The repercussions of climate change and environmental challenges pose enormous risks to Iran and Saudi Arabia alike. While there are differences in geography and climate in  both countries, they also have many environmental challenges in common. Problems such as sand and dust storms or diminishing water resources are border-crossing phenomena that no country can deal with alone; therefore, cooperation is key. At this point in time, however, willingness to cooperate is utterly lacking in a region marked by geo-strategic rivalries, ongoing military conflicts and deep-rooted mutual distrust between regional rivals, and between Saudi Arabia and Iran in particular.

CARPO and the EastWest Institute initiated a meeting of experts from Saudi Arabia and Iran as part of their "Iran-Saudi Track 2 Initiative." The participants discussed environmental challenges to reach a better understanding of the political context and to identify opportunities and limits for Iranian-Saudi cooperation in the field of regional environmental policy. Participants agreed that climate change and ecological deterioration pose a major challenge to their countries and the region. 

Fully aware that the current political situation makes cooperation very difficult, participants discussed potential avenues of exchange below the level of national governments and proposed initiatives for cooperation on a regional and international level.

The "Iran-Saudi Dialogue" project is funded by ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen) with resources provided by the German Federal Foreign Office. This latest brief follows three previous ones: Iranian and Saudi Perspectives on the Refugee Crisis, Know Your Enemy — Iranian and Saudi Perspectives on ISIL, and Envisioning the Future: Iranian and Saudi Perspectives on the Post-Oil Economy.

Please click here for the full report.

Photo credit: "Climate Change Pffft." (CC BY-NC 2.0) by Un-Alien-able

The EastWest Institute (EWI) has released Afghan Narcotrafficking: A Joint Policy Assessment, the sixth and final report from the institute’s Joint U.S.-Russia Working Group on Afghan Narcotrafficking, which provides a comprehensive and updated assessment of the Afghan drug trade and the role that both the United States and Russia might be able to play in countering this shared threat.

The Joint Policy Assessment represents a consensus assessment by both U.S. and Russian technical and policy experts and is intended to serve as a toolkit based on which relevant stakeholders can formulate policy solutions on cooperative bilateral and multilateral measures to reduce the threat of Afghan narcotrafficking. These key stakeholders include policy officials and interlocutors in the United States, Russia, Afghanistan and its neighboring countries, as well as regional and global organizations.

“The scale and intensity of the Afghan narcotrafficking threat has increased in past years, and despite differences in the national priorities and interests of the United States and Russia, this remains an issue of mutual strategic concern for the two countries and the region as a whole,” notes Ambassador Cameron Munter, CEO & President of the EastWest Institute. “It is critical for both countries to manage and mitigate the Afghan narcotrafficking threat and foster cooperation on this issue—even in this prohibitive climate for improved U.S.-Russia relations.”

The final installment under EWI’s Afghan Narcotrafficking series, the Joint Policy Assessment follows five successful consensus-based reports: Afghan Narcotrafficking: A Joint Threat Assessment (2013); Afghan Narcotrafficking: Post-2014 Scenarios (2015); Afghan Narcotrafficking: The State of Afghanistan's Borders (2015); Afghan Narcotrafficking: Finding an Alternative to Alternative Development (2016); and Afghan Narcotrafficking: Illicit Financial Flows (2017).

Established in 2011, the Working Group has also garnered positive feedback and support from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the United States Department of State Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), the United States Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and the Federal Drug Control Service of the Russian Federation (FSKN), in addition to various multilateral organizations/agencies such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Fully committed to the critical importance of Afghanistan, and the urgent need for continued U.S.-Russia cooperation, the EastWest Institute will establish a new Joint Working Group to assess the threat of terrorism in the war-torn country. Over the course of two years, the Working Group plans to convene in Moscow, Washington, D.C., Brussels and Astana and produce a joint threat assessment, which will be disseminated to key policy officials and interlocutors.

Please click here for the full report.

Click here for the executive summary.

Bruce McConnell joined a podcast hosted by the Foreign Policy magazine on expanding global cybersecurity issues, particularly U.S. cyber policies under the Donald Trump administration.

The Editor's Roundtable podcast touched on a wide range of topics, including the Trump administration's decision to move forward with a proposal to separate U.S. Cyber Command from the National Security Agency and the possible consequences. McConnell, in essence, expressed content that this was finally making progress.

"Military and intelligence authorities are different, and it's important to keep that distinction. It's difficult enough already in cyberspace to figure out who's doing what and under what authority without compounding the problem by having an ambiguous governmental organization," he said. "I'm glad to finally see it come through."

The podcast also discussed the various aspects of cyber deterrence and cyber response to attacks in the future, using the controversial alleged Russian cyber interference in the U.S. presidential elections last year as a major case.

"Because of the way that cyber works, the barriers to entry are very low. The magnitude, because of the megaphone effect of cyber, is much bigger so it's changed the dynamic just like cyber crime. These are regular crimes which take place on the cyber domain, and it's now much easier for criminals, or in this case malicious actors of various sorts, to have an effect. We're not used to that. We don't know yet, as a policy, how to calibrate and filter," said McConnell.

Also joining the conversation were New America's Peter W. Singer and Foreign Policy's Sharon Weinberger and Elias Groll. To access in full, click here.

In the first week of June, the European Commission officially launched the European Defence Fund―a financial vehicle to support defense research and cooperation across European Union (EU) member states. This important step comes as no surprise: with the British “Brexit” referendum one year ago, and the American presidential election in November ushering a shift in U.S. foreign policy, continental European countries have felt growing concerns over NATO’s commitment to their defense. Recent geopolitical unrest has further reinforced these fears: from Russia’s conventional and hybrid threats to the rise of the Islamic State and overall instability both in the Balkans and in the Greater Middle East.

In this light, it is only natural that Europe wants to strengthen its defense cooperation to achieve more effective security, superior deterrence and wider global influence. The European Defence Fund can partially serve these goals by addressing the historical weakness of past European cooperation projects, namely the incapacity to generate economic efficiency through adequate scale (larger production runs decrease the unit cost of production). However, as we enter the Second Machine Age―the era of accelerating computer power, automation and increasing digital connectivity―three main aspects deserve attention in the context of growing geopolitical uncertainty surrounding Europe and the transatlantic alliance.

Navigating Current Realities

First, past multinational joint programs like the Tornado and the Eurofighter, often touted as signs of success, belong to history books. Though still touted as a sign of success, and pursued by national policymakers and bureaucrats in Brussels, large joint cooperative projects are unlikely to deliver the benefits they used to in the past; the growing complexity of military technology is making these programs progressively less likely to achieve their intended goals. It is becoming increasingly difficult for countries to pool together their technological expertise to deliver effective weapon systems.

Future large-scale programs, in other words, will need to have a single, capable prime contractor and individual European countries will have to accept unequal work-share agreements. Whether such a single prime contractor is a transnational European company such as Airbus (France, Spain and Germany), MBDA (France, Spain, Italy and Germany), Leonardo (Italy, UK and Poland) or Thales (France, UK and the Netherlands) or a national company able to allocate only subcontractor work abroad is a purely political decision. Work-sharing agreements that split systems integration responsibilities across many countries and companies are not going to work any longer.

Second, European countries have to leverage opportunities brought about by progress in software and processing power. The faster development cycles of payload (e.g. missiles and sensors), for instance, call for modular designs, common standards and harmonization of interfaces to enable rapid upgrade and modernization of existing platforms. So far, however, EU member states have resisted these measures, being more interested in restricting competition from foreign producers. Thus, in many realms, Europe needs market-based cooperation, not politically mandated cooperative projects. Similarly, EU countries should openly embrace the capabilities of non-traditional or commercial companies for the development of strategic capabilities, such as unmanned systems, cyber and satellites. In contrast, they have primarily tried to preserve the position of their national champions: one of the many results is that no EU country has been able to develop a single medium-altitude, long-endurance drone yet. All programs, awarded to EU heavyweights, have in fact failed thus far (see Gilli and Gilli’s chapter in the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of European Armed Forces).

Third, commercial technologies are driving innovation not only in the civilian but also in the military realm thanks to the opportunities offered by machine learning, big data and robotics. To reap the benefits of this transition, European countries must make a concerted effort to enable the exploitation of commercial technologies. To this end, European countries should keep in mind the challenges that lie ahead. For example, current regulations on Intellectual Property Rights are based on the premise that defense technology is a product of government funding. Thus, governments retain some rights over technology. Commercial companies or civil research labs are legitimately concerned that by entering the defense business, these regulations may harm their long-term economic interests. Moreover, both the defense acquisition regulations and the military procurement workforce are currently unfit for dealing with commercial technology. Innovative commercial companies do not work along the lengthy and rigid defense procurement time cycles and do not find appealing working with organizations that espouse significant compliance demands. Similarly, while the current defense procurement workforce is specialized in dealing with the defense acquisition process, it is less suited to deal with and respond to the more agile world of commercial companies. As such, appropriate reforms are needed. Finally, the potential benefits from exploiting commercial technologies will be larger if European countries pursue a concerted and harmonized approach.

Change in Step with Technology

Today, European countries require a broader range, and thus, more expensive and complex portfolio of capabilities to address the newer and broader set of threats with which they are confronted. The European Defence Fund makes several important and useful proposals in this respect. However, the current wave of technological change is undermining one of its assumptions: the centrality of joint multinational armament projects must give way to adopting a more flexible approach to technological advances. If European countries want to enhance their military capabilities, it will require a paradigm shift in the way Europe perceives and handles technology, industry and procurement. It is a daunting prospect but one that is inevitable if Europe wants to afford the broader set of capabilities and closer degree of collaboration that a bigger security role requires.

Nicolò Debenedetti is President of Aleph-Analisi Strategiche, Bocconi University in Milan. Andrea Gilli is post-doctoral fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Mauro Gilli is Senior Researcher in Military Technology and International Security at the Center for Security Studies of ETH, Zurich. This article summarizes and updates the recent Brief for the European Union Institute for Security Studies.

The views expressed in this post reflect those of the author and not that of the EastWest Institute.

Sino-Japanese relations have long been marred by a maritime and territorial row in the East China Sea as well as a historical dispute over Japan's wartime memory, which has prevented sustainable rapprochement. Further complicating the situation, bilateral ties are now increasingly strained by Japan’s growing presence in the South China Sea, where overlapping territorial and maritime disputes have pitted China against several Southeast Asian neighbors.

At the recent Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s most important defense and security summit, Japanese defense minister Tomomi Inada delivered pointed criticisms of China, deploring its attempts to “upend the rules-based order” and “alter the status quo based on assertions incompatible with existing international norms.” While never directly referring to China, Inada’s remarks were some of the most vivid official expressions in recent years of Japan’s concerns regarding China’s foreign policy. The following day, Beijing issued a rebuttal, expressing its “strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition” to what it deemed “irresponsible remarks.”

The JS Izumo, the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force’s largest warship, is currently sailing through the South China Sea for three months, making port calls to Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka. The cross-ocean trek comes just as the warship is preparing to take part in a multilateral naval exercise in the Indian Ocean in July, along with India and the United States. Izumo’s itinerary is meant to serve as a sign of Japan’s commitment to its Southeast Asian partners and is a clear response to what it perceives as China’s overbearing approach to the South China Sea. Notably, the trip also comes on the heels of Tokyo’s November 2016 announcement of the so-called Vientiane Vision, which lays out Japan’s plans for increased defense cooperation with members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Read the full article here.

Four years ago, U.S. national security advisor Susan Rice observed that the world’s “most vexing security challenges are transnational security threats that transcend borders: climate change, piracy, infectious disease, transnational crime, cyber theft, and the modern-day slavery of human trafficking.” Today, one could add migration, violent extremism, the safety of fissile nuclear materials, and overall information security to that list.

These issues share at least two characteristics: First they are accentuated in their severity by modern technology. The bad guys, both state and non-state actors, are well equipped with the latest computers, communications equipment, and weaponry, and their ability to use these tools is enhanced by their access to global networks. Second, no international regimes or institutions have these transborder issues well in hand. Rather, global bodies like the World Health Organization or the International Telecommunication Union are generally struggling to remain relevant. The post-war structures that have kept peace for 70 years face a crisis of legitimacy as rising powers that were not present at Bretton Woods scorn the old order and create their own institutions and power centers.

The Cyber Arms Race and Information Warfare

Today we are focusing on security and cyberspace. Cyber-enabled attacks in the lead-up to the U.S. Presidential election roiled relationships in Washington and globally. The term cyber-enabled emphasizes a new characteristic of cyberspace—it’s no longer its own thing. It’s part of everything. There is very little actual “cyber crime.” Instead, we see a plethora of ordinary crimes and attacks: theft, fraud, trespassing and destruction of property that use cyber means.

From a geopolitical standpoint, this cyber-enablement has produced a runaway cyber arms race, led by the United States, Russia, China, Iran, Israel, and some European countries, with many others, including North Korea, following close behind. Over thirty countries have formed cyber offense units. Non-state actors such as organized criminal gangs and the Islamic State are also players.

The U.S. Democratic National Committee hacks and related incidents consist of burglary and publication of the fruits on Wikileaks. From a legal standpoint, while it is against U.S. law to enter a computer without authorization, these incidents may fall more into the shadow zone of espionage. As for the publication, the U.S. Supreme Court has generally protected media publication of accurate, stolen materials of public interest obtained by a third party.

What’s new for Americans is the possibility that there is an “information war” between East and West. Indeed, some states do not use the term cybersecurity, preferring the broader term “information security." The events around the U.S. election have evoked a global conversation around fake news, political trolling, social media bots, and the weaponization of intelligence.

On the other hand, we have recently seen additional evidence regarding Western cyber actions against North Korean missile systems and the CIA’s capabilities. Even assuming the most benign motivations by all parties, these continuing, ungoverned state-on-state skirmishes in cyberspace increasingly undermine terrestrial security and stability.

In contrast to cyberspace, other international domains are governed by norms of behavior and international law. In the airspace it is illegal to shoot down a commercial aircraft. But in cyberspace, the way in which international law applies is still being debated. In commercial aviation we have organizations like the private sector International Air Transport Association and the governmental International Commercial Aviation Organization that partner to maintain safety and security on a global basis. There are no comparable institutions for cyberspace.

Everyone in this room is painfully familiar with the provisions that keep that network secure: identity proofing of everyone who gets close to a passenger plane, licensing of pilots, filing of flight plans, certification of aircraft, etc. We have none of these things in cyberspace. Yet the financial value of the commercial transactions conducted over the Internet (and here I’m not even counting SWIFT and other special purpose networks) is actually 100 times greater on an annual basis than the value of goods transported in the air cargo system.

Progress is modest. A group of governmental cyber experts has worked at the United Nations for over 10 years to come up with an initial set of non-binding norms of behavior in cyberspace. These include:
• Not allowing the use of information and communications technology, or ICT, to intentionally damage another country’s critical infrastructure.
• Not allowing international cyber attacks to emanate from their territory.
• Responding to requests for assistance from another country that has been attacked by computers in the first country.
• Preventing the proliferation of malicious tools and techniques and the use of harmful hidden functions.
• Encouraging responsible reporting of ICT vulnerabilities and sharing associated information.
• Not harming the information systems of the authorized cybersecurity incident response teams.

In February 2017, the government of the Netherlands, with the support of Microsoft, the Internet Society, the EastWest Institute, and the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, launched the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace. The GCSC is chaired by Marina Kaljurand, former Estonian foreign minister, and co-chaired by Michael Chertoff, former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security and Latha Reddy, India’s former deputy national security adviser. This multistakeholder commission will build on and extend existing efforts to develop and advocate for norms and polices to enhance international security and stability and guide responsible state and non-state behavior in cyberspace.

On the private sector side, global ICT companies are beginning to step up to the responsibility that comes with their great power in cyberspace. For example, Microsoft recently issued a set of norms of industry behavior that global ICT companies should follow in their business practices. Examples of the kinds of norms that companies are considering include:
• Creating more secure products and services.
• Not enabling states to weaken the security of commercial, mass-market ICT products and services.
• Practicing responsible vulnerability disclosure.
• Collaborating to defend their customers against and recover from serious cyber attacks.
• Issuing updates to protect their customers no matter where the customer is located.

Clearly, the industry is at an immature stage. Its rapid growth in importance has outstripped systems of governance, including the first line of defense—the market. As a general matter, until very recently customers demanded two things from the firms that supply ICTs—price and features. The market has responded, giving us all manner of convenience and efficiency, in business and in our private lives. Finally, however, buyers are starting to recognize the criticality of ICT to their daily activities, and thus they demand, and may be willing to pay for, security.

Yet there is a gap between what they need and what they are able to command. To address this gap, we recently published a “Buyers Guide for Secure ICT.” This guide recommends questions that buyers can ask ICT suppliers to help them evaluate the security of the products and services that these suppliers deliver. Despite best efforts, the reality of today’s dynamic technological environment—with product cycles of 18 months or less—continues to challenge policy development. Two developments are dramatically altering the security picture.

First, we are moving to the cloud. We store our information there on virtual machines operated by major providers like Amazon Web Services. While AWS and Microsoft’s Azure provide much stronger cybersecurity and resilience than any single enterprise can field, they also create systemic risk, with large potential consequences from technology failures or attacks. A second emerging source of risk is the Internet of Everything (IoE). In a few years there will be ten times as many devices—Fitbits, heart monitors, automobiles, thermostats, machine tools and floodgates—connected to the Internet than today’s smartphones and computers. These devices, when combined with 3-D printing, promise to disruptively transform manufacturing and transportation. They will also create a ubiquitous, global sensor network that will be communicating what is going on everywhere. And these sensors are shockingly insecure—built with easy to guess passwords, transmitting their data unencrypted, and being essentially un-patchable.

The conventional wisdom is that the IoE represents a massive increase in the attack surface. But at EWI, we are exploring two questions. First, why do we assume the bad guys will own the sensor network? Why not have the good guys own it and use the knowledge of what is happening on the Internet to increase security—for example, by isolating problems and fixing them before they can spread? Second, we ask, how will the IoE shift the balance between endpoint and network security, and what are the societal implications of that shift?

There is much to be done in cyberspace to make it, and the information we all rely on, trustworthy and secure. I will be happy to get into some of those issues during the discussion. The question becomes, what institutional constructs are needed to ensure that work gets done?

Sovereignty and its Alternatives

One of the existing constructs that no longer serves us in the networked age is sovereignty, at least as defined by the Treaty of Westphalia that ended the Thirty Years War, in 1648. We need new forms and combinations of local and global leadership and participation. Since Westphalia, sovereignty has been focused primarily on protecting territory from outside forces. Today, we stand in a time of transition, balancing this traditional emphasis with a newer one based on states’ responsibility to citizens for what happens within their borders.

It is not that borders do not exist, but borders matter differently than they have before. Take cyberspace, for example. It is impossible to define in what country the domain citibank.com actually resides, not to mention where the tens of thousands of cyber attacks each day on that domain come from. This ambiguity makes it difficult for individual states to enforce the law in cyberspace. We need networked responses to networked threats.

One example of the creation of a new form of governance relevant to cyberspace was last year’s transfer of Internet traffic routing management from U.S. control to an international, multi-party, multi-sector governance community. The result is a complex structure that only a geek could love. But, it is also a real-time experiment in so-called multi-stakeholder governance, and well worth watching. For the shorter term, however, as states turn inward and transnational challenges multiply, we face an urgent need for institutions that can act globally in an agile manner, or at least with more agility than governments. Currently, the only existing organizations that can approach that agility are large, global corporations. Admittedly, they are not ideal—they have conflicts of interest based on their focus on returning shareholder value. 

Of course, states have conflicts of interest as well when it comes to global issues, rooted as they are in territory. Nevertheless, companies, such as Coca-Cola, are increasingly investing in the future. Coca Cola needs clean water resources in Africa—it will not be in business there in 20 years if there is not clean water. Microsoft practices and advocates for responsible behavior by large technology companies to reduce conflict and increase stability in cyberspace.

Power in the 21st Century

These challenges and responses relate directly to the nature of power in the 21st century. We are living in the networked age. The value of networks increases as more people become members. In my view, we are reaching a critical mass of interconnectedness in the developed world, and the rest of the world will be there in the next 10 years. But critical mass for what effects? Not even the most civic-minded would advocate for direct democracy by everyday citizens on the complex questions that face our planet and our societies. That is why we have professional politicians and expert agencies, at least on a good day. What we do need, however, are ways to help those officials get to more nuanced answers. This is already happening on the local level in Europe and the U.S. where experts brief randomly selected civic councils to help them come up with advice for elected officials on a broad range of issues, from refugee assimilation to sustainability planning.

For these kinds of conversations to happen globally, we need to harness the technology that is increasingly connecting us. How can corporations help? Could firms host objective global forums that deal with some of the issues that will affect their bottom line and the rest of us with them? Perhaps some of the lessons learned from the trend to open, collaborative innovation networks—as practiced by DuPont, BT and other firms—may apply here.

National Security and Global Security

While global security issues are becoming salient for the long-term, in the short-term, national security “stories” dominate national security policy. I use the term “stories” to distinguish rhetoric from actuality—both in terms of action and in terms of effectiveness. The increasing attractiveness to mainstream politicians and electorates of fear-based, nationalistic narratives does not always translate into action—and when it does, such actions do not always improve national security. For example, Xi Jinping’s government discriminates against U.S. technology companies in rhetoric, but the implementation is much more measured. And as far as the effects, banning world-class technology does little to improve global confidence in the Chinese banking sector.

The principal reason for this trend is that our planet is shrinking—people everywhere are feeling increasingly impinged by alien cultures, values and populations. Certainly, this is understandable in Europe given the weak economy and the rapid influx of hard-to assimilate refugees. But even when there are not a lot of new people coming, digital information from around the world affronts and disrupts our attention. And so in democracies, many people find the echo chamber of like-minded voices or the seductive addition to a constant feed of electronic news more comfortable. The networked age is not easy to live in. Meanwhile, dictators—like cult leaders—always shield their subjects, and themselves, from diverse viewpoints.

Nationalist isolationism does not do well against threats that cut across borders, like migration and terrorism. ISIS is a global threat network, as we have seen this year in Paris and London. Networked threats require networked responses. Until we get this right, humanity will continue to lose ground against the forces of atavism, cynicism and hopelessness. We cannot let this happen on our collective watch.

Photo credit: "Data Security Breach" (CC BY 2.0) by Visual Content

Iraq is at a crucial crossroads. The Iraqi government, backed by the United States and its coalition partners, is on the brink of retaking all major urban territories once occupied by ISIS. While very encouraging, the global coalition’s focus on militarily defeating ISIS obscures the fact that Iraq is beset by worsening sectarian tensions and proxy wars, political dysfunction and growing humanitarian crises. These perils, left unaddressed, will not only cripple international and diplomatic efforts, but also plunge Iraq further into instability and conflict long after ISIS is defeated on the battlefield.

The future of Iraq is important, not just for Iraqis but for the region and the international community. What the international community and regional states do or do not do will have a significant impact on that future. Today, by consolidating and capitalizing on the gains that the Iraqis, United States and international community have made in this second war against violent extremism in Iraq, the hope is that the same global coalition can avoid becoming entangled in a third and fourth and finally pave the way for rebuilding Iraq politically and economically.

In brief, the reality on the ground is as follows: the loosely held anti-ISIS alliance—which includes the Iraqi army, Shia militias, Sunni tribal units and Kurdish peshmerga forces—will likely dissolve; Iraqi-Kurdish contention over oil and gas revenues, budgets and land disputes is growing; and intra- and inter-Iraqi competition between and within communities over power and influence is flaring.

Additionally, corruption, falling oil prices, a declining economy, and high levels of devastation from cycles of ravaging war against the Islamic State will not only continue to undermine Iraq’s recovery and stability but will also be a key factor in disenfranchising Iraqi society, particularly the youth. This point is critical. Violent extremism flourishes in societies where state institutions are seen as oppressive, corrupt, ineffective and illegitimate. Unfortunately, all these factors are present in today’s Iraq.

Click here to access the full analysis.