Synopses & Reviews
From drone warfare in the Middle East to digital spying by the National Security Agency, the U.S. government has harnessed the power of cutting-edge technology to awesome effect. But what happens when ordinary people have the same tools at their fingertips? Advances in cybertechnology, biotechnology, and robotics mean that more people than ever before have access to potentially dangerous technologiesfrom drones to computer networks and biological agentswhich could be used to attack states and private citizens alike.
In The Future of Violence, law and security experts Benjamin Wittes and Gabriella Blum detail the myriad possibilities, challenges, and enormous risks present in the modern world, and argue that if our national governments can no longer adequately protect us from harm, they will lose their legitimacy. Consequently, governments, companies, and citizens must rethink their security efforts to protect lives and liberty. In this brave new world where many little brothers are as menacing as any Big Brother, safeguarding our liberty and privacy may require strong domestic and international surveillance and regulatory controls. Maintaining security in this world where anyone can attack anyone requires a global perspective, with more multinational forces and greater action to protect (and protect against) weaker states who do not yet have the capability to police their own people. Drawing on political thinkers from Thomas Hobbes to the Founders and beyond, Wittes and Blum show that, despite recent protestations to the contrary, security and liberty are mutually supportive, and that we must embrace one to ensure the other.
The Future of Violence is at once an introduction to our emerging worldone in which students can print guns with 3-D printers and scientists manipulations of viruses can be recreated and unleashed by ordinary peopleand an authoritative blueprint for how government must adapt in order to survive and protect us.
Review
Michael Chertoff, former United States Secretary of Homeland SecurityIn a globalized world facing widely distributed and technologically empowered threats, Benjamin Wittes and Gabriella Blum develop a new and compelling vision for a twenty-first century legal and security architecture. Political leaders, judges, and citizens will find important guidance in this book.”
Review
Financial TimesCiting Hobbes Locke, and Weber, the authors offer an impressive analysis of how the state will need to change to counter these threats. Publishers are competing to put out increasingly dire warnings about the fast-changing threats from cyber attacks, but The Future of Violence is original and insightful in turning to political theory for answers.”
Washington Post
A lively and often terrifying exploration of the dark side of our technological age.”
Foreign Affairs
A careful, sophisticated analysis
In discussing how to combat [cybercrimes], the authors transcend clichés about tradeoffs between liberty and security, patiently explaining how without security, there is rarely much liberty.”
Daily Beast
An alarming and informative new book.... The Future of Violence is a frightening book, but its not an exercise in fear-mongering. Rather than arousing fear in order to advocate some dogmatic ideological agenda, Wittes and Blum offer a good example of a productive response to the worlds multiplying horrors: thoughtful and realistic analysis of potential solutions.”
Shelf Awareness
The Future of Violence is as fascinating as it is accessible. A fascinating political science treatise on the future of technology, security and government.”
Library Journal
What the authors achieve in this work is to raise the profile of issues at the intersection of biology, technology, and government policy
Recommended to readers of governmental policy and the ethics of technology, who will be especially interested in this timely work.”
Kirkus
[An] ambitious...treatise regarding a particular terror of modern life: the increasing ubiquity of potential harm spawned by technological transformations.... The authors raise fascinating questions.... A thoughtful...Cassandra warning of great vulnerabilities disguised as gifts.”
Anne-Marie Slaughter, President and CEO of New America
A book that manages to meld Hobbes, James Bond, science fiction, and Supreme Court decisions is a rare read. All the more impressive when it takes a complex set of urgent questions about the intersection of technology, security, and liberty, and offers insights and at least the beginnings of answers. Violence will be always with us, but its forms are changing in ways that challenge our ability to respond to and regulate it.”
Bruce Schneier, author of Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World
Benjamin Wittes and Gabriella Blum have written a compelling and provocative book about an important topic we have not adequately faced: managing catastrophic risk in a technologically advanced society. I strongly recommend this book even for people who will not agree with the authors conclusions.”
Matthew Olsen, former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center
Benjamin Wittes and Gabriella Blum provide a compelling and sobering argument that the rapid advancement and proliferation of new technologiesfrom cyber to biotech to roboticshave fundamentally altered our security. We face the prospect of a Hobbesian state of nature, where each individual is at once a figure of great power and great vulnerability. In this indispensable book, Wittes and Blum then tackle the staggering implications: What does this mean for the social contract between citizen and state and our traditional notions of liberty, privacy, and security? In short, can the modern state keep us safe?”
John Chris Inglis, former Deputy Director of the National Security Agency
A superb treatment of a roiling landscape brought on by breathtaking advances in technology and an onrush of global connectivity that easily outruns systems of governance and user expectations. A must read for those seeking a framework for understanding and action.”
Michael Chertoff, former United States Secretary of Homeland Security
In a globalized world facing widely distributed and technologically empowered threats, Benjamin Wittes and Gabriella Blum develop a new and compelling vision for a twenty-first century legal and security architecture. Political leaders, judges, and citizens will find important guidance in this book.”
Synopsis
Two legal scholars explore the security and political implications of revolutionary new technologies from drones to 3-D printers, and explain how governments must adapt to our brave new world of dispersed threats.From drone warfare in the Middle East to digital spying by the National Security Agency, the U.S. government has harnessed the power of cutting-edge technology to awesome effect. But what happens when ordinary people have the same tools at their fingertips? Advances in cybertechnology, biotechnology, and robotics mean that more people than ever before have access to potentially dangerous technologies-from drones to computer networks and biological agents-which could be used to attack states and private citizens alike.
In
The Future of Violence, law and security experts Benjamin Wittes and Gabriella Blum detail the myriad possibilities, challenges, and enormous risks present in the modern world, and argue that if our national governments can no longer adequately protect us from harm, they will lose their legitimacy. Consequently, governments, companies, and citizens must rethink their security efforts to protect lives and liberty. In this brave new world where many little brothers are as menacing as any Big Brother, safeguarding our liberty and privacy may require strong domestic and international surveillance and regulatory controls. Maintaining security in this world where anyone can attack anyone requires a global perspective, with more multinational forces and greater action to protect (and protect against) weaker states who do not yet have the capability to police their own people. Drawing on political thinkers from Thomas Hobbes to the Founders and beyond, Wittes and Blum show that, despite recent protestations to the contrary, security and liberty are mutually supportive, and that we must embrace one to ensure the other.
The Future of Violence is at once an introduction to our emerging world--one in which students can print guns with 3-D printers and scientists' manipulations of viruses can be recreated and unleashed by ordinary people--and an authoritative blueprint for how government must adapt in order to survive and protect us.
Synopsis
From drone warfare in the Middle East to the NSA digital spying, the U.S. government has harnessed the power of cutting-edge technology to terrible effect. But what happens when ordinary people have the same tools at their fingertips?
Benjamin Wittes and Gabriella Blum reveal that this new world is nearly upon us. Soon, our neighbors will be building armed drones capable of firing a million rounds a minute and cooking powerful viruses based on recipes found online. These new technologies will threaten not only our lives but the very foundation of the modern nation state. Wittes and Blum counterintuitively argue that only by increasing surveillance and security efforts will national governments be able to protect their citizens. The Future of Violence is at once an account of these terrifying new threats and an authoritative blueprint for how we must adapt to survive.
About the Author
Benjamin Wittes is a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and the editor-in-chief of
Lawfare. He lives in Washington, D.C.
Gabriella Blum is the Rita E. Hauser Professor of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law at Harvard Law School. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Table of Contents
PART I1. The Distribution of Offensive Capability
2. The Distribution of Vulnerability
3. The Distribution of Defense
PART II
4. Technology, States, and the Social Order
5. Rethinking Privacy, Liberty, and Security
6. Rethinking Legal Jurisdiction and the Boundaries of Sovereignty
PART III
7. The Security of Platforms and the Future of Surveillance
8. Options for Domestic Governance
9. Options for International Governance