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TERRORISMAfghan Terrorism Is a Small Threat in the United States
It is still not clear whether Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who murdered a West Virginia National Guard member in Washington, D.C., two weeks ago, was a terrorist – but assuming he is a terrorist, it would mean that since 1975, Lakanwal is the only Afghan terrorist to have murdered somebody on U.S. soil in an attack. In other words, the annual chance of being murdered in an Afghan terrorist attack on U.S. soil is about 1 in 14.2 billion per year. The annual chance of being murdered in a normal homicide is about 1 in 14,000 per year, approximately one million times greater.
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COUNTER-DRONE TECHCapturing Rogue Drones
A new system is capable of repelling and capturing unauthorized drones. The defensive system’s own drones are equipped with an extendable net which snags unruly drones.
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LESSONS OF THE VIETNAM FAILUREBookshelf: War Lessons from Robert McNamara
Robert McNamara was the architect of the wasteful, unwinnable U.S. involvement in Vietnam. In retrospect, he stressed the importance of understanding local conditions and having an exit strategy: “Before each operation there should be a paper on how to get out. And if you can’t get out, don’t do it.” As the administration is considering expanding its questionable military efforts in the Caribbean into an invasion of Venezuela, it would do well to heed McNamara’s advice.
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FORENSICSScientists Pioneer Breakthrough Fingerprint Forensic Test
For decades, investigators have struggled to recover fingerprints from weapons because any biological trace is usually destroyed by the high temperatures, friction and gas released after a gun is fired. Scientists have developed a method to recover fingerprints from ammunition casing, once thought nearly impossible.
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MASS SHOOTINGMass Killings Hit a 20-year Low, Northeastern Data Shows — but Public Perception Hasn’t Caught Up
As 2025 winds to a close, new data show a surprising trend: this year is on track to record the fewest mass killings in two decades.
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SEARCH & RESCUEUsing Smartphones to Improve Disaster Search and Rescue
When a natural disaster strikes, time is of the essence if people are trapped under rubble.When visibility is limited, sound that can penetrate through rubble is the key to finding trapped victims quickly.
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EXTRAJUDICIAL KILLINGThe President Should Not Have a License to Kill
The administration claims that the “war” on drugs justifies extrajudicial killing. But redefining civilian drug criminals as “combatants” gives away the reality: the government just militarized what was a low-level criminal law enforcement incident outside the United States. Once we consider the victims’ alleged illegal actions, we can see that the government committed the most egregious crime here.
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GUNSGun Dealers Are Major Source of Trafficked Firearms
Licensed gun dealers are a major source of firearms that end up illegally trafficked, according to a new analysis using federal data. The report estimates that 1.27 million guns will have been trafficked nationwide by 2026.
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DEMOCRACY WATCHLabeling Dissent as Terrorism: New U.S. Domestic Terrorism Priorities Raise Constitutional Alarms
There is no single official definition of terrorism in U.S. law, but all the different definitions focus on identifying violent or dangerous acts done with the intent to intimidate or coerce civilians or influence government policy. But more than redefining terrorism,National Security Presidential Memorandum/NSPM-7, issued on 2 September 2025 (NSPM-7) reorients the machinery of national security toward the policing of belief. The directive’s emphasis on ideological orientations –“anti-Christianity, “anti-capitalism,” and “anti-American” views –as indicators of domestic terrorism potentially jeopardizes First Amendment rights.
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ARGUMENT: NO ARMED CONFLICTAttacking Drug Boats: Bending or Breaking the Law?
The Trump administration’s policy of attacking alleged narcotics trafficking boats continues unabated with little apparent concern for near-unanimous legal condemnation. Geoffrey Corn and Ken Watkin write that the administration’s argument that it is engaged in self defense against a non-state group engaged in armed conflict against the United States is factually flawed and “legally defective.”
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THE AMERICASPardoning Hernández—Where’s the Logic?
The presidential pardon power can serve real and legitimate purposes, and Trump himself has used it in some deserving cases. But history will long remember his use of it to free political allies and persons who have benefited his cronies and family.
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MILITARY TECHNOLOGYElectromagnetic Warfare: NATO's Blind Spot Could Decide the Next Conflict
The war in Ukraine has exposed a critical front long neglected by Western militaries: electromagnetic warfare (EW). Control over this invisible battlespace, where communications are jammed, drones blinded, and precision weapons thrown off course, can decide the outcome of a conflict.
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COMMON-SENSE NOTES // By Idris B. OdunewuFool Me Once… You Can’t Get Fooled Again: America Has Seen This Move Before
If drug trafficking truly threatens American communities, the solution lies in intelligence cooperation, economic pressure, cross border law enforcement, and deep regional diplomacy, not in hammer-fist militarism.
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DISASTER RESPONSEFEMA’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year
As 2025 draws to a close, the departure of the beleaguered acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, David Richardson, caps a tumultuous year for FEMA. Internal turmoil and delayed aid – all under the shadow of President Donald Trump’s vow to abolish the agency — expose the agency’s fragility under Trump.
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EMERGENCY EVACUATIONSThe Hong Kong High-Rise Fire Shows How Difficult It Is to Evacuate in an Emergency
The catastrophic Hong Kong fire highlights how difficult it is to evacuate high-rise buildings in an emergency. A key problem: As high-rises grow taller and populations age, the old assumption that “everyone can take the stairs” simply no longer holds.
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The long view
GUNSAn Analysis by The Trace of 150 U.S. Cities Shows One of the Greatest Drops in Gun Violence — Ever
Gun violence is trending downward for more than three quarters of cities with the most shootings, according to a new analysis by The Trace’s Gun Violence Data Hub. The downward trend cuts across red and blue cities and states in every region of the country.
DEMOCRACY WATCHTrump’s National Guard Deployments Raise Worries About State Sovereignty
In two instances – Portland and Chicago – President Trump’s campaign to send the National Guard into Democratic-leaning cities he falsely describes as crime-ridden, has turned to out-of-state National Guard troops. Presidents who have federalized National Guard forces in the past, even against a governor’s will, have done so in response to a crisis in the troops’ home state. But the decision to send one state’s National Guard troops into a different state without the receiving governor’s consent is both extraordinary and unprecedented, experts on national security law.
ARGUMENT: UNSUPPORTED CONCLUSIONSCorrectly Assessing Left-Wing Terrorism and Political Violence in the United States
A recent CSIS report, making sweeping claims about a supposed rise in leftwing terrorism in the United States, risks feeding false narratives about political violence and polarization. Michael Jensen and Amy Cooter write that the evidence used to sound this alarm consists of just five plots and attacks, and that these five events not only “are doing a lot of heavy lifting” in the report, but that they are given “an unwarranted level of causal and predictive power.” This tiny sample “simply does not justify inducing panic with eye-popping headlines.”
ECONOMIC WARFAREEurope’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.
CRITICAL MINERALSU.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.