Hertie School Hertie School

Listen to a discussion with Siim Sikkut, former government CIO of Estonia, about his new book 'Digital Government Excellence: Lessons from Effective Digital Leaders'. The event took place on September 23 at the Hertie School and was moderated by Luciana Cingolani with an introduction by Gerhard Hammerschmid.

Scholars have become more interested in secret statecraft in global
politics, especially in its digital manifestations. Unfortunately, the
self-hiding nature of the phenomena make them hard to study.

Jon Lindsay, Associate Professor at the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy and Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology, points out that this is true in spades of the seminal case of Stuxnet, which has had more influence on our understanding of cyber warfare than cyber warfare ever had on Iranian enrichment. A decade on, new information and subsequent events provide additional context, but this unusual case remains shrouded in unusual secrecy.

This year's iteration of our speaker series Challenges in International Security examines the concept of deterrence, often defined as “the action of discouraging an action or event through instilling doubt or fear of the consequences” (Oxford Dictionary).

In the realm of international security, deterrence is one of the most widely used political strategies, yet it’s application is very complex and often poorly understood. The speaker series will shed light on the various aspects of deterrence and how it operates in the different international security domains: conventional, nuclear, legal, economic and cyber.

To kick us off, Professor Marina Henke and Professor Julian Wucherpfennig will provide an overview of the theoretical dimensions of deterrence. How is it supposed to work in theory? What difficulties are encountered in practice? How did the concept evolve and get fine-tuned during the Cold War? Where are we now?

In recent years, questions about the credibility of the US nuclear guarantee have re-emerged, leading to debates among some US allies about potential alternatives to US extended deterrence. A new task force report, chaired by Chuck Hagel, Malcolm Rifkind and Kevin Rudd with Ivo Daalder, analyzes the risk of potential nuclear proliferation among US allies and provides a set of policy recommendations to confront it. In this public event, Ivo Daalder, President of the Chicago Council, former US Permanent Representative to NATO and project director of the task force, and Wolfgang Ischinger who served as a member of the task force will discuss the findings of the report – with a particular emphasis on the ongoing debate in Germany and Europe about the future of US extended deterrence and NATO’s nuclear sharing arrangement.

NATO's nuclear sharing arrangement – the deployment of some 200 U.S. nuclear weapons in five European NATO member states as part of NATO's nuclear deterrence strategy – has come under pressure. Some analysts see the current nuclear-sharing arrangement as technologically outdated and no longer capable of deterring possible aggression against NATO. For others, the immediate elimination of these weapons would be an important step toward nuclear disarmament, while still others warn that ending NATO's nuclear sharing arrangement would severely harm the alliance's defense strategy and cohesion. This panel explores these perspectives and discuss what the future of NATO’s nuclear sharing arrangement in Europe might look like.

Guest speakers:

Dr. Pia Fuhrhop heads the Berlin Office of IFSH since September 2019. Previously she has worked as foreign policy advisor to Omid Nouripour, Member of the German Bundestag. She has held research positions with Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik in Berlin and worked as a consultant for the German Ministry for Development and International Cooperation. She works on transatlantic security and German foreign and security policies. She also holds a PhD from Free University Berlin, awarded for a dissertation on European influence on US crisis management policies.

Prof. Dr. Alexander Mattelaer is the Vice Dean Research of the Institute for European Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at Egmont – the Royal Institute for International Relations and sits on the scientific committee of the Belgian Royal Higher Institute for Defence. As a Fulbright Schuman fellow he completed research stays at Harvard University and at the National Defense University. He obtained his PhD in Political Science from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Master degrees from the University of Bath and the University of Leuven. His research interests include the politics of European integration, transatlantic relations and NATO, defence policy-making, and the ongoing redefinition of state sovereignty.

Dr. Jacek Durkalec is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Security Research (CGSR) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). He is also affiliated to the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University. His research focuses on U.S. policy of extended deterrence in the context of current global challenges and increasingly integrated spheres of strategic deterrence and influence. In particular, he explores how U.S. alliances in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region need to adapt to multidomain and transregional character of 21st century competition and conflict.

The signs of growing far-right extremism are all around us, and communities across the globe are struggling to understand how so many people are being radicalized and why they are increasingly attracted to violent movements. In this talk, Cynthia Miller-Idriss argues that instead of focusing on the how and why of far-right radicalization, we might seek answers in the physical and virtual spaces where hate is cultivated. She shows how far-right groups are swelling their ranks and developing their cultural, intellectual, and financial capacities in a variety of mainstream settings. She discusses how young people on the margins of our communities are targeted in these settings, and how the path to radicalization is a nuanced process of moving in and out of far-right scenes throughout adolescence and adulthood. The talk reviews definitions, tactics, and underlying ideas of modern far-right extremism through an eye-opening focus on the mainstream places and spaces where today’s far right is engaging and ensnaring young people.

This event is part the new speaker series "Challenges in International Security" hosted by the Centre for International Security.

Dr. Cynthia Miller-Idriss is a professor at the American University in Washington, DC, where she directs the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL) in the Center for University Excellence (CUE).