In this episode, Dr. Miah Hammond-Errey is joined by Elisabeth Braw. This discussion explores the decline in globalisation and an increasingly divided world with the West on one side and China and Russia on another. It highlights the impacts of geopolitical rifts on technology, innovation, business, supply chain vulnerabilities and complexities, subsea cables and infrastructure as well as consumer prices and job market changes. They also discuss the tech sector, the role of technology in warfare, and the implications of foreign investments in critical infrastructure as well as hybrid threats, information operations and resilience and national security responses. This episode provides a nuanced exploration of how the convergence of technology, security, and geopolitics shapes our world. Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a member of the National Preparedness Commission in the UK a columnist and author.
Resources mentioned in the recording:
· Braw, E (2024) Goodbye Globalization The Return of a Divided World , Yale University Press https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300272277/goodbye-globalization/
· Braw, E (2022) The Defender's Dilemma
· Braw, E (2019) God's Spies
This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Gadigal people, and we pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging. We acknowledge their continuing connection to land, sea and community, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Thanks to the talents of those involved. Music by Dr Paul Mac and production by Elliott Brennan.
Transcript check against delivery
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: [00:00:02] Welcome to Technology and Security. TS is a podcast exploring the intersections of emerging technologies and national security. I'm your host, Doctor Miah Hammond-Errey. My guest today is Elisabeth Braw. Elisabeth is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a columnist for Foreign Policy and Politico Europe. Her work focuses on hybrid and grey zone threats, as well as the intersection of geopolitics and globalisation. She's a member of the National Preparedness Commission in the UK, and has previously held numerous high profile senior research fellow positions in the US and Europe. She recently published Goodbye Globalization The Return of a Divided World and is the author of two earlier books, The Defender's Dilemma and one about East Germany's secret police called God's Spies. So happy to have you here, Elisabeth.
Elisabeth Braw: [00:00:57] It's a pleasure to join you.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: [00:00:58] I'm coming to you today from the lands of the Gadigal people. We pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging here and wherever you're listening. We acknowledge their continuing connection to land, sea, and community and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: [00:01:17] So you're joining me today after an extensive book tour for Goodbye, Globalization The Return of a Divided World. What are the key questions you're being asked at those events?
Elisabeth Braw: [00:01:28] I think the the most frequently asked question is what that means. Uh, what is this standoff and growing, um, disharmony between the West? Uh, on one hand and and some sort of loose grouping of China and Russia on the other. And what it means not just for companies, not just for countries, but for for us as ordinary people. What is clear, I think, from a citizen perspective, is that if globalisation stops working as well as as it did in in the early 2000, which was really the, the peak of, of globalized harmony, if that's no longer there, which is already the case, then eventually it will lead to higher consumer prices. So we as ordinary citizens have benefited from this extraordinary commercial integration of nations of all types and varieties. And now the two of the most important participants in that globalized economy, Russia and China, are each, for their own reasons, not as fully integrated as they used to be. And Russia is, is, is, uh, essentially shut out of the globalized economy and operating in a parallel economy. And, uh, China is for completely different reasons, um, not as hospitable a country as it used to be for Western businesses. And all of this together means that, uh. It will be more expensive to do business to produce the goods that you and I and everybody else use. Every day we will see a return of of jobs, high quality jobs, and and especially manufacturing to our countries at the same time as we'll see high consumer prices. We will see lots of changes ahead. And I think that's why it's so it's a subject that is so interesting to, to all kinds of people, not just business people, not just policy types, but basically anybody who lives in in a modern economy.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: [00:03:29] What do you see as the biggest issues within that framing for technology and security?
Elisabeth Braw: [00:03:33] So the technology that we have today is, is, is the result of extraordinary development, innovation, uh, over the past 40 years. Uh, and I'm sure your listeners remember Parc Palo Alto Research Center, which is where a lot of this began back a decades ago. And then from, uh, the late 80s and especially from the 90s onwards, we had this extraordinary rise of technology, which is, of course, so ubiquitous today that that we as ordinary citizens, uh, spend essentially every, every hour of every day connected to technology somehow or using technology somehow. And, and that worked so well because it took place in conjunction with globalisation, borders were becoming less important and almost faded away. Um, we also had peace between, uh, yeah, the world's most important countries and that, uh, of course, facilitated collaboration. So you could be a citizen of any of the world's countries and work for any technology company and indeed do business almost anywhere. Uh, and that is no longer the case. The standoff between the US and China, in particular, uh, centers a lot on technology. And interestingly, tech bosses have been the slowest to catch on to this geopolitical shift because they they have come to, uh, they've had that formative experience in, in a completely integrated world. And I think they just can't conceptualize that geopolitics should be able to affect the way they do business because they don't feel geopolitical. Well, it doesn't matter whether you feel geopolitical. The world is becoming more geopolitical, whereas more old fashioned, uh, or the bosses in more traditional sectors, manufacturing and so forth. I think they've been, uh, faster to catch on to this because they, they are seeing, uh, the reality on the ground. Whereas tech bosses, I think, are thinking that in a shorter perspective. Either way, they have been the slowest, among the slowest to catch on to this new trend. And, um. That's why they're having such a painful learning experience at the moment.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: [00:05:59] The podcast has a new segment for 2024 called Interdependencies and Vulnerabilities. Given its centrality to your work, I'd like to start here. What are some of the interdependencies and vulnerabilities of security and technology that you wish were better understood?
Elisabeth Braw: [00:06:16] First of all, the components that go into to technology. So the reason that we can have the just incredible range of electronics that we we take for granted today is that all the components come from somewhere and they don't come from our countries. We have outsourced that. And I sort of wish that everybody who uses a smartphone or laptop knew where the different components come from, knew, uh, how are almost flippant use of technology that is so cheap that, you know, we can afford to buy new smartphones every couple of years? How that affects the communities from which these components come. And, uh, it's, uh, it is an extremely sad state of affairs and tragic story that, that our convenience is based on, essentially the suffering of people in the countries where from, from where the raw materials from our technology, uh, come. Then the other thing I wish more people understood is just how complex the, the manufacturing of electronics is. I think everybody knows that, uh, on on the iPhone, it says designed in California, assembled in China, something like that or made in China. But that's just the final stage. When it gets to to that assembly stage. The iPhone has been through so many other iterations of, of, uh, components traveling where to where they need to be. That is a massive global undertaking, extremely complex. And it is to the credit of, um, that entire logistics supply chain that those companies managed to get the components to where they need to be so that our, our electronics can be efficiently produced. Um, but if we understood that supply chain better and bear in mind, I think it would just be, uh, we would be, uh, more we would recognize what what a miracle the globalized economy is and how it that that sort of miracle can't be taken for granted.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: [00:08:33] I want to come back to where you started, which is on geopolitics and technology. What do you see as the implications for global tech companies in the use of their technologies and data in war?
Elisabeth Braw: [00:08:43] Technology is, uh, is in every aspect of of warfare today right in, in, uh, in modern economies. And, and Ukraine has demonstrated what you can do, uh, through its really innovative, uh, drone manufacturing program and then use of those drones that are cheap to make in the Ukrainians, make them themselves, and they are then used against the Russians. And if you if you lose a few drones, which you do when you send them to, to attack a Russian target, then it's no big loss because these are cheap drones. Right. So, uh, credit to the Ukrainians for thinking on their feet and, and essentially establishing a whole new weapons manufacturing program, namely this, this drone program that they can handle on their own. They don't have to beg Western countries for. It's also and it's also not expensive. But then we have the, uh, the other side of technology and. And you will remember. Sure, your listeners remember that the collaboration between the tech sector and ministries of Defense or the US DoD has never been, um, particularly, uh, particularly harmonious. Many people in the tech sector being, uh, the globalisation era generation, they feel uneasy about national security. And we saw a few years ago, engineers at Google refusing to participate in, in the Pentagon, uh, project because they, they didn't want to contribute to the killing of people, and they didn't actually understand that that program would would not be yet it was not for the infantry. It was it was not a kinetic use of the technology. So it wouldn't be contributing to the killing of people.
Elisabeth Braw: [00:10:25] But how are you supposed to know those differences as a tech type if you've never worked in national security? Such concerns notwithstanding, we see the increasing use of technology in all areas of, uh, national security and national defense. So, uh, defensive technologies, but use of technology and in offense as well. And that, that, um, can be anything from the, the directed energy weapons that the US Navy is developing that will essentially help, uh, deflect any sort of armed attacks on vessels through, uh, energy rather than, you know, missiles or, um, or grenades or any of those traditional kinds of, of weapons. And that is a very positive thing. Uh, and the fact that that you'll be able to use energy in this way, it will be cheaper. It will also be, uh, less dangerous to all involved. So that's a positive thing. But then you also have more, more dubious use of, of technology in the Israeli targeting program. And of course, we should remember the Israelis haven't, uh, they haven't commented, it's alleged on those sources that that, um, Israeli investigative journalists have have written, but, uh. The stories seem well researched and well backed up. And it is. It is frightening to think that an AI program decides who gets to live and who gets to, well, who will be, who will be killed. And if if this turns out that these stories turn out to be true, these stories in the Israeli media, uh, turn out to be true, then. Then it is a really frightening example of overreliance on technology.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: [00:12:18] What are your thoughts on the US moves to ban TikTok unless it divests from Chinese ownership?
Elisabeth Braw: [00:12:23] Oh my Goodness. What a development that would not have been possible ten years ago. Of course, ten years ago, TikTok barely existed, right? And now not only does it exist, but it dominates daily life in in the US, in other Western countries, and especially among the younger generation, a large chunk of chunks of America are on TikTok, so it would not be popular with them if TikTok were to be shut down, because that's how they spend their downtime. So ten years ago, a company like TikTok would not have been controversial because it was a globalized era. The only people who were concerned about it were essentially mental health advocates and those concerned about teen and child welfare. Right. I'm not saying that TikTok was founded to extract personal information, uh, about Westerners, but now now that the information is there, of course it stands to reason that the Chinese government would be very interested in accessing it, which is how this then becomes a national security issue. And, uh, so I can see why US legislators want to to ban it.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: [00:13:32] When we think of foreign investment vulnerabilities, we generally think about critical infrastructure. So like decisions behind banning Huawei technology and 5G networks. But many of the new investment vulnerabilities are consumer applications like TikTok. How do you think this impacts the future of foreign investment in digital technologies?
Elisabeth Braw: [00:13:55] So this is another area where national security and and the consumer product led globalised economy really clash. So we need foreign investment into our companies where the mature companies or startups, we need that investment. And and as you know, for the past 20 years, suddenly a lot of that investment has come from and from Chinese companies. Once the Chinese market economy got going, Chinese companies, uh, quickly reached the stage where, uh, where they could go out and acquire companies around the world and invest in companies around the world. And the trajectory that took was that initially they invested a lot into traditional areas like real estate and but more recently. Then moved away from the at or the the type of. The type of company investing in West has has shifted from traditional areas like real estate to um. To a lot of, uh, technology companies and sophisticated technologies and startups and, and a lot of venture capital investment as well. Ten years ago, it was totally legit to take money from from anybody as long as they were not criminal. And now that is changing because our governments, our legislators have realized that Chinese companies investing in this manner may not be operating on a purely commercial basis, even though they are private companies. So what does this mean? Well, I think first of all, what we need is some sort of, uh, national security education for everybody in the technology space so that they know that what they may consider sort of a minor risk to their company is actually part of a larger risk to the country.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: [00:15:48] I wanted to touch briefly on understanding the value of money and data flows. Tiktok recently acquired a controlling stake in a company called Tokopedia, which is Indonesia's primary e-commerce application, and in late March this year, TikTok shop and Tokopedia completed back end integration. I wanted to get your thoughts on the move to integrate payment systems and influence applications as concerning. And, um, you know, for those that aren't across the numbers in Indonesia, TikTok are reports 126.8 million users over the age of 18 from Indonesia, Indonesia's total population of 278 million.
Elisabeth Braw: [00:16:30] Yeah, it really is. You know, the the totally. Translucent human being, right? So if you use these applications and they already exist in China, uh, so you have one application that does everything for you, right? I mean, this is how jack-ma, uh, that was his his great. It's his great achievement, right? That he he has made the one stop shop for every, every need you have online. And so you and and so you use one application for all that. Whereas in, in Western countries we use a range of applications. Right. And that means one application, one company has massive amounts of data about you. And I think. Five years ago, Western consumers would have said, well, I'm fine giving my data away. I want, uh, I want to be using whatever the app was I want to be using and especially with, with a with an omnibus app like that, you know, people say, oh, it's so convenient. I don't care if they have my data. Um, but, uh. Now it matters that companies have this. 360 degree view of every user. Because, uh, companies, uh. Can turn over that information. This is again where extreme individualism and consumer. Uh, consumption based economies where they clash with geopolitics because individual citizens. May say, well, I don't care if you know who knows about me. I don't have anything to hide. It's the cumulative effect that this knowledge about every user in, uh, any given country. The cumulative effect that that knowledge has on the national security of that country.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: [00:18:33] I want to ask you about the role of alliances. So this is a regular segment. Can you talk to me about the role of technology in the global economy and how it's changing those relationships? Yeah.
Elisabeth Braw: [00:18:45] So technology is is. Borderless, right. And this is why the rise of technology in conjunction with the rise of the globalized economy, was such a fortuitous twin development. One would not have been possible without the other. And and there they they were. And what does it mean for technology now that globalisation is is stumbling? And that's why tech executives have such a hard time adjusting to this new world, and they will have an even harder time when they, uh, when we see more interventions, political interventions like the US move to force the divestment of TikTok in the US. And I think tech executives are just they still refuse to recognize that, that the world has changed. They see it as the still socially commerce based. And why why should they have to act in a particular way just because their company is based in a particular country, and that view is quickly being overtaken by events? It does matter where you are based. It does matter because you may be targeted because of where you're based. Um, and also because the the legislators in that country may decide to make policies for, for companies based in that country. So what this means is that as the world essentially divides and in countries form new alliances, so one led by the US, the EU a little bit the UK and but including not just Western countries, but other countries as well.
Elisabeth Braw: [00:20:21] Oh and of course including Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, that alliance will have to include countries that are not not fully like us, but are willing to trade on a non-hostile terms and and not just willing, but keen to do trade on non-hostile terms. So countries like Vietnam, which is definitely not the Western liberal democracy, but it is a country that with which you can build strong commercial links. And then on the other side, you will have that group led by by Russia and China. Well, what does it mean for technology companies? They, uh, have until now, in many cases refused to, to recognize that that it is uh, we have arrived at an inflection point. So that means that essentially they will have to choose teams. And I think that would be very painful. But, um, if you have the benefit of being based in a Western country, which comes with so many advantages, so much liberty, that I think the least you can do is, is essentially to publicly acknowledge that you are based in that country and that you would try to act in that country's interest, and most particularly, that you won't act in the interests of of a hostile country.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: [00:21:34] Can you highlight any particular countries or alliances you think will be most important in the next couple of years?
Elisabeth Braw: [00:21:40] It's alternate existing ones that I think will. We'll have a sort of a quantum leap. But what I do think will happen is that the sort of looser Western alliance of, um, free trading nations will, um, be in closer links and also build closer links with, with countries that that are uh, again, not Western but, but willing to, to trade to have significant commercial integration with us. So as I said, Vietnam, the Philippines, India, India is really the the crown jewel in this world. Will India live up to its promise of becoming a significant economic power? It last time around, uh, it was the runner up to China. Now it's getting a second chance because China is, is, uh, turning out to be, um, more authoritarian and and less collaborative than we had thought in terms of of alliance as a group is I would be interesting to see how how the quad fares in this.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: [00:22:47] Can you describe for our listeners what you see as the security threats of information operations?
Elisabeth Braw: [00:22:53] Where do I start? It's, uh, on a daily basis. We're increasingly increasingly living in, in an environment where, where people either just decide that, oh, you know, I can't trust anything. And if information comes my way, is is just by nature incorrect. I'm not going to trust it or. They will. Migrate into ideological cocoons where they they only consume the news that they that that they receive from sources that are ideologically opposed to them, whether that be news outlets or their friends, either. Either way, this develops, and it could be the two things at the same time. What it means is that we won't have a fact based foundation on which to debate issues of the day in our societies, and without that fact based foundation, how are we supposed to debate what needs to be done in our societies? We have to have at least facts that that everybody can trust are basically, uh, basically correct if we don't have that and if people don't care about having it, where does that leave liberal democracy? You are not going to be able to have a constructive debate or any sort of debate about what needs to be done if you can't even agree on what the facts are. And so I worry that will, uh, eventually make our liberal democracies in the West ungovernable.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: [00:24:22] In your book, The Defender's Dilemma, you highlighted the challenges countries face in what you describe as response, retaliation and deterrence. Where do you think we are at?
Elisabeth Braw: [00:24:32] Deterrence is what you signal before something happens to make sure it doesn't happen. Deterrence is about psychology. You have to signal to the adversary who you think may may decide to harm you, that it's not it's not going to be beneficial to them, uh, that you will either you as a, as a country will will be able to resist the blow and that you may also retaliate. Where we are now is that we are trying to build a lot of deterrence by denial. And it's not just governments, it's companies too, that are realizing that, oh, I may be targeted. I have to become more resilient. And we are seeing some governments, uh, focusing more on educating the public about about grades and aggression and new harm and, and new forms of aggression and what one can do as a citizen to be part of of that denial effort. Sweden is the best example of, of a country that has taken recent initiatives there. Then you have Finland. They've done it the Finnish way for years, and you have then on the other side of of the globe, you have Singapore, which has been very good at, uh, educating the public, uh, about national security threats. For years. So that's where a lot is happening.
Elisabeth Braw: [00:25:47] Much less is happening in deterrence by punishment because it's so difficult to decide, uh, how and in which cases we will punish acts of brazen aggression by hitting back. And that's why, for example, we are struggling, uh, to, to punish, uh, acts of sabotage against sea based infrastructure. We are starting to punish the, the shadow fleet, which causes harm to to our country's waters. We are struggling to punish the Houthi attacks on merchant shipping. As you, your listeners will know, Russian and Chinese vessels sail through without any problems. So this is obviously targeted against Western shipping. But, um, how are we supposed to what is an appropriate way of responding to it? Um, and, and. How? How should we respond? How should we communicate to the truth is that if you do even one more attack, we will punish you. What is it that I've done? What is the punishment that we are threatening? And we haven't. We haven't announced that. And so what is this? No. Is that that the strike coalition, Operation Sea Guardian are there in the Red sea, and we try to defend shipping, but, uh, it's clearly not working. So, um. Deterrence by denial is making progress. The task by punishment is so much harder.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: [00:27:11] I did want to ask your thoughts on the future of gray zone aggression, but before we get there, you wrote a piece for Foreign Policy on subsea cables and how they relate to geopolitical tensions. And you note in this that most of our technologies have been created without deep consideration for security. Can you talk us through some of the vulnerabilities and actual incidents of subsea cable sabotage?
Elisabeth Braw: [00:27:35] Yeah. So I think that the most acute example of sabotage of sea based infrastructure or undersea cables was when the the two cables connecting the Matsu Island with Taiwan proper were severed by somebody at the beginning of last year. And one should remember that that, um. There are there are maps that that show the location of undersea cables. And and these two cables have been damaged many times in the past. So you would think that if. If vessels have inadvertently damaged undersea cables that they would be matched with the the the fishing industry, the, you know, the civilian, uh, uh, vessel, uh, operators would be much more, uh, concerned and aware and keen not to, uh, let that happen again. Bias happen again and again and again. And then at the beginning of last year, you had first one Chinese civilian vessel, sever one of the cables, then another, the Chinese civilian vessel, um, sever the other cable, which meant that the Matsu Islands were completely disconnected from the world. Taiwan then worked very quickly to, to to repair these, these, uh, undersea cables and to get some sort of backup, uh, coverage going, which worked okay. It was still it was still not as good as being connected to by the undersea cables. But the point is that you can you can harm undersea infrastructure with impunity. Then in a similar vein, what we have seen in recent months is an enormous increase in GPS jamming and in the Baltic Sea region.
Elisabeth Braw: [00:29:24] And various sleuths have have identified the source, the likely source of this GPS jamming, which is a jammer in, uh, in Kaliningrad. So you sort of know where the jamming comes from. You know, the harm it does to, uh, aviation and, uh, it's incredibly provocative. What we need in order for our governments to take action is, is for government authorities to determine where, when the jamming comes from, they then have to, uh, be able to. Show that the Russian state is behind it. We can't hold the Russian government accountable for that unless we can prove that that the Russian government is involved and that can that is likely to be extremely difficult. So that that means that the burden of proof is very hard, and that even if we were to establish beyond reasonable doubt that it's the Russian state that's behind it, how exactly are we going to punish that? Are we going to jam Russian aviation? No, because we are law abiding, ethically behaving countries. Uh, or at least we we have the ambition to be ethically behaving countries. We are not going to, uh, jam Russian aviation in response, uh, and thus, uh, risk the lives of innocent civilians. And that, again, is the defender's dilemma.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: [00:30:42] The issues of attribution or response are clearly similar to cyber. It's incredibly difficult just coming back to the undersea cables. What sort of impact will the rerouting of cables have? Yeah.
Elisabeth Braw: [00:30:54] So this is part of the of the dividing world. Uh, now cables don't just we no longer the just the most geographically obvious way they will be routed in geopolitically conducive ways. So that means that these new alliances are building will will also include the routing of of undersea cables. And that may mean that a cable travels a much longer distance over a more inconvenient route than they otherwise would have and than it did ten years ago. So we will see countries like India, Vietnam. I think we'll be the beneficiaries of this because they they will um, they will essentially see more cables in their neighborhood and also drawn to connect with them. And I think Vietnam in particular, has positioned itself very well as a willing and able partner of, of Western countries, as is is they try to in Western companies as they try to shift away from China.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: [00:31:53] You've previously said and in your book that parts of industry miss the start of this movement, believing strongly that everyone's investment in the global economy meant that it would stay stable. Where do you think the private sector is on this now, and do you think there are other changes that we might be missing?
Elisabeth Braw: [00:32:09] So the the private sector has had a rude awakening. And in many companies are, are taking, uh, significant and, and, and decisive action to reduce their exposure. Most importantly big companies obviously leaving Russia. Uh, and you'd have to be a genius to realize that it's not going to be stable environment in Russia for, for some years to come, but they are also reducing their exposure in China. They are going to leave China altogether, but then they are reducing their exposure. We're seeing companies positioning themselves as, you know, being ahead of the curve, showing their shareholders that they have drawn the right conclusions from from this geopolitical standoff. And we keep the company safe and and profitable.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: [00:32:53] I have a segment called Emerging Technology for Emerging Leaders. What do you see as the biggest shifts for leadership from the introduction of new technologies?
Elisabeth Braw: [00:33:02] The biggest challenge is, uh, how to position your company and to, to reduce the, the geopolitically motivated harm that that, uh, can be imposed on a company, but not just to a company. It's it because technology is so complex. If you're on the on the hardware side. And even if you're on the software side, you still need massive amounts of hardware to operate your software. And and so that means that it's not just about your own components. It's about that massive train of supply suppliers that have to be saved, too. So it doesn't matter if it's if you make your company safe, if even just one of your suppliers is exposed to harm or is is harm, then your company will suffer too. And then, considering how incredibly massive, uh, far fetched, uh, the far reaching and, and, uh, complex and in generally, uh, miraculously efficient supply chains are today the fact that that any company in a supply chain are tens of thousands of companies and which is what you have for for technologically, technologically advanced products, if even just one of those, uh, tens of thousands of companies is harmed, then the, the, the company on the top of that supply, uh, supply pyramid suffers. Well, how are you going to do that? Inventory. How are you going to choose who is in your supply chain? This is the massive homework assignment that senior executives and boards will will have to undertake.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: [00:34:47] Coming up is eyes and ears. What have you been reading, listening to, or watching lately that might be of interest to our audience?
Elisabeth Braw: [00:34:54] I have been reading and watching a lot of, um, what Helmut Schmidt has done and said so. Helmut Schmidt was the chancellor of West Germany in the late 80s and early, uh, late 70s and early 80s. And he was he was an incredibly strategic leader and, uh, of the kind that, that I wish we had more of. And so and, uh, he lived to be 98 years old. So had he had a long post-politics life. And in that life he wrote books, he gave interviews, uh, and about substantive issues. And so I'm learning from Helmut Schmidt. And I think that's something that that, uh, would be beneficial to many others as well.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: [00:35:36] We've got a segment called disconnect. Um, so how do you disconnect?
Elisabeth Braw: [00:35:40] I listen to classical music. Um, I used to, to be involved as a, as a performer. So I'm a lifelong choral singer. Uh, and I used to sing, uh, on a professional level, uh, in choirs. Now, I it's not possible anymore because I travel so much, but I listen to a lot of classical music whenever I am in a, in a city other than the ones in which I live. Um, I go to the opera, I go to the symphony, and I love it.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: [00:36:09] My final section was need to know in this bumper election year. Do you have any thoughts on the information environment and how we can improve our resilience?
Elisabeth Braw: [00:36:20] Oh yes, I do, and it's just absolutely imperative for everybody to educate themselves about how to verify information. It's an incredible privilege to be able to vote in a liberal democracy. And we should all do it based on information that we know to be factual. It is, I think, our duty to inform ourselves, because it's such a privilege to be able to freely cast our vote for whomever we like. Imagine somebody in an authoritarian or a country or a dictatorship hearing that, they would say, what an incredibly cavalier attitude vis a vis, uh, privilege that we are risking our lives to get.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: [00:37:00] Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. Thank you for having me. Thanks for listening to Technology and Security. I've been your host, doctor Miah Hammond-Errey. If there was a moment you enjoyed today or a question you have about the show, feel free to tweet me at Miah_HE, or send an email to the address in the show notes. You can find out more about the work we do on our website, also linked in the show notes. We hope you enjoy this episode and we'll see you soon.
What is Technology and Security (TS)?
Technology and Security (TS) explores the intersections of emerging technologies and security. It is hosted by Dr Miah Hammond-Errey. Each month, experts in technology and security join Miah to discuss pressing issues, policy debates, international developments, and share leadership and career advice.
Miah’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/Miah_HE
Contact Miah: https://miahhe.com
