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Incentives for U.S.-China Conflict, Competition, and Cooperation Across Artificial General Intelligence’s Five Hard National Security Problems
The prospect of either the United States or the People’s Republic of China —or both—achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI) is likely to heighten tensions and could even increase the risk of competition spiraling into conflict. But the emergence of AGI could also create incentives for risk reduction and cooperation. We argue that both will not only be possible but essential.
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Securing South Korea's Critical Minerals Supply Chains Through Trilateral Cooperation
South Korea, Japan, and the United States’ trilateral partnership has expanded to include collaboration on economic security, including on critical minerals supply chains (CMSCs). A new report offers analysis and tools for supply chain net assessment, supply chain cooperation, and economic security.
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Hundreds of Old EV Batteries Have New Jobs in Texas: Stabilizing the Power Grid
After reaching the end of their automotive lives, the batteries are being reused to provide lower-cost grid energy storage.
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To Better Detect Chemical Weapons, Materials Scientists Are Exploring New Technologies
Chemical warfare is one of the most devastating forms of conflict. It leverages toxic chemicals to disable, harm or kill without any physical confrontation. Across various conflicts, it has caused tens of thousands of deaths and affected over a million people through injury and long-term health consequences.
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DHS S&T Launches Third Phase of Industry Competition to Develop Remote Identity Verification Tech
DHS S&T’s has announced the third phase of the Remote Identity Validation Rally (RIVR), which challenges the private sector to deliver secure, accurate, and user-friendly technologies that can combat identity fraud when users apply for government services, open bank accounts, or verify social media accounts.
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Geological Mapping Project Supports Critical Mineral Explorations, Enhances Public Safety in the Southeast
A key focus of a new USGS mapping project is to identify where critical minerals vital to the economy and national security might be located. As demand for rare earth elements and other critical minerals grows for use in technology, energy, and defense sectors, this project can provide vital data that helps the U.S. secure domestic sources of critical minerals, thus reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign sources.
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Argonne, UT to Strengthen Collaboration in Battery Sciences and Critical Materials Development
New memorandum of understanding expands joint research to accelerate U.S. battery innovation and secure critical materials supply chains.
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Cybersecurity Education in the Age of AI: Rethinking the Need for Human Capital in National Cyber Defense
Just five years ago, headlines were filled with urgent calls for the United States to drastically increase its output of cybersecurity professionals. Fast forward to 2025, and the proliferation of AI —especially generative and autonomous models—has transformed both the threats we face and the tools we use to defend against them. AI-driven cybersecurity software now automates many of the functions that once required a skilled human analyst, and the argument is made that AI may soon render many human cybersecurity roles obsolete.
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Not Just Drones, but Massed Swarms of Them. Defenses Can’t Cope
A new and sophisticated phase of aerial warfare has emerged from the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East over the past month, defined by the systematic use of massed drone saturation attacks. This evolving doctrine uses quantity and simultaneity to overwhelm even the most advanced air-defense systems.
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Attacks on the U.S. Innovation Ecosystem Are an Attack on a Wellspring of American Prosperity
The Trump administration’s attacks on the country’s science and innovation ecosystem — its cuts to federally funded R&D; its war on higher education; and its aggression toward immigrants, including skilled immigrants — are dismantling America’s science and technology advantage—putting the country’s future prosperity at risk. This frontal assault on the key source of U.S. industry’s competitive advantage is not a recipe for American greatness; it is a recipe for long-term decline.
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Why the U.S. Is Letting China Win on Energy Innovation
The frontiers of global technology have pivoted to AI and next generation energy. In AI, the U.S. has far outpaced any other nation, but in energy, the U.S. has just tied its shoelaces together. The reason isn’t technology, economics or, despite the administration’s misleading official line, even national security. Rather, it is politics. The fact is, the U.S. does not have an energy security problem. It does, however, have an energy cost problem combined with a growing climate change crisis. These issues will only be made worse by Trump’s enthusiasm for fossil fuels.
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Building Nevada’s Cyber Future One Summer Camp at a Time
UNLV’s Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering launched GenCyber Camp to create awareness of college and career pathways in cybersecurity among Nevada’s youth. The program has secured an impressive share of success stories. Organizers search for funding to keep the momentum going.
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U.S. Moves Decisively to Avoid Dependence on China’s Rare Earths
The Pentagon’s package of support for rare earths company MP Minerals, announced on 10 July, should free the US military and eventually much of US industry from dependence on Chinese supply chains for rare earth magnets.
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New Research Dispels Myth of Conspiracy Theorists as Isolated Outsiders
A five-year study dispels the stereotype of conspiracy theorists as angry loners or keyboard warriors. The study finds that the participatory culture offered by conspiracy theorists is expanding the scope of fringe ideas, and that the social and emotional connections provided by conspiracy theorists are recruiting diverse participants.
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AI System Identifies Fake Videos Beyond Face Swaps and Altered Speech
In an era where manipulated videos can spread disinformation, bully people, and incite harm, UC Riverside, in collaboration with Google, have developed a new model which spots fakes by interpreting faces and backgrounds.
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The long view
Technology Evolves the Tactics: Preparing for the Rise of Terrorist AI Harms
Terrorist groups, like the societies they emerge from, adapt to new technologies. As AI capabilities evolve, so too do the tactics of extremist actors. While the full effects may take years to observe, as the technologies continue to develop, we are starting to see them directly alter extremism tradecraft.
Bookshelf: A Tale of American Lawyers and Chinese Engineers
The U.S. and China have fundamental differences, a new book argues. China would be an “engineering state” whereas the U.S. is a “lawyerly society.” Most Chinese Communist Party leaders have been engineers focused on building mega projects such as highways, bridges, fast trains. and airports. In recent decades the U.S. has become a “lawyerly society” as the country’s elite, dominated by lawyers, focused on procedure and process rather than getting things done.
Europe’s Banks Quietly Mobilize for Economic Warfare
For years, banks treated defense as a reputational issue, as well as an environmental, social and governance risk, often lumping it with tobacco or fossil fuels as something to be managed at arm’s length. That era is ending. Russia’s war in Ukraine, China’s coercive trade tactics and the United States’ pressure on Europe to shoulder more of its defense burden have exposed the limits of moralistic restraint. Financial mobilization is the new norm.
A New Generation of Industries Emerges in Texas as Feds Push to Mine More Rare Minerals
The U.S. doesn’t produce the minerals and metals needed for renewable energy, microchips or military technology. Major oil companies are drilling in East Texas again, but not for oil. This time, they’re after lithium for batteries and other rare elements.
U.S. and Australia Deepen Critical-Minerals Engagement to Counter China
Engagement between Australia and the United States on critical minerals has matured from technical cooperation into a strategic partnership, aligning resource security with clean energy and defense priorities.
Bookshelf: Critical Mineral Dilemmas
Whoever controls the production and processing of lithium, copper and other critical minerals could dominate the 21st century economy, much as producers of fossil fuels defined the 20th century, writes Ernest Scheyder in a new book.