In This Issue

The battleground for many of the conflicts of the twenty-first century is likely to be a newly invented realm of human activity commonly called cyberspace. The cover image of this issue of American Outlook illustrates what the enemy in such conflicts could look like: an individual sitting in front of a computer in the privacy of a home, office, or vehicle anywhere in the world.

Combating such an enemy—whose targets might include businesses, the military, civilian government entities, or any of the countless other critically important institutions of modern societies—will be a daunting task and will certainly require new weapons and defensive capabilities, if not a new military strategy.

To help identify the outlines of wars to come—and given human nature, there will certainly be such, much as we can and should hope otherwise—the cover section of this issue of American Outlook considers exactly what it will mean to fight on this new ground. Leading off, Alan W. Dowd provides an overview of the Bush administration’s unprecedented new national security paper outlining the potential threats of cyberwar, and examines its approach to waging it. Then, William Webb, Eli Lehrer, and Justin Heet consider the impact that acts of cyberterrorism could have on the U.S. economy, and what the government and businesses ought to do to counter them. Laurent Murawiec concludes the section with a visionary analysis of cyberwar’s likely place in the history of warfare, and then skillfully adapts the concepts of traditional military theory to consider possible responses to the new challenge.

There remain, of course, many other pressing concerns for national attention. In our section devoted to Business and the Economy, Irwin M. Stelzer argues that rebuilding Iraq’s oil industry is a gargantuan task that the United Stated may not be able to complete. Environmental experts Dennis T. Avery and Alex Avery demonstrate, in our Ideas in Action section, that the popular press repeatedly and irresponsibly parrots the doomsday scenarios of environmentalist groups when, in fact, there is tremendously good news to be reported about the state of the environment. They conclude that the picture the public is receiving as a result is badly distorted.

Regarding current Social Concerns, science writer Michael Fumento offers a glimpse of the enormous benefits to be derived from research into stem cells, and welfare expert Jay Hein considers the merits and limits of a new and improved model of philanthropy that is taking shape across the country.

Arguments over the war in Iraq continue to become even more heated. In a special report in our International Relations section, Deroy Murdock presents overwhelming evidence that Saddam Hussein was the world’s premier benefactor of terrorist groups while he was in power, and Herbert I. London and Henry R. Nau consider arguments against America’s present foreign policy presented by critics at home and abroad.

The issue concludes with still more controversy, including reviews of books on the career of Hillary Clinton, the state of the American immigration debate, the sad condition of American child care, the future of Russia, and charges of racism against local police officers around the nation.

As always, this issue of American Outlook attempts to shed light rather than heat on these bitterly contentious issues of the day.