• A Return to U.S. Casualty Aversion

    The 9/11 Wars as aberrations: After the extended, tragically costly, and fundamentally absurd aberrations caused by the overreaction to 9/11, a more limited American military approach appears to be back—and perhaps is even more embraced than in the post‐Vietnam decades.

  • Gaza War: Israel Using AI to Identify Human Targets Raising Fears That Innocents Are Being Caught in the Net

    A new report finds that AI targeting systems have played a key role in identifying – and potentially misidentifying – tens of thousands of targets in Gaza. This suggests that autonomous warfare is no longer a future scenario. It is already here and the consequences are horrifying.

  • FBI Fears 'Coordinated Attack' on U.S. Homeland

    A surge of confidence by supporters of the Islamic State terror group — reflected in a series of online threats against Europe combined with its deadly attack on a concert hall in Russia — is giving security officials in the United States cause for concern.

  • A New Way to Detect Radiation Involving Cheap Ceramics

    The radiation detectors used today for applications like inspecting cargo ships for smuggled nuclear materials are expensive and cannot operate in harsh environments, among other disadvantages. Work by MIT engineers could lead to plethora of new applications, including better detectors for nuclear materials at ports.

  • New Geo-Tracking Buoys Make a Splash During Live Test Events

    New rugged buoy technologies equipped with Automatic Identification Systems aim to help the U.S. Coast Guard mark and track objects in the water.

  • Unlicensed Dealers Illegally Trafficked 68,000 Guns Over 5 Years

    Unlicensed dealers who aren’t required to perform background checks illegally trafficked more than 68,000 firearms in the United States over a five-year period, according to new data released Thursday by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

  • Its Deterrence Strategy Weakened, Iran Faces Pressure to Hit Israel

    Iran’s strategy of deterrence against Israel has suffered greatly since the outbreak of the Gaza war — particularly after the brazen attack on its consulate in the Syrian capital on April 1. the deadly strike on its consulate in Damascus may compel Iran to take direct action, experts say.

  • Memo: The Reported Destruction of Secret Workshop in 2020

    On March 24, 2024, Iran International reported that an “industrial production workshop […] belonging to the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) was deliberately set on fire” in the summer of 2020. 1 The incident was not reported publicly at the time, and Iran International cites judicial and intelligence documents provided by a hacking group as their source. Iran alleged that the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, hired a group of nine Iranians to destroy the facility.

  • Canada’s Biosecurity Scandal: The Risks of Foreign Interference in Life Sciences

    In July 2019, world-renowned biological researchers Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng were quietly walked out of the Canadian government’s National Microbiology Lab (NML). The original allegation against them was that Qiu had authorized a shipment to China of some of the deadliest viruses on the planet, including Ebola and Nipah. Then the story seemed to go away—until now.

  • How Firearms Move from Legal Purchase to Criminal Use

    Between 1996 and 2021, more than 5.2 million handguns and almost 2.9 million long guns were legally purchased in California. During 11 years of that time frame, 2010-2021, California law enforcement officers recovered 45,247 of these guns from crime scenes. New study of California gun data identifies risk factors for weapons used in crimes.

  • U.S. Unpersuaded by Report Blaming Russia for ‘Havana Syndrome’

    The United States is backing a year-old intelligence assessment that health problems affecting, and in some cases incapacitating, hundreds of American personnel around the world are not the result of a weapon wielded by a U.S. adversary. The White House, the Pentagon and the State Department Monday stood by a March 2023 report by the National Intelligence Council that concluded it is “very unlikely” the adverse symptoms known as Havana Syndrome were caused by enemy operatives.

  • Domestic Violent Extremists’ Threat to U.S. Nuclear Facilities

    Nuclear security in the U.S. has historically understood threat as “other,” – for example, foreign states or terrorists — leaving practitioners, facilities, and physical protection systems vulnerable to threats from within. There is a need for an urgent change to the nuclear security norms and understanding of threat to include not only foreign agents, but also domestic violent extremist groups and homegrown violent ideologies, is needed to strengthen the resiliency and effectiveness of the national nuclear security regime.

  • U.S. Needs a New Independent Armed Service — a U.S. Cyber Force: Report

    In the U.S. military, an officer who had never fired a rifle would never command an infantry unit. Yet officers with no experience behind a keyboard are commanding cyber warfare units. This should change, as the need to create a new independent armed service — a U.S. Cyber Force – become more urgent by the day.

  • How Climate Change Will Affect Conflict and U.S. Military Operations

    “People talk about climate change as a threat multiplier,” said Karen Sudkamp, an associate director of the Infrastructure, Immigration, and Security Operations Program within the RAND Homeland Security Research Division. “But at what point do we need to start talking about the threat multiplier actually becoming a significant threat all its own?”

  • Five Arrested for Trafficking Military Grade Firearms to Mexican Drug Cartel

    Five individuals were arrested in Laredo, Hebbronville, and Falls City, Texas, last week for trafficking military grade firearms to a drug cartel in Mexico. The arms traffickers used straw purchasers to procure the firearms from a variety of sources in the Western, Southern, and Northern Districts of Texas.