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Nov. 19, 2020

Recruiting Cyber Specialists: Why the Services Must Modernize Qualification Standards

Hardly a day goes by without another data breach concerning peoples’ sensitive information—such as Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and payroll information—making the news. Billions of dollars are lost each year to data breaches and theft of intellectual property. Unfortunately, there is no end in sight. Despite our best cyber security efforts, criminal hackers seem to be one step ahead. Playing catchup to hackers is an infinite game of wits, brains, luck, and patience.

Nov. 19, 2020

Social Media Weaponization: The Biohazard of Russian Disinformation Campaigns

In a renewed era of Great Power competition, the United States is faced with adversaries engaging across multiple domains without the traditional distinctions of war and peace. America’s competitors are regularly operating below the threshold that would warrant a military response, including on the information battlefield. The blurred red lines that result from covert information operations waged by foreign actors on the Internet will force a change in how the United States operates and how its society consumes information. Russia used tactics of influence and coercion long before social media allowed for nearly ubiquitous access to its targets and a prolific capability for controlling a narrative and manipulating the hearts and minds of a population on a range of sensitive societal issues, including public health.

Nov. 19, 2020

Executive Summary

In an address in Cape Town, South Africa, on June 6, 1966, Senator Robert F. Kennedy stated, “There is a Chinese curse which says, ‘May he live in interesting times.’ Like it or not, we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also the most creative of any time in the history of mankind.” As it turns out, we ourselves are living in interesting times: from the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic to racial strife, wildfires to record numbers of hurricanes, contested politics to economic crises, and more.

Nov. 18, 2020

American Businesses and Great Power Competition

On November 18, 2020, the US Department of Defense (DoD) Strategic Multilayer Assessment (SMA) program hosted a speaker session as a part of its SMA INDOPACOM/AFRICOM Speaker Series. The speaker was GEN (Ret.) Joseph Votel (Former Commander, USSOCOM and USCENTCOM; President and CEO, Business Executives for National Security (BENS)).

Nov. 4, 2020

Strategic Assessment 2020: Into a New Era of Great Power Competition

In retrospect, it seems clear that the new era of Great Power competition that is the subject of the chapters in this volume began to take shape almost as soon as the last era had drawn to a close. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the sudden end of the Cold War, the United States found itself in a position of unchallenged (and seemingly unchallengeable) global preponderance.

Nov. 4, 2020

List of Contributors

List of contributors.

Nov. 4, 2020

Appendix A. Selected Bibliography

Appendix A | Selected Bibliography

Nov. 4, 2020

15. Conclusion: Realities, Imperatives, and Principles in a New Era of Great Power Competition

This chapter summarizes the major features of the new era of Great Power competition (GPC). It then provides an assessment of the novel 2019–2020 coronavirus pandemic implications, concluding that the virus’s impact is likely to accelerate ongoing geopolitical trends rather than generate new ones. The chapter analyzes three main imperatives for American success in GPC by observing that the Sino-American dyad is not a new Cold War, successful competition with China must feature a wise choice of U.S. allies, and the United States can succeed only if the national government smartly intervenes in the economy to fortify American competitive advantage. It offers historically based analysis demonstrating that four competitive principles are most critical to U.S. success in a long-term competition with China: firmness with flexibility, durable partnerships and alliances, the peril of reciprocal societal denigration, and playing for time.

Nov. 4, 2020

14. U.S. Strategies for Competing Against China

This chapter lays out a range of potential strategies, drawn largely from academic literature and security studies, to address approaches for a competitive U.S. response to its main Great Power strategic rival: China. Described are the general outlines of five distinct strategies employing the five elements of strategic interaction defined in chapter 2 of this volume. The strategies are then assessed in general terms for their suitability, feasibility, and sustainability. Each example varies in how it leverages the relative strengths and weaknesses of the protagonists, and how international and domestic support might impact implementation. The author contends that a strategy of enhanced balancing is an appropriate approach.

Nov. 4, 2020

12. Whither Europe in a New Era of Great Power Competition? Resilient but Troubled

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