Our picksIran’s WMD; the Kremlin’s 2020 strategy; DHS assessment of foreign VPNs, and more
· Iran seeking to expand military program to weapons of mass destruction: German intelligence
· The Kremlin’s strategy for the 2020 U.S. election: Secure the base, split the opposition
· Countering Russia’s malign influence operations
· Mueller: My hands were tied on charging Trump
· Federal cybersecurity agency on the way?
· DHS assessment of foreign VPN apps finds security risk real, data lacking
· Sunk costs: The border wall is more expensive than you think.
· Florida 2019 hurricane season opens with lessons from Matthew, Irma, Michael
· Mayors appear increasingly concerned about infrastructure
Iran seeking to expand military program to weapons of mass destruction: German intelligence (Benjamin Weinthal, FDD) While European powers still claim Iran’s regime is in compliance with the nuclear deal, a new German intelligence report accuses the Islamic Republic of seeking to build weapons of mass destruction.
Fox News obtained a May 2019 intelligence document from the state of Bavaria detailing Iran’s nefarious weapons activities in the southern German state during the previous year.
Iran is a “risk country” that is “making efforts to expand its conventional arsenal of weapons with weapons of mass destruction,” wrote the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution in its intelligence report.
The Kremlin’s strategy for the 2020 U.S. election: Secure the base, split the opposition (Clint Watts, Daily Beast)
Americans may be on to the Kremlin’s tricks now, but Putin is getting a helping hand this time around: Conservative media and even the White House are spreading disinfo for him.
Countering Russia’s malign influence operations (Michael Carpenter, Just Security)
In today’s era of great power competition, it is not Russian ICBMs or hypersonic vehicles that pose the greatest threat to U.S. national security, but rather Moscow’s covert influence and destabilization operations.
In terms of hard-power correlation of forces, the U.S. and its NATO allies have a significant conventional military advantage over Russia, which will likely extend into the foreseeable future. Both sides have a credible nuclear deterrent that provides for strategic stability. But this advantage does not extend into the area of covert political influence, where, not only has the United States failed to establish a credible deterrent against Russia’s malign activities, but it is failing to address the vulnerabilities that are being exploited on an almost daily basis by Russia, China and other state and non-state actors. Russia’s growing reliance on influence operations, combined with our lack of pushback and failure to address crucial governance gaps, has led us into an era of dangerous strategic instability that increases the likelihood of escalation. (Cont.)
