New Technologies and National Security Challenges

by Neil Kent

The pioneering essays in this volume explore national security challenges posed by new technologies and examine some ongoing efforts to understand and mitigate their potential negative effects. The authors, drawn from among a roster of international scholars, approach these issues from different yet ultimately complementary angles. Turkish scholar Emin Daskin chronicles the efforts of the Turkish government to develop and implement a Cyber Security Strategy aimed at protecting the country from attacks by both governmental and non-governmental cyber actors. French researcher Christine Dugoin-Clement has studied what she views as a successful case of cyberwarfare, in which Ukrainian soldiers fighting in the eastern separatist region of Donbass have been targeted by cyber attackers attempting to deteriorate their cognition, rendering them less effective in the field. Another French author and military academy instructor, Thomas Flichy de La Neuville, provides a counterpoint study of militarized motorbike attacks in the Sahel, demonstrating that cyberspace is not the only technological sphere in which innovation increasingly threatens security. Finally, American academic Christopher Whyte offers a trenchant critique of current academic studies of cyberterrorism, noting that while “cyberterrorism” appears frequently as a subject of research, the actual work being carried out in this critical area lacks thematic nuance and is only tenuously linked to related major thematic topic areas. The collection highlights the unique challenges faced by countries as they attempt to deal with previously unknown adversaries, as both the nature of the enemy and the field of operations continues to shift with unprecedented speed. It will undoubtedly be of interest to anyone concerned with international relations, cybersecurity, cyberterrorism, and national security in the twenty-first century.

114 pages, Hardcover

Published March 1, 2020