Cyberspace has increasingly become an arena of national self-assertion and international conflict instead of the transnational global commons it once seemed to be. Preserving the vision and the possibility of a free internet is an urgent task.
That is the basic thrust of a new book called The Darkening Web: The War for Cyberspace by Alexander Klimburg (Penguin Press, July 2017).
For my review of the book, see Cybersecurity: The cold war online, Nature 547, 30–31 (06 July 2017).
Satellite imagery of RAF Lakenheath reveals new construction of a security perimeter around ten protective aircraft shelters in the designated nuclear area, the latest measure in a series of upgrades as the base prepares for the ability to store U.S. nuclear weapons.
It will take consistent leadership and action to navigate the complex dangers in the region and to avoid what many analysts considered to be an increasingly possible outcome, a nuclear conflict in East Asia.
Getting into a shutdown is the easy part, getting out is much harder. Both sides will be looking to pin responsibility on each other, and the court of public opinion will have a major role to play as to who has the most leverage for getting us out.
How the United States responds to China’s nuclear buildup will shape the global nuclear balance for the rest of the century.