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Oversight Committee Presses Federal Agencies on Plan to Shrink China's Influence
The Chinese government has carried out a broad effort to influence U.S. higher education through funding top universities and sponsoring Confucius Institutes at schools, though those have mostly been shut down over concerns about national security. The National Association of Scholars, though, says those institutions have been reopening with different branding.
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Armed and Underground: Inside the Turbulent, Secret World of an American Militia
The American Patriots Three Percent (AP3) militia has long been one of the largest in the United States and has mostly managed to avoid scrutiny. Like other militias, AP3 has a vague but militant right-wing ideology, a pronounced sense of grievance and a commitment to armed action. It has already sought to shape American life through vigilante operations: AP3 members have “rounded up” immigrants at the Texas border, assaulted Black Lives Matter protesters and attempted to crack down on people casting absentee ballots.
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Trump Assassination Attempt Laid Bare Long-standing Vulnerabilities in the Secret Service
A Spotlight PA, ProPublica, and Butler Eagle investigation found the process for securing campaign events was susceptible to attack for years: the weaknesses that led to the assassination attempt were not unique to the July rally, but the inevitable breakdown of an already vulnerable system.
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How the U.S. Can Counter Disinformation from Russia and China
Attempts by Russia, China, and other U.S. adversaries to spread dangerous false narratives need to be countered before they take root.
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Texas Election Officials Are Dealing with a Flood of Challenges to Voter Registrations
Conservative groups and individual activists have targeted tens of thousands of Texans over their eligibility. But state and federal protections are in place.
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Election Deniers Secretly Pushed Rule That Would Make It Easier to Delay Certification of Georgia’s Election Results
On Monday, the GOP-controlled State Election Board is poised to adopt the rule, which would potentially allow county officials, including one who secretly backed the rule, to throw the election results of the swing state into chaos this fall.
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Red Flag Gun Laws Under Fire
Laws meant to keep firearms away from unstable people are under attack by Second Amendment radicals. An investigation by The Trace and Rolling Stone exposes the ugly campaign to undermine a bipartisan compromise to stop mass shootings.
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Despite Recent Water Supply Improvement, More Cuts Expected for Colorado River, Feds Say
After Lake Mead hit an all-time low two years ago, the Colorado River’s water supply is in a much better position this summer, but it hasn’t improved enough to prevent further cuts this year.
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Foreign Actors Could Sow 'Chaos' in the 2024 Presidential Election, Cybersecurity Expert Says
In a tightly contested election, a “hack and leak” campaigns can be hugely “consequential” at the margins, says an expert.
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AI Disinformation: Lessons from the U.K. Election
The record-breaking 2024 figure of about 4 billion voters eligible to go to the polls across more than 60 countries coincided with the full-fledged arrival and widespread uptake of multimodal generative artificial intelligence (AI), which enables almost anyone to make fake images, videos and sound.
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A View from the CT Foxhole: William Braniff, Director, Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
The decade after 9/11 was largely about integrating our special operations community with our intelligence community. “The decade after the decade after 9/11, we started to really integrate our federal law enforcement efforts so that we could find, fix, finish, exploit, analyze, and prosecute here in the United States,” says William Braniff.
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What Is the Online Safety Act and Why Have Riots in the U.K. Reopened Debates About It?
Social media played a key role in the widespread coordination of riots in locations across the country. Online platforms have also served as a vehicle through which misinformation and hateful rhetoric has spread.
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Why Indonesia Moved Its Capital to a Jungle Hundreds of Miles Away, and more
· Why Indonesia Moved Its Capital to a Jungle Hundreds of Miles Away
The new city, Nusantara, comes as Jakarta continues to sink at a record pace· America’s Failed Approach to Iran Can’t Really Be Called a Strategy
For almost a decade, Washington has had an attitude toward Iran — unrelenting opposition and pressure — but not a strategy· NATO’s Weak Spot Against Russia Facing a Choice to Take Up Arms
The undefended Aland Islands in the Baltic Sea have long been a gap in Europe’s shield. Remilitarization could turn them into one of the West’s key defenses -
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China’s Overseas Police Stations: Global Concerns
As China has emerged as a great power, it has sought to augment its overseas presence through measures like the establishment of Confucius Institutes and military bases and access points worldwide. The setting up of overseas police stations is a recent development that has invited international scrutiny, sparking serious concerns regarding the breach of international norms and the erosion of host countries’ sovereignty.
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Colombia Isn’t Ready for a New Venezuelan Migration Wave, Plus Bukele’s Mano Dura Threats Won’t Fix the Economy
Petro has eroded Colombia’s institutions for managing migration since taking office in 2022, leaving Colombia ill-equipped to handle a new Venezuelan migration wave; Bukele’s mano dura tactics got results on crime, but won’t fix the economy.
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The long view
Factories First: Winning the Drone War Before It Starts
Wars are won by factories before they are won on the battlefield,Martin C. Feldmann writes, noting that the United States lacks the manufacturing depth for the coming drone age. Rectifying this situation “will take far more than procurement tweaks,” Feldmann writes. “It demands a national-level, wartime-scale industrial mobilization.”
No Nation Is an Island: The Dangers of Modern U.S. Isolationism
The resurgence of isolationist sentiment in American politics is understandable but misguided. While the desire to refocus on domestic renewal is justified, retreating from the world will not bring the security, prosperity, or sovereignty that its proponents promise. On the contrary, it invites instability, diminishes U.S. influence, and erodes the democratic order the U.S. helped forge.
Fragmented by Design: USAID’s Dismantling and the Future of American Foreign Aid
The Trump administration launched an aggressive restructuring of U.S. foreign aid, effectively dismantling the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The humanitarian and geopolitical fallout of the demise of USAID includes shuttered clinics, destroyed food aid, and China’s growing influence in the global south. This new era of American soft power will determine how, and whether, the U.S. continues to lead in global development.
Water Wars: A Historic Agreement Between Mexico and US Is Ramping Up Border Tension
As climate change drives rising temperatures and changes in rainfall, Mexico and the US are in the middle of a conflict over water, putting an additional strain on their relationship. Partly due to constant droughts, Mexico has struggled to maintain its water deliveries for much of the last 25 years, deliveries to which it is obligated by a 1944 water-sharing agreement between the two countries.
How Disastrous Was the Trump-Putin Meeting?
In Alaska, Trump got played by Putin. Therefore, Steven Pifer writes, the European leaders and Zelensky have to “diplomatically offer suggestions to walk Trump back from a position that he does not appear to understand would be bad for Ukraine, bad for Europe, and bad for American interests. And they have to do so without setting off an explosion that could disrupt U.S.-Ukrainian and U.S.-European relations—all to the delight of Putin and the Kremlin.”
How Male Grievance Fuels Radicalization and Extremist Violence
Social extremism is evolving in reach and form. While traditional racial supremacy ideologies remain, contemporary movements are now often fueled by something more personal and emotionally resonant: male grievance.