• 3D printing of weapons: A threat to global, national, and personal security

    Additive manufacturing – also known as 3D printing — could benefit military adversaries, violent extremists and even street criminals, who could produce their own weapons for use and sale. As this technology further develops, and without proper controls, violent actors might be able to replicate more sophisticated weapons systems, print lethal drones, and even produce jamming devices or cheap decoys that disrupt intelligence collection.

  • Countering drones in urban environments

    New technology can provide advances in the way we do things, expanding areas previously left unexplored and simplifying previously burdensome tasks. This is true with advancements in Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), or drones. Given their rapid technology advancement and proliferation, the public safety and homeland security communities must address the fact that drones can be used nefariously or maliciously to hurt people, disrupt activities and damage infrastructure.

  • Israel-Iran clashes: Latest updates

    Iranian forces in Syria did not ask the Syrian government for permission, or even notify Syrian leaders, before launching twenty missiles at Israel. Fox News said it had learn from European sources that, “The Iranian major general in charge of the Al-Quds Force in Syria, Qassem Soleimani, launched last night’s attack against Israel without the knowledge or the consent of the Assad regime.” Moreover, Iran launched the twenty missiles at Israel after being warned by Russia not to do so.

  • Israel destroyed “nearly all” of Iran’s military infrastructure in Syria

    On Wednesday night, in the largest Israeli air campaign against Syria since the 1973 war, and the largest-ever direct clash between the Iranian and Israeli militaries, Israel launched 70 missiles – 60 air-to-ground missiles fired from 28 F-15 and F-16 flying over Syria and Lebanon, and 10 surface-to-surface missiles launched from inside Israel — at key Iranian military targets all across Syria. Israel’s Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said that the Israel had destroyed “nearly all” of Iran’s military infrastructure sites in Syria.

  • Assessing the Iran deal pullout

    Calling it a “great embarrassment” that fails to “halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions,” President Trump said Tuesday that he will pull out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Iran nuclear agreement that the previous administration negotiated to halt that nation’s progress toward atomic weapons. The national security, nuclear, and regional experts at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, who have been assessing the Iran nuclear situation for years, examined the president’s remarks and weighed in on the significance of Washington’s policy change and on what is likely to follow it.

  • Parliamentary elections cement Hezbollah’s hold over Lebanon

    The Iranian-controlled group Hezbollah and its political allies scored significant gains in Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Lebanon, the first to be held in nine years. “Hezbollah will continue to act, to behave as if there is no Lebanese state, as if there is no Lebanese government, as if it is an entirely independent entity,” says one expert.

  • Israeli rocket experience shows bomb shelters matter as much as interceptors

    The conflict between Israel and Iran emerged from the shadows early Thursday morning. Israel is worried about Iran’s deployment of missiles in Syria – and about Hezbollah’s 100,000 to 150,000 rockets. Other countries face rocket and missile threats too. It’s not surprising then that missile interceptors are in fashion. Israel credited its Iron Dome system with intercepting four rockets on Thursday. Civil defenses like warning sirens and bomb shelters receive less press coverage. Spectacular interceptor launches are more photogenic than concrete block houses. But Israel’s own experience shows civil defenses deserve at least as much attention as interceptors.

  • Hostility toward minorities may be contagious

    Whether in Bosnia, Liberia, or Rwanda, violent conflicts have suddenly broken out between ethnic groups that have lived peacefully together for a long time. So far, there is no satisfactory scientific explanation as to why aggression can repeatedly develop such a dynamic. In a recent study, researchers report their findings that if people act hostile toward other ethnic groups, they easily find imitators – much more so than when they exhibit hostility toward co-ethnics.

  • Russia conducted "unprecedented, coordinated" attacks on U.S. voting systems in 2016: Senate Intelligence Committee

    Hackers affiliated with the Russian government conducted an “unprecedented, coordinated” campaign against the U.S. voting system, including successfully penetrating a few voter-registration databases in 2016, the Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded. The cyberattacks targeted at least eighteen states, and possibly three more. “Russian actors scanned databases for vulnerabilities, attempted intrusions, and in a small number of cases successfully penetrated a voter registration database,” the committee said in an interim report releaed Tuesday.

  • As U.S. withdraws from Iran nuclear deal, experts consider fallout

    U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the 2015 Iranian nuclear agreement reverberated throughout the Middle East, Europe, and elsewhere – all the more so because did not say what comes next in U.S. policy toward Iran, leaving a list of questions that experts are rushing to predict: Will Washington seek new negotiations with Tehran? Will Iran resume enriching uranium? Will Israel step up attacks on Iran’s proxies, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, or militias in Syria? Will the U.S. European allies try to coax the Trump administration back to the negotiating table with Tehran? Will U.S. forces in Syria become more of a target for Iranian fighters?

  • Presidents often reverse U.S. foreign policy — how Trump handles setbacks is what matters most now

    President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal is hardly Trump’s first foreign policy turnaround. But is Trump really such an outlier? As a scholar of American foreign policy, I know that many American presidents have reoriented international relations. Some of those policies succeeded. Many faced opposition. Ultimately, though, my research shows that what matters more to U.S. national security is how those presidents responded when their foreign policy shifts failed.

  • Georgia governor vetoes controversial computer crime bill

    Georgia Governor Nathan Deal, recognizing the concerns of Georgia’s cybersecurity sector, has vetoed a bill which would have threatened independent research and empowered dangerous “hack back” measures. The bill could have given prosecutors the discretion to target independent security researchers who uncover security vulnerabilities, even when they have no criminal motives and intend to disclose the problems ethically.

  • Consulting New York State on homeland security, cybersecurity industry cluster

    The New York State Economic Development Council (NYSEDC) is seeking proposals from qualified consulting firms to analyze the homeland security and cybersecurity industry cluster in the state. The analysis will encompass defining the industry cluster and identifying how competitive New York State is compared to other states and, if it is determined that NYS has market leverage or other advantages to offer, identifying companies that could be top targets for expansion in or relocation to the state.

  • Former Israeli national security advisor: If Iran attacks Israel again, “there will be consequences”

    Following a weekend during which Israeli officials warned that Iran was preparing to use proxies to attack northern Israel in retaliation for an airstrike against an Iranian airbase in Syria, a former Israeli national security advisor asserted that for any Iranian attack “there will be consequences.”

  • An estimated 4.2 million anti-Semitic tweets shared on Twitter in one-year period: Study

    The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has just issued a new report analyzing anti-Semitic speech on Twitter, providing a snapshot of the trends and themes of anti-Semitism on the social media platform over the course of a one-year period. Using proprietary research strategies to evaluate Twitter for thousands of possible anti-Semitic expressions, the researchers have identified at least 4.2 million anti-Semitic tweets which were shared or re-shared in English on Twitter over the 12-month period ending 28 January 2018.