The Obama administration’s decision last week to continue the dual-hatted arrangement whereby a single military officer runs both the Cyber Command (Cybercom) and the National Security Agency (NSA) is the latest indication that the administration plans to make only modest changes in how the United States conducts offensive and defensive cyber operations in the aftermath of Edward Snowden’s revelations of NSA data collection. Instead, the administration’s aim will be to tighten security procedures to prevent yet another massive leakage of sensitive information from a rogue contractor such as Snowden, as well as to minimize further friction with friendly governments. Although [...]
A concerted effort to portray the protests in Ukraine as a pivotal moment pitting the Euro-Atlantic community against a resurgent Russia has not gained much traction among the American public in general or the Obama administration in particular. Washington apparently has little interest in matching the Russian “bid” for Ukraine, despite dire warnings that a failure to do so will imperil the security of the Western world. Some of this may be due to “revolution fatigue” engendered after a decade of watching the promise of popular uprisings to usher in new eras of freedom, democracy and pro-American governments fade away. [...]
Since Ukraine regained independence in 1991, analysts have often described the country as divided between a pro-European west and a pro-Russian east. Over the past two decades, elections and opinion polls have reflected that divide, though with some gradual blurring of the line. An interesting feature of the current political crisis, however, is that while pro-European sentiment grips the western and central parts of Ukraine, no alternate pro-Russian narrative has appeared with any force or passion. Like many things, the east-west divide in Ukraine oversimplifies. It is not strictly a divide between ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians. The latter make [...]
