On November 23, 2020, Dr. Michael A. Hennessy presented on the topic of Revisiting Disruptive Technology and the Innovator’s Dilemma in the Age of Cybersecurity at the 2020 CASIS West Coast Security Conference. The presentation was followed by a moderated question and answer period. Key points of discussion included: the difficulties of embracing major technological change in modern military bureaucracies; how organisational culture is an impediment to change; and how leadership and management in military organisations is out of step with the pace of change.

This document describes the convergence and integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and services of the Antigua and Barbuda Government.

The threat to sea lines of communication has been explored during a tabletop exercise conducted by the Centre for a New American Security in 2017. That tabletop exercise considered the impact of a Russian attack on NATO sea lines of communication off the coast of Ireland. According to public sources, “participants struggled to determine whose responsibility it was to restore the cables – the grey zone between state and private ownership of sea cables was a significant hurdle for policy- makers” (Buchanan, 2018). Melting ice and developments in technology have prompted a range of feasibility studies into the viability of a trans-Arctic sea cable route. Arctic Council permanent members Canada, Russia, the US, Norway, and Denmark have all, to varying degrees, undertaken assessments of potential Arctic data highways. To date, two Arctic routes have been touted, yet only one has made it to the development stage. The first route treks along the Northwest Passage, along Canada’s Arctic coastline. This cable links data from London to Tokyo and is well into development. Dubbed “Arctic Fibre”, and consisting of approximately 16,000 kilometres of cable, this route was originally a Canadian venture. In 2016 Arctic Fibre was acquired by Alaska-based firm Quintillion (Buchanan, 2018).

On January 17th, 2019, the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies (CASIS) Vancouver hosted its eleventh roundtable meeting which covered “The Cyber Kinetic Singularity Affecting National Security.” The following presentation was hosted by Dr. Patrick Neal, the lead researcher for CASIS Vancouver’s cybersecurity team. As well, he has published research articles on vehicle arson patterns, police uniform standards, information sharing between federal agencies, and more. In his presentation, Dr. Neal was determined to tell a story to better connect with the audience with the complexities of cyber kinetic singularities. Using War of the Worlds written in 1898, parallels are made to the dangers of rapidly advancing technology to areas where humans have yet to fully grasp the consequences.

In late 2001, after the establishment of the interim government, Afghanistan stepped into new horizons of political and socio-economic rehabilitation and reconstruction. The subsequent transitional and the elected Afghan government introduced new legislations which assisted private companies to make investments in the country and provide various services including telecommunications and ICT services for the people of Afghanistan. The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) was the first among the sectoral government entities in Afghanistan to design new strategies and policies, enabling private sector to make huge investment in the telecommunication and IT sectors. In 2009, MCIT established the first Cyber Emergency Response Team (CERT) in Afghanistan and it was officially named as AFCERT. The mandate of AFCERT was to fight against cyber threats and crimes and provide awareness and solutions on cyber security to the government and private sector. In its first two years of operation, AFCERT submitted an official report to the MCIT senior management regarding an upsurge in the cyber and electronic crimes in the country. In order to fight the said crimes, it was vital to conduct a risk assessment of all government ICT infrastructures and come up with a solution to mitigate those risks. AFCERT’s proposal on preparing a draft of Cyber Security Strategy for the country was accepted by the MCIT and ICT Council and to this end the MCIT and ICT Council established a committee. In 2012 the first awareness workshop on drafting the NCSA was held in ICTI Institute, supported and funded by the US Department of Commerce. It was a 4 day workshop and all government CIOs, ICT heads, private sector and academia participated and studied and analyzed various strategies from different countries. The NCSA committee was chaired by Information Systems Security Directorate of MCIT and held its regular meetings and assessments for one year. After a series of assessments and recommendations, the NCSA committee finalized and submitted the first draft of the strategy in July 2014 to the MCIT and ICT Council to review and adapt its action plan.