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Hypersonic WeaponsHypersonic Missiles Are Fueling Fears of a New Superpower Arms Race
Hypersonic missiles are often defined as missiles launched by a rocket into Earth’s upper atmosphere at speeds of Mach 5 and above (five times the speed of sound or 6,174 kilometers (3,836 miles) per hour), before maneuvering towards a target. Several countries already have intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that travel just as fast – or even faster – but these cannot change trajectory once launched. The new generation of hypersonic missiles are equipped with glide vehicles that approach their targets at high speed in the final phase of flight.
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PandemicsTwo-meter COVID-19 Rule Is “Arbitrary Measurement” of Safety
A new study has shown that the airborne transmission of COVID-19 is highly random and suggests that the two-meter rule was a number chosen from a risk ‘continuum’, rather than any concrete measurement of safety.
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CybersecurityStacked Deep Learning: Deeper Defense against Cyberattacks
Internet-based industrial control systems are widely used to monitor and operate factories and critical infrastructure. Moving these systems online has made them cheaper and easier to access, but it has also made them more vulnerable to attack. Stacked deep learning offers a better way to detect hacking into industrial control systems.
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EarthquakesMachine Learning Helps Measure Building Earthquake Damage
One obstacle which often prevent an effective response to earthquakes is that the buildings from which such a response is managed and response equipment stored, are themselves damaged. Researchers have developed a method to quickly assess damage to such buildings immediately after an earthquake to determine whether the buildings can be continued to be used.
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Energy SecurityBig Batteries on Wheels: Zero-Emissions Rail While Securing the Grid
Trains have been on the sidelines of electrification efforts for a long time in the U.S. because they account for only 2 percent of transportation sector emissions, but diesel freight trains emit 35 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually and produce air pollution that leads to $6.5 billion in health costs, resulting in an estimated 1,000 premature deaths each year. Researchers show how battery-electric trains can deliver environmental benefits, cost-savings, and resilience to the U.S.
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Climate & National SecurityNational Security Consequences of Climate Change
The consequences of climate change for national security and international stability are numerus and serious. Rising temperatures which reduce agricultural opportunities can lead to mass migrations away from struggling communities. Violent hurricanes and winter storms can disrupt electric grid operations, interrupting access to electricity and other utilities long after the initial climate threat has passed. Researchers are simulating how climate change affects the safety and security of the country.
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Climate & National SecurityHow Climate Change Will Impact National Security
The recent U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) lays out the likely security implications over the next two decades of the mounting climate crisis. Calder Walton, the research director at Harvard’s Belfer Center, says: “Let’s start with the basics: that climate change does pose a threat to U.S. national security. The National Intelligence Estimate is a joint assessment produced by the entire U.S. intelligence community, 18 agencies. That’s significant. There are no naysayers; there’s no doubt. So that’s a breakthrough. In this extraordinarily polarized and politicized environment, that is a big milestone itself.”
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Planetary SecurityFirst Planetary Defense Test
An asteroid slammed into Earth 63 billion years ago, igniting vast fires which threw smoke and soot into the atmosphere, plunging the planet into a prolonged winter, killing many plants on which herbivores depended. The extinction of the dinosaurs was only one consequence of that event. NASA wants to make sure there is no repetition of such a calamity: The agency is planning the first-ever planetary defense test, which deliberately collides a spacecraft into an asteroid called Dimorphos. The aim is to try and deflect the asteroid away from its Earth-bound trajectory.
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Our picksThe Job of the Pentagon’s New UFO Office | China Became Jihadis’ New Target | Chinese Spies Academia, and more
· U.S. to Remove Colombia’s FARC from Terror List
· China May Steal Encrypted Data Now to Decrypt in Years to Come, Report Warns
· Why Medium-Sized Autocracies Are Projecting More Hard Power
· How China Became Jihadis’ New Target
· The Pentagon’s New UFO Office Has a Specific Job
· COVID-19 Conspiricism and the Four Ds of Stochastic Terrorism
· QAnon Hero Michael Flynn Secretly Said QAnon Is ‘Total Nonsense’
· How the Far-Right Is Radicalizing Anti-Vaxxers
· As U.S. Hunts for Chinese Spies, University Scientists Warn of Backlash
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Iran’s NukesIran Can Produce One Nuclear Weapon in as Little as Three Weeks
The growth of Iran’s stocks of near 20 and 60 percent enriched uranium has dangerously reduced breakout timelines: Iran has enough enriched uranium hexafluoride (UF6) in the form of near 20 and 60 percent enriched uranium to produce enough weapon-grade uranium (WGU), taken here as 25 kilograms (kg), for a single nuclear weapon in as little as three weeks. It could do so without using any of its stock of uranium enriched up to 5 percent as feedstock.
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Weaponized VehiclesSUV Tragedy in Wisconsin Shows How Vehicles Can Be Used as a Weapon of Mass Killing – Intentionally or Not
Cars, SUVs and trucks can be an efficient means of mass killing, and one that can be virtually impossible to prepare against. Furthermore, it is becoming harder to prosecute the driver involved in such fatalities in some states.
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PolicingWhen Police Forces Grow, Homicides Drop and Low-Level Arrests Increase
Research by criminologists found that an additional 10 to 17 officers prevented one homicide annually, but each extra officer added up to 22 arrests for crimes like drug possession.
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ImmigrationReport: Economics Drives Migration from Central America to the U.S.
A new survey underscores how material needs lead to movement within the Americas — at a high cost to those trying to relocate.
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Family SeparationFamily Separation’s Psychological Trauma in Parents, Children Persists After Reunification: Medical Study
New analysis finds long-lasting psychological harm sustained by survivors of the “zero tolerance” policy. The study finds that forcibly separating parents and children, especially when compounded with pre-migration traumas, produced signs and symptoms of trauma that met the diagnostic criteria for at least one mental health condition such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), major depressive disorder (MDD), or generalized anxiety disorder (GAD).
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China WatchChinese Force Labor Connections in Global Retail Brands’ Supply Chains
More than 100 global retail brands could be at risk of using cotton that is produced by Uyghur forced labor according to new research. The findings suggest dozens of well-known international brands are at risk of using cotton that is produced or processed by forced labor in the Xinjiang Province in China.
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Supply ChainHow to Fix Global Supply Chains for Good
Truck-driver shortages, “lean” inventories, and an overreliance on China plagued global supply chains long before the pandemic. Permanently addressing these and other issues will help the United States and rest of the world better cope with the next shock.
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Our picksPentagon’s New UFO Office | Practicing Asteroid Deflection | Saving Colorado River Water, and more
· California, Arizona and Nevada in Talks on New Plan to Save Colorado River Water
· Pentagon Creates New Office to Probe UFO Reports
· EUROPOL Creates Unit to Monitor Jihadist Content Online
· Emergency Watershed Protection
· NASA Is Practicing Asteroid Deflection. You Know, Just in Case
· Why Do Governments Reveal Cyber Intrusions?
· France Doubles Down on Countering Foreign Interference Ahead of Key Elections
· Inflation Tarnation! Inside the Supply-Chain Snafu That Could Wreck Your Holiday Plans
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WarModern Warfare: “Precision” Missiles Will Not Stop Civilian Deaths – Here’s Why
No degree of missile precision will stop the tragedy of civilian deaths in war. And wars show no sign of ending. Perhaps it is time for a more honest dialogue about the limits of technology and the human costs involved.
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VaccinesRussian Anti-Vaccine Disinformation Campaign Backfires
For more than a year, Russian-aligned troll factories overseeing thousands of social media accounts have been spreading anti-vaccine messages in an aggressive campaign to spread conspiracy theories and cast doubt on Western coronavirus vaccines. But the year-long offensive appears to have backfired. Russian officials now worry that the anti-vaccine skepticism encouraged by the troll factories has spilled over and is partly responsible for the high level of vaccine hesitancy among Russians.
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Cybersecurity EducationUniversity of Central Florida Students Defend Virtual Energy System to Win CyberForce Competition
The Knights of the University of Central Florida won the DOE’s CyberForce Competition, valiantly defending and securing a hydropower energy system against a malicious virtual cyberattack. The event challenged 120 teams from 105 colleges and universities to thwart a simulated cyberattack.
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Cybersecurity EducationPreparing Future Cybersecurity Leaders for Protecting Critical Infrastructure
A network of Virginia universities, in partnership with the Virginia Department of Elections, joined to create an innovative educational program to train future cybersecurity professionals to protect election infrastructure.
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Grid ResilienceProviding Resilient Power
Extreme-weather events and wildfires can put power grids under pressure and threaten their ability to produce reliable power. A microgrid demonstration project demonstrates DC microgrid technology for resilient power to homes and installations.
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More headlines
The long view
ARGUMENT: Deterring BioattacksA Deterrence by Denial Strategy for Addressing Biological Weapons
The U.S. political failures have loomed large in coverage of the COVID-19 crisis. Christine Parthemore and Andy Weber write that, what is more, a number of analysts have warned that, after watching these failures play out, hostile powers might take a new interest in using biological weapons to target the United States. “This risk is real. Fortunately, the pandemic has also brought into use cutting-edge technologies that can help counter it,” they write.
ARGUMENT: Unprepared We’re Already Barreling Toward the Next Pandemic
America’s frustrating inability to learn from the recent past shouldn’t be surprising to anyone familiar with the history of public health. Ed Yong writes that many public-health experts, historians, and legal scholars worry that the U.S. is lapsing into neglect, that the temporary wave of investments isn’t being channeled into the right areas, and that COVID-19 might actually leave the U.S. weaker against whatever emerges next.
BIG PICTURE: Ideological OverreachLiberalism’s Graveyard: Afghanistan Is Where Ideologies Go to Die
It used to be said the Afghanistan is the “graveyard of empires.” Sumantra Maitra writes that the U.S. failed 20-year war in Afghanistan will go down as one of the more consequential wars –a “paradigm-shifting event” — because Afghanistan proved to be the graveyard of ideologies as well: “Evangelical Marxism failed in Afghanistan, as did evangelical liberalism.”
Radiation detectionRadSecure 100 Radiological Security Initiative Launched in 100 U.S. Cities
The RadSecure 100 Initiative focuses on removing radioactive material from facilities where feasible and improving security at the remaining facilities located in 100 metropolitan areas throughout the United States. Partnerships with local medical facilities, industrial firms, and law enforcement will be key to the project.
BIG PICTURE: “A grasp of history”Afghanistan Always Defeats the West
William Dalrymple, a Scottish historian and author of Return of a King: the Battle for Afghanistan 1839-42, writes that the West’s 20-year failed effort in Afghanistan was as inevitable as it was predictable for anyone with “a grasp of history”: In Afghanistan, there had been only the briefest of “moments of anything approaching a unified political system. Afghanistan has always been less a state than a kaleidoscope of competing tribal principalities governed through maliks or vakils, in each of which allegiance was entirely personal, to be negotiated and won over rather than taken for granted.”
ARGUMENT: Afghanistan rapid collapseHow the Taliban Exploited Afghanistan’s Human Geography
The Taliban managed to seize power so quickly because it used Afghanistan’s human geography to exploit that state’s fragility: The country’s low population density empowers fast-moving and cohesive attackers, for which the poorly trained, disorganized, corrupt, and unmotivated Afghani army was no match. Alec Worsnop writes that, still, the evacuation could have been made safer and more orderly if a small Western contingent with air support would have been left behind to hold the Taliban at bay for a few more weeks — but this would only have delayed the inevitable: “Leaving a limited outside force in place, without significant reinforcement, could not have prevented an inevitable Taliban takeover within a matter of months,” he writes. “There were few prospects for long-term stability without a notably larger foreign troop presence.”
PERSPECTIVE: Aborted plotThe Tel Aviv Plot
Recently declassified information from the first-ever interrogation of someone presumed to be a senior al-Qaeda operative captured after 9/11 provides new insights into Osama bin Laden’s plans for a follow-up attack to Sept. 11. Bruce Riedel writes that, specifically, bin Laden was plotting a major attack in Israel. The attack was thwarted at the last minute, but information about it has been classified until now.
ARGUMENT: Nuclear threshold stateIrreversible: Iran’s Nukes
In 2018 the Trump administration withdrew from the nuclear deal with Iran, which the Obama administration had signed in 2015. David Albright and Sarah Burkhard of Institute for Science and International Security write that Iran’s nuclear capabilities now greatly exceed their status in early 2016, when the nuclear deal was implemented. Iran’s breakout time, namely the time needed to produce enough weapon-grade uranium for a single nuclear weapon or explosive device, is on order of one month, which was Iran’s breakout time in late 2014, before the nuclear deal was signed.
Social networksUsing Social Network Analysis to disarticulate criminal networks
Finding the broken link in the criminal networks that bind economies and societies is a gigantic task that often leads the investigative actions of the police and judiciary up a blind alley. the advancements in the field of information technology and data analysis may be used to effectively deal with organized crime, terrorist groups, and street gangs.
Hurricane IdaA Preview of What’s to Come: Climate Change Helped Intensify Hurricane Ida
Hurricane Ida started as a disturbance in the Atlantic Ocean quickly grew to what could be the worst hurricane to hit Louisiana since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. While scientists are uncertain whether climate change will increase the frequency of hurricanes, one thing is clear: Climate change is here, and it’s making these storms stronger and more destructive.
Radiation detectionRedesigning Radiation Monitors at U.S. Ports of Entry
Every day at ports of entry around the country, hundreds of thousands of vehicles and containers cross into the country. Since 9/11, all incoming vehicles and containers at land crossings, rail crossings, mail facilities, and shipping terminals are scanned by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers to detect potential threats, including radiation. The time has come to replace and upgrade the aging radiation detection systems.
Vulcanic eruptionsThreat of Catastrophic Supervolcano Eruptions Ever-Present
Supervolcanoes remain active and hazardous for thousands of years after a super-eruption, prompting the need for a rethink of how these potentially catastrophic events are predicted.
ResilienceImproving Florida’s Hurricane Resilience: Alternative Fuel Vehicles, Infrastructure
When events like tropical storms or other unforeseen crises disrupt a state’s primary supply of gasoline and diesel, emergency fleet efforts can become hampered as access to fuel is restricted or completely unavailable.
Planetary securityHitting a Bullseye with Closed Eyes
Recently NASA updated its forecast of the chances that the asteroid Bennu, one of the two most hazardous known objects in our solar system, will hit Earth in the next 300 years. New calculations put the odds at 1 in 1,750, a figure slightly higher than previously thought. Two statisticians put into perspective the chances of asteroid Bennu striking Earth in next 300 years.
DronesDetecting, Identifying Small Drones in Urban Environment
DHS has awarded $750K to a Texas company to develop a detection and tracking sensor system that can identify nefarious small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) in an urban environment.
FloodsScience’s Answers to Flood Disaster
On 14 July 2021, between 60 and 180 mm of rain fell in the Eifel region in just 22 hours - an amount that would otherwise have fallen in several months and which led to catastrophic flooding. The events were far more destructive than existing models had predicted.
