Ethical Dilemmas In Management: An African Perspective

The modern workplace is composed of people with diverse backgrounds in terms of nationality, culture, religion, age, education and socioeconomic status. Each of these people enters the work with different values, goals, and perceptions of acceptable behaviours. The diverse background creates ethical challenges for individuals as well as managers. There are issues and decisions that are to be made by workers in the organization that have implications for their job security and salary, and success of the organization. Pressure may be on the workers to protect their own interests, sometimes at the risk of losing personal and corporate integrity. This paper attempts to evaluate ethical dilemmas and conflicts from an Africa perspective, bearing in mind different value systems between western and African nations

A spy’s guide to Boston University

This article originally appeared in the Vol 23, No 3, Winter 2017-18 edition of AFIO’s Intelligencer journal, which is published by AFIO (Association of Former Intelligence Officers), Falls Church, VA.In this article, Professor John Woodward, a retired CIA officer, examines the people and places associated with Boston University that have made significant, or otherwise interesting, contributions to the world of intelligence

Crystal Eastman and the Internationalist Beginnings of American Civil Liberties

The modern American civil liberties movement famously began with the United States\u27s intervention in World War I. Yet these beginnings have long raised a conundrum for civil liberties historians. Why did the American civil liberties movement arise precisely when so many sophisticated legal and political thinkers began to call into question the truth value of abstract rights claims? The puzzling rise of civil liberties in an age of pragmatic skepticism is all the more startling given that early leaders of the civil liberties movement were themselves leading rights skeptics. This Article offers a new interpretation of the rise of the modern American civil liberties movement. Our ostensibly domestic civil liberties movement--and indeed, the phrase civil liberties itself--has its roots in a pre-World War I international law cosmopolitanism. In particular, the social movement that coalesced around the phrase civil liberties developed as a group of self-consciously internationalist organizations. Led by people such as Crystal Eastman, a little-remembered, charismatic, progressive-era reformer and radical, these organizations had begun to question not just the abstract metaphysical truth of rights claims but also the usefulness of that other great abstraction of nineteenth-century law: sovereignty. The civil liberties movement in American law thus did indeed emerge out of a pragmatist critique of abstract legal fictions. The relevant abstraction, however, was not so much the formal concept of rights as the formal concept of nation-state sovereignty. With American intervention in World War I, obligations of loyalty to the nation-state compelled American internationalists such as Eastman, her colleague Roger Baldwin, and the fledgling American Civil Liberties Union to reframe their critique of sovereignty in terms made available by the constituent documents of American nationalism

National Security Space Launch

The United States Space Force’s National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program, formerly known as the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program, was first established in 1994 by President William J. Clinton’s National Space Transportation Policy. The policy assigned the responsibility for expendable launch vehicles to the Department of Defense (DoD), with the goals of lowering launch costs and ensuring national security access to space. As such, the United States Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) started the EELV program to acquire more affordable and reliable launch capability for valuable U.S. military satellites, such as national reconnaissance satellites that cost billions per satellite. In March 2019, the program name was changed from EELV to NSSL, which reflected several important features: 1.) The emphasis on “assured access to space,” 2.) transition from the Russian-made RD-180 rocket engine used on the Atlas V to a US-sourced engine (now scheduled to be complete by 2022), 3.) adaptation to manifest changes (such as enabling satellite swaps and return of manifest to normal operations both within 12 months of a need or an anomaly), and 4.) potential use of reusable launch vehicles. As of August 2019, Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems, SpaceX, and United Launch Alliance (ULA) have all submitted proposals. From these, the U.S. Air Force will be selecting two companies to fulfill approximately 34 launches over a period of five years, beginning in 2022. This paper will therefore first examine the objectives for the NSSL as presented in the 2017 National Security Strategy, Fiscal Year 2019, Fiscal Year 2020, and Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization Acts (NDAA), and National Presidential Directive No. 40. The paper will then identify areas of potential weakness and gaps that exist in space launch programs as a whole and explore the security implications that impact the NSSL specifically. Finally, the paper will examine how the trajectory of the NSSL program could be adjusted in order to facilitate a smooth transition into new launch vehicles, while maintaining mission success, minimizing national security vulnerabilities, and clarifying the defense acquisition process.No embargoAcademic Major: EnglishAcademic Major: International Studie

Artificial Intelligence, International Competition, and the Balance of Power (May 2018)

World leaders, CEOs, and academics have suggested that a revolution in artificial intelligence is upon us. Are they right, and what will advances in artificial intelligence mean for international competition and the balance of power? This article evaluates how developments in artificial intelligence (AI) — advanced, narrow applications in particular — are poised to influence military power and international politics. It describes how AI more closely resembles “enabling” technologies such as the combustion engine or electricity than a specific weapon. AI’s still-emerging developments make it harder to assess than many technological changes, especially since many of the organizational decisions about the adoption and uses of new technology that generally shape the impact of that technology are in their infancy. The article then explores the possibility that key drivers of AI development in the private sector could cause the rapid diffusion of military applications of AI, limiting first-mover advantages for innovators. Alternatively, given uncertainty about the technological trajectory of AI, it is also possible that military uses of AI will be harder to develop based on private-sector AI technologies than many expect, generating more potential first-mover advantages for existing powers such as China and the United States, as well as larger consequences for relative power if a country fails to adapt. Finally, the article discusses the extent to which U.S. military rhetoric about the importance of AI matches the reality of U.S. investments.LBJ School of Public Affair

Spartan Daily, May 27, 1942

Volume 30, Issue 146https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/3466/thumbnail.jp