• Migration to the U.S. Is on the Rise Again – but It’s Unlikely to Be Fully Addressed During the Summit of the Americas, or Anytime Soon

    Migration in the Americas has dramatically increased over the past decade due to deteriorating political, economic and humanitarian conditions in several countries, particularly in Venezuela, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Haiti. High rates of crime, corruption, poverty, environmental degradation and violence all influence people’s decisions to migrate. The power of drug cartels, which can be embedded in government institutions like the police, also plays a key role in prompting migration.

  • U.S. Elevates Water Security as Foreign Policy Priority

    The White House on Wednesday announced the an Action Plan on Global Water Security, drawing direct links between water scarcity and national security and elevating water security to a core foreign policy priority for the first time.

  • Inside the Government Fiasco That Nearly Closed the U.S. Air System

    The upgrade to 5G was supposed to bring a paradise of speedy wireless. But a chaotic process under the Trump administration, allowed to fester by the Biden administration, turned it into an epic disaster. The problems haven’t been solved.

  • Breaking the Black Sea Blockade

    There is an aspect to Ukraine war which has received insufficient attention, though it is now slowly coming into focus and where pressure could build for a NATO operation. This is the need to relieve the blockade Russia has successfully inflicted on Ukraine’s southern ports in the Black Sea. This is urgent not only because of the effect on Ukraine’s battered economy but also on supplies of essential agricultural products to the rest of the world.

  • Reforming DHS’s Biodefense Operations and Governance

    Today’s biological threats show no signs of desisting any time soon. Naturally occurring outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics, and laboratory accidents pose a growing challenge – while the number of high-containment laboratories and amount of dangerous research continues to increase unabated. “DHS, as chief among those federal departments and agencies responsible for securing the homeland, must overcome its current state of fractionation and demonstrate to the rest of the government, country, and world that it is capable of coordinating and leading efforts in biodefense and other arenas,” Carrie Cordero and Asha M. George write.

  • DOJ Steps Up Hate Crime Prosecutions

    DOJ says that with hate crimes on the rise, U.S. federal prosecutors have charged more than 40 people with bias-motivated crimes since January 2021, obtaining over 35 convictions.

  • FEMA Funding Opportunities for Dam Safety

    There are 90,000 dams in the United States, many of them old and poorly maintained. FEMA will commit $33 million for two funding opportunities to enhance dam safety efforts across the United States.

  • The Civil-Military Divide over Artificial Intelligence

    What factors influence how comfortable and uncomfortable software engineers feel with potential applications of AI for the U.S. military? Is there a correlation between the degree of trust that software engineers have in societal institutions—specifically, in DoD—and their perception of the acceptability of building AI applications for DoD? Do software engineers perceive the countries that DoD has identified as strategic competitors as a meaningful threat to the United States? What types of news media and other sources of information are software engineers relying on to inform them about events related to DoD?

  • Strengthening the Nation’s Early Warning System for Health Threats

    The White House hosted the Summit on Strengthening the Nation’s Early Warning System for Health Threats in support of the launch of the Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics (CFA). The launch of the CFA fulfills requirements in National Security Memorandum-1 (NSM-1), which instructed U.S. leadership to strengthen the international COVID-19 response and advance global health security and biological preparedness.

  • Wildfires Are Still Catching Us Off-Guard. Congress’ Plan to Fix That Isn’t Going Anywhere.

    Last year, during a Congressional hearing on the state of wildfire research, researchers and fire managers said that coordination among federal agencies to improve wildfire research would be tremendously helpful to prepare for future fires. But the proposal to connect federal research agencies and improve wildfire research crashed and burned.

  • National Action Plan: The U.S. Domestic Counter-Unmanned Aircraft

    Over the last decade, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS or “drones”) have become a regular feature of American life. We use them for recreation, for research, and for commerce. But the proliferation of this new technology has also introduced new risks to public safety, privacy, and homeland security. On Monday, the administration released whole-of-government plan to address UAS threats in the homeland.

  • A Peak at the Nation’s Future Cybersecurity Workforce

    Hack the Port 22, hosted jointly by USCYBERCOM and the Maryland Innovation and Security Institute, brought together subject matter experts from government, industry, and academia to highlight the nation’s critical infrastructure and cyber defense priorities.

  • CDC Launches New Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics

    New center will enhance capability for timely, effective decision-making to improve outbreak response using data, models, and analytics

  • Marine Highways Bolster Supply Chain Efficiency, Resilience

    The increased use of the nation’s navigable waterways relieves landside congestion, provides new and efficient transportation options, increases the productivity of the surface transportation system, and strengthens the U.S. supply chains.

  • Russia's Failure Leads to the Next Phase of the Ukraine War: Interview

    Russia’s failure to achieve its initial objectives in Ukraine – and achieve them quickly and cheaply — has led to a rethinking in Russia about the next phase of the war. “You can’t bomb urban areas into submission. You can’t even bomb entrenched soldiers into submission. Military history proves that you have to eventually close the distance and take what you want,” say a military expert. “[Russia] would like to get reinforcements and resupply the southeastern fight. If they really want that objective of connecting the separatist areas [to Crimea] and pushing back the Ukrainian military and [that] being what they’re able to negotiate as their win, that’s still a tough fight that [they will] have to close the distance for.”