Infrastructure

Bottom Line: The U.S. and its NATO allies have warned that Russian submarine activity near undersea fiber optic cables means Moscow may be plotting to disrupt or intercept sensitive or other critical internet communications in the event of a confrontation with the West. Their warning serves as a plea to ...

Puerto Rico may well be the most unusual and paradoxical situation in world affairs, and now it ranks among the most tragic. The existence of more than 7 million Puerto Ricans would rank Puerto Rico among the 15 most populous U.S. states, except that more than half of these Puerto ...

U.S. President Donald Trump marked his 100th day in office with an executive order calling for a review of U.S. trade deals, as well as its membership in the World Trade Organization. The order follows statements earlier in the week threatening to terminate or renegotiate NAFTA and the U.S. free ...

Forgive free-trade advocates for being a bit disoriented this year. The vertigo hit hard in January, when trade’s most notable defender at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, was not from the West but from the East. “Say no to protectionism,” Chinese President Xi Jinping urged in his ...

As China’s economic interests in Africa have expanded, its security interests have kept pace, to protect Chinese nationals and assets across the continent.  To that end, China has invested heavily in multinational organizations such as the African Union and the United Nations and has shown commitment to regional stability. The ...

Since the first CIA Predator drone strike in October 2001, the United States, among others, has sought to expand the technology to facilitate remote warfare. UN peacekeeping forces use drones for intelligence gathering in such places as Mali, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The ...

Remotely controlled aircraft, or drones, have long become common in military settings—possibly most infamously pictured as a U.S. Predator launching Hellfire missiles at suspected terrorists in far corners of the globe. How can they be used for humanitarian purposes, though? The Cipher Brief spoke with former U.S. Ambassador Jack Chow, ...

While receiving significant publicity from global media, the rise of the humanitarian drone is so far more of a whimper than a bang. This article explores some critical perspectives behind the limited use of drones. In 2016, the Swiss Foundation for Mine Action (FSD) undertook the first systematic survey on perceptions ...

The inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States has officially triggered a wave of significant policy changes in Washington, initially on issues of trade, foreign policy, energy, and the environment. At the same time, President Trump’s well-known isolationist foreign policy and protectionist trade agendas have ...

Shortly after arriving at the G20 economic summit in Hangzhou China last week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canada would join a long list of U.S. allies who have joined the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), despite behind-the-scenes warnings from the Obama administration. Today, Japan is the sole ...

When a multilateral bank, based in China, finances an upgrade of slums in 154 cities in Indonesia, do Americans need to be concerned about a new security threat? What if the project is co-financed by the World Bank? And what if China doesn’t even hold veto power in the institution ...

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is China's answer to the multi-trillion dollar infrastructure spending gap in Asia. However, many see the bank as an extension of Chinese geopolitical influence. As leaders from Group of 20 (G20), representing 85 percent of global GDP, met in Hangzhou China last weekend, The ...