Open newsletter – April 5, 2022 a.m.

COMPLESSITA’, SCENARI, RISCHIO

Troppi soffiano sul fuoco della guerra in Ucraina. Ed è un gioco pericoloso. Le discussioni si accendono, quasi fossero un’altra guerra. Ebbene, lasciando stare le storie fantastiche evocate da alcuni antagonisti che evocano fiction, la domanda di oggi è, per quanto semplice, drammatica: è il caso di evocare un processo per crimini di guerra contro Vladimir Putin ? Ed è giusto che a farlo sia il Presidente degli Stati Uniti ? Sulla seconda credo che, durante una guerra, gli uomini di Stato debbano astenersi dal linguaggio umorale, a meno che non abbiano altri interessi. Sulla prima domanda ci poniamo, come risposta, un’altra domanda: si può pensare che il Presidente russo possa, se incriminato per crimini di guerra, fare passi verso la pace ? Ai sacerdoti della linearità l’ardua sentenza. 

Alcuni passaggi interessanti:

• è stato lanciato, ad Ankara, lo U.S.-Turkey Strategic Mechanism (United States Department of State
• Partnership tra USA e Lettonia nell’ambito del programma Foundational Infrastructure for Responsible Use of Small Modular Reactor Technology (FIRST) (United States Department of State)
• Carnegie Middle East Center riflette sull’importanza del confine turco-siriano: “The Turkish-Syrian border is divided into separate areas of control—under the Syrian Democratic Forces in northeast Syria, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham in Idlib, and Turkey in several cantons—which sustain contradictory political projects. Yet these border areas constitute a single political-security ecosystem, one connected to southern Turkey and regime-held Syria. As such, only a peace agreement that treats the border areas as an indivisible whole and delimits the major powers’ zones of influence can lead to a stable long-term arrangement”.
• il lento parlare di pace nello Yemen (AGSIW)

(di Marco Emanuele)

TODAY:

• AROUND THE WORLD
• DEFENSE – MILITARY – SPACE – CYBER SECURITY
• ON LIFE
• RUSSIA – UKRAINE (impact, reactions, consequences)

AROUND THE WORLD

Europe

• How the EU Can Unlock the Private Sector’s Human-Mobility Data for Social Good, March 28. By Hodan Omaar, Center for Data Innovation. Many businesses routinely collect data about the location of consumers, such as where they are when they make a purchase or use a mobile app. Aggregating this information reveals useful insights about human mobility and social interaction. Researchers, governments, and others can use this mobility data, while respecting user privacy, to study and address many pressing societal challenges, such as disease spread, urban functioning, forced migration, climate change, and disaster response. To support these types of applications, EU policymakers should encourage businesses to share mobility data by implementing policies that provide firms with regulatory clarity, financial incentives, and technical resources to give out this type of data. (read more)

Turkey – Syria

• Border Nation: The Reshaping of the Syrian-Turkish Borderlands, March 30. By Armenak Tokmajyan, Kheder Khaddour, Carnegie Middle East Center. The Turkish-Syrian border is divided into separate areas of control—under the Syrian Democratic Forces in northeast Syria, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham in Idlib, and Turkey in several cantons—which sustain contradictory political projects. Yet these border areas constitute a single political-security ecosystem, one connected to southern Turkey and regime-held Syria. As such, only a peace agreement that treats the border areas as an indivisible whole and delimits the major powers’ zones of influence can lead to a stable long-term arrangement. (read more)

USA

• State Department Announces First Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy, April 4. By Alexandra Kelley, Nextgov. The U.S. Department of State announced Monday the formation of its first Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy, an office emphasizing the digital modernization in the federal sphere that is a key mission within the Biden administration. (read more)
• International Space Station Launches AI Program to Test Astronaut Gloves, April 4. By Brandi Vincent, Nextgov. NASA, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Microsoft developed and tested an artificial intelligence workload in-orbit aboard the International Space Station. Offering the promise of boosting astronauts’ safety when conducting ISS-aligned missions, that test is one part of a package of announcements Microsoft unveiled on Monday detailing capabilities aimed at driving developers to make and deploy new space applications and workloads. (read more)
• Congress Should Take This Big Step Towards Energy Efficiency, April 4. By Joy Ditto, Nextgov. In his March State of the Union address, President Joe Biden reaffirmed his commitment to cutting energy costs for families and combating climate change. The president correctly noted that changes to the U.S. tax code can be a valuable tool for achieving both goals. (Nextgov)
• Login.gov plans to scale up without facial recognition tech – for now, April 4. By Natalie Alms, Nextgov. The General Services Administration intends to drastically scale the use of the government’s secure sign-on service, Login.gov, in coming years, according to new agency budget documents and performance goals. And although the authentication and identity verification system doesn’t currently use facial recognition, budget documents say that Login.gov is still “exploring … how to address potential discrimination with facial recognition.”. (read more)
• Five False Claims Underscore the Case Against the Senate’s Leading Antitrust Bills, April 4. By Aurelien Portuese, ITIF. The Senate’s main antitrust bills—the American Innovation and Choice Online Act and the Open App Markets Act—emulate a stalled House package and the EU’s deeply flawed Digital Markets Act. They err on many fronts, and the main arguments for them are at odds with reality. (read more)
• Don’t Confuse Me With Facts: Denying the Lack of Growth in U.S. Economic Concentration, April 1. By Robert D. Atkinson, ITIF. Perhaps the most important question swirling around the heated debates about antitrust is whether economic concentration has increased. Anticorporate Neo-Brandeisians have a big stake in painting a dystopian picture of rampant monopolies—killing small businesses, jacking up prices, and crushing wages—all in their attempts to achieve a wholesale restructuring of U.S. antitrust law and practice. (read more)
• The New Federal IT Dashboard Falls Short of Its Aims, March 30. By Eric Egan, ITIF. Earlier this month, the General Services Administration (GSA) launched a redesigned Federal IT Dashboard, a website that aims to enable “agencies, [Office of Management and Budget] OMB, Congress, [Government Accountability Office] GAO, and the public to understand the value of their federal IT portfolios, manage the health of their IT investments, and make better IT planning decisions.”. (read more)
• U.S. Should Stop Delaying Deployment of Autonomous Track Inspection, April 4. By Daniel Castro, ITIF. The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) recently denied a U.S. freight railroad permission to use autonomous track inspection technology, a loss for those promoting greater use of automation to enhance rail safety and lower costs in the supply chain. Unfortunately, railroads face steep barriers to deploying the latest technologies as they must comply with outdated regulations and attempts to modernize these rules incur significant pushback from organized labor. If FRA will not expedite greater use of autonomous track inspection technology, Congress should step in.  (read more)
• Fact of the Week: Nearly 93 Percent of DRAM Chips Are Produced in South Korea, China, and Taiwan, April 1. By Luke Dascoli, ITIF. The CHIPS for America Act shows important awareness from government that the United States needs a course correction in semiconductors. (read more)
• Podcast: Investing in American Dynamism, With Ben Horowitz and Katherine Boyle, April 4. By Robert D. Atkinson  Jackie Whisman, ITIF. Venture capitalists know what it feels like when a company is firing on all cylinders. But it’s been a while since the whole country had that feeling of dynamism—so why not focus on companies that help the cause by supporting the national interest, solving critical problems, and doing fundamentally new things? Rob and Jackie sat down with Ben Horowitz and Katherine Boyle of the leading VC firm Andreessen Horowitz to talk about investing in American dynamism. (read more)
• Dynamic Antitrust Discussion Series: “The Regulatory Revolution Against Mergers”, April 1. By ITIF. The Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division have issued a public request for information that kicks off a process to “modernize enforcement of the antitrust laws regarding mergers.”. (read more)
• How Using March-in Rights Would Threaten America’s Research Universities, March 29. By ITIF. For more than 40 years, the United States has enjoyed an effective system for encouraging research universities to transfer technology and innovation to the private sector for commercialization. (read more)

USA – Latvia

• Joint Statement on the New Clean Energy and Nuclear Security Collaboration under the Foundational Infrastructure for Responsible Use of Small Modular Reactor Technology (FIRST) Initiative, April 4. By US Department of State. The United States and Latvia are pleased to announce a new partnership under the Foundational Infrastructure for Responsible Use of Small Modular Reactor Technology (FIRST) program.  FIRST is a capacity-building program designed to deepen strategic ties, support clean energy innovation, and advance technical collaboration with partner nations on secure, safe, and responsible use of nuclear energy infrastructure. (read more)

USA – Turkey

• U.S.-Turkey Joint Statement on the Strategic Mechanism, April 4. By US Department of State. In keeping with the commitment made by Presidents Biden and Erdogan during their meeting in Rome in October 2021, the United States and Turkey launched the U.S.-Turkey Strategic Mechanism on April 4 in Ankara. (read more)

World Government Summit – Dubai

• Dispatch from Dubai: The world isn’t ready for this new world order, April 3. By Frederick Kempe, Atlantic Council. “Are we ready for the new world order?”. The provocative title of the panel that led off the ambitiously named World Government Summit in Dubai last week was framed to suggest that a new global order is emerging—and the world is not ready for it. (read more)

Yemen

• The Ramadan Cease-Fire in Yemen, April 4. By Gregory D. Johnsen, AGSIW. An agreement is likely still a long way off in Yemen, but at least some of the parties are starting to talk, listen, and, ever so slowly, compromise. (read more)

DEFENSE – MILITARY – SPACE – CYBER SECURITY

• Defense Firms Should Hire Ukrainian, Afghan Refugees, Navy’s Top Admiral Urges, April 4. By Marcus Weisgerber, Defense One. Here’s a suggestion for U.S. defense firms struggling to find skilled workers to build ships and weapons, straight from the chief of naval operations: hire Ukrainian and Afghan refugees. (read one)
• Top Marine Defends Corps’ Lighter Direction. April 5. By Caitlin M. Kenney, Bradley Peniston, Defense One. The Marine Corps commandant pushed back against criticisms of his drive toward a lighter Corps, arguing that the reshaped force would better dissuade China from aggression in the Pacific region. (read more)
• Victor-model Black Hawk gets the OK to fly in national airspace, April 5, By Jen Judson. Defense News. The U.S. Army’s Victor-model Black Hawk utility helicopter is now cleared to fly in national airspace, Brig. Gen. Robert Barrie, the program executive officer for Army aviation, told Defense News at the Army Aviation Association of America’s annual conference. (read more)
• Army eyes thousands of IVAS systems with FY23 budget, April 4. By Colin Demarest, Defense News. The U.S. Army in fiscal year 2023 is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars for its Integrated Visual Augmentation System, a do-it-all headset that has faced challenges in the field and in the halls of Congress. Some $400 million is marked for procurement, Director of Force Development Brig. Gen. Michael McCurry told reporters March 29, enough for “just over 7,000 IVAS systems for” three brigade combat teams, pending successful testing. The sum is about half of a prior request. (read more)
• Navy, Marines push ‘campaigning forward’ strategy as vital to deterring China, April 4. By Megan Eckstein, Defense News. The upcoming National Defense Strategy will highlight “campaigning forward” as a pillar of future operations, and top naval leaders say the force is already moving in this direction. Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. David Berger described campaigning forward as an extension of what the Marine Corps already does. (read more)

ON LIFE

• Your Data Isn’t Gold; It’s Not Even Yours, April 1. By David Moschella, ITIF. We hear it so often that it’s easy to assume it must be true. “Our data is gold, and we should be compensated for it.” These two statements basically tell consumers that they are being taken advantage of, even ripped off by Big Tech. Not surprisingly, this has led to resentment and calls for action. But there is just one problem: Both assertions are much more wrong than right. Today’s leading technology companies are extraordinarily profitable, but this is far more due to the unique features of information economics than any data ownership or usage abuses. (read more)

RUSSIA – UKRAINE (reactions, impact, consequences)

• How the Ukraine war is affecting oil and gas markets, April 4. By Samantha Gross and David Dollar, Brookings. Samantha Gross, director of the Energy Security and Climate Initiative at Brookings, talks with host David Dollar about the Ukraine war’s impact on energy prices. Gross explains the impact Russia’s war on Ukraine is having on natural gas supplies and prices, oil markets, and whether the U.S. should increase natural gas exports to Europe. (read more)
• China Should Heed Lessons from Russia’s Ukraine Invasion, US Official Says, April 4. By Caitlin M. Kenney, Defense One. Russia’s poorly executed invasion of Ukraine and the international community’s economic and diplomatic response are cautionary lessons for China and others who may want to attempt aggressive actions in the Pacific, the Pentagon’s policy chief for the region said Monday. (read more)
• Missing in Action: Russian Cyberattacks, April 4. By  Nadiya Kostyuk and Erik Gartzke, Defense One. Throughout the latter half of 2021, as it became clear that Russia was massing a large portion of its conventional combat power on the eastern borders of Ukraine, analysts offered contrasting predictions about the role cyberspace would play in an armed conflict. These predictions capture an ongoing debate about whether conflict in cyberspace is destined to supplant conventional conflict or exacerbate it. (read more)
• Europeans weigh scope of security guarantees for Ukraine, April 4. By Sebastian Sprenger, Defense News. European governments are expected to discuss their part in security guarantees that could be promised to Ukraine under a potential peace deal following Russia’s increasingly brutal attack on the country, according to a senior European Union official. The comments come as talks between Ukrainian and Russian negotiators last week teed up the question of alternative assurances — outside of NATO’s Article 5 mutual-assistance clause — the West is willing to underwrite after Moscow stops its assault. (read more)