-
EXTREMISMOnline Hate Groups Sustain Their Messages By Repeating Powerful Stories or Routinely Adding New Allegations
Hate communities often flourish online for years, raising the question of how they persist. My research team has found that powerful stories keep members of a hate group galvanized, either by repeating the story over and over or by constantly adding fresh accusations and interpretations to it.
-
-
POLITICAL VIOLENCEHow Influencers Indirectly Mobilize Action and Legitimate Violence
Influencers are key mobilisers of collective action, shaping narratives that create urgency, define group norms, and can indirectly legitimate violence without issuing explicit calls to action.
-
-
BOT SOLDIERSRobots Just Captured a Russian Position in Ukraine—but Don’t Worry About Real-Life Terminators Just Yet
Military ground robotics are rapidly transforming battlefield tasks. Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky recently announced that ground robots (also known as unmanned ground vehicles) had captured a Russian position. But for the immediate future at least, robots are more likely to support that fight, rather than lead it.
-
-
SPYWAREThe Indo-Pacific Could Shape Control of the Growing Spyware Market
The market for commercial cyber intrusion capabilities (CCICs) is moving faster than the frameworks designed to govern it. What began as a niche ecosystem of surveillance vendors has evolved into a sprawling, fragmented industry.
-
-
DAMSClose Calls at Michigan’s Dams Are a Climate Warning to America
Record flooding pushed Michigan’s dams to the brink of disaster. The near miss reflects the national problem of infrastructure that is not suited to the challenges of a warming world.
-
-
OUR PICKSMythos Fallout | Blue States Aren’t Getting Fire Prevention Money from Trump | The Great Antifa Hoax, and more
· What’s in Trump’s New Counterterrorism Strategy?
· The Great Antifa Hoax
· The Politically Motivated Indictment of Southern Poverty Law Center
· Immigrants Are Giving Up Their Cases and Leaving the U.S. in Soaring Numbers
· How a New Breed of Hacking Tools Is Forcing a White House Reset
· These Blue States Aren’t Getting Fire Prevention Money from Trump
· A.I. Populism Is Here. And No One Is Ready.
· Mythos Fallout, U.S. Government Weighs AI Model Regulation
-
-
WORLD ROUNDUPAmerica’s Submarine Dominance Is Under Threat | Hungary’s Election Is Already Paying Dividends | Without Congress, There Is No US Strategy, and more
· America’s Submarine Dominance Is Under Threat
· To Fight Antisemitism, First Grasp Where It Comes From
· Venezuela’s 100-year Territorial Dispute Is Back in Court
· Singled Out by Iran, U.A.E. Doubles Down on U.S. and Israeli Ties
· Hungary’s Election Is Already Paying Dividends for the EU and Ukraine. Is the U.S. Next?
· Without Congress, There Is No US Strategy
· How the US and Europe Can Open the Strait of Hormuz and Empower Ukraine
· Beyond AI: What the Pentagon Is Missing with Its Trimmed “Critical Technologies” List
-
-
IRAN WARAmerica’s Post-Deliberative Wars
Over the last eight weeks of war with Iran, America’s two deliberative institutions, Congress and the media, have largely abandoned their duty to sustain public debate on the most important question a republic can face—the choice between war and peace. The Iran War may thus be the first genuinely “post-deliberative” war in American history.
-
-
NUCLEAR WEAPONSIran Nuclear Talks: Three Lessons from the War for Negotiators
Diplomats have gathered in New York to review the future of the global nonproliferation regime, while Washington and Tehran develop terms for a potential future meeting in Islamabad. The Iran war has surfaced three initial nuclear security lessons that should shape the deals negotiators aim to reach.
-
-
IMMIGRATIONImmigration Street Sweeps Led to More “Collateral” Arrests of Noncriminals
A quarter of immigration arrests since August were labeled by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as “collateral,” a type of arrest and detention that’s been challenged in court as an end run around civil rights. 70% of collateral arrests are for immigration-related crimes or violations only.
-
-
IMMIGRATIONHeightened ICE Enforcement Harms U.S.-Born Workers, Shrinks Workforce
Heightened immigration enforcement during the second Trump administration has not expanded job opportunities for U.S.-born workers and is associated with a reduction of employment for U.S.-born men with no more than a high school degree.
-
-
DAILY BRIEF: THE DAY’S NEWS, SORTEDCyber Attacks on Infrastructure a Major Concern, and more
Cyber operations targeting energy, telecom, and transportation systems remain a leading homeland security concern across multiple regions. Also: Climate-driven disasters; extremist and insurgent violence in the Sahel and Middle East threatens regional security.
-
-
COUNTERTERRORISMI Reached Out to the White House Counterterrorism Czar for Comment. He Lashed Out on X.
Sebastian Gorka accused a ProPublica reporter of writing a “putrid piece of hackery” about him. Here’s how basic beat reporting led to a broader story about the state of the U.S. counterterrorism mission at a critical moment.
-
-
DEMOCRACY WATCHPoliticians Are Not Ignoring You
If you’re registered to vote in the United States and you’re not among the richest of the rich, political scientist Peter K. Enns has a message for you: Your voice still matters.
-
-
OUR PICKSVetting Powerful AI Models for Risks | Influencers Paid to Frame Chinese AI as a Threat | Trump Panel Recommends FEMA Respond to Fewer Disasters, and more
· Trump’s Gyrations on the War Leave Even Rubio Out of Sync
· White House Wants to Vet Powerful AI Models for Risks − a Computer Scientist Explains Why AI Safety Is So Difficult
· U.S. Violent Crime Is at Its Lowest in More Than a Century – but the Funding That Helped Reduce It Is Disappearing
· A Dark-Money Campaign Is Paying Influencers to Frame Chinese AI as a Threat
· Trump Panel Recommends FEMA Respond to Fewer Disasters
· Trump’s Counterterrorism Strategy Makes Targeting Drug Cartels the Top priority
-
-
WORLD ROUNDUPVladimir Putin Is Losing His Grip on Russia | How China Is Winning the Global AI Race | The New Critical Minerals Map, and more
· After Hormuz, Southeast Asia Sees the Potential Value of Tolling the Strait of Malacca
· Vladimir Putin Is Losing His Grip on Russia
· U.S. Intelligence Says Iran Can Outlast Trump’s Hormuz Blockade for Months
· Authorities Scramble to Limit Hantavirus Outbreak, Trace Contacts Around Globe
· How China Is Winning the Global AI Race
· The New Critical Minerals Map
· U.S. Meddling in European Domestic Politics Is Backfiring
· Officials Found Guilty of Spying for China in First Case of Its Kind
-
-
NATIONAL DEBTU.S. Debt Tops 100% of GDP, “Deeply Troubling” for Economy, National Security
The U.S. national debt is now larger than the entire American economy and is only set to keep growing, further exacerbating the affordability crisis and risking national security.
-
-
DEMOCRACY WATCHAnother Look at Gerrymandering
Perhaps the ultimate solution to the gerrymandering issue lies in a congressionally prescribed voting regimen that incorporates multi-member districts, at-large candidates, or outcomes that are proportional to party affiliation. To be sure, those options raise additional problems—a topic for another day.
-
-
DEMOGRAPHICSCan China Stop Its Demographic Slide? Can the United States?
The United Nations expects global population numbers to peak sometime in the second half of this century. Then they will do something that governments around the world have not experienced for centuries. They will start to slowly, but significantly, drop.
-
-
SCIENCE & POLITICSHow Much Should Politics Influence Science, and Vice Versa? National Science Board’s Ousting Resurrects an Existential Debate
President Trump’s 24 April 2026 firing of the National Science Board has brought back the old question that President Harry Truman thought he had answered in 1950: how much politics should intervene in science. Now, that question is shaking the very foundations of U.S. science.
-
-
INDUSTRIAL BASEFound Industries Aims to Strengthen America’s Industrial Supply Chains
Found Industries has developed technologies for extracting critical metals and making fuel out of aluminum. The company will extract the critical metal gallium from mineral refineries — a move that builds on its original technology while addressing a major national security need.
-
-
WILDFIRESTrump’s New Conditions on DEI, Immigration Could Cut Off States’ Wildfire Funding
A new effort to force states to affirm the Trump administration’s views on DEI, transgender athletes and immigration when signing contracts with the U.S. Forest Service is threatening millions of dollars in wildfire grant funding and fire reduction projects on federal lands. Liberal states may be barred from Forest Service grants and projects if they don’t sign the new terms.
-
More headlines
The long view
NUCLEAR WEAPONSGoing Nuclear? Why a Growing Number of Washington’s Allies Are Eyeing an Alternative to U.S. Umbrella
Until just a few years ago, few would have predicted that Canada, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and other nations – all allies of Washington – might one day join the nuclear club. The U.S. nuclear umbrella has, for decades, offered U.S. allies an easy way of declining to pursue nuclear weapons. But the policies of the first and second Trump administrations damaged U.S. credibility as a reliable, steadfast ally, leading these nations to consider developing domestic nuclear weapons programs.
___________________________
THE SHIFTING LANDSCAPECURRENTS, TRENDS, DIRECTIONS
THE DOLLARBookshelf: The Waning Dominance of U.S. Dollar
Perhaps the greatest threat to the dominance of the dollar may come from the US itself. US government debt is basically ‘out of control’, representing 120 percent of GDP, and neither political party has a serious plan to bring it back under control.
EXTREMISMAI and Extremist Propaganda: An Assessment
AI has rapidly accelerated the transformation of the global violent extremist landscape by acting as a force multiplier in the manufacturing and dissemination of extremist propaganda. This presents a broader set of challenges for states and reinforces the need for technologically grounded counter-violent extremist frameworks.
___________________________
IRAN WAROverconfidence Is How Wars Are Lost − Lessons from Vietnam, Afghanistan and Ukraine for the War in Iran Were Ignored
Wars are rarely lost first on the battlefield. They are lost in leaders’ minds − when leaders misread what they and their adversaries can do, when their confidence substitutes for comprehension, and when the last war is mistaken for the next one. The Trump administration’s miscalculation of Iran is not an anomaly. It is the latest entry in one of the oldest and most lethal traditions in international politics: the catastrophic gap between what leaders believe going in and what war actually delivers.
DEMOCRACY WATCHHow to Prevent Elections from Being Stolen − Lessons from Around the World for the U.S.
President Donald Trump in his State of the Union address doubled down on his false claims that the U.S. elections system is compromised. His persistent effort to denigrate and spread distrust in the U.S. electoral process has led to speculation about how much further he might go to tilt the 2026 midterm and 2028 presidential elections in favor of candidates he supports.
DRONESNew System Designed to Protect Drones from Cyber Threats
Adelaide University researchers have initiated the development of a world-first cybersecurity system designed to protect drones from increasingly sophisticated cyber threats.
CHINA WATCHAI Governance Is not Just Top-Down in China, Research Finds
Political scientist Xuechen Chen said traditional Chinese values and market driven factors have also driven moves to regulate generative AI platforms.
ENCRYPTIONChip-Processing Method Could Assist Cryptography Schemes to Keep Data Secure
By enabling two chips to authenticate each other using a shared fingerprint, this technique can improve privacy and energy efficiency.
PLUM ISLANDPlum Island, 1954-2026: A Requiem
Plum Island is an 840-acre island in the Long Island Sound, just off Long Island’s North Fork (New York), a short distance from Connecticut. It has been federally owned since the 19th century and was long home to the Plum Island Animal Disease Center (PIADC), a research laboratory focused on foreign animal diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease.
PLUM ISLANDPlum Island: A History
The history of Plum Island is rich and varied, with changing times, historical context, and national challenges changing the use of the island and its purpose.
FOOD SECURITYA Turning Point: U.S. Recognizes Agriculture as a Domain of Defense
The US has legitimized the role of food supply in national defense. It has recognized that in a world of rupture, a nation that cannot feed itself cannot defend itself. A new policy effectively ends the era of agriculture functioning solely as a commercial sector.
GEOENGINEERINGThe U.S. Barely Bothers to Track Geoengineering. What Could Go Wrong?
Whether it’s cloud seeding or covering the Arctic in tiny glass beads, there’s little standing in the way of weather modification.
CLIMATE-CHANGE CHALLENGESStudy Reveals Climatic Fingerprints of Wildfires and Volcanic Eruptions
In research that could help elucidate humans’ role in global warming, scientists showed how three major natural events impacted global atmospheric temperatures.