Latest in Big Data
If big data is a resource and therefore a potential target of armed conflict, what kinds of attacks justify an armed response and what are the rules governing such attacks?
A recent exchange over the privacy practices of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program contributed to the mounting crisis between the United States and the European Union over transatlantic data transfers, privacy, and national security surveillance.
There are long-overlooked dangers embedded within the adoption of digital technologies—and as society shifts online during the pandemic, consumers and policymakers must figure out how to address those risks.
Editor’s Note: The rapid pace of technological innovation is changing the nature of warfare, and futurists are busy spinning out scenarios of a U.S.-China clash in twenty years involving nano-technology and fully autonomous weapons systems. Yet how will new technologies shape insurgency and counterinsurgency, which conjures up images of guerrillas hiding in Vietnam's jungles? My Brookings colleague Chris Meserole looks at two of the latest books on the subject and assesses how the balance between rebels and government may tilt.
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Editor's Note: Data should drive decision-making – the real question is how much should it do so? As big data and data analytics expand, it is tempting to assume they can solve many of the problems foreign policy decision-making has long faced. Chris Meserole, a pre-doctoral fellow here at Brookings unpacks some of the issues involved with big data when it comes to foreign policy and argues that it can inform our strategic reasoning but can’t supplant it.
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