In September this year, Chief Software Officer for the U.S. Air Force Nicholas Chaillian, unexpectedly resigned. The reason for his resignation? To protest the slow pace of technological transformation taking place in the U.S. military, and where he argued the U.S. had already lost the race for AI dominance to China. In today’s competitive climate… Read more »
Month: December 2021
Disharmony in Harmonized EU Rules
In 2019, the European Union (EU) passed regulations for the aviation safety of civilian drones. They are aimed to foster innovation and ensure the safe integration of drones, of all sizes, into European airspace. This move was made to also harmonize drone rules throughout the EU as the previous framework only covered drones weighing over… Read more »
Book review: Dying to Serve: Militarism, Affect, and the Politics of Sacrifice in the Pakistan Army
by Maria Rashid, Stanford University Press, 2020. 288pp. ISBN: 9781503610415 Plenty of social scientists and humanities scholars are preoccupied with the technics of warfare, such as lawfare, drones, “low intensity warfare” and the shifting spaces of war. Yet, attention to a traditional means of war, that is, the institution of the military and its constituting… Read more »
Expecting the exceptional in the everyday: Policing global transportation hubs
Global transportation hubs such as airports and maritime ports have become vital spaces for the international networked economy. Global economic opportunities depend on the effective flow of people and things, and make use of the different infrastructures and modes of the transport system. For instance, around 80 percent of global trade in goods, measured by… Read more »
Can Peace be Researched? Revisiting a 55-Year-Old TV Program
I was reminded recently that a 55-year-old TV program about PRIO and peace research is currently available on the website of NRK, Norway’s public radio and TV company. You can access it here. The two-part program was broadcast on 18 and 25 October 1966. NRK does not have any information about when it was shot,… Read more »
22 July 2011: Contested Closures
As part of PRIO’s contribution to the 10 year commemoration of 22 of July, the author challenges perceptions of justice after mass atrocity that equates justice with law and criminal justice with closure. After mass violence, “the promised exercise of legal justice — of justice by trial and law — has become civilization’s most appropriate… Read more »
Rethinking and Revising the Theory of Network-centric Warfare
If we take a step back and cast a reflective eye over the evolutionary trajectory of western military thought, we will find that in around the 1990s—as Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) began to proliferate—discussions regarding the latest Revolution in Military Affairs also started to gather pace. It was in this context that some military… Read more »
Modular Sovereignty and Infrastructural Power: The Elusive Materiality of International Statebuilding
Space and materials matter. But how? My article (Open Access) in Security Dialogue explores what spatial and material arrangements reveal about the way international statebuilding exerts (sovereign) power. Statebuilding interventions support the establishment of sovereign states by taking control of, arranging and ordering spaces. This was immediately apparent when I first entered the Mogadishu International… Read more »
The New Pattern of Conflict in Myanmar
A new conflict pattern has appeared in Myanmar. Amidst a spiraling economic, social and health crisis, armed fighting is no longer confined to ethnic minority areas but has cropped up in cities and regions where the ethnic Bamar are in majority. They see themselves as pursuing a nation-wide resistance. Preventive diplomacy is needed to stop… Read more »
Time will tell – Defining violence in terrorism court cases
Counter-terrorism measures are characterized by pre-emptive logics: suspicious behavior must be detected and captured before it materializes into terrorist attacks. Terrorist networks need to be mapped and surveilled to prevent the moving of funds or weapons. Through increased regulations, these pre-emptive dynamics increasingly find their ways to the domestic judicial systems in Europe. One concrete… Read more »