Key political workstrands and early lessons
/ By Ambassador Bettina Cadenbach, Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs and Security Policy, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
On 10 March of this year, when I was wrapping up a business trip to Washington, DC, and returning to Brussels, the initial consequences of COVID-19 were already present. Some of my interlocutors already preferred to do a “corona bow” instead of a more traditional handshake. However, it was only a couple of days after, when Belgium and other NATO Allies, as well as partners, declared a lockdown in response to the rapid spread of the virus, that most of us…
The COVID-19 crisis has further weakened the multilateral system while favouring authoritarian regimes. Europe must act towards revival and modernisation of the rules-based international order, fit for the 21st century.
/ By Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Vice-President of the Commission for a Stronger Europe in the World
- This article was originally published as part of the 2020 edition of Bled Strategic Times, the official gazette of the Bled Strategic Forum (BSF) international conference. You can access the full version of this and other BSF publications by visiting our official website.
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The growing threat of advanced cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure and industrial systems presents a unique challenge for businesses and countries alike. Increasingly, governments are being called on to respond to cyberattacks and provide a secure cyber environment, despite the fact that cybersecurity infrastructure has so far been in the hands of the private sector, not under state control. Cybersecurity has become one of the pillars of national security, and partial solutions by individual organisations are no longer sufficient to counter cyber threats. Going forward, it will be imperative to build more comprehensive and, above all, inclusive systems for ensuring cybersecurity.
Main Questions
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In 2020, BSF celebrates its 15th edition.
To celebrate this opportunity we will be presenting a refreshed visual identity, which will reflect our brand statement for the future.
The old visual identity, which has been with us since the beginning in 2006 was simple yet recognisable.
Nonetheless, we thought it was time for something fresher. While the new visuals are more refined they still contains the spirit of the original.
Not to bore you with details and meaning of every curve, we simply wanted to let you know that BSF visual identity will be changed on all our channels in…
The evolving Russian — Chinese relationship will impact Central Eastern European countries and thus affect the unity and stability of the EU
/ By Katja Geršak, Executive Director, Centre for European Perspective and Editor-in-Chief of Bled Strategic Times
Geopolitics is upon us again. The global power is shifting from West to East and the coming decade will be marked by an intense geopolitical rivalry between the US and China. Other resurgent regional powers are also increasingly asserting their political and economic interests. A multipolar world will be much more insecure and unstable.
In our globally interconnected world, projecting power also…
The promise and implications of Artificial Intelligence in Education
/ By Dr. Jernej Pikalo, Minister of Education, Science and Sport of the Republic of Slovenia
Artificial intelligence1 (AI) is one of the central challenges and topics of the era of converging technologies with profound implications for human beings, cultures, societies and the environment. AI is likely to transform the future of education, sciences, culture and communication.
While AI has the potential to transform the future of humanity for the better and in favour of sustainable development, there is also a prevailing awareness of the risks and challenges associated with it…
Will Big Data bring big benefits for all, or will it only increase sociopolitical inequalities?
/ By Jolene Creighton, Editorial Director of Boma Global
It has been less than fifty years since computers entered mainstream society, and already, virtually every industry is saturated with information. According to reports produced by DOMA, more than 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created every single day, and the rate of production is increasing annually. By next year, it is estimated that more than 1.7 megabytes of data will be created each second for every single person on Earth.
This is the era of…
Nationalism, with its dichotomy of ‘good vs the other’ is upon us again. If liberal democracy is not protected we are on a dangerous path to inhumanity…again.
/ By Vedran Džihić, Senior Researcher, Austrian Institute for International Affairs, lecturer at the University of Vienna and Director of Center of Advanced Studies, Southeastern Europe (CAS SEE)
Here are some of the book titles trending in the past few years: ‘How democracies die’, ‘Democracy in crisis’, ‘democratic rollback’, ‘Competitive authoritarianism’, ‘The new totalitarian temptation.’ All of them suggest that something has gone wrong with liberal democracy, that a certain fatigue and a…
The laboratory for European unity: the Council of Europe @70
/ By Tobias Flessenkemper, Head of the Council of Europe Office in Belgrade
On 5 May 1949, meeting in London, the 10 western and northern founding states of the Council of Europe provided Western and later the whole of Europe with a unique platform designed to bring European citizens and states closer together. They decided to do so in all but certain times of the late 1940s, at the end of a decade that saw genocide, dictatorship, massive destruction and social and economic deprivation, as a result of the war…
The European Union and the geopolitics of big powers
/ By Iztok Mirošič, Ambassador at Large, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia
Classical geopolitics — between multilateralism and multicentrism
Change will be significant. We are entering a new geopolitical, geo-economic and geo-technological world order. A new global competitive environment has emerged, in which the centuries-long Western influence is faltering. Today, the influence is shifting to the East. The old rules are falling apart; new ones have not yet been established. The world disorder is characterised by a new race of the big powers. It is a struggle between democracy and autocracy, accompanied, above all…
