| | | | The Downside of the Mueller Indictment | | Special Counsel Robert Mueller's indictment against 13 Russian nationals was a big step in helping Americans understand the "reality and scale of the Russian threat to the American political process," writes Jack Goldsmith for Lawfare. But there's also a downside. It offers a morale boost—and the outlines of a playbook—to America's adversaries.
The indictment "shows how adversaries can cause extraordinary harm to the United States with inexpensive tools," Goldsmith writes.
"It lays out in detail how one nation used American social media and payment tools, plus various elements of the dark web, in one particular configuration to wreak enormous harm on the United States at a relatively small cost. It will give them ideas about how these and related tools can be used in different configurations to cause damage across the infinitely broad American attack space. It will help the more sophisticated among these adversaries to understand how to use these tools to minimize detection by the US government. And it further underscores what the failure to respond meaningfully to the Russia information operation to date has made clear: The United States has remarkably weak tools to defend itself from, or respond to, these attacks. For adversaries seeking to do harm to the United States, especially weak ones, the Mueller indictment is emboldening."
| | How the NRA Keeps Winning—and How to Change That | | Frustration over the gun lobby's ability to stymie legislation typically focuses on the National Rifle Association's financial muscle—including its donations to members of Congress, writes Bill Scher for Politico Magazine. But the NRA's success is less about handouts, and more about its ability to craft an image of "freedom and cool" that resonates with many Americans.
"NRATV is a new piece of the puzzle, having been launched only in late 2016. But it's a window into the culture that the NRA has nurtured for decades," Scher writes. "Every minute, the network pumps out a message that can be delivered regardless of external events: Liberal elites want to take away your guns and freedom. Terrorists and criminals lurk everywhere and you need to know how to defend yourself. And by the way, look how cool guns are and how powerful they make you feel!"
"A large-scale countercampaign could help reverse that image, highlighting the damage guns do every day: the depressed never getting another chance for mental health services, the children dying from home accidents, the domestic abuse victims who never could escape. Other spots could depict life where guns are controlled around the world, to show what is possible."
| | Future of Work CONTENT BY  The impact of automation and pace of change have led to a real skills gap. According to a new study, 3 in 4 global executives believe a lack of skills is an issue facing their industry. Learn more about the future of work in the 2018 GE Global Innovation Barometer. | | | Russian Bots Pounce, Again | | | An hour. That's all it took for suspected Russian bots to pounce on last week's school shooting in Florida in an effort to create further discord in America, report Sheera Frenkel and Daisuke Wakabayashi for The New York Times.
"When the Russian bots jumped on the hashtag #Parklandshooting—initially created to spread news of the shooting—they quickly stoked tensions. Exploiting the issue of mental illness in the gun control debate, they propagated the notion that Nikolas Cruz, the suspected gunman, was a mentally ill 'lone killer.' They also claimed that he had searched for Arabic phrases on Google before the shooting. Simultaneously, the bots started other hashtags, like #ar15, for the semiautomatic rifle used in the shooting, and #NRA."
"The bots target a contentious issue like race relations or guns. They stir the pot, often animating both sides and creating public doubt in institutions like the police or media. Any issue associated with extremist views is a ripe target." | | Where the Great Powers Could Stumble Into Conflict | | The risk of armed conflict between the world's major powers is as high as it has been since the Cold War, suggests David Gardner for the Financial Times. As the various conflicts in the Middle East increasingly bleed into one another, the risk of miscalculation is growing.
"In Syria there is a real risk of clashes between NATO allies Turkey and the US, and between the US and Russia. These can probably be contained through the use of proxies, which was how the US and Soviet Union fought each other across Africa, Asia and Latin America during the cold war. Yet Middle Eastern crises have a habit of ricocheting out of the region. While the cold war balance of nuclear terror obtained, the two sides managed the risks: notably during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war and the 1982 confrontation between Israel and Syria.
"But in the era of presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, with everything from diplomatic protocols to deconfliction hotlines in question, it is hard to be optimistic. Two weeks after US air strikes in eastern Syria killed an unknown number of Russian 'contractors', US secretary of defense Jim Mattis confesses to being puzzled about what happened. The Kremlin at first feigned ignorance, but on Tuesday acknowledged Russian citizens were wounded in the incident."
| | North Korea is understandably seen as the most likely flash point in East Asia. But as US ally Taiwan comes under growing pressure from China, the likelihood of the United States getting sucked into conflict is growing, writes Ted Galen Carpenter for The American Conservative.
"The mounting tensions between Taipei and Beijing should be attracting more notice," Carpenter writes. "Beijing's increased assertiveness, if not outright belligerence, is more than a matter of abstract concern to the United States. The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), which Congress adopted when Jimmy Carter's administration formally recognized the People's Republic of China (PRC) and downgraded Washington's relations with Taipei to informal economic and cultural ties, specified two security concerns. The United States pledged to regard any PRC effort to coerce Taiwan as a grave threat to the peace of East Asia. It also promised to sell 'defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability.'
"Although the TRA's commitments are not the same as a U.S. treaty obligation to use military force to defend the island, they are far from trivial. If an armed conflict erupted between the PRC and Taiwan, it is almost certain that the United States would be caught up in the fighting.
"Tensions between Beijing and Taiwan have flared before, but they seem especially ominous this time." | | | | | | |
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