20 Oct DIGITAL FOG: INTELLIGENCE, CYBERSECURITY, AND THE NEW FRONTLINES OF GEOPOLITICS
Digital Fog is an advanced seminar that explores how intelligence, cybersecurity, and emerging technologies are redrawing the boundaries of global power and conflict. Designed for students from all academic backgrounds, the course combines real-world strategic experience with cross-disciplinary analysis to unpack the hidden forces shaping today’s geopolitical environment.
In an age when power is exercised as much through networks and algorithms as it is through armies and diplomacy, understanding the new digital battlefields is essential. This course examines how state and non-state actors use cyber tools, disinformation, surveillance systems, and artificial intelligence to influence, disrupt, and compete. Students will learn how intelligence is gathered, how cyber risks are assessed, and how digital operations are weaponized in everything from elections and economic coercion to warfare and diplomacy.
The course draws directly from the instructor’s own experience in high-level intelligence and security advisory roles, anchoring each session in real-life scenarios—from election interference to critical infrastructure targeting and the geopolitics of data. Through simulations, case studies, and open debate, students will develop a strategic mindset and the analytical tools to interpret complex digital-era threats and opportunities.
Over six sessions, Digital Fog offers a critical foundation in the mechanisms and consequences of cyber-enabled statecraft. Students will emerge with a sharper understanding of global power shifts, the ethical dilemmas of intelligence and surveillance, and the strategic imperatives of operating in a world where the lines between war, influence, and information are increasingly blurred.
This seminar is ideal for students in business, international relations, law, computer science, and beyond—anyone who wants to engage critically with the world they are about to inherit, and help shape.
BJORN BEAM
Bjorn Beam is the lead geopolitical and technology expert at Arcano Partners, with over a decade of experience in the intelligence community, including extensive work as a CIA officer where he served in the White House. At the CIA, he specialized in paramilitary and covert operations, notably disrupting North Korea’s weapons programs by sabotaging their systems and facilitating Western analysis of their technology. He also served on the Presidential Daily Briefing Staff, informing the President and senior cabinet members on global intelligence events. Now at Arcano Partners, Bjorn advises NATO countries on geopolitical and technology issues and helps multinational companies build resilient strategies against digital and geopolitical disruptions
Skills
1. By the end of the course, students will be able to apply core concepts of intelligence and cybersecurity to analyze complex geopolitical developments with confidence and precision.
2. Students will understand the full intelligence cycle and gain practical familiarity with tools used in threat assessment, risk mapping, and influence analysis—transferable to both public and private sector contexts.
3. Students will develop a strategic framework for evaluating how emerging technologies like AI, surveillance systems, and information warfare are reshaping global power dynamics.
4. Students will be equipped to think like intelligence analysts, integrating open-source intelligence, critical thinking, and scenario planning into their approach to global challenges.
5. Students will be able to navigate the ethical and strategic dilemmas of digital conflict, and articulate their implications for national security, business strategy, and democratic resilience.
Schedule
Which dates?
TBD
TBD
TBD
TBD
TBD
TBD
What day?
TBD
What time?
TBD