape Verde — will take her to hot spots and powerful […]

Driven by food security concerns, governments around the world have begun purchasing land in developing nations for agricultural purposes. Foreign land acquisition — known by critics as “land grab” — responds to worries over global problems that include growing water scarcity, teeming populations, increasing demand for food and bio-fuels, and climate change impacting arable land and its productivity. This trend necessitates an international framework or code of conduct that can protect small local farmers as well as the economy and the ecology of the host country from potentially negative impacts. Such a code would seek to resolve the question of […]