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CRITICAL MINERALSCould Deep Sea Mining Break China's Grip on Critical Minerals?
Mining companies have proposed to use remote-controlled robots or seabed crawlers tethered to surface ships to bring up nodules. The International Seabed Authority has wrestled for more than two decades with how to regulate seabed mining. The Trump administration has promised no such delay. It plans to use an existing U.S. regulatory framework.
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CRITICAL MINERALSElectrochemical Process Enables Recovery of Valuable Raw Materials
Lithium, cobalt and nickel are in high demand – and they are hard to obtain. Researchers are developing an electrochemical process to recover scarce raw materials in battery recycling. This new technology could also enable the extraction of rare earth elements from electronic waste in the future.
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CHINA WATCHFar from Random, China’s Global Port Network Is Clustering Near the World’s Riskiest Trade Routes
Chinese firms now own or operate terminals at more than 90 ports worldwide, including many of the busiest. The network spans Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, with growing activity in South America. The scale of China’s involvement in overseas ports has fueled debate over whether these investments are purely commercial or serve broader strategic goals. -
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GROVES OF ACADEMEFrom Lecture Halls to Jail Cells: The Rising Risks of University Research
Universities should be clear-eyed about the need to negotiate trade-offs between research security and international engagement. National export-control authorities also need to provide adequate guidance and support to university institutions and researchers navigating increasingly onerous export-control regimes.
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AIAI Can Design and Run Thousands of Lab Experiments without Human Hands. Humanity Isn’t Ready for the New Risks This Brings to Biology
What happens when the same capabilities operate outside those controls is a question that policy has not yet answered. Overreact, and talent and investment may move elsewhere while the technology continues advancing anyway. Underreact, and the risks of that technology could be exploited to cause real harm.
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AIThe Federal Government Is Rushing Toward AI. Our Reporting Offers Three Cautionary Tales.
I’ve studied how the federal government has handled — and mishandled — the AI transition over the past two decades, and my reporting offers some cautionary tales and valuable lessons as policymakers encourage the use of AI and federal agencies adopt the technology.
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SEA MINESHow Iran Can Stop Shipping with Mines – in the Strait, the Whole Gulf, and Even the Red Sea
Mine warfare doesn’t need to sink ships to succeed. It works by imposing unacceptable risk. Sea mines offer distinct advantages as a maritime weapon. They require little training or specialist support. They are easy to deploy. And they can be laid without direct combat interaction with an adversary, remaining dormant until activated by a passing vessel. These characteristics make mines the most cost-effective weapons available to a weaker and outmatched force.
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MOVING MOUNTAINSBypass the Strait of Hormuz with Nuclear Explosives? The U.S. Studied That in Panama and Colombia in the 1960s
The idea of a new canal to move oil from the Middle East had emerged in the context of another Middle East conflict, the 1956 Suez crisis. Project Plowshare advocates, led by Edward Teller, sought to use what they called “peaceful nuclear explosions” to reduce the costs of large-scale earthmoving projects.
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TARIFFSApril 2, 2025: A Day of Economic Lunacy, Not Liberation
A year ago this week, President Trump walked into the White House Rose Garden, held up a poster board with nonsensical tariff rates on imports from virtually every country in the world, and declared April 2, 2025, “Liberation Day.” History will likely view April 2, 2025, as a day of economic infamy, not liberation. After a year, the tariffs are failing their stated objectives, including their central premise: to reshore domestic manufacturing.
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MARITIME CYBERSECURITYResearchers Find Training Gaps Impacting Maritime Cybersecurity Readiness
Whether it’s a fire or a flood, a ship’s crew can only rely on itself and its training in emergencies at sea. The same is true for crews facing digital threats on oil tankers, cargo ships, and other commercial vessels.
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IRAN WARWhy Iran Targeted Amazon Data Centers and What That Does – and Doesn’t – Change About Warfare
It seems likely that as the use of AI tools and other cloud-based resources continues to grow in importance for countries around the world, commercial data centers will be targets in future conflicts.
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CHINA WATCHWondering Where China’s Cyber Effort Will Go Next? Just Read the Five-Year Plan
Adversaries sometimes declare strategic priorities, yet cyber incidents that align with them are not assessed accordingly. We should in fact be guarding against intrusions before they happen by taking note of foreign and industrial policies that indicate where they’re likely to concentrate.
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IRAN WAR: MARITIME DIMENSIONSWhy Hasn’t the U.S. Military Used Force to Secure the Strait of Hormuz?
To make the strait safe for shipping, there is a need to secure not just the water, but the land on either side of it. And this would likely require ground forces – or perhaps raiding parties on Iran’s coastline – which would be complicated and risky for the US military. Securing shipping would require a significant number of naval ships.
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IRAN WAR: MARITIME DIMENSIONSMaritime Dimensions of the West Asia War
Despite the USs possessing overwhelming superiority over Iran in the naval domain, it has been unable to deter or prevent Iranian disruption of maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s selective restrictions on transit showcase how geopolitical alignments influence commercial navigation and international trade flows.
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DEMOCRACY WATCHFCC Chair Carr’s Threats to Punish Broadcasters Are Unconstitutional
FCC’s chairman Brendan Carr’s recent threats — that the FCC’s “public interest” standard allows him to revoke the licenses of broadcasters who publish news that is unflattering to the government — are unconstitutional efforts to coerce news coverage that favors President Donald Trump.
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The long view
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.
ENERGY SECURITYThe US Doesn’t Need to Generate as Much New Electricity as You Think
Load shifting and improving energy efficiency could reduce the need for new power plants, but utilities often profit more from building than saving power.
STEELA New Way to Make Steel Could Reduce America’s Reliance on Imports
America has been making steel from iron ore the same way for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been making enough of it. Today the U.S. is the world’s largest steel importer, relying on other countries to produce a material that serves as the backbone of our society. Hertha Metals uses natural gas and electricity to produce steel and high-purity iron for magnets.