GeoStrategy Initiative Analysis and Events

Dempsey Calls for Innovation in Defense

By James Hasik

Keynote Address by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey Today, General Dempsey noted, is the forty-ninth anniversary of the founding of the long-defunct Warsaw Pact. Back then, in 1955, he was three years old. In 1975, as he noted, the Dempsey went to Germany to patrol the Czech border as a […]

The next wave: 4D printing

By Thomas A. Campbell, Skylar Tibbits, and Banning Garrett

A new report by Thomas A. Campbell, Skylar Tibbits, and Banning Garrett, The Next Wave: 4D Printing – Programming the Material World, examines 4D printing, a new disruptive technology on the horizon that may take 3D printing to an entirely new level of capability with profound implications for society, the economy, and the global operating environment of governments and businesses alike.

Toward Shared Prosperity

By Christopher Colford

With an Urgent New Focus on Overcoming Inequality The challenge of promoting shared prosperity was one of the unifying themes throughout the recent Spring Meetings at the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund – the whirlwind of diplomacy and scholarship that sweeps through Washington every April and October. A remarkable new factor, however, energized […]

Rebalancing Socioeconomic Asymmetry in a Data-Driven Economy

By Peter Haynes

As the global economy becomes increasingly grounded in the exchange of data, the ways in which those data are collected and analyzed will become even more opaque to individuals, and the value exchange that is taking place even harder to discern. Although an individual may receive something in return for their information, the real values […]

Beyond Network Feudalism

By John Hanacek

Our civilization has a new reality. Computers meshed together by digital networks have transcended the system that built them becoming a new reality, a place where duplicating and moving information has near zero marginal cost. This alone has changed the nature of the world; we have a virtual playground where the reality of scarcity we […]

The Promise of Human Space Exploration

Space exploration captured Americans’ imaginations in the 1960s and became a significant cultural touchstone in American history due to the Apollo programs and that iconic moment when man first walked on the moon in 1969. Lately, this sense of wonder seems to be fading as NASA gets less funding, private industry steps in to fill […]

European Defense Post-QDR

With the recent release of the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) from the US Department of Defense there is a need to analyze and create a strategy to deal with the world ahead. On April 16, 2014, a panel of experts on the defense budget and international security discussed the strategy and means by which […]

Beyond Today’s Internet

By Thomas A. Campbell

When the precursor to today’s Internet, the ARPANET, had its first nodes connected in 1969, only a handful of computer scientists knew about it. Now most of the world is dependent on the Internet’s vast web of links, tweets, posts, and likes for commerce, communication, and socialization. But could the Internet of future generations be […]

Bitcoin and the Future of Currency

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Pinning down exactly what Bitcoin is like identifying Superman in old comics. Legal, financial, and political experts approach the issue from different angles—labeling Bitcoin into categories which established governments and institutions can understand and control. Meanwhile, technologists and innovators view virtual currencies as nothing less than a […]

The US and the World Gather in Medellin

By Peter Engelke

This week, Medellin, Colombia is hosting the World Urban Forum, the 7th iteration of the United Nation’s biannual conference series dedicated to the world’s cities. Some 25,000 people from everywhere on Earth are gathering at “WUF7” to discuss the governance challenges, and the unlimited opportunities, that are found in the world’s cities. The scale and […]

Moving to Zero

By Banning Garrett

How much of human productive activity can be moved to “near zero marginal cost”? Jeremy Rifkin’s provocative new book poses the question to our future. The case for “near zero marginal cost” in the digital world is pretty clear, as Rifkin so ably explains. Think of a piece of software (from Microsoft Office to a Beyonce track). […]

Internet as “Answer Engine,” Part II

By John Hanacek

The Perils In my previous blog, I outlined what living in an Answer Engine-powered Internet might look like. There is much to be excited for as we move toward the future where the Internet is woven into every facet of life. Think how far we’ve come already and how quickly it happened. Think about your […]

Internet as “Answer Engine,” Part I

By John Hanacek

The Promise The Internet is moving beyond a portal to another world and becoming part of the very world itself, meshing with and augmenting physical reality. The idea of the “Alive Web” sees the Internet becoming an increasingly real-time affair.  We are in the beginning. Apps like Snapchat and Twitter already represent the new pace and […]

Crafting Public Diplomacy for an Urbanized World

On March 20, the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, in partnership with the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, hosted a roundtable focusing on the future of public diplomacy in the context of global trends. Titled Crafting Public Diplomacy for an Urbanized World, the roundtable examined how the US government, through public […]

How to Save the Shale Revolution

By Robert A. Manning

Enlightened state regulators, a coalition of the willing, and continued improvements in technology together hold promise for elevating best practices around fracking to the status of new norms. “We’re in the first inning of a nine-inning game on the shale revolution in the United States,” Conoco CEO Ryan Lance recently boldly predicted. Given the dramatic impact […]

The Entrepreneurial State: Roles of Government, Research Institutions, and Private Sector in R&D Innovation

By Atlantic Council

On Thursday February 27, 2014 the Strategic Foresight Initiative in the Brent Scowcroft Center for International Security held the captivating event “The Entrepreneurial State.” Experts weighed in on the role governments, research institutions, and the private sector in supporting innovation and research and development in the sciences. Discussants advocated for greater collaboration and cooperation as […]

Addressing the Food, Water, and Energy Nexus

The relationship between food, water, and energy resources are shaping our world and its future, and managing the “nexus” of the interdependencies among these goods is arguably one of the most critical challenges facing policymakers in the transatlantic area. A draft report discussed at an Atlantic Council event today argues that Africa plays an especially […]

Urbanization in Latin America

By Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center

Cities are global leaders whose innovative policies are increasingly transcending boundaries to shape domestic and international trends. The relative power of cities to influence the global agenda will only increase in the coming decades. More than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas; by 2050, 70 percent, or more than six billion people, […]