Ivy Tech Aff
Contention 1 is Iran
Current surveillance is eating away government resources
Dan Goor, political scientist, MA in Law and Diplomacy , July 2nd, 2013, “PRISM, a symptom of “information explosion,”
beware!” 2013, https://dangoor.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/prism-a-symptom-of-information-explosion-beware/ //GY // HZN PRISM, a symptom of “information
explosion,” beware!¶ While the political and security implications of leaks by Edward Snowden are monopolizing the news, the main danger is from
information overload, misinterpretations and perhaps dangerous (or even rogue) action could be the main issue. ¶ Too much information leads to
chaos, In the mid fifteen hundreds, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra predicted that too much information will drive people insane by demonstrating how his hero,
Don Quixote, went mad because he read too much. Albert Einstein said the: “I fear the day when the [information] technology overlaps with our humanity; the
world will only have a generation of idiots.”¶ In George Orwell’s 1984 he wrote of government that has total visibility to what every person does, and soon we shall
be able to read people’s minds, to know what thoughts each person may have. ¶ Communication is a complex process, which land itself to high level of
misinterpretations. With
[the] Government monitoring everything its citizenry does, and take action based on interpretation
by both man and machine, one can expect an eventual state of chaos in the world.¶ This year NSA’s one and one half million square foot
facility in Utah would become operational, it would accommodate the trillions of bits of information that [the] NSA is gathering
from the United States and from around the world. Following is Wikipedia overview of the NSA facility:¶ “The Utah Data Center, also known as the Intelligence
Community Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center,[1] is a data storage facility for the United States Intelligence Community that is designed
to store extremely large amounts of data.[2][3][4] Its purpose is to support the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI), though its precise mission is
classified.[5] The National Security Agency (NSA), which will lead operations at the facility, is the executive agent for the Director of National Intelligence.[6] It is
located at Camp Williams, near Bluffdale, Utah, between Utah Lake and Great Salt Lake.” ¶ The Google information about judicial requests from various countries
supports the notion that the world is moving towards an information overload, the world is leading towards a “cyber crash,” that could well dwarf any nuclear
confrontation that may confront the human race. ¶ Should, or could, safeguards be put in place to prevent information from going wild? ¶ Several years ago when
Gordon Moore of Intel predicted that every few years computation power would double, an alarm should have sounded. Moore was close to correct, except that
information technology is growing even faster and could
become an avalanche out of control.¶ It is likely that the human race will survive
the “cyber explosion,” just as it survived Malthus prediction of resource shortage, of atomic annihilation. That not withstanding, the prudent thing for both
scientists and politicians to exercise some rational control on information growth.
That spreads to all intelligence, risking miscalculation
Alex Young, Harvard International Review, August 18th, 2019, Too Much Information: Ineffective Intelligence Collection,
https://hir.harvard.edu/too-much-information/ // HZN In this age of digitalization and technology, intelligence agencies across the globe process massive amounts of information about
individuals, sub-state actors, and governments every day. Intelligence experts ana military leaders often assume that the goal of intelligence work is to gather as much information as possible
in order to formulate a more comprehensive picture of the world. The United States, in particular, has become a global epicenter of intelligence work—4.2 million US citizens, more than 10%
of the country's population, have some form of security clearance. However, this aggressive intelligence gathering does not make for better-informed government agencies or higher quality
excessive information collection leads to information overload on both the individual and institutional levels,
impairing the US intelligence community's ability to do its job. What’s more, US government agencies do not use this information effectively,
security policy. Instead,
due to overclassification problems. These inefficiencies in intelligence ultimately sow instability in the international system and increase the likelihood of conflict between states. Too Much
Overwhelmed by data,
analysts lose the ability to pick out what is important and fail to make good judgments. In a 1970 book, futurist
Information The US intelligence community is currently inundated with information. This poses a serious challenge to effective intelligence work.
Alvin Toffler of the International Institute for Strategic Studies coined the term "information overload" to describe situations in which an excess of information results in poorer decision
making. Today, this phenomenon holds true on both an individual and an institutional level. Modern psychology teaches that the human brain can only focus effectively on so much
information at a time. As a person tries to complete more tasks simultaneously, his or her efficacy in dealing with each individual task diminishes in a phenomenon called "cognitive overload."
Psychologist Lucy Jo Palladino writes that information overload leads to added stress, indecisiveness, and less effective analysis of decisions. This feature of human attention has clear
implications for security policy: attempting to collect more and more information makes a nation less secure when it overloads intelligence analysts. Information overload carries over to the
institutional level in three ways. First, institutional skill is in some ways nothing more than an aggregation of individual talent. If every member of a group is overwhelmed by an excess of
information, then the organization as a whole is unable to operate effectively.
They further
19, Too Much Information: Ineffective Intelligence Collection, https://hir.harvard.edu/too-much-information/ // HZN The
failures of US intelligence do more than just erode US security. Given that the United States shares intelligence with many of its allies and coordinates with
militaries across the globe, especially since 9/11, lapses in judgment and inconsistencies in intelligence on the part of US analysts cause ripple effects throughout the
Alex
Young, Harvard International Review, August 18
th
, 20
military and intelligence communities across the world. Since 1946, the United States has upheld a signals intelligence sharing agreement—often called "Five Eyes"—with the United Kingdom,
Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Washington also cooperates closely with newer allies in the Middle East and South Asia, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Pakistan. US
intelligence agencies have even reached out to governments that have traditioqnally not been their greatest partners—nations such as China and, before the Arab Spring, Libya and Syria. This
means that
any failures of US intelligence are multiplied and spread across the international community. These shortcomings in US intelligence
collection have serious security implications for the world as a whole. States make decisions about entering, exiting, and preparing for war based on their perceptions of the
international system, their views of how power is distributed, and their understandings of what capabilities other states have. All of these assessments are shaped by the United States' and
heightens the chance
of war between states. One classic problem in political science deals with why war occurs: conflict is costly for both winners and losers, which seems to suggest that it is irrational for two
other nations' abilities to collect accurate, relevant information and distribute that intelligence to allies. Furthermore, less effective intelligence work
states to wage war. One prominent explanation for the existence of war, then, is that states act rationally but make mistakes due to imperfect information. That is, if the world were in fact
because the world differs in some significant way from that state's view of it, the state makes
irrational choices. Specifically, governments make miscalculations surrounding relative military capabilities, strategies, the intentions
exactly the way a state perceived it, then that state would be acting rationally. But,
of allies to provide support, or the resolve of military and civilian leadership to pursue a drawn out conflict. A state's misunderstanding of one or more of these factors could lead it to
leading it to enter more conflicts. Historically, there have been many wars founded
on misinformation or incomplete intelligence—conflicts which could have been avoided by better intelligence work. Overclassification prevented US intelligence analysts
overestimate its ability to win wars,
from making the right connections in the months and days leading up to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001; the 9/11 Commission later blamed those intelligence gaps on
the US war in Iraq from 2003 to 2011 began because of a
widely held belief that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein possessed and was perhaps willing to use weapons of mass destruction. This claim
proved false, but the war nonetheless claimed more than 50,000 US and Iraqi lives, left more than 100,000 people wounded, and condemned Iraq to years of instability.
With better intelligence work, the US intelligence community could have seen this miscalculation before it was too late. Today, faulty intelligence gathering still poses a threat to peace.
For example, without accurate information about Iran's nuclear capabilities and intelligence about the nature and locations of its nuclear
plants, a risk-averse Israel could overestimate the need to take drastic, preemptive measures against Iran. Israeli Prime
"overclassification and excessive compartmentalization of information among agencies." Moreover,
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already called for international action to stop Iranian development of functional nuclear weapons, calling that prospect… the main [problem] facing not only
Israel's decision to strike or not to strike Iran depends in large part on the Israeli
government and military's perceptions about Iran's strength, capabilities, and intentions. If faulty intelligence leads Israel
to believe that Iran is putting the finishing touches on a nuclear arsenal or that Iran intends to use a nuclear weapon against Israel,
Israel will likely carry out an airstrike on suspected Iranian nuclear facilities. Such action may be acceptable or even responsible if Iran is indeed in
myself and Israel, but the entire world."
possession of a nuclear weapon, but if that intelligence turns out to be false, an Israeli strike would destabilize the region without achieving much. Inadequate information therefore continues
to have the potential to create unnecessary conflict. Conclusion US military strategy and security policy depend heavily on the ability of intelligence analysts to piece together a clear, coherent,
and accurate picture of the world.
That escalation would be devastating
Nick Turse, writer for Mother Jones magazine. Published: May 13, 2013. “What Would Happen if Israel Nuked Iran,” Mother
Jones, https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/nuclear-strike-tehran-israel/. DOA: 10/24/19) Iranian cities—owing to geography, climate, building
construction, and population densities—are particularly vulnerable to nuclear attack, according to a new study, “Nuclear War Between Israel and Iran: Lethality
Beyond the Pale,” published in the journal Conflict & Health by researchers from the University of Georgia and Harvard University. It is the first publicly released
scientific assessment of what a nuclear attack in the Middle East might actually mean for people in the region. Its scenarios are staggering. An
Israeli
attack on the Iranian capital of Tehran using five 500-kiloton weapons would, the study estimates, kill seven million people—86% of the
population—and leave close to 800,000 wounded. A strike with five 250-kiloton weapons would kill an estimated 5.6 million and injure 1.6 million, according to
predictions made using an advanced software package designed to calculate mass casualties from a nuclear detonation.
Contention 2 is European Data
NSA Surveillance killed data sharing with the EU
James Vincent, July 16th, 2020, The Verge, EU strikes down key US data-sharing protocol, citing threat of mass surveillance,
https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/16/21326795/eu-us-personal-data-transfer-privacy-shield-invalidated-sccs-upheld // HZN The European Union’s top court has
invalidated a key data-sharing protocol that allows American companies to transfer personal information
about EU citizens to the US for processing. The court says the regulation, known as Privacy Shield, cannot be trusted as it does not
protect EU citizens from mass surveillance programs operated by US intelligence agencies like the NSA. A clash between the EU right to privacy and US
desire for surveillance The ruling in the case today (known as Schrems II, after its claimant, privacy activist and lawyer Max Schrems) will have a serious effect on a range of US businesses, but
it will be of particular concern to tech and social media companies like Facebook that process large amounts of personal data — exactly the information that the EU wants to safeguard. The
judgment is by no means all-encompassing. It has no effect on what the EU calls “necessary” data transfers — which cover everything from emails sent between the US and EU to bookings for
holidays to business transactions — nor does it mean transfers of personal data to the US from the EU must stop immediately. Instead, thousands of US companies that use Privacy Shield will
now have to find new legal mechanisms to ensure the safety of any EU data they process or move where they process that data, most likely to data centers within the EU. More broadly
speaking, the judgment shows that the EU continues to view US mass surveillance as a breach of the bloc’s fundamental rights — ensuring that there will be many more legal challenges to
come. A history of surveillance The history of today’s ruling is complex, but at its heart is European anger over American spying. The man who brought the case, Max Schrems, originally filed a
complaint against Facebook in 2013 following revelations about the NSA’s PRISM surveillance program. PRISM, which began in 2007 under the guise of anti-terrorism surveillance, collected
user data from America’s biggest tech companies, including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, YouTube, Skype, Apple, and Facebook. The argument is that by collecting Schrems’ personal information
and transfer it to the US for processing, Facebook was exposing him to indiscriminate mass surveillance, which is illegal under the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Affirming solves by forcing the NSA to end foreign surveillance
Sam Adler-Bell, March 16th, 2017, The Century Foundation, 10 Reasons You Should Still Worry About NSA Surveillance, https://tcf.org/content/facts/10-reasonsstill-worry-nsa-surveillance/?session=1&session=1&session=1 // HZN 1. NSA’s global surveillance dragnet is massive. Under FISA 702, the NSA vacuums up massive
quantities of sensitive, detailed, and intimate personal information about people around the world, including anyone of “foreign intelligence” interest. It is not a
counter-terrorism statute. Section 702 authorizes eavesdropping on foreign bureaucrats, gathering information relevant to predicting the price of oil, and gaining
leverage in negotiating trade disputes. 2. American
communications are inevitably caught up in the dragnet. In the process
of spying on foreigners, the NSA cannot help but collect large volumes of Americans’ communications.
The intelligence community refers to this collection as “incidental,” but it includes vast amounts of Americans’ conversations, email exchanges, photos, and other
sensitive information. 3. NSA surveillance targets foreigners, but sweeps in more bystanders than targets. Indeed, one analysis of data collected under
section 702 suggested that non-target communications are ten times more likely to be sucked up than target
communications. 4. Once acquired, our data can be searched by other law enforcement agencies without a warrant. Privacy experts call this the
“backdoor search loophole.” The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) may search databases containing Americans’ personal data and communications to learn
whether Americans are committing run-of-the-mill crimes without any pre-existing suspicion. For example, federal authorities could lawfully search 702 databases
for information about doctors issuing prescriptions for medical marijuana.
This is the only way to solve
Natasha Lomas, July 16th, 2020, Tech Crunch, Europe’s top court strikes down flagship EU-US data transfer mechanism,
https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/16/europes-top-court-strikes-down-flagship-eu-us-data-transfer-mechanism/ // HZN Commenting on the ruling in a statement, a
jubilant Schrems said: “I am very happy about the judgment. At first sight it seems the Court has followed us in all aspects. This is a total blow to the Irish DPC and
Facebook. It is clear that the US will have to seriously change their surveillance laws, if US companies want to continue to play a role on the EU market.” “The Court
clarified for a second time now that there is a clash of EU privacy law and US surveillance law. As the
EU will not change its fundamental
rights to please the NSA, the only way to overcome this clash is for the US to introduce solid privacy
rights for all people — including foreigners. Surveillance reform thereby becomes crucial for the business interests of Silicon Valley,” he added. “This
judgment is not the cause of a limit to data transfers, but the consequence of US surveillance laws. You can’t blame the Court to say the unavoidable — when shit
hits the fan, you can’t blame the fan.” A link to the full CJEU judgement can be found here. In further comments on the implications today put out by Schrems’
privacy rights NGO noyb, it wrote: “The CJEU has made it clear in its ruling that even within the SCCs a data flow must be stopped if a US company falls under this
surveillance law. This applies to practically all IT companies (such as Microsoft, Appel, Google or Facebook) that all fall under FISA 702.
The impact is rare disease treatment
Nigel Cory, Daniel
Dick, December
Castro, Vice President of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, Ellysse
3rd, 2020, Information Technology And Innovation Fund, ‘Schrems II’: What Invalidating the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Means for
Transatlantic Trade and Innovation, https://itif.org/publications/2020/12/03/schrems-ii-what-invalidating-eu-us-privacy-shield-means-transatlantic // HZN Second,
SME’s competitiveness will decrease as it’s harder and more expensive for them to engage in transatlantic trade and innovation. Both impacts directly undermine a
central benefit of the Internet and digital trade: reducing the impact that geography has on trade and opening up trade to more individuals and firms from around
the world. Impact on Innovation Privacy
Shield’s demise will undermine transatlantic innovation as it will be harder
and more expensive, if not impossible, for firms—especially SMEs—to gain exposure and benefit from the ideas, research,
technologies, and best practices that accompany data transfers and the innovative new goods and services that rely on data. Organizations use
data to create better insights, which, in turn, lead to innovation. Businesses use data to enhance research and development, develop new products and services,
create new production or delivery processes, improve marketing, and establish new organizational and management approaches.32 Companies of all types and
sizes are sharing in the benefits of data innovation. For example, a 2014 survey found that data analytics are important to 60 percent of U.S. and European
businesses with 50 or fewer employees.33 For example, barriers
to the exchange of personal medical and genomic data could
prevent firms from engaging in medical research and large international medical studies. It could prevent the transfer of data as part of cutting-edge diagnostic
services, thereby increasing health care costs and time demands on doctors. It could
prevent biopharmaceutical firms from
conducting and aggregating data from clinical trials spread throughout the United States and Europe in order to get
enough of the right candidates to make research progress, especially on rare diseases. By erecting barriers to
the exchange of medical information, even anonymous data, countries’ restrictive data transfer policies harm not only their own citizens but people around the
world, all of whom benefits from the advancement of medical science. Health services and biopharmaceutical firms clearly need—and demand—some legal
framework given how many used Privacy Shield. For example, in February 2020, leading health researchers called for an international code of conduct for genomic
data following the end of their first-of-its-kind international data-driven research project.34 The project used a purpose-built cloud service that stored 800 terabytes
of genomic data on 2,658 cancer genomes across 13 data centers on 3 continents.35 The collaboration and use of cloud computing were transformational in
enabling large-scale genomic analysis. If policymakers want more international collaboration such as this, including around COVID-19, then they need legal
frameworks such as Privacy Shield to manage health data transfers. The use of data analytics does not mean the unrestricted use of personal data. Cross-border
data transfers do not allow firms to abdicate their responsibilities to process data according to local data protection laws, such as GDPR.
This is critical
The Lancet, February 2019, Science Direct, Spotlight on rare diseases, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8587(19)300063/fulltext // HZN Feb 28 is Rare Disease Day, the theme of which this year is “bridging health and social care”. This 12th annual Rare Disease Day highlights the need
for better coordination of medical, social, and support services to lessen the burden that rare diseases—often complex, chronic, and disabling—have on the
everyday lives of patients, their families, and carers. As a recent Europe-wide survey found that 80% of patients and carers had difficulty completing daily tasks, 70%
found organising care time-consuming (with 60% finding it hard to manage), and 67% felt that health, social, and local services communicated poorly with each
other, the theme of Rare Disease Day 2019 is timely. More
than 6000 rare diseases (80% with a genetic component) affect more than
300 million people worldwide. While an individual disease might be classed as rare (defined as affecting less than 1 in 2000 of the general
population in the European Union or fewer than 200 000 people in the USA), the sheer number of rare diseases means that the overall numbers quickly stack up:
3·5 million people in the UK, 30 million across Europe, and 30 million in the USA are affected. Whether a single rare disease affects thousands or just one person,
the impact on the affected individual and those around them can be devastating: 50% of
rare diseases affect[ing] children, 30% of whom
will die before age 5 years. Rare diseases present myriad challenges for patients, their families, and caregivers, including the time it takes to obtain a correct
diagnosis for many patients. In a survey of patients and caregivers in the USA and UK, patients reported that it took on average 7·6 years in the USA and 5·6 years in
the UK to get a proper diagnosis, during which time patients typically visited eight physicians (four primary care and four specialist) and received two to three
misdiagnoses. As there is no approved treatment for 95% of rare diseases, a diagnosis can be a crushing reality check for patients and their families, rather than
bringing hope and reassurance. As such, rare diseases impose a considerable emotional toll on patients and their caregivers.
Contention 3 is Bitcoin
Eric Rosenbaum, CNBC, "With bitcoin near all-time high, where Visa CEO sees crypto
going", 11/20/20, https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/20/where-visa-sees-crypto-going-with-bitcoin-near-all-time-high-.html
Visa, which already works with roughly two dozen cryptocurrencies, said the opportunity is in the exchange of crypto for the purchase of a good or service, and
adding the Visa credential to those new systems so the cryptocurrencies can be converted to fiat currency and the funds put in a wallet to be used anywhere Visa is
accepted. Visa and its competitor Mastercard have already signed cryptocurrency card deals in recent years. Visa has a partnership with Coinbase. “Ultimately, we
could see digital currencies running on the Visa network on a more regular basis,” Kelly said, though he added it would be “a number of years out.” “We are
certainly open to any vehicle that helps facilitate the movement of money around the world. We want to be in the middle of it,” he added. The Visa CEO said one of
the biggest opportunities for cryptocurrencies will be in countries where there are underbanked and
unbanked individuals, especially in emerging markets , though also in the U.S.. “There are 1.7 billion people on the face of the Earth we
think are not banked in a mainstream banking system in whatever country they live in, including some here in the U.S.,” Kelly said. Visa will also be working with
central banks around the world as they increase focus on their own digital currencies. The central banking efforts are still what Kelly described as being in the early
stages, with China’s work the furthest advanced. “We continue to expect to work with central banks around the world as they develop digital currencies for the
future,” the Visa CEO said. “Large
global institutions are also moving further along the adoption curve in developing capital
market settlement and global trade systems. On top of that, central banks continue to push forward with CBDCs [central bank
digital currencies], which would require blockchain systems
The NSA monitors Bitcoin
Ana Alexandre, March 21st, 2018, Coin Telegraph, US National Security Agency Develops System To Identify Bitcoin Users, Say Leaked Docs,
https://cointelegraph.com/news/us-national-security-agency-develops-system-to-identify-bitcoin-users-say-leaked-docs // HZN The sources used for this article
were disclosed to The Intercept, a publication dedicated to ‘adversarial journalism’ founded by Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Jeremy Scahill following Edward
Snowden’s revelations of mass reconnaissance in 2013. The
NSA managed this by creating a system for [is] harvesting, analyzing, and
processing raw global internet traffic using a program disguised as a popular anonymizing software, according to other documents dating March
2013. OAKSTAR and MONKEYROCKET Though the agency was interested in monitoring some competing cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin (“a decentralized
digital currency system, wherein the units are known as Bitcoin or BTC”) was its primary target. Tracking was performed by means of a secret internet surveillance
program under the code name OAKSTAR, which represents a range of covert corporate partnerships that enabled the agency to monitor communications and pull
data directly from the fiber optic connections that form the internet undergird. A VPN-like service called MONKEYROCKET, a subprogram of OAKSTAR, played
a crucial role in identifying Bitcoin users. Instead of hiding user data, MONKEYROCKET tapped network equipment to obtain data from Europe, the Middle East, Asia,
and South America. In the NSA documents, MONKEYROCKET is also described as a “non-Western internet anonymization service in support of counter-terrorism”
launched in summer 2012. “Currently there are approximately 16,000 registered users, and the site is generating about 2,000 events per day… Iran and China are
two of the countries with a significant user base,” stated the report. MONKEYROCKET is
extends powers
governed primarily by the Executive Order 12333, which
of U.S. intelligence agencies when investigating U.S. citizens. The NSA points out that a key piece of the “long-term
strategy” for MONKEYROCKET was to “attract targets engaged in terrorism, to include Al Qaida COMSEC security that the NSA can then exploit.” As a result, the NSA
collected a significant amount of Bitcoin user data, including passwords, browser history, and even MAC address of their devices. All this information was enough to
identify the users of specific Bitcoin wallets.
They will use this power to destroy the currency before it grows
Dr. Drew Miller, former intelligence officer and Department of Defense consultant, Medium, December 27 th, 2017, Bitcoin Founder Satoshi Nakamoto was
probably an NSA Employee — and the NSA may destroy Bitcoin, https://medium.com/@collapsesurvivor/bitcoin-founder-satoshi-nakamoto-was-probably-an-nsaemployee-and-the-nsa-may-destroy-bitcoin-2767c5c865c5 // HZN As a former intelligence officer and DoD think tank consultant, I’ve been to NSA at Fort Meade
many times on projects, but never worked there full time and am not basing anything I write here on either classified or inside NSA information. This is all reasoned
speculation. My second NSA related theory and prediction is that the NSA will be tasked to take down Bitcoin. While relative to the Internet, blockchain is very
secure and effectively unhackable for a criminal group — it is in fact quite capable of being cheated and manipulated if you have enough computing power. [The]
NSA probably has plenty of computing power and expertise to take the Bitcoin blockchain down. Why would the
NSA want to take down Bitcoin? What NSA wants is irrelevant — it’s what government leaders want. And there are many scenarios that
could lead to an order to take the Bitcoin blockchain down, with either minor disruption (letting it come back with just a few
accounts robbed) or totally destroyed (stealing from many accounts and screwing it up so badly it is impossible to restore): 1. North Korea is a major
owner, user, exploiter (for computer ransomware) of Bitcoin. As a sanction, punishment, or means of waging war, NSA could be ordered to rob accounts
suspected of being NK owned.[1] 2. Bitcoin and many of its owners and advocates are Libertarian and anti-government. Bitcoin is an affront to national “fiat”
currencies and handy for evading government rules and taxes. Big Government is very motivated to destroy
Bitcoin. 3. Bitcoin has been used as ransom payments for computer hacking. I predict it will soon be used for human ransom as well. Rather than the high risk of
transferring dollars, kidnappers may demand digital payment in Bitcoin. This could be a motivation, or excuse, for Big Government to take Bitcoin down. China or
Russia also have the computing power to take down Bitcoin, and may want to do so. Why? China has outlawed Bitcoin, may want to take North Korea’s wealth
down a peg (keeping them more dependent on China), and could make a huge profit doing this.
That hurts countries with unstable currencies
Mary Callahan, June 11th, 2019, Market Links, Can Bitcoin Drive the Economic Growth of Developing Countries? https://www.marketlinks.org/blogs/canbitcoin-drive-economic-growth-developing-countries // HZN When you take into account the above issues, you can see immediately why Bitcoin has struggled to
gain traction as a viable and functional currency in the most developed countries. Given that these countries themselves are becoming more digital, and a “cashless” age is being heralded in, Bitcoin might never be able to realize any substantial usage in these countries. In developing countries, the financial landscape is
completely different. Many domestic
currencies in developing nations are very, very weak. They hold little to almost no value
and are influenced heavily by even the slightest economic change causing oftentimes very high inflation rates.
That is why most third-world countries rely on large first-world currencies to complete transactions. It is not uncommon at all to visit a South American country (like
Mexico) and be able to pay in US Dollars. The issue for developing countries is that they
often accept a myriad of different currencies
for everyday transactions and at the end of the day a shopkeeper may be left with multiple currency types that he then needs to convert into a single currency
that he prefers to transact in. This is
expensive and hinders growth, as well as creates an altogether confusing dynamic. Why This is Such a Fantastic
Opportunity for Growth in Third-World Countries Historically, third-world countries have suffered because their currencies are so susceptible to market changes
and that causes rampant inflation. By adopting Bitcoin or another сryptocurrency as the primary money in their country they
immediately have a currency that won’t be influenced by changes within their specific economy. Because
Bitcoin operates on a global platform it is only susceptible to global economic changes, and localized changes will have little to no impact on
the currency’s overall value. This reigns in the uncertainty attached to financial transactions in a developing country and inspires consumer
confidence. When consumer confidence is high and people feel safe to spend money, it goes without saying that an economy will begin to grow. What
Challenges Does Bitcoin Face in Third-World Economies?
That helps millions
United Nations, April 21st, 2020, Keep critical food supply chains operating to save lives during COVID-19, urges new UN-backed report,
https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/04/1062192 // HZN In 2019, around 135 million people across 55 countries experienced acute food insecurity, which required
urgent food, nutrition, and livelihoods assistance for survival, according to the joint news release issued on Tuesday in Rome by the Global Network Against Food
Crises. “But these numbers are just the tip of a larger iceberg”, according to the Global Network. Within 47 of these countries, an additional 183
million
people were found to be [are] living in so-called “stressed conditions” – or on the verge of slipping into acute hunger if hit
with a shock, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the report revealed that in those 55 food-crisis countries, 75 million children are stunted
and 17 million suffer from wasting or when muscle and fat tissue waste away. Nine million are in the 10 worst-food-crises countries. “We cannot allow anything –
not COVID-19, not anything, to prevent us” from delivering assistance, the Global Network stated. Keep food chains operating Countries in food crises are
particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus. Already weakened by hunger, their compromised health renders them less able to fend off the virus and they
are ill
equipped for any shocks on their economies or food systems. “We must keep critical food supply chains operating, so people
have access to life sustaining food”, the study said, stressing the urgency of maintaining the delivery of humanitarian assistance “to keep people in crisis fed and
alive”.
Contention 4 is Quantum Encryption
Quantum computing is a looming threat
Marissa Norris, RAND, April 9th, 2020, Quantum Computers Will Break the Internet, but Only If We Let Them,
https://www.rand.org/blog/articles/2020/04/quantum-computers-will-break-the-internet-but-only-if-we-let-them.html // HZN “That is because cryptography—sort
of a ‘black box’ to most people—is in the background, securing everything we do. But the public-key cryptography we use now will be vulnerable to quantum
computers in the future.” If
hackers are ever able to crack public-key cryptography, then all information connected to the internet
could be compromised. Share on Twitter If hackers are ever able to crack public-key cryptography, then all information connected to the internet
could be compromised. Fortunately, these quantum computers, which experts call “cryptographically relevant,” are unlikely to emerge for another decade or more.
That means there's still time to prevent the worst from happening. Prevention Is Possible While engineers race to develop the first advanced quantum computer,
cybersecurity experts are racing to roll out a new form of cryptography that would defend against quantum hacks. This is known as post-quantum cryptography, or
PQC. Experts are currently developing PQC solutions, but these will need to be standardized and widely adopted. That could take years or even decades. The U.S.
government recently took steps to accelerate quantum research and development, including the passage of the National Quantum Initiative Act. The law mandates
new funding, human capital, and congressional oversight of quantum advancement. This is a great first step, the RAND researchers said, but there’s room to do
more. And the clock is ticking. “Post-quantum
cryptography is the best solution,” said Vermeer. “It's just a matter of
getting it done in time.” Compounding this risk is what researchers call the “catch now, exploit later” threat. Nefarious hackers might intercept secure
messages today and then hold onto them until tomorrow, whenever quantum computers are advanced enough to decrypt them. “This is why we need to
push for the adoption of post-quantum cryptography as early as possible,” said Evan Peet, associate economist at RAND
and coauthor of the report. “Some encrypted communications don't lose their value over time.” Simply put, the longer that PQC [cryptography]
is not in place, the greater the amount of today's encrypted information that is at risk of being exposed tomorrow.
No One Knows When Quantum Computers Will Arrive RAND researchers interviewed a cadre of quantum computing and cryptography experts from both privatesector and academic backgrounds. This diverse group included a quantum hardware lead at Google and an information security officer from the financial services
sector. The RAND team asked the group to estimate when advanced quantum computers might be developed, when a standardized PQC security suite might be
implemented, and whether these two timelines might overlap. On average, the experts
suggested 2033 as the most likely year for
the creation of a quantum computer that could break public-key cryptography. But focusing on that date may not be
the best way to think about this looming threat.
Surveillance undermines this in two ways
First through backdoors
Joseph Menn, Reuters, October 28th, 2020, Spy agency ducks questions about 'back doors' in tech products, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-securitycongress-insight/spy-agency-ducks-questions-about-back-doors-in-tech-products-idUSKBN27D1CS // HZN The NSA has long sought agreements
with
technology companies under which they would build special access for the spy agency into their products, according to disclosures by former NSA
contractor Edward Snowden and reporting by Reuters and others. These so-called back
doors enable the NSA and other agencies to scan large
amounts of traffic without a warrant. Agency advocates say the practice has eased collection of vital intelligence in other countries, including
interception of terrorist communications. The agency developed new rules for such practices after the Snowden leaks in order to reduce the chances of exposure
and compromise, three former intelligence officials told Reuters. But aides to Senator Ron Wyden, a leading Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, say
the NSA has stonewalled on providing even the gist of the new guidelines. “Secret encryption back doors are a threat to national security and the safety of our
families – it’s
only a matter of time before foreign hackers or criminals exploit them in ways that undermine American national
security,” Wyden told Reuters. “The government shouldn’t have any role in planting secret back doors in encryption technology used by Americans.”
The agency declined to say how it had updated its policies on obtaining special access to commercial products. NSA officials said the agency has been rebuilding
trust with the private sector through such measures as offering warnings about software flaws.
Second through undermining standards
Susan Landau, Professor at the Tufts school of Engineering, Lawfare Blog, July 25 th, 2014, On NSA's Subversion of NIST's Algorithm,
https://www.lawfareblog.com/nsas-subversion-nists-algorithm // HZN Of all the revelations from the Snowden leaks, I find the
NSA's subversion of
the National Institute of Standards's (NIST) random number generator to be particularly disturbing. Our security is only as good as the
tools we use to protect it, and compromising a widely used cryptography algorithm makes many Internet communications
insecure. Last fall the Snowden leaks revealed the NSA had influenced cryptography specifications as an "exercise in finesse." It wasn't hard to figure out which
algorithm had been tampered with. Questions had been raised earlier about Dual EC-DRBG, a "pseudo random bit generator." (A pseudo random bit generator
means the algorithm provides a longer string whose properties mathematically approximate those of a shorter random string; uses of the longer string include
providing a key for encrypting communications.) There were two problems here. The removal of the compromised algorithm was handled quickly. The more
subtle issue was the impact of NSA's compromise. This has
undermined NIST's role in developing security and cryptography
standards and is likely to have serious long-term effects on global cybersecurity. This might sound surprising, since
NIST's Computer Security Division (CSD) is solely responsible for developing security and cryptographic standards for "nonnational security"--- civilian---agencies of the US government. But CSD's success at promulgating strong cryptography through an open consultative process has
given rise to standards widely adopted by industry, both domestically and internationally. Now that success is at risk. To understand the current situation, we need
to go back several decades. Who controls cryptography design has been a source of conflict for quite some time. In 1965 Congress put the National Bureau of
Standards, now the National Institute of Standards and Technology, in charge of establishing "Federal automatic data processing standards." This law was
uncontroversial. Then in 1987 Congress debated whether NIST or NSA would provide security guidance, including cryptographic standards for non-national security
agencies. The administration and NSA wanted NSA in charge, but NSA systems, which are designed for national security requirements, do not necessarily fit the
needs of the broader public. Industry and the public objected---and won. The Computer Security Act made NIST responsible for developing cryptographic standards
for federal civilian agencies. But there was a catch. NIST was to consult with NSA on the development of cryptographic standards. From the Congressional
committee report it is clear Congress intended NIST be in charge. However, in the "consultation" between the agencies, NSA exercised control. NIST's technical
reliance on NSA had costs. In the 1990s, NIST adopted a digital signature standard that was NSA's choice, not industry's. Several years later, NIST approval of the
Clipper key escrow standard contributed to delay in developing and deploying strong cryptography for
the private sector. This dynamic began to shift in
the late 1990s, when NSA started supporting increased security in the public sector. In seeking a replacement for the Data Encryption Standard, NIST ran an open
international competition for a new symmetric-key cryptography algorithm. The choice, the Belgian-designed Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), was extensively
praised, and much more importantly, has been broadly used. Other successes followed. Because NIST exhibited great care in its technical processes and provided a
fair, unbiased process despite strong industry pressures, there was great trust in NIST standards. The benefit was that NIST standards were adopted
worldwide. This increased cybersecurity and benefited US industry.
The threat is urgent
Scott Totzke, Infosecurity Magazine, August 31st, 2020, Is Critical Infrastructure Ready for Quantum?, https://www.infosecuritymagazine.com/opinions/critical-infrastructure-quantum/ // HZN The fact is, quantum computers will be able to break the cryptography underlying public key
infrastructure (PKI), posing an unprecedented problem for encryption and authentication that enterprises put their trust in today. The services and infrastructure
that we depend on most for our security, governance, public health, and safety are already at risk for cyber-attacks. That risk
will increase
exponentially with the advent of quantum computers. The NIST National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) has already put in
place several practices “to ease the migration from the current set of public-key cryptographic algorithms to replacement algorithms that are resistant to quantum
computer-based attacks,” according to its latest update. Cryptography is the foundation of digital trust Core industries including energy, automotive, and Internet of
Things manufacturing, depend on a trusted, cryptographic architecture for security at multiple levels: a threat to cryptography is a serious threat to digital trust.
Broken cryptography can result in unauthorized access to sensitive information and lack of control over connected devices. Consider the impact on a
nuclear plant, an autonomous vehicle, or an embedded pacemaker. Quantum technology will have a tremendous effect on organizations’ trust infrastructure.
Imagine a pyramid, with cryptography at every layer, the glue holding everything together. If one layer erodes, it could
wreak havoc on our trust
infrastructures in every industry and sector with catastrophic results. The energy sector, especially, has already been
vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Today’s exploits generally happen in the top layers: compromised user credentials, admin system misconfiguration. With quantum
computing, the most trusted elements – identity infrastructure, platform, architecture – become easier to attack, leading to more severe breaches.
That means economic shocks
Bob Pisani, CNBC, September 13th, 2018, A cyberattack could trigger the next financial crisis, new report says https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/13/acyberattack-could-trigger-the-next-financial-crisis.html So who’s right? They may all be, but the cyberattack angle is getting a lot of attention as a potential source of
serious disruption. On Wednesday, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp., which provides clearing and settlement for the financial markets in the U.S., released a
report, entitled “The Next Crisis will be Different: Opportunities to Continue Enhancing Financial Stability 10 Years After Lehman’s Insolvency.” It discusses several
macroeconomic and market-related risks to the financial system but specifically said that cybersecurity
threats “have grown to a point where they may
have become the most important near-term threat to financial stability.” Cyberthreats have consistently been ranked as the
number one concern by respondents to Depository Trust’s Systemic Risk Barometer since the survey began in 2013: “The motivation of cyber-attackers is shifting
from purely achieving financial gains to disrupting critical infrastructures, such as through nation-state attacks, which threatens the basis for confidence in the
financial system and even national or international stability.” The most recent report, published in December, came to the same conclusion as the Depository Trust:
“A
large-scale cyberattack or other cybersecurity incident could disrupt the operations of one or more financial
companies and markets and spread through financial networks and operational connections to the entire system, threatening financial
stability and the broader economy.”
AND
Robert Evans, Reuters, July 5th, 2009 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-financial-poverty/recession-adds-6-percent-to-ranks-of-global-poor-u-nidUSTRE56502P20090706 Economic recession has reversed a 20-year decline in world poverty and is likely to add up to 90 million to the ranks of the hungry in
2009, an increase of six per cent over current totals, the United Nations said on Monday. In this file photo a disabled Haitian man chops wood next to his family in
the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic at the side of Belladere April 28, 2009. The
2008 global recession has pushed up to 90
million more people into extreme poverty, the United Nations said on Monday, warning that a reduction in foreign aid could cause (causing)
more hunger and disease. REUTERS/ Eduardo Munoz The estimate, in a gloomy report on a decade-old U.N. program to set poor countries on the road to solid
development by 2015, suggests 17 per cent of the world’s 6.8 billion people will be classed extremely poor by the end of this year. “In 2009, an estimated 55 to 90
million more people will be living in extreme poverty than anticipated before the crisis,” declared the report, launched in Geneva by U.N. Secretary- General Ban Kimoon. And the study, “The Millennium Development Goals Report,” also warned that a recent decline in foreign aid — despite pledges from rich powers to increase
fund flows — was likely to bring more disease and social disruption in the South.
Contention 5 is Internet Freedom
Democracy is backsliding
Sarah Repucci, Research Analyst at Freedom House, 2020, A Leaderless Struggle for Democracy,
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2020/leaderless-struggle-democracy // HZN Democracy and pluralism are under assault. Dictators are toiling to
stamp out the last vestiges of domestic dissent and spread their harmful influence to new corners of the world. At the same time, many freely elected leaders are
dramatically narrowing their concerns to a blinkered interpretation of the national interest. In fact, such leaders—including the chief executives of the United States
and India, the world’s two largest democracies—are increasingly willing to break down institutional safeguards and disregard the rights of critics and minorities as
they pursue their populist agendas. As a result of these and other trends, Freedom House found that 2019
was the 14th consecutive year of
decline in global freedom. The gap between setbacks and gains widened compared with 2018, as individuals in 64 countries experienced
deterioration in their political rights and civil liberties while those in just 37 experienced improvements. The negative pattern affected all regime types, but the
impact was most visible near the top and the bottom of the scale. More than half of the countries that were rated Free or Not Free in 2009 have suffered a net
decline in the past decade. Ethnic, religious, and other minority groups have borne the brunt of government abuses in both democracies and authoritarian states.
The Indian government has taken its Hindu nationalist agenda to a new level with a succession of policies that abrogate the rights of different segments of its
Muslim population, threatening the democratic future of a country long seen as a potential bulwark of freedom in Asia and the world. Attacks on the rights of
immigrants continue in other democratic states, contributing to a permissive international environment for further violations. China pressed ahead with one of the
world’s most extreme programs of ethnic and religious persecution, and increasingly applied techniques that were first tested on minorities to the general
population, and even to foreign countries. The progression illustrated how violations of minority rights erode the institutional and conventional barriers that protect
freedom for all individuals in a given society. The unchecked brutality of autocratic regimes and the ethical decay of democratic powers are combining to make[s]
the world increasingly hostile to fresh demands for better governance. A striking number of new citizen protest
movements have emerged over
the past year, reflecting the inexhaustible and universal desire for fundamental rights. However, these movements have in many cases confronted
deeply entrenched interests that are able to endure considerable pressure and are willing to use deadly force to maintain power. The
protests of 2019 have so far failed to halt the overall slide in global freedom, and without greater support and solidarity from established
democracies, they are more likely to succumb to authoritarian reprisals.
Domestic surveillance has enabled this by removing US leverage
Danielle Kehl, Open Technology Institute, a Public Policy Think Tank, "Surveillance Costs: The NSA's Impact on the
Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity", 07/ July 2014, https://static.newamerica.org/attachments/534-surveillance-costs-the-nsas-impact-on-theeconomy-internet-freedom-cybersecurity/Surveilance_Costs_Final.pdf The effects of the NSA disclosures on the Internet Freedom agenda go beyond the realm of
Internet governance. The loss of the United States as a model on Internet Freedom issues has made it harder for local civil society groups around the world—
including the groups that the State Department’s Internet Freedom programs typically support203—to advocate for Internet Freedom within their own
governments.204 The Committee to Protect Journalists, for example, reports that in Pakistan, “where freedom of expression is largely perceived as a Western
notion, the Snowden revelations have had a damaging effect. The deeply polarized narrative has become starker as the corridors of power push back on attempts to
curb government surveillance.”205 For some of these groups, in fact, even the appearance of collaboration with or support from the U.S. government can diminish
credibility, making it harder for them to achieve local goals that align with U.S. foreign policy interests.206 The gap in trust is particularly significant for individuals
and organizations that receive funding from the U.S. government for free expression activities or circumvention tools. Technology supported by or exported from
the United States is, in some cases, inherently suspect due to the revelations about the NSA’s surveillance dragnet and the agency’s attempts to covertly influence
product development. Moreover, revelations of what the
NSA has been doing in the past decade are eroding the moral high ground
that the United States has often relied upon when putting public pressure on authoritarian countries
like China, Russia, and Iran to change their behavior. In 2014, Reporters Without Borders added the United States to its “Enemies of the
Internet” list for the first time, explicitly linking the inclusion to NSA surveillance. “The main player in [the United States’] vast surveillance operation is the highly
secretive National Security Agency (NSA) which, in the light of Snowden’s revelations, has come to symbolize the abuses by the world’s intelligence agencies,” noted
the 2014 report.207 The damaged perception of the
United States208 as a leader on Internet Freedom and its diminished ability to
legitimately criticize other countries for censorship and surveillance opens the door for foreign leaders to
justify—and even expand— their own efforts.209 For example, the Egyptian government recently announced plans to monitor social media for
potential terrorist activity, prompting backlash from a number of advocates for free expression and privacy.210 When a spokesman for the Egyptian Interior
Ministry, Abdel Fatah Uthman, appeared on television to explain the policy, one justification that he offered in response to privacy concerns was that “the US listens
in to phone calls, and supervises anyone who could threaten its national security.”211 This type of rhetoric makes it difficult for the U.S. to effectively criticize such a
policy. Similarly, India’s comparatively mild response to allegations of NSA surveillance have been seen by some critics “as a reflection of India’s own aspirations in
the world of surveillance,” a further indication that U.S. spying may now make it easier for foreign governments to quietly defend their own behavior.212 It is even
more difficult for the United States to credibly indict Chinese hackers for breaking into U.S. government and commercial targets without fear of retribution in light
of the NSA revelations.213 These challenges reflect an overall decline in U.S. soft power on free expression issues.
Promoting internet freedom spreads democracy
Richard Fontaine, Will Rogers, Internet Freedom A Foreign Policy Imperative in the Digital Age, President of the Center for a New
American Security, June 2011,, https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/resrep06370.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A82ee6c0d56c4796018688497030480a4
// HZN The Internet does not automatically promote democratization; Iran’s Twitter revolution led to no reforms while Egypt’s Facebook revolu-tion toppled the
Mubarak regime. Furthermore, the technology itself is agnostic; the same online tools that empower dissidents can aid dictators in their oppression. In the short
run, at least, a freer Internet does not automatically translate into more liberal political systems. Yet some case studies do demonstrate the Internet’s profound
potential: that access to an
open Internet can help countries slide away from authoritarian-ism and toward democracy.
Events in Iran, Tunisia, [and] Egypt and elsewhere suggest that the Internet and related technologies (such as SMS) have indeed served
as critical tools for organizing protests, [and] spreading information among dissident parties and transmitting images and
information to the outside world – some of which moved onto satellite television channels, further boosting their influ-ence.64 And while experts continue to argue
about the precise effect, they tend to agree that social media tools have [has]
made revolutions in the Middle East easier and speedier
than they would have otherwise been.65Perhaps the most compelling link between a free Internet and democratization is also the simplest: Both dissidents and
dictatorships abroad seem to believe that the Internet can have a transforma-tive role, and they act on that basis. Dictatorships expend enormous time and
resources to clamp down on online activity, and more
than 40 countries actively censor the Internet or engage in other forms of
significant Internet repression.66Meanwhile, millions of individuals use proxy serv-ers and other circumvention and anonymity tools to evade censorship and
monitoring. During the 2009 presidential campaign in Iran, for example, both President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his opponent, Mir-Hussein Mousavi, cited the
Internet as a tool through which the liberal opposition could mobilize support.67 It is unlikely they were both wrong. While the effect of the Internet will depend on
local conditions, there are indeed rea-sonable grounds for believing that a free Internet can help empower individuals to press for more liberal political systems.
The impact is minimizing proxy warfare Repucci furthers
Sarah Repucci continues for, Freedom House, in 2020, A Leaderless Struggle for Democracy,
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2020/leaderless-struggle-democracy // HZN The same trends that have destabilized major democracies and
pulled them away from their founding principles have also pulled them apart from one another, creating a vacuum on the international stage. Where once
democracies might have acted in unison to support positive outcomes to global crises, disparate authoritarian states now frequently step into the breach and
attempt to impose their will. In the Middle East and North Africa, [A]
lack of consistent international leadership from democracies has
encouraged authoritarian powers to engage in devastating proxy wars, which sometimes feature nominal US partners
fighting on opposite sides. In Syria, which has languished as the world’s least free country for the past seven years, the precipitous withdrawal of US troops
from the northern border area in late 2019 left Russia and Turkey to fill the void, [is] unleashing a fresh wave of abuses against the Kurdish population and
imperiling the campaign against the Islamic State militant group. An even more perplexing conflict unfolded in Libya, where Russia joined Egypt, the United Arab
Emirates (UAE), and others in supporting a local warlord’s assault on the capital, which was defended by militias with backing from Turkey and Qatar. As with
Syria, the extended chaos has contributed to the global migration crisis and allowed terrorist groups to organize in ungoverned areas. Another wantonly destructive
war [has] dragged on in Yemen, with Iran and Saudi Arabia pursuing their regional rivalry through local proxies. The Trump administration continued to support
the Saudi-led air campaign in the country despite bipartisan opposition in Congress and a partial withdrawal by the Saudis’ main partner, the UAE. At the same time,
the United States failed to provide steady, meaningful support for democratic processes or an effective, coordinated response to Iranian influence in Lebanon and
Iraq, where mass protests against corruption and sectarian politics were met with violence from Iranian-backed militias.
This is deadly
Candace Rondeaux, David Sterman, New America, November 9th, 2018, Twenty-First Century Proxy Warfare, https://www.newamerica.org/internationalsecurity/reports/twenty-first-century-proxy-warfare/ // HZN Proxy warfare will shape twenty-first century conflicts for the foreseeable future, but Cold War norms
no longer apply. The rise of transnational social movements, diffusion of weapons of mass destruction, and remote targeting capabilities are making proxy forces
more lethal and shifting the horizons of strategic surprise. Where Moscow and Washington once set the rules of the game, state and non-state sponsors of proxy
forces are proliferating in today’s globalized markets for force erasing traditional frontlines, reshaping alliances, and transforming rivalries. Today, a complex mesh
of partnerships among states, corporations, mercenaries, militias, and other “useful brigands” are radically changing how wars are fought and won. The devastating
impact of proxy war is keenly felt in the Greater Middle East and its periphery. While conflicts in Ukraine and Afghanistan appear stuck for the moment in a
precarious status quo, Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen stand out as ground zero in multi-sided proxy wars that are testing international norms. From U.S.-backed
Kurdish forces and Russian private military security contractors in Syria to Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and UAE-supported militias in Yemen, proxy fighters have
emerged as newly empowered change agents. They are rewriting the rules of engagement and strategic risk. They have developed relationships with a diverse
range of sponsors for their own often-divergent ends–at times apocalyptic and revolutionary–while creating their own networks of sub-state proxies. U.S. policy has
yet to come to grips with this new reality and has been in a state of flux since the Arab Spring. Unable and unwilling to commit to direct military intervention after
long, costly wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Washington is once again doubling down on proxy
warfare, gambling on a strategy that advances U.S. interests
“by, with, and through” local partners in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. It’s a pricey wager and it is still unclear whether it’s a
winning bet. Civil wars raging today in the so-called “arc of instability” remain the greatest threats to international security. Conflict there has displaced
tens of millions [and] of people, killed hundreds of thousands, and devastated large swaths of the region’s economy
and infrastructure. Renewed U.S. rivalry with Russia and China and competition among Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel for regional primacy are forcing
Washington to reconfigure its grand strategy. Current conceptions of proxy warfare do not account for the paradigm shift now underway. A clear-eyed cost-benefits
analysis of proxy warfare is needed to make U.S. strategy more effective. New America, as part of its partnership with Arizona State University, has embarked on a
multiyear research project on twenty-first century proxy warfare. This paper is the first in a series on conflicts in the Greater Middle East and its periphery that will
be published as part of the project. The study highlights research gaps and re-conceptualizes proxy warfare as a strategy that relies on third-party armed forces that
lie outside the constitutional order of rival states engaged overtly or covertly in armed conflict. The analysis draws on a broad review of the existing literature and
conversations with more than three dozen policymakers, researchers and practitioners from July to October 2018. The analysis is also informed by discussions
during a workshop on the subject of proxy warfare held by New America in coordination with Arizona State University and the Omran Center for Strategic Studies in
Istanbul, Turkey, featuring more than 35 journalists, analysts, and former policymakers.