LABORATORIO DI RICERCA COMPLESSA / COMPLEX RESEARCH LABORATORY
Daily from global think tanks and open sources
(the analyzes here recalled do not necessarily correspond to the geostrategic thinking of The Global Eye)
Artificial Intelligence
1 – (Douglas Lippoldt – Centre for International Governance Innovation) A field with its roots established in the 1950s, artificial intelligence (AI) is suddenly much more in the public eye and capable of doing useful things for casual users as well as experts. Its rollout over the coming decade could be a very big deal indeed. To achieve broad welfare gains and global participation in the AI economy, stakeholders — producers, suppliers, consumers, researchers, regulators and others — will need a safe and trustworthy business environment that facilitates responsible access and technology diffusion. In this paper, the author examines the concentration of AI innovation and considers factors in the regulatory environment that may support or hinder its responsible diffusion in line with applicable international norms. The paper aims to add to the literature on AI innovation and its diffusion by delivering analysis drawing on a unique combination of firm-level data sources and policy indicators.
2 – (World Economic Forum) How artificial intelligence (AI) is integrated is critical as it should enhance human interaction and decision-making rather than replace them through responsible and equitable application in education. Students and educators must learn about AI to prepare them for a future increasingly intertwined with AI technologies, including understanding AI’s principles, applications and ethical implications. Policy recommendations for integrating AI in education effectively include creating AI-focused task forces, promoting AI literacy, establishing responsible AI guidelines, professional development support and AI research and development.
5 key policy ideas to integrate AI in education effectively | World Economic Forum (weforum.org)
Australia
1 – (Malcolm Davis – ASPI The Strategist) Australia is joining the US and Japan in developing systems for shielding territory from air and missile attack. The news comes as the Department of Defence and Royal Australian Air Force are under pressure to move faster in implementing such a capability.
Australia’s next step in integrated air and missile defence | The Strategist (aspistrategist.org.au)
2 – (Ian Satchwell – ASPI The Strategist) Australia, like Canada, is well placed to be a global leader in the critical minerals sector. Our nation has the natural endowment, technical expertise and experience, global mining footprint, and mining capital base to back a claim to worldwide leadership.
Australia’s leadership imperatives in critical minerals | The Strategist (aspistrategist.org.au)
Cambodia
(Mu Sucha – ASPI The Strategist) Although 2024 is being heralded as a banner year for elections, with dozens of countries, representing more than half the global population, holding polls, for some it marks the nadir of democracy. Cambodia is one such case.
The threat posed by Cambodia’s new strongman | The Strategist (aspistrategist.org.au)
Central Asia
(Syed Fazl-e-Haider – The Jamestown Foundation) The Central Asian states are becoming more concerned with the surge in drugs being trafficked from Afghanistan since the Taliban retook power in 2021. The Taliban has banned poppy cultivation, but drug enforcement agencies in Central Asia claim that drug production continues in underground laboratories within Afghanistan and from which directly Kabul benefits. The increased drug trafficking in Central Asia is contributing to a surge in cross-border crime, corruption, degradation of public institutions, human trafficking, and money laundering.
Central Asia Cracks Down on Drug Trafficking – Jamestown
China
1 – (Devendra Kumar – ASPI The Strategist) The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is increasingly taking a stand against corruption in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Bribing foreign officials in securing projects has always been an unspoken BRI mechanism, but what’s become intolerable to the party is growing embezzlement of Chinese funds by Chinese officials.
China extends anticorruption drive to Belt and Road | The Strategist (aspistrategist.org.au)
2 – (Benjamin J. Sacks and Peter Dortmans – RAND Corporation) The recent opening of China’s Qinling base, its third permanent Antarctic station, has worried some Australian and American observers. Their concerns suggest it may be time for Australia to delineate China’s Antarctic ambitions more clearly and better organize its response.
What Are China’s Long-Term Antarctic Ambitions? | RAND
Climate Action – Energy Transition
(Trissia Wijaya, Jun Arima, Patrick Ryan, Miwa Hirono – Lowy The Interpreter) The clean energy transition has emerged as a new frontier in the intensifying US–China strategic arms race. Energy transition minerals (ETMs) – an essential component of the shift away from fossil fuels – have become central to the US grand strategy, with the Biden administration outlining a whole-of-government approach to combat China’s dominance in critical mineral supply chains. To withstand decoupling, China seeks to strengthen its position in these supply chains, including for ETMs, by intensifying technology adoption and upgrading its industrial capabilities through a dual-circulation strategy, which relies on increased domestic consumption and innovation.
Great powers vs domestic politics: The clean energy trade-off | Lowy Institute
European Union
1 – (Maria Demertzis – Bruegel) For the next five years, economic security will undoubtedly be one of the top priorities for the leadership of the European Commission. To ensure its economic security, the European Union will need to use the until recently discredited concept of industrial policy, in other words, interfering with market forces to promote sectors and firms it deems strategic. But it will have to use it wisely if such policies are to make a difference to the EU’s economic growth.
Industrial policy for economic security (bruegel.org)
2 – (Bruegel) Bruegel and the Financial Times partnered up to host a debate featuring representatives from EU political parties on EU economic issues
Visions for Europe: Economic expert debate for the 2024 EU elections (bruegel.org)
European Union – Ukraine
(Zsolt Darvas, Marek Dabrowski, Heather Grabbe, Luca Léry Moffat, André Sapir, Georg Zachmann – Bruegel) This report evaluates the impact on the EU of a possible EU accession of Ukraine, focusing on economic consequences and institutional developments.
The impact on the European Union of Ukraine’s potential future accession (bruegel.org)
Global Economy
(Atlantic Council) “Fasten your seatbelts,” said International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva at the Atlantic Council last week, during a curtain-raiser speech for the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings. “At some point, we will be landing.”
G7 – China
(Douglas A. Rediker – Brookings) Earlier this month, Zambia announced it had finally agreed to a debt restructuring agreement with private bondholders, more than three years after it defaulted. The deal represents a significant step toward Zambia’s regaining economic sustainability. It also represents an important step in the implementation of the G20’s Common Framework for Debt Relief—an attempt to integrate China, the world’s largest bilateral official lender to developing countries—into the workings of the Paris Club, which had long represented the interests of the world’s advanced economies in debt relief talks. But the Zambia experience took far longer than expected and raises concerns for other countries seeking debt relief. Those concerns rest on the unanswered question of how to treat private capital, and whether the United States and its G7 allies have yet settled on whether private investors should be encouraged as a major source of Western development finance to compete with China’s state-led model or placed at a disadvantage relative to official creditors when debtor countries cannot repay.
Private capital is the G7’s best tool to compete with China | Brookings
Indonesia
(Gilang Kembara – East Asia Forum) Following Indonesia’s 2024 general election, Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka have been announced as the new president and vice president. They plan to continue President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo’s economic and infrastructure development projects, including the relocation of the administrative capital from Jakarta to Ibu Kota Nusantara (IKN). Along with an emphasis on strengthening Indonesia’s maritime defence capacity, they hope to stimulate the nation’s economic transformation by turning IKN into a global maritime hub and leveraging it to enhance economic interest in eastern Indonesia.
Nusantara can unlock Indonesia’s maritime potential | East Asia Forum
Near East
1 – (Brookings) Scholars offer their insights following Iran’s drone and missile attack against Israel on April 13, 2024. Their responses provide perspectives on the implications for various actors as well as a range of policy issues.
The impact of Iran’s attack on Israel | Brookings
2 – (Daniel Byman – Center for Strategic & International Studies) Iran’s massive drone and ballistic missile strikes on Israel failed to inflict significant damage, but Israeli leaders have vowed to respond to the aggression, although they avoided specifics. Israeli leaders face two questions: Should Israel retaliate, and if so, how?
How Might Israel Strike Back? (csis.org)
3 – (Lydia Khalil – Lowy The Interpreter) Events in the Middle East over the weekend have brought the longstanding Israel-Iran shadow war into the spotlight, compounding fears that the Gaza conflict will spill over into a regional war. Iran and its proxy forces launched a barrage of drones and missiles in the first ever direct attack by Iran against Israeli territory. It was in retaliation for an earlier Israeli strike targeting and killing senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps commanders at an embassy annex in Damascus. Israel’s war cabinet has spent the last few days deliberating how it will respond.
Iran-Israel: The escalation calculus | Lowy Institute
4 – (Barbara Slavin – Stimson Center) Iran might have been better advised to let Netanyahu continue to dig a bigger hole for himself rather than changing the subject and making Israel the perceived victim
How to Prevent All-out War Between Iran and Israel • Stimson Center
North Korea
(Martyn Williams, Natalia Slavney – Stimson Center) Examining North Korea’s digital surveillance capabilities, how they have developed, and worrying trends for the future
Digital Surveillance in North Korea: Moving Toward a Panopticon State • Stimson Center
Philippines
(Jenny Balboa – East Asia Forum) Conflicts between the Philippines’ Marcos and Duterte families have increased, with public insults and accusations being hurled. Amid this feud, President Bongbong Marcos’s soft response has sparked curiosity, possibly explained by his ‘gratitude debt’ belief, given that his 2022 presidential campaign was boosted by Sara Duterte’s withdrawal from the presidential race. Yet whatever the reasons behind Marcos’s non-response, this feud may threaten the success of his presidency.
The Marcos–Duterte power struggle in the Philippines | East Asia Forum
Russia
1 – (Paul Globe – The Jamestown Foundation) Russian women who oppose Putin’s war and want their men to come home have adopted a new tactic, wordlessly banging pots outside their homes to protest the war. The movement has been gaining momentum, and the Kremlin has responded by increasing repression and detaining many who have taken part while shutting down reporting on the protests. Overall, Russian women have been far more active in opposing Putin’s war than Russian men, taking steps to demand that the war end and their male relatives be allowed to return home.
Russian Women Adopt New Way to Protest War—One Putin Cannot Easily Block – Jamestown
2 – (Sergey Sukhankin – The Jamestown Foundation) Russia is struggling to attract more volunteers to fight in Ukraine, and Moscow has increasingly turned to the outer regions for recruitment. Such an approach has raised ethnic tensions in some regions where the volunteers are largely non-ethnic Russians, while other regions have become the darlings of Russian propagandists. Growing combat losses and Moscow’s neglect of non-ethnic Russians are creating the foundation for greater anti-Kremlin sentiments in Siberia.
Ethnically Non-Russian Formations in Russia’s War on Ukraine: Siberia – Jamestown
3 – (Benjamin Hilgenstock, Elina Ribakova, Anna Vlasyuk, Guntram B. Wolff – Bruegel) Restrictions on exports of goods that are critical for Russia’s military industry are a main plank of the comprehensive sanctions imposed on the country since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But are the restrictions, repeatedly tightened by Ukraine’s allies over the past two years, working? Media reporting and research, including by the Kyiv School of Economics, have shown, in fact, that export controls enforcement is facing serious challenges.
Use the financial system to enforce export controls on Russia (bruegel.org)
Slovakia
(Soňa Muzikárová – Atlantic Council) On April 6, Slovakia voted in a populist, Moscow-friendly president, potentially accelerating the erosion of the country’s democratic values and possibly increasing Russia’s influence over Bratislava.
Slovakia’s presidential choice reinforces its anti-Western leanings – Atlantic Council
Southeast Asia
(Han Phoumin – ASPI The Strategist) Secure and reliable critical mineral supply chains will be vital for energy transition. The supply chains are the secret to scaling up installation of wind turbines, advanced batteries, electrolysers and clean-energy grids. Southeast Asia has significant natural reserves of several key critical minerals, including nickel, tin, rare-earth elements (REEs) and bauxite, and the region is still not fully explored for more of them. But establishing downstream processing of the materials in Southeast Asia is a great challenge, especially if high environmental standards are to be met.
Southeast Asia’s potential in critical minerals | The Strategist (aspistrategist.org.au)
Southeast Asia – Germany
(Chhengpor Aun – East Asia Forum) In March 2024, Germany hosted the leaders of Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand as part of its efforts to engage Southeast Asia. Germany’s overtures to the region are motivated by its aim to reduce dependence on China, diversify supply chains, and secure critical minerals for the green transition. The visits also highlighted Germany’s support for the region’s democracies and its commitment to upholding the rules-based international order. Despite facing domestic challenges, Germany recognises the potential of Southeast Asia’s dynamic workforce in addressing its demand for skilled workers. To further strengthen its presence in the region, Germany should consider securing a permanent seat at ASEAN gatherings, revitalizing EU-ASEAN free trade agreement talks, and addressing bureaucratic complexities faced by foreign workers.
Germany walks the talk on Southeast Asia | East Asia Forum
South Korea
(James Kim – East Asia Forum) South Korea’s desire for their own nuclear weapons, driven by fears of war, seems impervious to US security guarantees. This inclination, particularly strong amongst older generations who experienced the Korean War, is anticipated to lessen as war survivors pass away and succeeding, less war-fearing generations grow their political influence. As a result, nuclear non-proliferation policies could potentially become more effective, granted the security environment adapts.
Dousing South Korea’s nuclear desires | East Asia Forum
Sudan
(Mariel Ferragamo and Diana Roy – Council on Foreign Relations) A year into the civil war in Sudan, more than eight million people have been displaced, exacerbating an already devastating humanitarian crisis.
What Is the Extent of Sudan’s Humanitarian Crisis? | Council on Foreign Relations (cfr.org)
USA
1- (Elaine Kamarck and Elizabeth Smith – Brookings) Of the three most talked about “spoiler candidates,” Jill Stein has the best chance of getting on a large number of state ballots. Robert F. Kennedy’s strategy has been to create a political party called “We the People” for which he will be the nominee and use it for ballot access in five states—California, Delaware, Hawaii, Mississippi, and North Carolina. Every time Kennedy gets on a ballot in a swing state, he comes closer and closer to becoming a spoiler in 2024, and so far, his organization has shown the ability to raise money and meet filing deadlines.
Will Robert F. Kennedy be a spoiler in the presidential race? | Brookings
2 – (John J. DiIulio, Jr. – Brookings) Several other Republican presidential standard-bearers, as well as many GOP candidates for Congress, won about the same share or an even greater share of white working-class votes than Trump did in 2016 and 2020. Will Marble, a brilliant Penn data scientist, has documented that since 2000, “educational polarization” between whites with a college degree and whites without one has widened on both economic and cultural issues and pushed ever more “non-college” whites “toward the Republican Party.”. In 2016 and again in 2020, Trump won a sizable majority of the white evangelical working-class vote but lost the white non-evangelical working-class vote; and between 2016 and 2020, Trump’s vote among college-educated white evangelicals fell from 81% to 63%.
Biden, Trump, and the 4 categories of white votes | Brookings
3 – (William H. Frey – Brookings) The COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on urban population shifts have not completely subsided. But recently released Census Bureau estimates suggest a trend toward demographic revival for most of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas and urban core counties. Population losses in these places are subsiding and, in some cases, turning into gains that are approaching pre-pandemic levels. Migration patterns, especially a continued rise in post-pandemic immigration from abroad, have contributed to these shifts.
New census data hints at an urban population revival, assisted by immigration | Brookings
Vietnam
(Serena Eleonora Ford – ASPI The Strategist) Vietnam has become the third country in the Association of South East Asian Nations to adopt a national action plan for the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, promoting meaningful inclusion of women in peace and security decision-making.
Vietnam adopts the Women, Peace and Security agenda | The Strategist (aspistrategist.org.au)
War in Ukraine
(Brookings) Tracking developments in the Ukraine war, the Brookings Institution — in partnership with The Washington Post — presents the Ukraine Index, which compiles security, economic, and political data presented in graphic form. Our purpose is to provide updated information on such key metrics as changes in the control of Ukrainian territory by the two sides, the amount of support for Ukraine from the U.S. and Europe as well the political support for continued aid, and the health of the Ukrainian economy. Our Ukraine Index is intended to contribute to our understanding of this conflict, and thereby to a more informed public debate.
Ukraine Index: Tracking developments in the Ukraine war | Brookings
The Science of Where Magazine (Direttore: Emilio Albertario)
