Tech supply chains, hybrid threats and a more divided world with Elisabeth Braw

Technology and Security (TS)

In this episode, Dr. Miah Hammond-Errey is joined by Elisabeth Braw. This discussion explores the decline in globalisation and an increasingly divided world with the West on one side and China and Russia on another. It highlights the impacts of geopolitical rifts on technology, innovation, business, supply chain vulnerabilities and complexities, subsea cables and infrastructure as well as consumer prices and job market changes. They also discuss the tech sector, the role of technology in warfare, and the implications of foreign investments in critical infrastructure as well as hybrid threats, information operations and resilience and national security responses. This episode provides a nuanced exploration of how the convergence of technology, security, and geopolitics shapes our world. Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a member of the National Preparedness Commission in the UK a columnist and author.

Resources mentioned in the recording:

· Braw, E (2024) Goodbye Globalization The Return of a Divided World , Yale University Press https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300272277/goodbye-globalization/

· Braw, E (2022) The Defender's Dilemma

· Braw, E (2019) God's Spies

This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Gadigal people, and we pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging. We acknowledge their continuing connection to land, sea and community, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Thanks to the talents of those involved. Music by Dr Paul Mac and production by Elliott Brennan.

Transcript check against delivery

Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: [00:00:02] Welcome to Technology and Security. TS is a podcast exploring the intersections of emerging technologies and national security. I'm your host, Doctor Miah Hammond-Errey. My guest today is Elisabeth Braw. Elisabeth is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a columnist for Foreign Policy and Politico Europe. Her work focuses on hybrid and grey zone threats, as well as the intersection of geopolitics and globalisation. She's a member of the National Preparedness Commission in the UK, and has previously held numerous high profile senior research fellow positions in the US and Europe. She recently published Goodbye Globalization The Return of a Divided World and is the author of two earlier books, The Defender's Dilemma and one about East Germany's secret police called God's Spies. So happy to have you here, Elisabeth.

Elisabeth Braw: [00:00:57] It's a pleasure to join you.

Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: [00:00:58] I'm coming to you today from the lands of the Gadigal people. We pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging here and wherever you're listening. We acknowledge their continuing connection to land, sea, and community and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: [00:01:17] So you're joining me today after an extensive book tour for Goodbye, Globalization The Return of a Divided World. What are the key questions you're being asked at those events?

Elisabeth Braw: [00:01:28] I think the the most frequently asked question is what that means. Uh, what is this standoff and growing, um, disharmony between the West? Uh, on one hand and and some sort of loose grouping of China and Russia on the other. And what it means not just for companies, not just for countries, but for for us as ordinary people. What is clear, I think, from a citizen perspective, is that if globalisation stops working as well as as it did in in the early 2000, which was really the, the peak of, of globalized harmony, if that's no longer there, which is already the case, then eventually it will lead to higher consumer prices. So we as ordinary citizens have benefited from this extraordinary commercial integration of nations of all types and varieties. And now the two of the most important participants in that globalized economy, Russia and China, are each, for their own reasons, not as fully integrated as they used to be. And Russia is, is, is, uh, essentially shut out of the globalized economy and operating in a parallel economy. And, uh, China is for completely different reasons, um, not as hospitable a country as it used to be for Western businesses. And all of this together means that, uh. It will be more expensive to do business to produce the goods that you and I and everybody else use. Every day we will see a return of of jobs, high quality jobs, and and especially manufacturing to our countries at the same time as we'll see high consumer prices. We will see lots of changes ahead. And I think that's why it's so it's a subject that is so interesting to, to all kinds of people, not just business people, not just policy types, but basically anybody who lives in in a modern economy.

Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: [00:03:29] What do you see as the biggest issues within that framing for technology and security?

Elisabeth Braw: [00:03:33] So the technology that we have today is, is, is the result of extraordinary development, innovation, uh, over the past 40 years. Uh, and I'm sure your listeners remember Parc Palo Alto Research Center, which is where a lot of this began back a decades ago. And then from, uh, the late 80s and especially from the 90s onwards, we had this extraordinary rise of technology, which is, of course, so ubiquitous today that that we as ordinary citizens, uh, spend essentially every, every hour of every day connected to technology somehow or using technology somehow. And, and that worked so well because it took place in conjunction with globalisation, borders were becoming less important and almost faded away. Um, we also had peace between, uh, yeah, the world's most important countries and that, uh, of course, facilitated collaboration. So you could be a citizen of any of the world's countries and work for any technology company and indeed do business almost anywhere. Uh, and that is no longer the case. The standoff between the US and China, in particular, uh, centers a lot on technology. And interestingly, tech bosses have been the slowest to catch on to this geopolitical shift because they they have come to, uh, they've had that formative experience in, in a completely integrated world. And I think they just can't conceptualize that geopolitics should be able to affect the way they do business because they don't feel geopolitical. Well, it doesn't matter whether you feel geopolitical. The world is becoming more geopolitical, whereas more old fashioned, uh, or the bosses in more traditional sectors, manufacturing and so forth. I think they've been, uh, faster to catch on to this because they, they are seeing, uh, the reality on the ground. Whereas tech bosses, I think, are thinking that in a shorter perspective. Either way, they have been the slowest, among the slowest to catch on to this new trend. And, um. That's why they're having such a painful learning experience at the moment.

Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: [00:05:59] The podcast has a new segment for 2024 called Interdependencies and Vulnerabilities. Given its centrality to your w...