Emerging Technologies and Global Security
Description
The 21st century has been marked not simply by the proliferation of technologies that alter how we live and work, but by their increasing entanglement with core questions pertaining to security, conflict, and international governance. Indeed, the advent and maturation of novel technologies-from artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous weapons to cyber capabilities and next-generation advancements in the context of quantum-are not merely transforming the tools of statecraft and international relations, they are reshaping the very ontologies of power, control, and strategic competition. As this book illustrates, the global security implications of these innovations-when co-opted or weaponized-are generating profound uncertainties in which they blur long-standing distinctions: between combatant and civilian, between precision and mass destruction, and between pre-emption and prevention. What has resulted is a complex, fast-evolving strategic landscape in which traditional international norms and institutions are struggling to comprehend-let alone regulate-threat-multiplying technologies. By critically engaging with both the enabling capacities and the disruptive potentials of technologies covered in chapters on AI, drones, lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS), cybersecurity and cyberwarfare, and quantum computing and the quantum internet, this volume aims to unpack the new dilemmas these tools pose to policymakers, strategists, legal and governance scholars, and civil society. It invites a reorientation of how global security communities can understand and engage with emerging technologies, moving beyond reactive measures through to proactive, anticipatory governance.
More details
Persons
Dr. Aiden Warren is a Professor of International Relations based at the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. His teaching and research interests are in the areas of international security, U.S. national security and foreign policy, U.S. politics (ideas, institutions, contemporary and historical), international relations (especially great power politics), issues associated with Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) proliferation, non-proliferation and arms control and emerging technologies. Dr. Warren is a Fulbright scholar and has spent extensive time in Washington DC completing fellowships at the James Martin Centre of Non-proliferation, the Arms Control Association (ACA) and Institute for International Science and Technology Policy (IISTP) at George Washington University. He is the author of Revisiting the First Cold War (2026) and editor of Global Security in an Age of Crisis (2024).
Alek Hillas is a researcher at the Centre for Cyber Security Research and Innovation (CCSRI), RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. His research interests are in the nexus of emerging technologies, global security and diplomacy, and international humanitarian law. Alek has published articles on lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) with the Yale Journal of International Affairs (2017), UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs (2018), Small Wars & Insurgencies (2020), Georgetown Journal of International Affairs (2021), Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2021), Cornell International Affairs Review (2021), and The Journal of International Relations, Peace Studies, and Development (2022), and chapters in several edited collections (2020, 2021, and 2023). Alek received two RMIT Vice-Chancellor's List for Academic Excellence awards, first place in the German-language Goethe Poetry Competition held at the University of Melbourne, and the Asian Language Award Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Chinese at RMIT University, awarded by the Australian-Asian Association of Victoria.
Content
Introduction.- Chapter 1: Artificial Intelligence (AI).- Chapter 2: Drones and uninhabited vehicles.- Chapter 3: Lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS).- Chapter 4: Cybersecurity and cyberwarfare.- Chapter 5: Futuristic Technologies.