• How Disinformation Could Sway the 2020 Election

    In 2016, Russian operatives used Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to sow division among American voters and boost Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. What the Russians used to accomplish this is called “disinformation,” which is false or misleading content intended to deceive or promote discord. Now, with the first presidential primary vote only five months away, the public should be aware of the sources and types of online disinformation likely to surface during the 2020 election.

  • These Dams Needed Replacing 15 Years Ago. Now Texas Will Drain Four Lakes Instead — Causing Other Problems.

    Texas officials will start draining four lakes next week in Guadalupe County in Central Texas without a plan in place for when the lakes, and the 90-year-old dams that support them, will be rebuilt. Area homeowners, who got barely a month’s notice, said they felt blindsided by the plan, and they say it will slash their property values, kill their beloved century-old cypress trees and render the lakes — which have hosted water skiing tournaments for decades — unusable.

  • It’s Hard to Commemorate 9/11 If You Don’t Understand It.

    Sept. 11, 2019 marks the 18th anniversary of the deadliest terrorist attack in world history. It also marks a generational shift, with American children born after that date entering adulthood having grown up with their country perpetually fighting a so-called war on terror. “The events of 9/11 are increasingly a memory, and without education that memory can easily become a caricature,” Daniel Byman writes in Foreign Policy. “Capturing all the nuances surrounding 9/11 is vital, but the proper response today also requires recognizing that terrorism is constantly evolving, and when it strikes again it may not come from an expected or familiar source.”

  • 9/11 Mystery Solved: World Trade Center Building Didn't Collapse Due to Fire – Study Finds

    Foreign interference and hostile state espionage are a bigger threat to Australia’s security than terrorism, one of the country’s top spy chiefs has warned. Duncan Lewis, the outgoing head of Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), identified three challenges security confronting Australians: terrorism, cyber warfare; and foreign interference and espionage. But the latter was on a “growth trajectory” and is a greater threat than terrorism, he told a Lowy Institute forum in Sydney.

  • Al-Qaeda’s Continuing Challenge to the United States

    Al-Qaeda has diminished in policy and public debates. U.S. policymakers have shifted their attention to countering an assertive China and a vicious Putin, and in recent intelligence assessments of threats, al-Qaeda has dropped on the priority list. The U.S. public’s concern about the threat of international terrorist groups has declined over the past few years. In addition, there is policy fatigue toward counterterrorism. While many politicians still worry about the electorate’s sensitivity to terrorism by groups like al-Qaeda, they also question the cost of maintaining the fight. The current policy mood and competing national security priorities need calibration with al-Qaeda’s trajectory. Al-Qaeda remains committed to targeting the United States, has improved political control of major factions and rebuilt meaningful capabilities, and now seems poised to take advantage of a permissive strategic environment in Afghanistan. Addressing these strengths will continue to be a challenge for the United States and deserves sustained attention from U.S. policymakers.

  • Foreign Interference Threat Bigger than Terrorism, Warns Spymaster

    Foreign interference and hostile state espionage are a bigger threat to Australia’s security than terrorism, one of the country’s top spy chiefs has warned. Duncan Lewis, the outgoing head of Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO), identified three challenges security confronting Australians: terrorism, cyber warfare; and foreign interference and espionage. But the latter was on a “growth trajectory” and is a greater threat than terrorism, he told a Lowy Institute forum in Sydney.

  • Lega Nord’s Bedfellows: Russians Offering Illicit Funding to Italian Far-Right Party Identified

    In the last four years, the Kremlin has engaged in a broad, systematic campaign – consisting of hacking, a vast social media disinformation effort, and illicit funding – to weaken the West by helping far-right, populist, pro-Russian politicians and movements reach power. One of their successes was in Italy, where the far-right, anti-EU, anti-immigrant Northern League and the eclectic, anti-establishment 5 Star Movement won enough seats in the Fall 2017 election to form a coalition government (which collapsed last week, after more than a 1.5 years in power). Prosecutors in Milan have launched an investigation of The League after recordings emerged of meetings between League leaders and Kremlin emissaries, in which a scheme to secure funding for The League in the upcoming European parliament elections was discussed. The funding – in the millions of Euro – was to be funneled via artificially underpriced Russian oil export transactions.

  • The BBC Joins Up with Google, Facebook, and Twitter to Try to Tackle Misinformation Online

    The BBC is teaming up with some of the biggest names in tech to coordinate a defense against the online disinformation campaigns endemic to some of their platforms, the outlet announced Saturday. Google, Twitter, and Facebook said that they, and the BBC, would come up with a targeted approach which, in part, uses an early warning system during critical periods when the spread of misinformation “threatens human life or disrupts democracy during election,” per the BBC.

  • How to Keep the Colombian Peace Deal Alive

    Last week, several former commanders of Colombia’s largely demobilized rebel group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) released a video in which they announced a “new phase of armed struggle.” Only three years ago, those same men—known best by wartime aliases, Iván Márquez and Jesús Santrich—participated in negotiating the end of a decades-long conflict with the Colombian government. But in the video, their presence was a stark reminder of the fragility of the peace accords on the ground.

  • Outrage as Neo-Nazi Elected Town Council Leader in Germany

    The unanimous election of a neo-Nazi politician in Germany as the head of a town council, thanks to votes from rival party members, has sparked outrage among senior political figures. Stefan Jagsch of the far right-wing extremist National Democratic Party (NDP) became the council leader for Waldsiedlung, in the district of Altenstadt, 30 kilometers (18 miles) northeast of Frankfurt, on Thursday. Jagsch was appointed with help from local members of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), plus opposition groups Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Free Democratic Party (FDP), prompting calls from these parties’ national leaders for the decision to be reversed. The Altenstadt city council members representing the CDU, SPD, and FDP said they had no choice since Jagsch was the only candidate on the ballot.

  • Tweet May Have Inadvertently Revealed India’s Next-Gen Nuclear Weapons Platform with Global Reach

    Politicians’ tweets can sometimes reveal new intelligence about their own country’s military capabilities and programs. On August 28 the official Twitter account of the Vice President of India, Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu, tweeted photos of his visit to the country’s Naval Science & Technological Laboratory. Among the missiles and unmanned vehicles is a sub-scale model of a submarine. And it appears to be not just any submarine – the model may offer the first visual clues to India’s next-generation ballistic missile submarine, the S-5 Class.

  • Iran Threatens to Take Steps to Stockpile of Uranium for Nuclear Weapons

    Iran said Saturday it had accelerated its nuclear research work and threatened to take fresh steps within a month that could allow it to expand its stockpile of enriched uranium, a material that can be used to fuel a nuclear weapon. The move comes after Europe failed to meet a deadline Iran set in July to offset the impact of U.S. sanctions.

  • Hostile Social Manipulation by Russia and China: A Growing, Poorly Understood Threat

    With the role of information warfare in global strategic competition becoming much more apparent, a new report delves into better defining and understanding the challenge facing the United States by focusing on the hostile social manipulation activities of the two leading users of such techniques: Russia and China.

  • The Truth About Conspiracy Theories

    Conspiracy theories have been around for hundreds of years, but with the rise of the internet, the speed with which they spread has accelerated and their power has grown. But do they work, who believes them, and why? What kind of damage can they do—and how can we do a better job of controlling that damage, as individuals and as a society? Tufts University Kelly M. Greenhill says that the answers are complicated—but with misinformation proliferating and mutating like a virus, and the health of civil society and democratic governance at stake, it’s crucial to try to address them and contain them.

  • DOD Recognizes Virginia Tech’s Contribution to Counterintelligence

    DOD’s Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency last month awarded Virginia Tech the 2018 Award for Excellence in Counterintelligence to the university. The award, given annually since 2010, recognizes up to four companies or institutions, out of about 10,000, which exhibit the best counterintelligence results and cooperation to support the U.S. government’s efforts to detect and stop foreign entities from stealing national security information.