OUR PICKSChina’s Advancing Efforts to Influence the U.S. Election Raise Alarms | Immigration and the U.S. National Security Talent Base | It Depends Who’s Doing the Jawboning, and more
· Stemming the Crisis: Immigration and the U.S. National Security Talent Base
The U.S. talent deficit isn’t a problem that money can fix
· China’s Advancing Efforts to Influence the U.S. Election Raise Alarms
China has adopted some of the same misinformation tactics that Russia used ahead of the 2016 election, researchers and government officials say
· It Depends Who’s Doing the Jawboning
In Murthy v. Missouri, one vital piece of context has gone unacknowledged: Different administrations operate differently
· Supporting Trump Means Supporting a Culture of Violence
The former president is encouraging threats against his enemies—again
· Trump’s Promise to Free Jan. 6 Inmates in DC Jail — Almost All of Them Assaulted Law Enforcement Officers
27 of the 29 January 6th inmates held in D.C. have been charged with assaulting law enforcement officers in the U.S. Capitol or on its grounds
Stemming the Crisis: Immigration and the U.S. National Security Talent Base (Rachel Hoff and Reed Kessler, War on the Rocks)
As the Oscar-winning film Oppenheimer popularized the story of the Manhattan Project, we were reminded that foreign-born geniuses like Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi played a major part in American innovation. In the context of World War II, America not only welcomed but also recruited immigrants in service of its most important national security missions. Their achievements helped win that war and create the nuclear backbone that underpins U.S. security to this day. But today, the chances that Einstein could win the arbitrary H1-B visa lottery are a mere 11 percent.
The Reagan Institute’s 2024 National Security Innovation Base Report Card assesses America’s strengths and weaknesses in the race for supremacy in fielding emerging technologies to meet today’s national security missions. One major vulnerability: the talent pipeline for fields relevant to national security innovation in the face of techno-competition with the People’s Republic of China. While America struggles to address a graying national security workforce and archaic vetting processes, its adversaries and partners alike are pursuing programs to exploit the broken U.S. immigration system.
The pitfalls in the U.S. science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) talent pipeline, particularly with international students, are glaring. As America attracts the world’s most promising minds and educates them at America’s best universities, the U.S. government funds their research through taxpayer dollars — then fails to provide a pathway for them to stay in the United States. Due to America’s byzantine immigration system, as many as 90 percent of foreign students receiving advanced degrees in STEM fields are forced to leave the country after graduation, massively depleting America’s potential workforce.
Our national security innovation base — the ecosystem comprising U.S. national security organizations, research laboratories, defense primes, industry disruptors, and venture capital — is especially vulnerable to these talent shortfalls. Research, development, and manufacturing in AI, quantum computing, hypersonic weapons, and autonomy are precisely the sectors where Washington needs the most talented minds working to advance U.S. national security. The end result is a paradox in which America trains the world’s best and brightest and then sends them home — many to adversary nations. (Cont.)
