Alex S Wilner
Biographic Data
| ID | 2174000 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alex S Wilner |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alex S |
| FAMILY NAME | Wilner |
| SIGNATURE | WILNER A S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Carleton University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2087-252X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 103 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 27 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Applying AI to Canada's Financial Intelligence System
Money laundering (ML) and terrorist financing (TF) are pernicious global challenges. Estimates suggest that ML represents 2 to 4 percent of global GDP, disrupting financial systems, hindering anti-corruption efforts, fuelling terrorism, and destabilizing governments and security institutions globally. Emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) complicate detection and prosecution efforts, enabling anonymity in the movement of money. …
Foresight and futures thinking for international development co‐operation
Deterrence and Foreign Election Intervention
Democratic elections are under threat from foreign interference. Democracies around the world are experimenting with a range of responses, from threatening potential interveners with a variety of retaliatory punishments to bolstering election security, scrutiny, and counter-interference operations, and leveraging multilateral institutions to reinforce norms of behavior and rules of engagement. At their root, many of these approaches are anchored …
Offensive Cyber Operations and State Power
Offensive cyber operations are an increasingly important tool of authoritarian statecraft, used in the pursuit of foreign policy objectives and functioning as an expression of state power. Our article informs Canadian cybersecurity policy by pulling lessons from Russia's use of cyber aggression against Ukraine between 2014 and 2022. Our analysis explores the nexus between Russian cyber operations and foreign and domestic policy, the relationship …
Tackling the Geopolitics of Standardization
Strategic foresight is the systematic exploration of emerging and future developments. Standardization is the process by which a common technical language is created and applied to new concepts and evolving technologies. Both strategic foresight and standardization address long-term technological change across industries, societies, and economies. And yet rarely are the two used in tandem to anticipate emerging standardization priorities that are…
Paying terrorist ransoms
Terrorist groups are believed to be financed, in part, by ransoms paid for kidnap victims. As part of global efforts to counter the financing of terrorism and prevent further terrorist attacks (including more kidnappings), the international community has attempted to implement a moratorium on the payment of ransoms. Despite a unified stance, ransom payments to terrorist groups have continued. An exploratory review of 20 countries reveals signific…
Research at risk
Although traditionally viewed as paragons of international cooperation, research institutions and universities are becoming venues for hostile foreign activity. Research security (RS) refers to the measures that protect the inputs, processes, and products that are part of scientific research, inquiry, and discovery. While RS traces its roots to the 1940s, global economic and research and development competition, the nexus between dual-use technol…
From physical to virtual to digital
The Synthetic Environment (SE) takes the power of computing, digital processing, artificial intelligence, extended reality technology, and other advancements borrowed from the gaming industry to create a computer simulation with near-perfect levels of realism. Designed to enable connectivity across all domains and platforms, SE has the potential to dramatically improve military training, force development, situational awareness, and communication…
A view from above
A connected battlespace aims to enable seamless, real-time connectivity between various military assets across all domains of contemporary warfare. Such a program, however, cannot be accomplished without the use of space-based assets that are designed to store and transmit data; enable communications, surveillance, and imagery; and bolster interoperability between different military forces and services. Given recent technological advancements, co…
Connecting the dots on Canada’s connected battlespace
A “connected battlespace” (CB) aims to leverage emerging technologies, such as low Earth orbit satellites, internet of things devices, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, in order to collect, process, and disseminate large quantities of data in real time, thereby providing decision-makers with the ability to respond to threats faster and with more precision. Despite its promise, as a concept, a CB is still misunderstood, underdeveloped,…
From public health to cyber hygiene
The COVID-19 pandemic has ushered in a wave of cyberattacks targeting the healthcare sector, including against hospitals, doctors, patients, medical companies, supply chains, universities, research laboratories, and public health organizations at different levels of jurisdiction and across the public and private sectors. Despite these concerns, cybersecurity in Canadian healthcare is significantly understudied. This article uses a series of illus…
US cyber deterrence
When compared to advancements in conceptualising deterrence in other domains, cyber deterrence is still in it messy infancy. In some ways cyber deterrence practice outpaces cyber deterrence theory. Tactics, strategy, doctrine, and policy are developed and put to use even before corresponding theories are properly understood. This article analyses how American cyber deterrence has been implemented over the past two decades in order to inform ongoi…
On the social science of ransomware
Ransomware is a type of malware that either encrypts or steals digital data and demands a financial ransom from the victim in order to release or return them. While criminals have been linking theft and hostage-taking to ransoms for a long time, the frequency and severity of contemporary ransomware, the nature and motivation of the perpetrators who use these methods of attack, and the type of targets victimized by these attacks – from federal gov…
Passwords, pistols, and power plants
The study of energy sector security is in flux. A traditional focus on exploring the nexus between terrorism and physical energy infrastructure has given way to a new and specific emphasis on cyber attacks targeting electrical power grids. A noticeable gap in the literature exists in terms of presenting a more comprehensive assessment of the general threat environment. Our paper, and the larger project from which it stems, intends to fill this vo…
Transnational Terrorism
Transnational terrorism, an enduring phenomenon that became a hallmark of the post-cold-war era, continues to evolve. This chapter explores several emerging trends in Islamist terrorism that are likely to challenge European security institutions in the coming years and decades. The chapter argues that the Islamic State has revolutionized the jihadist landscape. ISIS has effectively eclipsed al-Qaeda, modernizing its predecessor’s hidebound model …
The Dark Side of Extended Deterrence
States employ extended deterrence to shield third parties from aggression. The concept is traditionally applied to interstate relations, collective security arrangements, and strategic considerations. The protective relationship that exists between a state sponsor of terrorism and its non-state militant proxy is rarely considered. This article will introduce and explore the sponsor–proxy relationship in the context of extended deterrence, and rel…
Cybersecurity and its discontents
The future of cybersecurity is in flux. Artificial intelligence challenges existing notions of security, human rights, and governance. Digital misinformation campaigns leverage fabrications and mistruths for political and geostrategic gain. And the Internet of Things—a digital landscape in which billions of wireless objects from smart fridges to smart cars are tethered together—provides new means to distribute and conduct cyberattacks. As technol…
Cyber deterrence and critical-infrastructure protection
Linking deterrence theory to cybersecurity policy and critical-infrastructure protection is easier said than done. Recent cybersecurity incidents involving the United States, China, Russia, and North Korea illustrate the yawning gap between cyber deterrence expectations, applications, and results. This article draws on classical deterrence theory to illustrate how the logic of deterrence applies to cybersecurity policy and strategy. By differenti…
The security and financial implications of blockchain technologies
Driven by advances in data analytics, machine learning, and smart devices, financial technology is changing the way Canadians interact with the financial sector. The evolving landscape is further influenced by cryptocurrencies: non-fiat, decentralized digital payment systems, like Bitcoin, that operate outside the formal financial sector. While Bitcoin has garnered attention for facilitating criminal activity, including money laundering, terroris…
Deterring Rational Fanatics
Cold War-era strategic thinking was driven by the belief that individuals, organizations, and foreign states could be deterred from offensive action by the threat of reprisal. That assurance was shaken with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001; suddenly, it seemed that no threat was powerful enough to deter individuals or organizations that valued political objectives over their own lives and the lives of their members. More than a decade …
Delegitimizing al-Qaida
Deterring terrorism is no longer a provocative idea, but missing from the contemporary theoretical investigation is a discussion of how delegitimization might be used to manipulate and shape militant behavior. Delegitimization suggests that states and substate actors can use the religious or ideological rationale that informs terrorist behavior to influence it. In the case of al-Qaida, the organization has carefully elaborated a robust metanarrat…
Fencing in Warfare
New theoretical approaches have been developed that apply deterrence and coercion to counterterrorism. Critics have suggested, however, that in the particular case of deterring terrorism by threats of punishment, a mismatch exists between deterrent goals and counterterrorism intentions: the twin aims of destroying and deterring a single opponent is logically and theoretically incompatible. These criticisms, however, neglect to take two important …
Apocalypse Soon? Deterring Nuclear Iran and its Terrorist Proxies
The arguments presented here are based on a future scenario in which Iran has succeeded in developing nuclear weapons. Employing the logic and theory of deterrence, the article suggests ways in which the United States and its allies might counter, contain, and coerce nuclear Iran's sponsorship of terrorism and nonstate militant groups. Four strategic concerns are explored in particular: nuclear Iran may blackmail rival and neighboring states; shi…
Deterring the Undeterrable
This article argues that deterrence theory can be applied to counterterrorism. Doing so requires broadening the traditional concept of deterrence by punishment, expanding deterrence by denial to include defense, mitigation, and strategic hindrance, and developing deterrence by delegitimization to influence the political, ideological, and religious rationales informing terrorist behavior. In practice, deterring terrorism requires tailoring threats…
Transformative Radicalization
While a consensus has emerged concerning the role radicalization plays in persuading Westerners to participate in terrorism, little research investigates the cognitive processes inherent to radicalization processes. Transformative learning theory, developed from the sciences in education and rehabilitation, offers an interdisciplinary lens with which to study the processes of personal change associated with radicalization. Transformative radicali…
Targeted Killings in Afghanistan
This article examines the coercive and deterrent utility of targeting the leaders of violent, non-state organizations with precision force. Building on the literatures on targeted killings and deterrence theory, this article provides a case study analysis of targeted killings in Afghanistan. Relying on publicly available and semi-private sources, the article presents a comparative analysis of four targeted killings conducted against Taliban leade…
Homegrown terrorism and transformative learning
Since 2001, a preponderance of terrorist activity in Europe, North America, and Australia, has involved radicalized Westerners inspired by al Qaeda. Described as ‘homegrown terrorism’, perpetrators are citizens and residents born, raised, and educated within the countries they attack. While most scholars and policy-makers agree that radicalization plays a central role in persuading Westerners to embrace terrorism, little research properly investi…
Transformative Radicalization
While a consensus has emerged concerning the role radicalization plays in persuading Westerners to participate in terrorism, little research investigates the cognitive processes inherent to radicalization processes. Transformative learning theory, developed from the sciences in education and rehabilitation, offers an interdisciplinary lens with which to study the processes of personal change associated with radicalization. Transformative radicali…
Fencing in Warfare
New theoretical approaches have been developed that apply deterrence and coercion to counterterrorism. Critics have suggested, however, that in the particular case of deterring terrorism by threats of punishment, a mismatch exists between deterrent goals and counterterrorism intentions: the twin aims of destroying and deterring a single opponent is logically and theoretically incompatible. These criticisms, however, neglect to take two important …
Deterring the Undeterrable
This article argues that deterrence theory can be applied to counterterrorism. Doing so requires broadening the traditional concept of deterrence by punishment, expanding deterrence by denial to include defense, mitigation, and strategic hindrance, and developing deterrence by delegitimization to influence the political, ideological, and religious rationales informing terrorist behavior. In practice, deterring terrorism requires tailoring threats…
Cybersecurity and its discontents
The future of cybersecurity is in flux. Artificial intelligence challenges existing notions of security, human rights, and governance. Digital misinformation campaigns leverage fabrications and mistruths for political and geostrategic gain. And the Internet of Things—a digital landscape in which billions of wireless objects from smart fridges to smart cars are tethered together—provides new means to distribute and conduct cyberattacks. As technol…
Apocalypse Soon? Deterring Nuclear Iran and its Terrorist Proxies
The arguments presented here are based on a future scenario in which Iran has succeeded in developing nuclear weapons. Employing the logic and theory of deterrence, the article suggests ways in which the United States and its allies might counter, contain, and coerce nuclear Iran's sponsorship of terrorism and nonstate militant groups. Four strategic concerns are explored in particular: nuclear Iran may blackmail rival and neighboring states; shi…
US cyber deterrence
When compared to advancements in conceptualising deterrence in other domains, cyber deterrence is still in it messy infancy. In some ways cyber deterrence practice outpaces cyber deterrence theory. Tactics, strategy, doctrine, and policy are developed and put to use even before corresponding theories are properly understood. This article analyses how American cyber deterrence has been implemented over the past two decades in order to inform ongoi…
The Dark Side of Extended Deterrence
States employ extended deterrence to shield third parties from aggression. The concept is traditionally applied to interstate relations, collective security arrangements, and strategic considerations. The protective relationship that exists between a state sponsor of terrorism and its non-state militant proxy is rarely considered. This article will introduce and explore the sponsor–proxy relationship in the context of extended deterrence, and rel…
Delegitimizing al-Qaida
Deterring terrorism is no longer a provocative idea, but missing from the contemporary theoretical investigation is a discussion of how delegitimization might be used to manipulate and shape militant behavior. Delegitimization suggests that states and substate actors can use the religious or ideological rationale that informs terrorist behavior to influence it. In the case of al-Qaida, the organization has carefully elaborated a robust metanarrat…
The security and financial implications of blockchain technologies
Driven by advances in data analytics, machine learning, and smart devices, financial technology is changing the way Canadians interact with the financial sector. The evolving landscape is further influenced by cryptocurrencies: non-fiat, decentralized digital payment systems, like Bitcoin, that operate outside the formal financial sector. While Bitcoin has garnered attention for facilitating criminal activity, including money laundering, terroris…
Applying AI to Canada's Financial Intelligence System
Money laundering (ML) and terrorist financing (TF) are pernicious global challenges. Estimates suggest that ML represents 2 to 4 percent of global GDP, disrupting financial systems, hindering anti-corruption efforts, fuelling terrorism, and destabilizing governments and security institutions globally. Emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) complicate detection and prosecution efforts, enabling anonymity in the movement of money. …
Offensive Cyber Operations and State Power
Offensive cyber operations are an increasingly important tool of authoritarian statecraft, used in the pursuit of foreign policy objectives and functioning as an expression of state power. Our article informs Canadian cybersecurity policy by pulling lessons from Russia's use of cyber aggression against Ukraine between 2014 and 2022. Our analysis explores the nexus between Russian cyber operations and foreign and domestic policy, the relationship …
Research at risk
Although traditionally viewed as paragons of international cooperation, research institutions and universities are becoming venues for hostile foreign activity. Research security (RS) refers to the measures that protect the inputs, processes, and products that are part of scientific research, inquiry, and discovery. While RS traces its roots to the 1940s, global economic and research and development competition, the nexus between dual-use technol…
Cyber deterrence and critical-infrastructure protection
Linking deterrence theory to cybersecurity policy and critical-infrastructure protection is easier said than done. Recent cybersecurity incidents involving the United States, China, Russia, and North Korea illustrate the yawning gap between cyber deterrence expectations, applications, and results. This article draws on classical deterrence theory to illustrate how the logic of deterrence applies to cybersecurity policy and strategy. By differenti…
Homegrown terrorism and transformative learning
Since 2001, a preponderance of terrorist activity in Europe, North America, and Australia, has involved radicalized Westerners inspired by al Qaeda. Described as ‘homegrown terrorism’, perpetrators are citizens and residents born, raised, and educated within the countries they attack. While most scholars and policy-makers agree that radicalization plays a central role in persuading Westerners to embrace terrorism, little research properly investi…
Targeted Killings in Afghanistan
This article examines the coercive and deterrent utility of targeting the leaders of violent, non-state organizations with precision force. Building on the literatures on targeted killings and deterrence theory, this article provides a case study analysis of targeted killings in Afghanistan. Relying on publicly available and semi-private sources, the article presents a comparative analysis of four targeted killings conducted against Taliban leade…
Deterring the Undeterrable
This article argues that deterrence theory can be applied to counterterrorism. Doing so requires broadening the traditional concept of deterrence by punishment, expanding deterrence by denial to include defense, mitigation, and strategic hindrance, and developing deterrence by delegitimization to influence the political, ideological, and religious rationales informing terrorist behavior. In practice, deterring terrorism requires tailoring threats…
Transformative Radicalization
While a consensus has emerged concerning the role radicalization plays in persuading Westerners to participate in terrorism, little research investigates the cognitive processes inherent to radicalization processes. Transformative learning theory, developed from the sciences in education and rehabilitation, offers an interdisciplinary lens with which to study the processes of personal change associated with radicalization. Transformative radicali…
Apocalypse Soon? Deterring Nuclear Iran and its Terrorist Proxies
The arguments presented here are based on a future scenario in which Iran has succeeded in developing nuclear weapons. Employing the logic and theory of deterrence, the article suggests ways in which the United States and its allies might counter, contain, and coerce nuclear Iran's sponsorship of terrorism and nonstate militant groups. Four strategic concerns are explored in particular: nuclear Iran may blackmail rival and neighboring states; shi…
Fencing in Warfare
New theoretical approaches have been developed that apply deterrence and coercion to counterterrorism. Critics have suggested, however, that in the particular case of deterring terrorism by threats of punishment, a mismatch exists between deterrent goals and counterterrorism intentions: the twin aims of destroying and deterring a single opponent is logically and theoretically incompatible. These criticisms, however, neglect to take two important …
Delegitimizing al-Qaida
Deterring terrorism is no longer a provocative idea, but missing from the contemporary theoretical investigation is a discussion of how delegitimization might be used to manipulate and shape militant behavior. Delegitimization suggests that states and substate actors can use the religious or ideological rationale that informs terrorist behavior to influence it. In the case of al-Qaida, the organization has carefully elaborated a robust metanarrat…
Deterring Rational Fanatics
Cold War-era strategic thinking was driven by the belief that individuals, organizations, and foreign states could be deterred from offensive action by the threat of reprisal. That assurance was shaken with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001; suddenly, it seemed that no threat was powerful enough to deter individuals or organizations that valued political objectives over their own lives and the lives of their members. More than a decade …
Cyber deterrence and critical-infrastructure protection
Linking deterrence theory to cybersecurity policy and critical-infrastructure protection is easier said than done. Recent cybersecurity incidents involving the United States, China, Russia, and North Korea illustrate the yawning gap between cyber deterrence expectations, applications, and results. This article draws on classical deterrence theory to illustrate how the logic of deterrence applies to cybersecurity policy and strategy. By differenti…
The security and financial implications of blockchain technologies
Driven by advances in data analytics, machine learning, and smart devices, financial technology is changing the way Canadians interact with the financial sector. The evolving landscape is further influenced by cryptocurrencies: non-fiat, decentralized digital payment systems, like Bitcoin, that operate outside the formal financial sector. While Bitcoin has garnered attention for facilitating criminal activity, including money laundering, terroris…
Transnational Terrorism
Transnational terrorism, an enduring phenomenon that became a hallmark of the post-cold-war era, continues to evolve. This chapter explores several emerging trends in Islamist terrorism that are likely to challenge European security institutions in the coming years and decades. The chapter argues that the Islamic State has revolutionized the jihadist landscape. ISIS has effectively eclipsed al-Qaeda, modernizing its predecessor’s hidebound model …
The Dark Side of Extended Deterrence
States employ extended deterrence to shield third parties from aggression. The concept is traditionally applied to interstate relations, collective security arrangements, and strategic considerations. The protective relationship that exists between a state sponsor of terrorism and its non-state militant proxy is rarely considered. This article will introduce and explore the sponsor–proxy relationship in the context of extended deterrence, and rel…
Cybersecurity and its discontents
The future of cybersecurity is in flux. Artificial intelligence challenges existing notions of security, human rights, and governance. Digital misinformation campaigns leverage fabrications and mistruths for political and geostrategic gain. And the Internet of Things—a digital landscape in which billions of wireless objects from smart fridges to smart cars are tethered together—provides new means to distribute and conduct cyberattacks. As technol…
On the social science of ransomware
Ransomware is a type of malware that either encrypts or steals digital data and demands a financial ransom from the victim in order to release or return them. While criminals have been linking theft and hostage-taking to ransoms for a long time, the frequency and severity of contemporary ransomware, the nature and motivation of the perpetrators who use these methods of attack, and the type of targets victimized by these attacks – from federal gov…
Passwords, pistols, and power plants
The study of energy sector security is in flux. A traditional focus on exploring the nexus between terrorism and physical energy infrastructure has given way to a new and specific emphasis on cyber attacks targeting electrical power grids. A noticeable gap in the literature exists in terms of presenting a more comprehensive assessment of the general threat environment. Our paper, and the larger project from which it stems, intends to fill this vo…
US cyber deterrence
When compared to advancements in conceptualising deterrence in other domains, cyber deterrence is still in it messy infancy. In some ways cyber deterrence practice outpaces cyber deterrence theory. Tactics, strategy, doctrine, and policy are developed and put to use even before corresponding theories are properly understood. This article analyses how American cyber deterrence has been implemented over the past two decades in order to inform ongoi…
A view from above
A connected battlespace aims to enable seamless, real-time connectivity between various military assets across all domains of contemporary warfare. Such a program, however, cannot be accomplished without the use of space-based assets that are designed to store and transmit data; enable communications, surveillance, and imagery; and bolster interoperability between different military forces and services. Given recent technological advancements, co…
Connecting the dots on Canada’s connected battlespace
A “connected battlespace” (CB) aims to leverage emerging technologies, such as low Earth orbit satellites, internet of things devices, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, in order to collect, process, and disseminate large quantities of data in real time, thereby providing decision-makers with the ability to respond to threats faster and with more precision. Despite its promise, as a concept, a CB is still misunderstood, underdeveloped,…
From public health to cyber hygiene
The COVID-19 pandemic has ushered in a wave of cyberattacks targeting the healthcare sector, including against hospitals, doctors, patients, medical companies, supply chains, universities, research laboratories, and public health organizations at different levels of jurisdiction and across the public and private sectors. Despite these concerns, cybersecurity in Canadian healthcare is significantly understudied. This article uses a series of illus…
Paying terrorist ransoms
Terrorist groups are believed to be financed, in part, by ransoms paid for kidnap victims. As part of global efforts to counter the financing of terrorism and prevent further terrorist attacks (including more kidnappings), the international community has attempted to implement a moratorium on the payment of ransoms. Despite a unified stance, ransom payments to terrorist groups have continued. An exploratory review of 20 countries reveals signific…
Research at risk
Although traditionally viewed as paragons of international cooperation, research institutions and universities are becoming venues for hostile foreign activity. Research security (RS) refers to the measures that protect the inputs, processes, and products that are part of scientific research, inquiry, and discovery. While RS traces its roots to the 1940s, global economic and research and development competition, the nexus between dual-use technol…
From physical to virtual to digital
The Synthetic Environment (SE) takes the power of computing, digital processing, artificial intelligence, extended reality technology, and other advancements borrowed from the gaming industry to create a computer simulation with near-perfect levels of realism. Designed to enable connectivity across all domains and platforms, SE has the potential to dramatically improve military training, force development, situational awareness, and communication…
Foresight and futures thinking for international development co‐operation
Deterrence and Foreign Election Intervention
Democratic elections are under threat from foreign interference. Democracies around the world are experimenting with a range of responses, from threatening potential interveners with a variety of retaliatory punishments to bolstering election security, scrutiny, and counter-interference operations, and leveraging multilateral institutions to reinforce norms of behavior and rules of engagement. At their root, many of these approaches are anchored …
Offensive Cyber Operations and State Power
Offensive cyber operations are an increasingly important tool of authoritarian statecraft, used in the pursuit of foreign policy objectives and functioning as an expression of state power. Our article informs Canadian cybersecurity policy by pulling lessons from Russia's use of cyber aggression against Ukraine between 2014 and 2022. Our analysis explores the nexus between Russian cyber operations and foreign and domestic policy, the relationship …
Political science (25 works) · Law (19 works) · Law (18 works) · Computer Science (15 works) · Politics (13 works) · Business (12 works) · Computer security (12 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Terrorism (12 works) · Criminology (10 works)