• Refurbishing Nukes: Major Milestone for B61-12 Life Extension Program

    Sandia National Laboratories marked a major milestone in November 2021 when the Nuclear Security Enterprise successfully produced the first completely refurbished bomb for the B61-12 life extension program.

  • Ukraine-Russia: The First Shots Have Already Been Fired – in Cyberspace

    Wars always used to begin to with the softening up of an enemy – with artillery fire, strategic bombing, missile launches. It is different now: The opening salvos in the latest chapter of hostilities are being fired in cyberspace.

  • Why Homicide Rates Spiked 30% During the Pandemic

    The number of homicides in the United States spiked almost 30% during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, a phenomenon seen in both cities and rural areas, and in Republican and Democratic-leaning states. While there have been calls from some quarters to abolish or defund the police, the vast majority of Americans oppose getting rid of police departments.

  • Robot Dogs Soon to Be Deployed at the Border

    DHS ST is offering a helping hand (or “paw”) with new robotic dog technology that can assist with enhancing the capabilities of CBP personnel, while simultaneously increasing their safety downrange.

  • Who Commits Which Crimes

    Why do some young men turn to crime, while others don’t? An international study shows that preferences such as risk tolerance, impatience and altruism as well as self-control can predict who will commit crime.

  • U.S. Mulls Iran’s Bomb-Making Scenarios Iran Nears Uranium Breakout Capacity

    With the United States warning that Iran is just weeks from developing the capacity to make a nuclear weapon, there is disagreement among Washington experts on the likelihood of Iran rushing to build such a weapon, and how the U.S. and its allies should deal with that risk.

  • Geography is Destiny: Ukraine’s Options Are Limited

    Russia is much stronger militarily than Ukraine. When Russia suffered setbacks on the battlefield, it never hesitated to launch massive, indiscriminate, and destructive attacks on the civilian population and infrastructure, as was demonstrated in the two Chechnya wars. If there is a war between Russia and Ukraine, Russia, one way or another, will win it. This is important to note as the crisis over Ukraine deepens, and as many – too many – voices in the West are, in effect, urging Ukraine: “You fight Russia, and we’ll hold your coat.” This is a cavalier, and likely exceedingly costly, advice.

  • Russia’s Recent Invasions of Ukraine and Georgia Offer Clues to What Putin Might Be Thinking Now

    Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014. A look at the two invasions against neighboring territories offers insight to what a possible new invasion would entail if diplomacy is unable to ease the growing tensions.

  • Two Things to Know about the U.S.-China Competition

    A debate about China’s “inexorable” rise has been occupying the op-ed pages of leading newspapers and the conference rooms of leading think tanks for some time now. China’s rise is real, but the U.S. has the means to keep it in check. The U.S. boasts 24 percent of global GDP and almost half of business worldwide. It is already the leading power by these metrics alone. Two more data points demonstrate the United States has an opportunity to keep its competitive advantage provided Congress is willing to reduce defense procurement regulations.  

  • Dolphins Guard U.S. Nukes

    Despite all the technological advancements warfare has seen in the last century, the U.S. Navy demonstrates that sometimes, nature offers intriguing options – like using dolphins to protect the waters around Bangor, Washington, which is the largest single nuclear weapons site in the world.

  • Using IT to Defeat Evolving Threats: The Case of the Marine Corps

    Since the dawn of the 21st century, the Marine Corps has progressively placed a greater emphasis on leveraging IT components. It has since become nestled within the Corps’ supply chain and is integral in achieving present and future goals.

  • Israeli Police: From Warrantless Cellphone Searches to Controversial Misuse of Spyware

    Israel’s rules governing privacy and related laws have experienced a dramatic past few weeks, capped by an explosive journalistic expose revealing that Israeli police have been using NSO Group spyware allegedly without warrants or explicit statutory authorization.

  • Ukraine: Russian Hand Behind Spate of Bomb Scares at Schools Nationwide

    As tensions mount between Ukraine and Russia amid an alarming buildup of Russian forces near the border, Ukraine’s schoolchildren, their families, and their communities have already found themselves on the front line of what Kyiv’s intelligence service, the SBU, describes as a “hybrid war.”

  • Ensuring Safe Nuclear Waste Disposal

    Disposal concepts call for the waste to be isolated a third of a mile belowground for safe storage, enclosed within engineered barrier systems and surrounded by subsurface rock. But there’s still the chance radionuclides might leak out if these systems lose their protective properties as it heats up due to radioactive decay. International nuclear waste disposal research effort evaluates maximum allowable temperature for buffer material.

  • New Federal Wildfire Plan Is Ambitious – but the Forest Service Needs More Money and People to Fight the Growing Risks

    As foresters who have been working on wildfire and forest restoration issues in the Sierra Nevada for over a quarter of a century, the main lesson we gather from how wildfires have burned is that fuels reduction and forest restoration projects are our best tools for mitigating wildfire impacts amid a changing climate, and not nearly enough of them are being done.