Megan Reiss is senior national security fellow with the R Street Institute, where she writes about cybersecurity and other pressing national security issues. Megan joined R Street in September 2017 from Office of U.S. Senator Ben Sasse, for whom she was also a senior national security fellow. Megan has a bachelor’s degree in human biology from Stanford University, an LL.M. in international criminal justice and armed conflict from the University of Nottingham School of Law, and a Ph.D. in public policy from the University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.
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The 100th anniversary of the end of World War I brought together world leaders in a show of unity and remembrance—yet instead of highlighting solidarity, European heads of state expressed fear of conflict and disunity among the allies. It’s doubtful any of those concerns have been allayed in the days after the ceremonies.
Two years ago, in the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress called on the Defense Department to evaluate the extent of cyber vulnerabilities in its weapons systems by 2019. While the Pentagon report has yet to be released, a scathing report on Defense Department weapons systems published early this October by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) should already be enough to sound the alarm.
The Justice Department announced on Oct. 5 the indictment of seven officers of the Russian Military Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, on charges of computer hacking, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering. Here are three quick takeaways.
President Trump issued Executive Order 13848 on Sept. 12 declaring election interference a national emergency. The order also sets up a protocol for applying sanctions to persons who conduct cyberattacks against the electoral system or engage in disinformation. You can find comprehensive analysis of the order by Ed Stein here.
This post is the third in a multipart series. For an introduction to the surveys being discussed and the methodology that the authors employed, read their first post here.
Nations are always fighting the last war. The Roman legions eventually fell victim to the unconventional tactics of the Visigoths. The British fleet sank off of Singapore because it couldn’t comprehend air power.
Today, the United States is at risk of fighting the last war again. Americans need to realize that the next war may very well be fought with data and information, rather than guns and planes, and come around to the idea that the battlefield is not a public space (like the seas or the air) but a private one, managed and controlled by private actors.
This post is the second in a multipart series. For an introduction to the survey discussed and the methodology employed, be sure to read our first post.