By Alain Dupas and Gerard Huber
One of our regular contributors and his co-author have addressed the strategic shifts accompanying technological change in the first part of the 21st century. In a major book published in France earlier this year, Dupas and Huber address the strategic impact of new technologies on the human condition…. Chapter seven of the book addresses the impact of 21st century technological change on geopolitics. The translation of the first part of this chapter has been made by the Second Line of Defense staff and is published with the permission of the authors and the publisher.

By Dr. Robbin Laird and Rear Admiral Ed Gilbert (Retired)
The tragedy of the Gulf oil spill is likely to become a blame game ultimately. This need not be so, and if it is the tragedy will be magnified and an opportunity lost. Crises such as these provide an opportunity to assert leadership to prepare for and to shape effective approaches for the future. The challenge is to provide for a proper government stewardship role for the deepwater drilling enterprise and re-shaping the public-private partnership for such activities.

By Richard Weitz
The focus of the European Union’s current thinking regarding Iraq after 2011 is on two pillars. First, the EU seeks to develop commercial ties with Iraq through the energy trade via an institutionalized framework covering private investments. Second, the EU wants to ensure European participation in the reconstruction of Iraq with a program based on infrastructure building, promotion of human rights and democracy, and improvements in local and regional security.

By Richard Weitz
One of the challenges General David Petraeus, U.S. Army, faces as the newly appointed commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan is the failure of past efforts to induce many of the Taliban guerrillas to defect and some of the Taliban leaders to negotiate a peace settlement with the internationally recognized Kabul government led by President Hamid Karzai. The Afghan government and its foreign backers differentiate between “reintegration” and “reconciliation.”

By Michael W. Wynne
The United States has made a commitment to depart Iraq by the end of the year 2011, and given the nature of the military to comply, planning is in full swing around the country to ‘Make it Happen.’ Bringing some perspective to this Strategic Withdrawal is required so that the next baseline can be established. The target is all forces, less trainers, to be replaced by Iraqi Army and Police across the country. Gen Ordieno calls it ‘Responsible Withdrawal’.

By Richard Weitz
One issue that has drawn less attention at this month’s congressional hearings on the Afghanistan War than in previous years is the narcotics dimension of the conflict….Although output dropped considerably in early 2001, when the then Taliban-led Afghan government enforced a ban on opium poppy cultivation to avoid UN sanctions, the chaos following the Taliban’s overthrow reversed this progress. As a result, Afghanistan has become the world’s largest heroin producing and trafficking country.

In today’s global world, speaking several foreign languages represent a major asset for the aeronautical and spatial engineer. As international networks expand, companies require a high level of fluency in foreign languages, so that the engineers can contribute efficiently to the fast-extending net of exchanges.

No matter what the U.S. does, multi-polar space will create new policy realities. There will be alternatives to working with the U.S. for human and robotic space explorations. There will be alternative constellations to U.S. global positioning systems. And Europe, India, China, India and Japan will all have capabilities, which can operate as iron magnates attracting the iron filings of space activities. Space will become a multiple Venn diagram of activity.

BY ED TIMPERLAKE
With the very real capability of three dimensional sensing and being able to distribute information to other warfighers, airborne and on the ground or at sea the relationship of the individual pilot to knowledge of the bigger air battle is truly revolutionary—this is brand new and to undergo further developments.

The United States is a unique country in that its geographic isolation has spared it from depredations from strong neighbors. While shocking, Pearl Harbor and the terror attacks of September 11th, 2001 also serve as reminders of how infrequently the U.S. has been assaulted by outsiders.

A growing number of hedge funds and institutional investors are betting on a further decline in the Euro relative to the dollar, with some of them questioning whether the Euro can remain a viable currency. Early in 2010, world press and media treated the Greek financial crisis as the biggest challenge to confidence in the Euro.

French students tend generally to get their early training in engineering schools specialized in aeronautics (ENAC, ESMA, ISAE, ESTACA or Supmeca in France), which all select their candidates via a competitive process.

It has been reported that the most dangerous rank in Iraq and Afghanistan combat is a USMC Lance Corporal (E-3).