This course addresses five questions. Why are many countries so eager to develop new technologies? Will new technologies worsen democratic backsliding? Why is it so hard to cooperate on dual use technologies? Why is it so hard to prevent industrial espionage? How will new technologies affect the World Trade Organization? This is an interdisciplinary course integrating anthropology (does technology shape society or vice versa), sociology, East Asian studies (China & South Korea's AI in the 2020s), history (France's nuclear technology in the 1970s & the Soviet development of satellites in the 1950s), Near Eastern Studies (digital authoritarianism in Iran and Syria), and political science.