Alyssa Sims for the New America Foundation: Perhaps in future wars, victory will lie with the side that has a stronger understanding of how the world’s poor, mostly brown, smartphone-gripping populations engage with technology.
Military readiness will likely depend on the ability of the services to anticipate alternative uses of technology rather than merely react to them. And it’s worth noting that those rules of military victory would make recent revelations about secret Facebook groups where Marines (and possibly other branches) sexually humiliate their female colleagues especially damning, in terms of demographic sustenance and the value of human capital.
So, in other words, when we’re talking about what the future of war will look like, it might look like the social media that’s already all around us. And it may come down to how and for what purposes it’s weaponized … Perhaps understanding how other regions and demographics engage with communications technology and further how foreign governments have conducted information warfare in the past would help experts predict how foreign militant groups might weaponize communications technology to conduct information warfare in the future.
Presidents have gone too far with Antiquities Act
John Yoo for the American Enterprise Institute: In December 2016, President Barack Obama signed a series of midnight orders withdrawing millions of acres of land and sea from private use, using the Antiquities Act of 1906. He said these orders were “permanent” because there was no express authority to reverse them. But that claim gets the law on reversal exactly backward. In fact, President Trump has the authority under both the Constitution and the Antiquities Act to reverse the environmental designations of Obama or any other administration.
The Antiquities Act of 1906 was originally intended to protect man-made artifacts and archaeological sites. It allows the president to designate national monuments on land “owned or controlled” by the United States, limited to “the smallest area compatible” with the protection of the monument. Presidents ever since have abused that power by designating vast tracts of undeveloped land and even marine areas.
Although there is no controlling judicial authority on how such designations are to be reversed, constitutional principles dictate that the president’s authority to designate a monument include the authority to revoke a designation, particularly when the prior designation was made illegally or on a flawed factual basis. The Antiquities Act itself – in its purpose, language and prior implementation – also empowers the president to reduce or modify monument boundaries when it is appropriate.
How the travel ban affects higher ed
Edward Alden for the Council on Foreign Relations: Many of those affected by travel restrictions after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks came from countries with no connection to Islamic radicalism, including China, Russia and India. They were caught in the general slowdown of visa processing that accompanied the ramped-up security measures. That is likely to happen again, particularly if Congress takes an axe to the State Department budget as the president has requested, which would sharply reduce the number of consular officers.
Those from many other countries were put off by the newly aggressive attitude of Customs and Border Protection officials; we are seeing that again, with Internet searches for flights to the U.S. falling sharply.
Students will be affected by reductions in work opportunities — DHS has just shut down “premium processing” for H-1B visas, which is going to leave many foreign students who had expected to start working this year in limbo.
The Trump administration has signaled its intention to crack down on what it sees as fraud in the H-1B program and is opposed to the expansion of the Optional Practical Training program for foreign students, which allows them to work in the U.S. while remaining on a student visa.
All of these and other measures not foreseen will send a message to foreign students that the United States is harder to enter as a student and the prospects for remaining and working afterward are diminished. That will keep many bright students away, even from those countries not directly targeted by the measures.
Compiled by Joseph Lawler from reports published by the various think tanks.
