Category: PSIR

When Does Activism Become Powerful?

August 12, 2021

My colleagues and I studied places in the United States where people’s activism actually had an impact — places where leaders built a constituency and turned the actions of that constituency into countervailing power. We interviewed experts all over the country to identify these outliers, then selected six of them for deep investigation. The six represented different issues, different places and different constituencies. We asked, what do they have in common?

Why America isn’t equipped for the new rules of war

August 12, 2021

Militaries can no longer kill their way out of problems in a global information age, and this is driving war into the shadows. Today, plausible deniability is more potent than firepower: winners and losers are no longer decided on the battlefield, but by those who can discern truth from lies. The best weapons today don’t fire bullets.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/10/24/132194/america-isnt-equipped-for-shadow-war-disinformation-sean-mcfate/

Are drone strikes ever ethical?

August 12, 2021

The US, which deploys more drones than any other country, has exploited the gaps in international law to fight its war on terror.

The principle of humanity requires avoiding unnecessary harm to civilians. The fundamental rationale for drone use relies on this principle: drone capacity for precise targeting can save civilian lives. US Air Force General T Michael Moseley calls this the “true hunter-killer role” of drones. Given that there were, for example, two million civilian deaths in the Korean War alone, the precision of drone strikes offers a persuasive moral argument in favour of their use

https://www.newstatesman.com/world/north-america/2019/11/are-drone-strikes-ever-ethical

Planet Money Podcast: Hong Kong

August 12, 2021

Jimmy was born in mainland China. In 1960, when he was 12 years old, he snuck out of China and into Hong Kong by hiding in the bottom of a fishing boat. The day he got to Hong Kong, he got a job in a factory. By the time he was 21, he was running a factory. Today, he’s one of the richest people in Hong Kong. He’s also one of the most vocal critics of the Chinese government, and a major figure in Hong Kong’s protest movement.

Jimmy Lai’s story is the story of Hong Kong. And Hong Kong’s story is the story of the 200-year-long history of China and with the West — a story of communism, colonialism, and capitalism.

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/19/743480237/episode-928-hong-kong

Inside the Hunt for the World’s Most Dangerous Terrorist

August 12, 2021

Terrorism online presented a new twist—never before had the United States been involved in a conflict where the enemy could communicate from overseas directly with the American people. And just months before I arrived at the FBI in 2007, working as a special counsel and later chief of staff to Director Robert Mueller, a new online tool named Twitter launched. We had no idea then how much power it would give to online extremists.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/11/21/junaid-hussain-most-dangerous-terrorist-cyber-hacking-222643/