• Cybersecurity Tech for Emergency Communications Centers

    DHS S&T is expanding pilot testing of a technology to improve the cybersecurity defenses of the nation’s emergency communications infrastructure. Odenton, Md.-based SecuLore Solutions in the research and development (R&D) of a cybersecurity defense solution based on predictive analytics and cyber data that helps detect and mitigate cybersecurity attacks against legacy emergency communications systems and new Next Generation 911 (NG911) and Internet Protocol-based technologies.

  • The U.S. Is Worried about Its Critical Minerals Supply Chains – Essential for Electric Vehicles, Wind Power and the Nation’s Defense

    By Jordy Lee and Morgan Bazilian

    When U.S. companies build military weapons systems, electric vehicle batteries, satellites and wind turbines, they rely heavily on a few dozen “critical minerals” – many of which are mined and refined almost entirely by other countries. Building a single F-35A fighter jet, for example, requires at least 920 pounds of rare earth elements that come primarily from China. That level of dependence on imports worries the U.S. government.

  • Shining Light on China’s Secretive International Lending Program

    A new study and dataset reveal previously unknown details about China—the world’s largest official creditor—and its lending practices to developing countries. A cache of documents shows that Chinese loan contracts have unusual secrecy provisions, collateral requirements, and debt renegotiation restrictions.

  • Monitoring Current and Future Biological Threats

    DHS S&T has awarded $199,648 to Mesur.io Inc., for analysis and reporting of outbreak-related data. The Mesur.io project proposes to adapt their Earthstream Platform to provide DHS and NBIC with data that tracks metrics related to an outbreak or emergence to predict various risks of a biological threat.

  • Integration Can Prevent Failures in Large Power Grids

    The recent power outages in Texas brought attention to its power grid being separated from the rest of the country. While it is not immediately clear whether integration with other parts of the national grid would have completely eliminated the need for rolling outages, the state’s inability to import significant amounts of electricity was decisive in the blackout.

  • How Should the United States Compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative?

    By Jennifer Hillman and David Sacks

    China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is the country’s most ambitious foreign policy undertaking in modern times and is central to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s legacy. BRI, which dwarfs the Marshall Plan in scale, has funded and built roads, power plants, ports, railways, fifth-generation (5G) networks, and fiber-optic cables around the world. While BRI initially sought to connect countries in Central, South, and Southeast Asia with China, it has since transformed into a globe-spanning enterprise encompassing 139 countries.

  • Suez Canal Container Ship Accident Is a Worst-Case Scenario for Global Trade

    By Rory Hopcraft, Kevin Jones, and Kimberly Tam

    It’s estimated that 90 percent of the world’s trade is transported by sea. As consumers, we rarely give much thought to how the things we buy make their way across the planet and into our homes. That is, until an incident like the recent grounding of a huge container ship, the Ever Given, in the Suez Canal exposes the weaknesses in this global system.

  • Gulf of Guinea Piracy: A Symptom, Not a Cause, of Insecurity

    By Ifesinachi Okafor-Yarwood, Timothy Walker, and Denys Reva

    Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea appears to be worse than ever, judging by recent headlines. But these accounts and the data they rely on must be approached with caution. Figures on piracy and armed robbery at sea are susceptible to under-reporting and problems of definition. Over-hasty responses could lead to narrow solutions that fail to solve the underlying causes of maritime insecurity.

  • Expanding Domestic Manufacturing of Secure, Custom Chips for Defense Needs

    DARPA announced the Structured Array Hardware for Automatically Realized Applications (SAHARA) program, which aims to expand access to domestic manufacturing capabilities to tackle challenges hampering the secure development of custom chips for defense systems. DARPA selected Intel and university researchers to automate conversion of Structured ASICs with leading-edge, domestic foundry capabilities for defense electronic systems.

  • China Prepares New Era of 'Belt and Road' amid Pandemic Pressures

    By Reid Standish

    After declaring victories over extreme poverty and the coronavirus, Chinese leader Xi Jinping, in a meeting of the National People’s Congress, has laid out a new path for China’s economic rise at home and abroad that could force Beijing to adapt to new difficulties caused by the pandemic. While the stagecraft of the conclave focused on China’s domestic goals, they remain deeply intertwined with Beijing’s global ambitions, particularly the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) — a blanket term for the multibillion-dollar centerpiece of Xi’s foreign policy that builds influence through infrastructure, investment, and closer political ties.

  • Two R&D Projects to Enhance Mobile Network Traffic Security

    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are jointly announcing the final two research and development (R&D) awards for the newly launched Secure and Resilient Mobile Network Infrastructure (SRMNI) project.

  • China’s Military Tech Ambitions – What’s the U.S.- EU Gameplan?

    A key test of the Biden era of transatlantic relations will be the issue of how the United States and the European Union respond to China’s aggressive efforts to seize market share and industrial knowledge in areas of technology that are critical to national security. Kathleen Doherty writes that the Europeans are divided and have been reluctant to rein in Chinese technological capabilities and ambitions. “The United States and the European Union (EU) have no time to waste in finding a common (or at least complementary) approach.”

  • Economics, National Security, and the Competition with China

    The world has faced the financial crisis and the coronavirus epidemic, but now, George Magnus, writes, it has been presented with a third existential shock that is the defining drama of these early decades of the 21st century: a more truculent and assertive China. China, once viewed by liberal-leaning democracies simply as a formidable consumer and feisty competitor, has also grown and changed over the last decade to become an economic and national security adversary with which the United States has locked horns in ideological and strategic competition.

  • Rising Sea Levels Impact the National Flood Insurance Program

    Insurance policy premiums from the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) allow policyholders to maintain a lower, grandfathered rate even when the risk escalates. But as coastal flooding increases due to rising sea level and more intense storms, research suggests this grandfathered policy could lead to big losses for the NFIP.

  • SolarWinds Hack Bigger, More Dangerous than Previously Thought, Tech Execs Warn

    By Jeff Seldin

    Executives with technology companies impacted by the massive cybersecurity breach known as the SolarWinds hack are giving U.S. lawmakers more reason to worry, warning the intrusion is both bigger and more dangerous than first realized.