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The Unintended Consequences of Military Aid

January 24, 2020

Rana Shabb, a PhD candidate in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, wrote "The Unintended Consequences of Military Aid" in The Cipher Brief.

Read an excerpt:

In stark contrast, military expenditure in the developed world is generally associated with good things. In the context of Western society, military spending helps foster technical and economic innovation, which in the long run, helps sustain economic growth and continued prosperity. Outside the security realm, investment in military Research and Development (R&D), defense technology spinoff, and military procurement all have positive effects in the domestic economy – supporting increased productivity and economic innovation. What is understudied is whether military aid to developing countries can emulate the positive effects we see in the West.

Find the article in The Cipher Brief website.

Published in: The Cipher Brief
WTF: Vibrators Used to Calm Misbehaving Women

January 23, 2020

Research by School of History and Sociology Chair Eric Schatzberg and visiting lecturer Hallie Lieberman was mentioned in "WTF: Vibrators used to calm misbehaving women" in the London Free Press on Jan. 23, 2020.

The piece explores the conception of the history of the vibrator, which some sources, notably Rachel Maines' 1999 book "The Technology of Orgasm," claim was invented to cure "hysteria" in women in the 19th century. However, there may be significant misconceptions driving that story, and Lieberman and Schatzberg's paper "A Failure of Academic Quality Control: The Technology of Orgasm" is cited as a rebuttal to Maines' narrative.

Excerpt:

Lieberman and Schatzberg don’t outright call BS, but they come pretty close.

“The 19-year success of Technology of Orgasm points to a fundamental failure of academic quality control. This failure occurred at every stage, starting with the assessment of the work at the Johns Hopkins University Press.”

Read the full story here.

Published in: London Free Press
(Almost) Everything You Know About the Invention of the Vibrator Is Wrong

January 23, 2020

Hallie Lieberman, visiting lecturer in the School of History and Sociology, wrote the piece "(Almost) Everything You Know About the Invention of the Vibrator Is Wrong," for The New York Times on Jan. 23, 2020.

Lieberman's piece explores the problematic and typically incorrect perceptions of the reasons for invention and early uses of the vibrator, which have been referenced many times in pop culture and have become a common misconception.

Excerpt:

Ms. Maines is right about one thing: the electric vibrator was invented by a physician, the British doctor Joseph Mortimer Granville. But when Dr. Granville invented the vibrator in the early 1880s, it was not meant to be used on women or to cure hysteria. In fact, he argued specifically that it shouldn’t be used on hysterical women; rather, Dr. Granville invented the vibrator as a medical device for men, to be used on a variety of body parts, mainly to treat pain, spinal disease and deafness. The only sexual uses he suggested were vibrating men’s perineums to treat impotence. Illustrations in Dr. Granville’s book on the invention of the electric vibrator show him using it only on men.

The true story is that the use of vibrators became widespread only when they were marketed to the general public, both men and women, as domestic and medical appliances in the early 1900s. Ads featuring men and women, babies and older people, promised vibrators could do everything from eliminating wrinkles to curing tuberculosis. When doctors did use vibrators on women, they assiduously avoided touching their clitorises. “The greatest objection to vibration thus applied is that in overly sensitive patients it is liable to cause sexual excitement,” the gynecologist James Craven Wood wrote in 1917. If, however, he continued, “the vibratode is kept well back from the clitoris, there is but little danger of causing such excitement.”

Read the full article here.

Published in: The New York Times
China and Russia’s push to develop hypersonic weapons raises fears of arms race with US

January 21, 2020

Margaret E. Kosal, an associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, was cited in the South China Morning Post article, "China and Russia’s push to develop hypersonic weapons raises fears of arms race with US."

Read an excerpt:

Despite the accelerating arms race, Margaret Kosal, an associate professor at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Institute of Technology in the US, said the hypersonic technology would not be a game changer because evidence suggested the technology would not replace nuclear weapons as the most effective strategic deterrence tool.

“Hypersonic missiles will not cause deterrence among superpowers, great powers, or rising powers, [even though the weapons] might affect aspects of the deterrence calculus and might affect choices in command and control,” she said.

Find the article on the South China Morning Post site.

Published in: South China Morning Post
Coke trade secrets case highlights U.S.-China tension, trade challenge

January 17, 2020

Fei-Ling Wang, a professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, was cited in the AJC article titled "Coke trade secrets case highlights U.S.-China tension, trade challenge."

Read an excerpt:

“Meaningful mechanisms are not going to be accepted” by political leaders in China, predicted Fei-Ling Wang, a Georgia Tech professor of international affairs. “There will be great promises but the promises are likely to be, at best, partially implemented.”

Find the article on the AJC website.

Published in: AJC
Coke Trade Secrets Case Highlights U.S.-China Tension, Trade Challenge

January 17, 2020

Sam Nunn School of International Relations Professor Fei-Ling Wang was quoted in the article "Coke ex-employee with China ties faces trade secret theft charge," published Jan. 17, 2020 in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The case covered by the article, in which a former Coca-Cola engineer has been charged with taking confidential documents from the company, could raise implications and questions about international law governing trade secrets, particularly in commerce between the U.S. and China. Wang offered his thoughts on the subject.

Excerpt:

Yet some longtime observers question if the deal changes much because they doubt the willingness of China’s government to fix the issue.

“Meaningful mechanisms are not going to be accepted” by political leaders in China, predicted Fei-Ling Wang, a Georgia Tech professor of international affairs. “There will be great promises but the promises are likely to be, at best, partially implemented.”

Read the full article here.

Published in: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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?"

Read an excerpt:

"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