North America & Strategic Technologies
About Centre
Members:
The Centre tracks relations between India and the countries of North America. US and Canadian internal developments are also monitored to have a better understanding of their role as drivers of foreign and domestic policies. The large Indian diaspora in these two countries also serves as a bridge for strengthening bilateral relations.
The Centre also actively tracks and analyses trends in strategic technologies, with principal focus on critical technologies and their implications for national security. It addresses evolving threats in space security and cyber security, ensuring comprehensive research into these critical domains. The other mandate of the Centre is to undertake research on Biological and Chemical Weapons with a focus on studying the dangers of proliferation and terrorism.
No posts of Books and Monograph.
The Quad has cautiously carved out a practical and cooperative agenda on issues of cybersecurity.
NATO countries are adopting Emerging and Disruptive Technologies (EDTs) to maintain their strategic advantage and to mitigate transnational threats.
The Russia–Ukraine conflict, as well as Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, draw light on the geopolitics of data routing and the usage of the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) as a tool of control.
The confluence of technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Cloud Computing with Unmanned Ground Vehicles has created enormous opportunities for creating intelligent autonomous systems both in the commercial and defence sectors.
With the proliferation of Artificial Intelligence, the weapons of war are becoming more technologically equipped, which is changing the battlefield scenarios, as seen in Russia’s current incursion in Ukraine.
Cyberconflict in Ukraine has become normalised in that it is focused, there is no lasting damage, and it effectively conveys a sense of helplessness to the affected government and population. At the same time, it signals to other governments that they are not impervious to such attacks.
The recent eruption of the submarine volcano and the resultant shutdown of Tonga’s telecommunication, has cast light on the impact of natural disasters on the global communication systems, especially in the tiny and distant islands.
While India is establishing a strong aviation ecosystem by bringing together all stakeholders including the government, DPSUs, tri-services, academia and industry partners, it is believed that private Indian industries will be the crusaders for the government in defence production, particularly in the UAV vertical.
With a display of 1,000 indigenously produced swarm drones during the Beating Retreat, India would become the fourth nation to achieve such a feat, making it a front row actor with a strong foothold in the field of drone technology.
US has undertaken a number of initiatives on cybersecurity, specifically ransomware, one of them being the Counter-Ransomware Initiative Meeting held in October 2021. Whether this attempt by the US to mobilise a larger group of countries to discuss ransomware will lead to real outcomes, or is just meant to endorse its actions, remains to be seen.
