ACI News

Cyber Actions by State Actors: Motivation and Utility
May 12, 2014 — Covert action is as old as political man. The subversive manipulation of others is nothing new. It has been written about since Sun Tzu and Kautilya. People and nations have always sought the use of shadowy means to influence situations and events. Covert action is and has been a staple of the state system. A dark and nefarious tool often banished... MORE

Towards a Cyber Leader Course Modeled on Army Ranger School
April 18, 2014 — Since 1950, the U.S. Army Ranger School has garnered a well-earned reputation as one of the most demanding military schools in the world. Graduates have served with distinction in special operations units including the Ranger Regiment and Special Operations Command as well as line units throughout the Army. With the emergence of cyberspace as an... MORE

An International History of the Cuban Missile Crisis: A 50-year retrospective
April 18, 2014 — Despite the discoveries of recent research, there is still much more to be revealed about the handling of nuclear weapons before and during the Cuban Missile Crisis (CMC). Featuring contributions from a number of eminent international scholars of nuclear history, intelligence, espionage, political science and Cold War studies, An International... MORE

Six Shades of Gray: Increasing Nuance and Variable Pragmatism in Russian Middle East Policy
January 27, 2014 — Despite the popular quip that, when it comes to geopolitical grand strategy, Russians play chess not checkers, the reality has not always reflected this ideal. While Cold War Soviet strategists always envisioned themselves playing a rather more complicated game, the predicable Russian moves were more reminiscent of straightforward checkers than of... MORE

Tinker, Tailor, Leaker, Spy: The Future Costs of Mass Leaks
January 1, 2014 — Between the trial of Chelsea (formerly known as Bradley) Manning and the revelations of Edward Snowden, the debate regarding the leakers and their information has focused primarily on the balance between liberty and security, or between government transparency and secrecy. This is a necessary, even overdue, discussion. But it is also important to... MORE

The Silver Lining of Russian Involvement in Syria
December 9, 2013 — This paper focuses on the effects of the Indian Diaspora in Germany in regards to: (1) the international relations of Diasporas, (2) the economics of migration, and (3) critical legal theory. The role of common identity construction in international relations will be investigated by analyzing the Indian Diaspora in a holistic manner, which includes... MORE

Professionalizing the Army's Cyber Officer Force
November 23, 2013 — The emergence of cyberspace as an operational domain, accompanied by the Army’s realization that cyber operations are both a critical vulnerability and a massive opportunity, drives the need for an integrated and fully qualified Army cyber officer workforce to meet these challenges and opportunities.1 In this paper, we argue for a revolutionary... MORE

Using virtual machines to improve learning and save resources in an introductory IT course
October 10, 2013 — Information technology courses often require the use of software and hardware to support classroom learning. These systems can assist in achieving the learning objectives for a course through classroom problems and laboratory exercises. The procurement and maintenance of these systems can be a challenge even for well resourced organizations. In... MORE

Cyber Defense as Environmental Protection: The Broader Potential Impact of Failed Defensive Counter Cyber Operations
August 1, 2013 — Key in the critique of the likelihood of cyber conflict has been the assumption that cyber does not lead to long-term and irrevocable effects; therefore it cannot be fought as a war. This might be true if cyber attacks are constrained to specific functions of a computer system or set of client computers; however, a failed cyberdefense can have... MORE

Beyond Sunglasses and Spray Paint: a Taxonomy of Surveillance Countermeasures
June 27, 2013 — Surveillance and privacy are seeming locked in a continual game of one-upmanship. In the security context, adversarial relationships exist where an attacker exploits a vulnerability and the defender responds with countermeasures to prevent future attack or exploitation. From there, the cycle continues, with new vulnerabilities and better exploits,... MORE