Virtual Library

Our virtual library is an online repository of all of the reports, papers, and briefings that IST has produced, as well as works that have influenced our thinking.

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Reports

Mapping Threat Actor Behavior in the Ransomware Payment Ecosystem: A Mini-Pilot

Zoë Brammer

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Reports

May 2023 Progress Report: Ransomware Task Force: Gaining Ground

Ransomware Task Force

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Reports

Castles Built on Sand: Towards Securing the Open-Source Software Ecosystem

Zoë Brammer, Silas Cutler, Marc Rogers, Megan Stifel

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Reports

Cyber Incident Reporting Framework: Global Edition

Cyber Threat Alliance, Institute for Security and Technology

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Reports

AI-NC3 Integration in an Adversarial Context: Strategic Stability Risks and Confidence Building Measures

Alexa Wehsener, Andrew W. Reddie, Leah Walker, Philip Reiner

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Op-ed

The Nuclear Risk Reduction Approach: A Useful Path Forward for Crisis Mitigation

Sylvia Mishra

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Reports

Nuclear Crisis Communications: Mapping Risk Reduction Implementation Pathways

Sylvia Mishra

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We also welcome additional suggestions from readers, and will consider adding further resources as so much of our work has come through crowd-sourced collaboration already. If, for any chance you are an author whose work is listed here and you do not wish it to be listed in our repository, please, let us know.

SUBMIT CONTENT

Emerging Technologies, Emerging Challenges – The Potential Employment of New Technologies in Future PLA NC3

Elsa B. Kania

SUMMARY

China and the United States confront shared concerns and distinct challenges as each seeks to pursue new directions in its development and modernization of nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3). The U.S. military must reckon with aging systems that are facing new threats, particularly in space and cyberspace. By contrast, China must not only address similar issues of modernization but also remains in the process of developing and operationalizing new elements of its NC3 apparatus, including the introduction and construction of capabilities for strategic early warning. Possessing less of an extensive architecture of legacy systems—and currently undertaking a transition from a monad to a triad in its nuclear posture—China might undertake distinct approaches to its NC3 relative to other nations. Perhaps, as a result, China may prove more open to leveraging certain emerging technologies, including to compensate for current shortcomings in its military capabilities.

In this essay, Elsa Kania assesses how emerging technologies–including artificial intelligence, cloud computing, fifth-generation telecommunications, and quantum communications–may affect China’s NC3. Kania concludes: “Although certain of these technologies could enhance China’s confidence in its NC3 in ways that may prove stabilizing, there are also reasons for concern that the potential introduction of such complex, untested technologies could also create new risks and exacerbate the threat of miscalculation.”

This paper is accompanied by a Fourth Leg podcast: China, Technology, and the Security Dilemma

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