Recent Press Coverage

Current News and Events

The Death of a General: What’s next for Iran, Iraq and the wider Middle East?

January 16, 2020

Lawrence Rubin, an associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, was cited in The Foreign Policy Centre article "The Death of a General: What’s next for Iran, Iraq and the wider Middle East?"

Read an excerpt:

Dr. Lawrence Rubin (Associate Professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology) believes that ‘concerning implications for the region, it’s too early to say given the uncertainty in Iraqi politics and the most recent gaffe from US regarding troop withdrawal. Naturally, the most important aspect will be how it plays out in Iraqi politics and second, how the US manages it. Sectarian politics have and will continue to play a role because of which Iraqi groups’ interests are more closely aligned with the US presence in the region.

Find the article on The Foreign Policy Centre website.

Published in: The Foreign Policy Centre
A U.S. Perspective: An Interview With Admiral James Winnefeld (USN, ret.)

January 14, 2020

Admiral Sandy Winnefeld (USN, ret.), Distinguished Professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, was interviewed for the January/February issue of the Arms Control Association's Arms Control Today magazine. Winnefeld spoke about the importance and future of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, now the only international treaty governing the U.S. and Russia's nuclear arsenals.

Excerpt:

ACT: Why has the U.S. military been a strong proponent of strategic arms control, including New START? What is it about strategic offensive armaments that have led the United States and Russia, through the ups and downs in the political relationship, to continue to pursue limits on these weapons? If we have less visibility into Russia's nuclear capabilities, their force structure, and their modernization plans, which would be the case without New START, what impact could that have on U.S. military planning and spending?

Winnefeld: The U.S. military fully recognizes the benefits of well-constructed arms control treaties, for all the reasons outlined above. Moreover, the predictability provided by these treaties permits more stable defense planning, especially in an era in which defense budgets are highly unstable. Although a future treaty negotiation will be shaped by the nation’s strategic force modernization plans, the reverse is also true. For example, New START limited the number of sea-based ballistic missile launch tubes, which required the United States to decommission some existing launchers in its submarines. This limit clearly guided plans for the next generation of U.S. submarines. An absence of boundaries and transparency over Russia’s program development could lead to program disruption when a response is required by an unanticipated change in the trajectory of Russian strategic systems development.

Read the full article here.

Published in: Arms Control Association
NATO and Emerging Technologies

January 13, 2020

Margaret Kosal, associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, wrote the commentary piece "NATO and emerging technologies" for the European Leadership Network.

Kosal's piece covers the challenges and dilemmas facing NATO regarding the rise of modern technologies and the imperative of "maintaining its competitive technological and operational advantage over adversaries and maintaining inter-operability." The "dual use conundrum," where the applications of a technology depends on the intent of its user, is one question that NATO will have to consider.

Excerpt:

Conceptually, technologies can be seen as evolutionarily advancing current capabilities or pressing to the bleeding edge and enabling disruptive, revolutionary capabilities developments. Greater strategic understanding of these game-changing technologies and the development of meaningful and testable metrics and models to help NATO address the challenges of this complex global environment is needed.

Read the full article here.

Published in: European Leadership Network
A Story of Paradise: Interactive, Digitally Enhanced, and Radioactive

January 13, 2020

Nassim Parvin, associate professor in the School of Literature, Media and Communication, co-authored a piece in the Association of Computing Machinery's Interactions magazine for the January/February issue.

Parvin's piece, written with Lisa Nathan of the University of British Columbia, considers how the field of human-computer interaction (HCI) continues to be oriented towards the status quo and a "market-based ethos," which the authors arque could be inadequate given the current and impending severity of the climate crisis.

Excerpt:

To date, the prevalent HCI response to the ever-worsening climate crisis appears to be to continue the status quo. Digitally enhanced homes, networked workspaces, and smart cities assume the West’s continued access to unlimited electric (and geopolitical) power, fast Internet, clean water, safe food, and secure housing. Perhaps the dominant approaches to HCI will continue, well aligned with visions of an interactive, digitally enhanced, radioactive future paradise. If that isn’t desirable, it is time to openly acknowledge that the climate crisis cannot be addressed by HCI through the same methods, approaches, and market-based ethos that is leading us to this paradise. Until we reject the assumptions listed above, our work will continue reproducing the pattern that is creating a future we can’t survive.

Read the full article here.

Published in: ACM Interactions
NATO and emerging technologies

January 13, 2020

Margaret E. Kosal, an associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, wrote "NATO and emerging technologies" in the European Leadership Network.

Find an excerpt:

Like other technological breakthroughs of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, such as gene-editing, the ubiquitous extent of ‘cyber’-everything through information and communications technologies, nanotechnology, and the cognitive sciences, much of the concern regarding the potential offensive applications of artificial intelligence is highly speculative and based on worst-case scenarios. The technical and operational veracity of scenarios varies highly from the robust pragmatic realpolitik to dystopian fantasy. Particularly of the industrialised global north, worst-case scenarios garner easy media attention and can inadvertently drive policy decisions. Choices can be made today, and policy can be implemented in the near future, that are likely to shift the balance in favour of maximizing the benefits and minimizing the negative effects on global security.

Read the article on the European Leadership Network.

Published in: European Leadership Network
Targeted killing of Iranian general Qassim Suleimani creates high risks for U.S.

January 10, 2020

Jenna Jordan, an associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, was mentioned in the Tennessean article "Targeted killing of Iranian general Qassim Suleimani creates high risks for U.S" for her book Leadership Decapitation.

Find an excerpt:

As Georgia Tech professor Jenna Jordan has demonstrated in her recent book, “Leadership Decapitation” is unlikely to work against terrorist groups that are heavily bureaucratized. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds Force are established, structured organizations, not ragtag militias or loose networks of cells. They are likely to be resilient.

Read the article on the Tennessean.

Published in: Tennessean
President Trump draws his red line

January 9, 2020

Admiral Sandy Winnefeld, USN (ret.), former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and now distinguished professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, wrote "President Trump draws his red line" for The Hill.

Find an excerpt:

Whether one agrees with the elimination of General Qassem Soleimani as the correct means of signaling Iran, it was an important statement that a new red line is in effect. Proxy warfare – namely, a client organization taking hostile action in a manner hard to directly attribute to, but that everyone knows was ordered by, the patron – has always been convenient for these states.

Read the article on The Hill.

Published in: The Hill
What were Iran's goals with the attack on bases in Iraq housing U.S. troops?

January 8, 2020

Admiral Sandy Winnefeld, USN (ret.), former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and now distinguished professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, was interviewed by CBS News in "What were Iran's goals with the attack on bases in Iraq housing U.S. troops?"

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"This is a big sprawling airbase. Mostly desert," Winnefeld said. "They could have targeted these missiles into remote areas to avoid any possibility that an American could be killed. Or they might have done what we would've done, and that is perhaps target aircraft on the ramp, but not barracks or places where there would be a lot of people."

Find the interview on CBS News website.

Published in: CBS News
Electoral cycles and incomplete public works projects: An analysis of the MPLAD scheme

January 8, 2020

Anjali Bohlken, an assistant professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, and Jonathan Darsey, a PhD candidate in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, wrote "Electoral cycles and incomplete public works projects: An analysis of the MPLAD scheme" in Ideas for India.

Read and excerpt:

The second – which we term the ‘incumbent turnover’ channel – posits that the failure to complete projects is driven by the fact that elections frequently produce a change in the identity of the MP representing a given constituency. A newly elected MP may not be able to take credit for projects proposed by her predecessor and may therefore be reluctant to exert much effort to ensure the completion of such projects.

Find the article in Ideas for India website.

Published in: Ideas for India
Gender Pay Gap Identified at Some U.S. Science Agencies

January 7, 2020

A study on the gender pay gap in some federal agencies co-authored by School of Public Policy Chair Kaye Husbands Fealing was featured in an article in Nature on Jan. 7, 2020.

Husbands Fealing and her co-authors analyzed employment information for the years 1994 to 2008 from the National Institutes of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and the Center for Disease Control. The study found that while the pay gap between women and men decreased during the years examined, it still existed, with certain behaviors contributing to the gap.

Those behaviors included patterns in agencies not adhering to the set general schedule payscale, with men receiving the most benefit when agencies varied pay, and that men most commonly held the highest-paying jobs.

Excerpt:

The researchers examined seven agencies: the NIH, the EPA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Department of Energy (DOE). In each agency, the researchers found that the total wage gap significantly declined over the 14-year period they examined. But sizable pay disparities persisted, and the largest was at the NSF. In 2007, women at this agency were paid on average $0.73 to every dollar that male employees earned — an increase from $0.58 per men’s dollar in 1994.

The gaps were smaller when the researchers looked at individual jobs, however. In some agencies, men and women received the same wages for the same job. The analysis, which did not include job titles, examined all positions, including those that do not require a PhD or other degree. In a statement, the NSF, which partially funded the study, says that it is aware that gender pay gaps exist. “NSF will add it to the information we use to reassess our policies as we work to attract the best talent.” The agency says that its metrics might look different from those of some agencies, such as the NIH and the DOE, because its workforce is much smaller, and it doesn’t always follow the general schedule (GS), a strict, government-wide scale that determines wages on the basis of experience and job type.

Read the full article here.

Published in: Nature
Was America’s assassination of Qassem Suleimani justified?

January 7, 2020

Sam Nunn School of International Affairs Associate Professor Jenna Jordan's book Leadership Decapitation: Strategic Targeting of Terrorist Organizations was cited in the Economist article, "Was America’s assassination of Qassem Suleimani justified?"

Read an excerpt:

Yet the idea of organisational decapitation remains seductive to would-be strategic assassins: cut off the leader and watch the body twitch through its death throes. In a book published last November, Jenna Jordan of the Georgia Institute of Technology examines more than 1,000 cases involving the killing or capture of leaders of terrorist or insurgent groups. She says three factors contribute to a group’s resilience afterwards: its degree of bureaucracy, ability to draw on local resources and ideological zeal. These qualities ensure that its mission does not depend on a single leader.

Read the article on the Economist article.

Published in: Economist
How Iran could respond to the U.S. killing of General Qasem Soleimani

January 7, 2020

Lawrence Rubin, an associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, was interviewed in"How Iran could respond to the U.S. killing of General Qasem Soleimani" for CGTN.

Watch the interview on CGTN.

Published in: CGTN
Ciara comes home to surprise STEM students

January 6, 2020

EarSketch, a computer program created by School of Literature, Media, and Communication professor Brian Magerko with School of Music professor Jason Freeman, was mentioned in an article from CNN on Jan. 6, 2020.

EarSketch is a free-to-use program that teaches students the programming languages Python and JavaScript in the context of creating and manipulating songs in a "digital audio workstation." It is used by more than 375,000 students and instructors in 50 states and more than 100 different countries.

The program got some celebrity exposure recently when star R&B singer Ciara came to Paul Duke STEM High School in Norcross to speak to students and listen to remixes of her songs that students created in EarSketch. Students could submit their creations for the Ciara Remix Competition, run by Amazon and Georgia Tech.

Excerpt:
Ciara told CNN the program not only is empowering to the students, but also targets underserved students who might otherwise be at a disadvantage in a world so clearly driven by technology.
"Coding is really the way," she said. "What I've learned through my experiences with Amazon, in particular in this program, is that it's now almost in some places a requirement to get a job. I said to the kids today, when you walk into a room, you have an extra level of cool by adding coding. You automatically level up your game."
Read the full article here.

Published in: CNN
Looking back at the Middle East’s 2019: Surprises from Trump, Saudi power moves, protests and more

December 29, 2019

Jenna Jordan, associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, was cited in The Washington Post article, "Looking back at the Middle East’s 2019: Surprises from Trump, Saudi power moves, protests and more."

Find an excerpt:

During an October raid by U.S. Special Operations forces in Syria, Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi — one of the most wanted terrorists in the world — killed himself by setting off a suicide bomb. But what did the raid achieve? “The caliphate may be weakened,” wrote Jenna Jordan, “But Baghdadi created a highly resilient bureaucratic organizational structure capable of withstanding the loss of leaders.”

Find the full article on The Washington Post.

Published in: The Washington Post
Colonialism or Philanthropy? Blurred Lines in King Leopold’s Congo

December 28, 2019

Kirk Bowman, Jon R. Wilcox Professor of Soccer and Global Politics, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, wrote about King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild (Houghton Mifflin 1998) for Global Atlanta.

Excerpt:

The Congo experience provides numerous lessons for our time... I read Leopold’s Ghost at the same time that J.K. Rowling launched a three-year campaign to stop orphanage tourism. There is an oversupply of orphanage tourists and a shortage of orphans. Children are being sold or stolen into orphanages to sate the pressure from orphanage volunteers. While their intentions are far more noble than the Congo’s ruthless ruler, Hoschild’s brilliant book reminds us all that global philanthropy can sometimes be far different from what it appears.

Read the full article.

Published in: Global Atlanta
Fixing repo market a ‘trial and error’ process, former Atlanta Fed president says

December 27, 2019

Dennis Lockhart, former Atlanta Federal Reserve president and Sam Nunn School distinguished professor, was interviewed in "Fixing repo market a ‘trial and error’ process, former Atlanta Fed president says" by CNBC.

Read an excerpt:

“That’s a little bit of a trial and error kind of thing,” Lockhart said. “And they have been injecting more bank reserves into the system to try to make sure the repo market first got through year-end, which we’ll see in the next couple of days, and secondly continues without undo volatility.”

Find the article and video interview on the CNBC website.

Published in: CNBC
What Atlanta can teach Tepper about soccer

December 20, 2019

Kirk Bowman, professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, was quoted in Charlotte Ledger article “What Atlanta can teach Tepper about soccer.”

Read a quote:

“Arthur Blank’s genius has been to embrace soccer as a completely different animal from football,” says Kirk S. Bowman, a professor at Georgia Tech’s Sam Nunn School of International Affairs who has studied soccer extensively and witnessed the United sensation firsthand.

Find the aricle on the Charlotte Ledger.

Published in: Charlotte Ledger
The Force of 'Star Wars': The Staying Power of a Sci-Fi Icon Explained

December 20, 2019

Lisa Yaszek, professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, was quoted in the article "The Force of 'Star Wars': The Staying Power of a Sci-Fi Icon Explained" in space.com.

Excerpt:

The character of Luke Skywalker was supposed to undergo his own "hero's journey" in the original "Star Wars." Lucas drew on themes of good and evil drawn from ancient texts such as the Biblical Old and New Testaments, and Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex" play trilogy from ancient Greece, Lisa Yaszek, professor of science-fiction studies at Georgia Tech University, told Space.com. Additionally, Lucas made sure to throw in themes that would resonate with 1970s and 1980s audiences, including strong characters who were female, or people of color.

Take, for example, the famous scene in the original film where Leia takes over during a bungled "rescue" by Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. "It was the first time a science fiction heroine picked up a gun and saved herself," Yaszek said. "She says, 'Oh dude, you're too short and completely inadequate. I'm going to take care of it.' And that's great."

Read the full article.

Published in: space.com
‘Phantom buzzing’ is creeping out smartphone, smartwatch users

December 20, 2019

Robert Rosenberger, associate professor in the School of Public Policy, was quoted in the article "‘Phantom buzzing’ is creeping out smartphone, smartwatch users" in the New York Post, December 28, 2019.

Excerpt:

The Post previously reported that it is classified as “a real psychological phenomenon” and a legitimate hallucination.

“The phone actually becomes a part of you, and you become trained to perceive the phone’s vibration as an incoming call or text,” Robert Rosenberger, a Georgia Tech School of Public Policy professor, explained.

Read the full article.

Published in: New York Post
Is Your Phone or Watch Constantly Buzzing? It Could Be in Your Head

December 19, 2019

Robert Rosenberger, associate professor in the School of Public Policy, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal article "“Is Your Phone or Watch Constantly Buzzing? It Could Be in Your Head" published on December 19, 2019.

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Published in: Wall Street Journal