• CLASSIFIED WORKNew Small Business Innovation Sources Tapped for Classified Efforts

    DOD often seeks innovative and creative solutions to complex, classified challenges, but the DOD is currently only able to access a limited pool of companies cleared to work on them. Pilot program aims to expand pool of small companies cleared to work on classified defense projects.

  • ELECTRIC VEHICLESDHS Debuts First Fully Electric Law Enforcement Vehicle

    DHS became the first federal agency to debut a battery electric vehicle (EV) fitted for performing law enforcement functions. The Ford Mustang Mach-E is the first of a variety of EVs DHS plans to field across its varied law enforcement missions throughout the United States.

  • BIOTECHNOLOGYU.S. Plans to Boost US Biotechnology Manufacturing

    The administration announced Monday steps to bolster the “bioeconomy” in the United States, a classification that covers research and development across a broad swath of products, including medical supplies, sustainable new fuels and food, as well as technologies meant to help fight climate change. The order comes barely a month after President Biden signed a major piece of legislation, the CHIPS Act, meant to supercharge U.S. manufacturing of semiconductors, an area in which the U.S. has lost its once-dominant global position.

  • ARGUMENT: DUAL-USE TECHNOLOGYReliance on Dual-Use Technology is a Trap

    The current approach to promoting the use of emerging technology by the Pentagon is for emerging technology companies to work with the Department of Defense is to build commercial applications first and only then move into defense. But the notion of developing “technologies for the commercial market first and only then slap some green paint on them so that they can begin exploring the U.S. defense market” is untenable, Jake Chapman writes. “A better solution would enable entrepreneurs to focus on solving defense challenges by making the Department of Defense a better customer.”

  • CRITICAL MINERALSCritical Minerals Competition Uses AI to Accelerate Analytics

    The United States depends on a variety of raw, non-fuel materials dubbed “critical minerals” to manufacture products considered essential to national security. Increasing demand, coupled with limited domestic supply and increasing reliance on foreign companies to import these critical minerals, poses significant risks to the U.S. supply chain. DARPA is offering prizes for automating aspects of USGS critical mineral assessments.

  • ARGUMENT: PETROLEUM RESILIENCEReviving the Petroleum Administration for War: A Case for Government-Industry Partnership

    The Russo-Ukrainian War is exposing deep fissures in global energy networks and finally forcing Western capitals to address their energy security. Ryan P. Kellogg and David Brunnert write that “To confront this profound challenge, policy should consider creating a partnership between government and industry for managing energy resources.”

  • BIOTECHNOLOGYRegenerate: Biotechnology and U.S. Industrial Policy

    By Ryan Fedasiuk

    A revolution in biotechnology is dawning at the precise moment the world needs it most. Amid an ongoing climate crisis, fast-paced technological maturation, and a global pandemic, humans must find new ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve food security, develop new vaccines and therapeutics, recycle waste, synthesize new materials, and adapt to a changing world. The United States needs some form of industrial policy to promote its bioeconomy—one that is enshrined in democratic values and focused on improving access to four key drivers of bioeconomic growth: equipment, personnel, information, and capital.

  • CHINA WATCHChina Tried to Infiltrate Federal Reserve: Senate Report

    By Rob Garver

    Fed Chair Jerome Powell and a senior member of Congress are at odds over a report issued Tuesday by Senate Republicans alleging that China is trying to infiltrate the Federal Reserve and that the central bank has done too little to stop it. China’s goal, according to the report, is to “supplant the U.S. as the global economic leader and end the U.S. dollar’s status as the world’s primary reserve currency.”

  • CLIMATE CHALLENGESWinners Announced in DHS $195K Challenge to Counter Extreme Temperatures

    DHS announced the winners of the Cooling Solutions Challenge prize competition. The winners were each awarded funding, which totaled $195,000, for their innovative and creative ideas that sought climate-friendly cooling solutions to protect people in extreme heat conditions.

  • ARGUMENT: DIGITAL WORKFORCEThe Strategic Relevance of Cybersecurity Skills

    Evidence suggests there is a global cybersecurity skills shortage affecting businesses and governments alike, which means that organizations are struggling to fill their cybersecurity vacancies. Tommaso De Zan writes that “the absence of cybersecurity experts protecting national critical infrastructures constitutes a national security threat, a loophole that may be exploited by malicious actors.”

  • CHINA WATCHDHS Unveils Strategy to Combat Uyghur Forced Labor in China

    DHS has unveiled a strategy aiming to combat the Chinese government’s use of forced labor by members of the Uyghur ethnic minority in the western province of Xinjiang.

  • ARGUMENT: AI & NATIONAL SECURITY Preparing National Security Officials for the Challenges of AI

    Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of several rapidly emerging technologies that promise to disrupt not only multiple sectors of the U.S. economy but also the manner in which the U.S. government carries out its foundational responsibility to protect national security consistent with the rule of law and constitutional values. Steve Bunnell writes that “The United States’ national security apparatus is not known for nimbleness, nor is the law that governs it. When it comes to AI, the risk is not just that our generals will fight tomorrow’s war with yesterday’s strategy but also that the United States will lack the legal and policy guardrails that are essential to a lawful, accountable, and ethical protection of the nation’s security.”

  • ELECTION SECURITYMan Pleads Guilty to Threatening Election Official

    A Nebraska man pleaded guilty on Thursday to making multiple threatening posts on an Instagram page associated with an election official. The case is part of the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force, announced in June 2021, to lead the department’s efforts to address threats of violence against election workers.

  • CHINA WATCHU.S. Creates ‘China House’ to Better Track Beijing’s Global Reach

    By Liyuan Lu

    The U.S. State Department is creating a new entity known as “China House” to better track what China is doing around the world. A State Department spokesperson declined to provide details about the status of China House, describing it as “a department-wide integrated team that will coordinate and implement our policy across issues and regions.”

  • IMMIGRATIONMigration to the U.S. Is on the Rise Again – but It’s Unlikely to Be Fully Addressed During the Summit of the Americas, or Anytime Soon

    By Jack Maguire

    Migration in the Americas has dramatically increased over the past decade due to deteriorating political, economic and humanitarian conditions in several countries, particularly in Venezuela, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Haiti. High rates of crime, corruption, poverty, environmental degradation and violence all influence people’s decisions to migrate. The power of drug cartels, which can be embedded in government institutions like the police, also plays a key role in prompting migration.