How Can a New Secretary-General Protect the Infrastructure We All Depend On?

The cables that carry most of the world’s data, the shipping lanes that carry its energy and goods, and the satellites that keep its financial systems running were all built on the assumption that the global economy was something that most actors wanted to protect. But that assumption is now being tested.

Our connectivity has created new vulnerabilities, with physical and digital chokepoints that are exposed as single points of failure. So now, the next United Nations Secretary-General inherits a different problem: As the infrastructure connecting the world becomes a target for attacks, what can they do to protect it?

Host Jasmin Bauomy and co-host Mark Malloch-Brown are joined by Sal Mercogliano, Associate Professor of history at Campbell University who runs a YouTube channel on shipping, Elisabeth Braw, a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council and the author of the upcoming book Undersea War, and Parag Khanna, founder and CEO of AlphaGeo. 

World’s Toughest Job is a co-production of Foreign Policy and the UN Foundation.

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