• New Method Helps Predict the Spread of Armed Conflicts

    Around the world, political violence increased by 27 percent last year, affecting 1.7 billion people. Some armed conflicts occur between states, but there are many more that take place within the borders of a single state. To better understand how violent events spread, a new statistical model identifies links between battles in Africa, but the model can be applied to other armed conflicts.

  • The Nuclear Arms Race’s Legacy at Home: Toxic Contamination, Staggering Cleanup Costs and a Culture of Government Secrecy

    The Manhattan Project spawned a trinity of interconnected legacies. Among other things, it led to widespread public health and environmental damage from nuclear weapons production and testing. And it generated a culture of governmental secrecy with troubling political consequences.

  • Nuclear War Would Be More Devastating for Earth’s Climate Than Cold War Predictions – Even with Fewer Weapons

    A limited nuclear war between India and Pakistan could kill 130 million people and deprive a further 2.5 billion of food for at least two years. A global nuclear war including the US, Europe, and China could result in 360 million people dead and condemn nearly 5.3 billion people to starvation in the two years following the exchange.

  • De-Risking Authoritarian AI

    You may not be interested in artificial intelligence, but it is interested in you. AI-enabled systems make many invisible decisions affecting our health, safety and wealth. They shape what we see, think, feel and choose, they calculate our access to financial benefits as well as our transgressions. In a technology-enabled world, opportunities for remote, large-scale foreign interference, espionage and sabotage —via internet and software updates—exist at a ‘scale and reach that is unprecedented’.

  • Regulate National Security AI Like Covert Action

    Congress is trying to roll up its sleeves and get to work on artificial intelligence (AI) regulation. Ashley Deeks writes that only a few of these proposed provisions, however, implicate national security-related AI, and none create any kind of framework regulation for such tools. She proposes crafting a law similar to the War Powers Act to govern U.S. intelligence and military agencies use of AI tools.

  • Oppenheimer and the Pursuit of Nuclear Disarmament

    Stanford scholar and political scientist Scott Sagan talks about what the film “Oppenheimer” got right – and missed – about creating the world’s first atomic bomb: the politics of nuclear proliferation, Oppenheimer’s attempts after World War II to constrain the new military technology, and the frightening role nuclear weapons play today. “I think there’s a broader tragedy that came out less clearly: the political tragedy of the nuclear arms race,” he says.

  • U.S. Voluntary AI Code of Conduct and Implications for Military Use

    Seven technology companies including Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta, with major artificial intelligence (AI) products made voluntary commitments regarding the regulation of AI. These are non-binding, unenforceable and voluntary, but they may form the basis for a future Executive Order on AI, which will become critical given the increasing military use of AI.

  • Geoscientists Aim to Improve Human Security Through Planet-Scale POI Modeling

    Geoinformatics engineering researchers developed MapSpace, a publicly available, scalable land-use modeling framework. By providing data characteristics broader and deeper than satellite imagery alone, MapSpace can generate population analytics invaluable for urban planning and disaster response.

  • Closer Look at “Father of Atomic Bomb”

    Robert Oppenheimer is often referred to as the “father of the atomic bomb.” But he also had his federal security clearance revoked during the McCarthy era, a disputed decision that was only posthumously reversed last year. Harvard historian unwinds the complexities of J. Robert Oppenheimer as scientist, legend.

  • The Mythical Tie Between Immigration and Crime

    Opponents of immigration often argue that immigrants drive up crime rates. Research by Stanford’s Ran Abramitzky and co-authors uncovers the most extensive evidence to date that immigrants are less likely to be imprisoned than U.S.-born individuals.

  • Researching the Future of Emergency Management

    The research will consider emerging innovations in areas such as artificial intelligence, geospatial intelligence, machine learning, data analytics, and decision aids, to equip and support emergency managers for the future.

  • Roles and Implications of AI in the Russian-Ukrainian Conflict

    Artificial Intelligence (AI) is emerging as a significant asset in the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Specifically, it has become a key data analysis tool that helps operators and warfighters make sense of the growing volume and amount of information generated by numerous systems, weapons and soldiers in the field.

  • Proposed U.S. Missile Defense Plan a Source of White House, Congress Disagreement

    The $874 billion budget passed by the House on Friday calls for the military to maintain a “credible nuclear capability” to deter adversaries, while developing and deploying layered defense systems that can defeat complex missile threats “in all phases of flight.” The White House argues that this contradicts the balance-of-terror on which the nuclear relations of the great powers was based since the 1960s, and which is embedded in nuclear arms control treaties.

  • The Uncertain Future of the U.S. Military’s All-Volunteer Force

    This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of U.S. all-volunteer military force. It also coincides with one of the worst recruiting years for the U.S. military since 1973. The U.S military has a manpower problem and it’s not just due to today’s recruiting shortages. It’s time for a comprehensive plan to solve the personnel shortfalls.

  • Satellite Security Lags Decades Behind the State of the Art

    Thousands of satellites are currently orbiting the Earth, and there will be many more in the future. Researchers analyzed three current low-earth orbit satellites and found that, from a technical point of view, hardly any modern security concepts were implemented. Various security mechanisms that are standard in modern mobile phones and laptops were not to be found.