The Diplomat | Author
Jacob Parakilas
Jacob Parakilas is an author, consultant, and analyst working on U.S. foreign policy and international security.
He has over a decade’s professional experience spanning think tanks, NGOs, the U.S. government, and academia. He started his career in 2007 working on student visa issues for the U.S. government before returning to academia and earning a Ph.D. at the London School of Economics. From 2014 until 2019 he was the deputy head of the U.S. and the Americas Programme at Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, where his job was to explain the key issues in U.S. foreign and domestic policy to non-American audiences. Jacob is currently based in Lagos, Nigeria, and is also an Associate with LSE IDEAS.
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April 09, 2021
Welcome to the Fog of More
By Jacob Parakilas
There’s a deeper problem with how we perceive the world than misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda: it’s that we expect that big data means better understanding.
April 02, 2021
What Would Technology for Peace Actually Look Like?
By Jacob Parakilas
Defense technology columns spend a lot of time looking at how emerging technology will shape the future of war. Could technology reshape peace as well?
March 24, 2021
What’s Missing in the New Cold War Stories?
By Jacob Parakilas
Many are warning of how China might win a war with the U.S. But they play down the much more likely way the two could damage each other’s interests.
March 17, 2021
The Trouble With V/STOL
By Jacob Parakilas
Britain’s new foreign policy strategy includes ambitious goals for the Indo-Pacific. But its flagship military assets are not yet capable of backing those up.
March 11, 2021
Geography Still Leads Defense Policy
By Jacob Parakilas
The Pentagon’s new Pacific Deterrence Initiative demonstrates that we’re still a long way away from the “flattened” world that Thomas Friedman and others imagined.
March 03, 2021
Is an “Alliance of Alliances” Around AI Feasible?
By Jacob Parakilas
The newly released final report of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence is rich in recommendations. But operationalizing them may be trickier.
February 25, 2021
Commandos Confront a World After the Forever War
By Jacob Parakilas
As great power competition rises to the fore – and counterterrorism operations recede into the background – U.S. special forces will have to adapt.
February 17, 2021
Bloat and Warfare
By Jacob Parakilas
Canada’s new frigates are the size of cruisers, and indicative of a wider trend toward ever-more complicated and expensive weapons.
February 11, 2021
How Do You Measure a Revolution in Military Affairs?
By Jacob Parakilas
Novel technologies hold out the prospect of fundamental changes in military effectiveness and strategy. The tricky part is understanding and communicating when those changes are coming.
February 04, 2021
Prepping the US Military for Climate Change
By Jacob Parakilas
The American defense establishment, central in the U.S. political imagination, must be leveraged to meet the gravest long-term national security threat the country faces.
January 27, 2021
Fiction and Consequences: War in Art and the Art of War
By Jacob Parakilas
When it comes to depictions of the future of war, art doesn’t have to be particularly sophisticated to say something worth thinking about.
January 22, 2021
To Confront the Future, the US Congress Should Look to Its Past
By Jacob Parakilas
Technology is playing a central role in the political challenges of our times. It is not only defense personnel and CEOs who need advice grounded in technological reality – legislators do as well.