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2. Competition between Democracy and Autocracy: The Defining Challenge of the 21st Century
- Author:
- Derek Mitchell
- Publication Date:
- 03-2022
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Brown Journal of World Affairs
- Institution:
- Brown Journal of World Affairs
- Abstract:
- Ambassador Derek Mitchell is the president of the National Democratic In- stitute. He served as the U.S. ambassador to Myanmar from 2012 –2016, following a long and distinuguished career in and outside the government.
- Topic:
- International Affairs, Democracy, Strategic Competition, and Autocracy
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
3. A Roundtable on Lauren Turek, To Bring the Good News to All Nations: Evangelical Influence on Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Relations
- Author:
- Andrew Preston, Darren Dochuk, Christopher Cannon Jones, Kelly J. Shannon, Vanessa Walker, and Lauren F. Turek
- Publication Date:
- 01-2021
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR)
- Abstract:
- Historians of the United States and the world are getting religion, and our understanding of American foreign relations is becoming more rounded and more comprehensive as a result. Religion provides much of the ideological fuel that drives America forward in the world, which is the usual approach historians have taken in examining the religious influence on diplomacy; it has also sometimes provided the actual nuts-and-bolts of diplomacy, intelligence, and military strategy.1 But historians have not always been able to blend these two approaches. Lauren Turek’s To Bring the Good News to All Nations is thus a landmark because it is both a study of cultural ideology and foreign policy. In tying the two together in clear and compelling ways, based on extensive digging in various archives, Turek sheds a huge amount of new light on America’s mission in the last two decades of the Cold War and beyond. Turek uses the concept of “evangelical internationalism” to explore the worldview of American Protestants who were both theologically and politically conservative, and how they came to wield enough power that they were able to help shape U.S. foreign policy from the 1970s into the twenty-first century. As the formerly dominant liberal Protestants faded in numbers and authority, and as the nation was gripped by the cultural revolutions of the 1960s, evangelicals became the vanguard of a new era in American Christianity. Evangelicals replaced liberal Protestants abroad, too, as the mainline churches mostly abandoned the mission field. The effects on U.S. foreign relations were lasting and profound.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Religion, International Affairs, History, Culture, Book Review, Christianity, and Diplomatic History
- Political Geography:
- United States and Global Focus
4. Supporting a Public Purpose in Research & Development: The Role of Tax Credits
- Author:
- Jake Taylor
- Publication Date:
- 06-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- Tax credits for research and development are a means of incentivizing the private sector to invest their own resources on challenging problems. However, in practice, the fungibility of tax credits and other monetary elements can lead to misalignment between the public good represented by R&D and the actions of the company. In this policy brief, we consider the existing mechanism of tax credits. We see how they can encourage private sector risk-taking to enable research and development (R&D) outcomes. However, our goal is to go beyond economic growth benefits, and to include the less tangible considerations of public good and public purpose in the research and development domain. We then suggest an expansion of tax credits focused on supporting the researchers involved in the R&D and encouraging innovation in both large organizations and in startups and small businesses. This approach builds upon the existing framework of agency-led, mission-defined support of the private sector used by the U.S. government, as occurs in other programs such as America’s Seed Fund (sometimes known by its acronyms, SBIR and STTR). The integration of specific agency- and mission-focused elements to the credit system ensures that these additive credits support research and researchers whose R&D outcomes will improve the health, prosperity, and opportunity for the U.S. as a whole. Specific means of implementing this public-purpose R&D credit system under existing authorities within the executive branch are suggested, along with the public-facing mechanisms for creating and maintaining the evaluation approach of what constitutes “public purpose” as science and society progress.
- Topic:
- Economics, Science and Technology, International Affairs, Tax Systems, and Tax Credits
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus and United States of America
5. AI and International Stability: Risks and Confidence-Building Measures
- Author:
- Michael Horowitz and Paul Scharre
- Publication Date:
- 01-2021
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
- Abstract:
- Militaries around the world believe that the integration of machine learning methods throughout their forces could improve their effectiveness. From algorithms to aid in recruiting and promotion, to those designed for surveillance and early warning, to those used directly on the battlefield, applications of artificial intelligence (AI) could shape the future character of warfare. These uses could also generate significant risks for international stability. These risks relate to broad facets of AI that could shape warfare, limits to machine learning methods that could increase the risks of inadvertent conflict, and specific mission areas, such as nuclear operations, where the use of AI could be dangerous. To reduce these risks and promote international stability, we explore the potential use of confidence-building measures (CBMs), constructed around the shared interests that all countries have in preventing inadvertent war. Though not a panacea, CBMs could create standards for information-sharing and notifications about AI-enabled systems that make inadvertent conflict less likely.
- Topic:
- Science and Technology, International Affairs, Military Affairs, Political stability, and Artificial Intelligence
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus