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U.S. Saw Increase in Domestic Terror Threats in 2022
The sweeping police raids in Germany earlier this month which nabbed 25 members of a far-right group who were plotting to topple the government and replace it with a Kaiser, highlighted the shifting and increasingly complex landscape facing Western countries in 2022 and, counterterrorism officials say, for years to come.
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Protecting Democracy: Jan. 6 Panel’s Recommendations, Proposed Reforms
On Thursday, 22 December, the House committee examining last year’s attack on the U.S. Capitol issued its long-awaited final report. The final report also proposes eleven reforms aiming to ensure that Trump’s attempt to subvert the will of the voters and prevent the peaceful transition of power from one president to the next would not be repeated.
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Congress Passes Legislation That Will Close Off Presidential Election Mischief and Help Avoid Another Jan. 6
Presidential elections are complicated. But in a move aimed at warding off future crises like the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, the Senate and House have passed legislation to clarify ambiguous and trouble-prone aspects of the process.
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Who Can Guarantee Russian Security?
What Makes Putin Insecure? Putin’s insecurity might start with anxiety about his personal future, but he has extended this into a vision for Russia that involves a permanent struggle with the West and its liberalism. In the end the biggest threats to Russian security do not lie outside its borders but inside its capital.
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Terrorist Recruitment Now Happens Mainly Online – Which Makes Offenders Easier to Catch
It is notoriously difficult to work out how and why someone becomes a terrorism risk. But in our research, we’ve started to identify important patterns when it comes to different journeys into extremist offending. Most notably, we’ve found that in recent years, people who go on to be convicted of terrorist offenses are far more likely to have been radicalized online – without any offline interactions at all – than was the case in the past.
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Cryptocurrency Crashes Recall the Wild Days of “Free Banking”
The U.S. used to have hundreds of unregulated private currencies backed by shaky assets. Sound familiar?
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A Simmering Revolt Against Groundwater Cutbacks in California
In 2014, California legislators, focused on groundwater’s accelerating decline during a prolonged drought, passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. New agencies find making sustainability plans is hard, but easier than persuading growers to accept them.
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Experts: North Korea's ICBMs Pose Preemption Challenges for US
North Korea’s rapidly advancing ICBM capabilities pose a growing threat to the United States and its allies, especially as it will become increasingly difficult to destroy Pyongyang’s missiles prior to launch with preemptive strikes.
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Accepting Reality: For the Foreseeable Future, Denuclearizing North Korea May Be Unattainable
For two decades now, U.S. policymakers have sought North Korean denuclearization. In the early 2000s, it appeared to be a necessary goal, because a nuclear North Korea would threaten U.S. allies, spread nuclear weapons beyond the Korean Peninsula, damage the sanctity of the nuclear taboo, and eventually threaten U.S. territory. But the enemy gets a vote, and it is now clear that for the foreseeable future, there is nothing the United States can do, short of a direct military attack, to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons.
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Ten Most Significant World Events in 2022
Future historians may come to regard 2022 as a hinge in history, marking the end of one era and the beginning of another. Major war returned to Europe, with the attendant threats of nuclear strikes, and the door closed firmly shut on the U.S. policy of strategic engagement with China. As 2022 comes to a close, here are the top ten most notable world events of the past year.
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To Quit Russian Gas, EU Invests Billions in LNG
The European Union is investing billions in infrastructure in its effort to replace Russian fuels with liquefied natural gas. This could prove to be a dead end — both for taxpayers and for the climate.
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Public-Facing Counter-Terrorism Strategic Communication Campaigns
The Situational Threat and Response Signals (STARS) project responds to the challenge of how to communicate effectively with the public about terrorism risks and threats in an increasingly complex and fragmented information environment.
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Protecting DoD Microelectronics from Adversary Influence
The NSA publicly released four Cybersecurity Technical Reports to help the Department of Defense protect field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based systems from adversary influence.
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Washington’s Semiconductor Sanctions Won’t Slow China’s Military Build-Up
Advanced semiconductors underpin everything from autonomous vehicles to hypersonic weapon systems. Chips are imperative to the defense industry and technologies of the future. By targeting this critical input, the Biden administration aims to freeze China’s semiconductor suite at 2022 levels and impede its military development. Despite the bleak short-term outlook, it is wrong to assume that US controls will hobble China for years.
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The Right Time for Chip Export Controls
On Oct. 7, the U.S.-China tech competition heated up dramatically when the Biden administration imposed wide-ranging semiconductor-related export controls on China. Martijn Rasser and Kevin Wolf write that “There is no crystal ball that can divine the outcome, given how unprecedented and wide ranging these actions are.” They add: “The Biden administration made the right call by acting now, particularly if it is successful at getting allied cooperation on the essence of the rules soon.”
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More headlines
The long view
January 6th Report Summarizes Extremist Threat – But Leaves Key Gaps
The House Jan. 6 committee’s 845-page report is unquestionably valuable, but significant questions remain largely unanswered around two interrelated components of the committee’s investigation: the scope of law enforcement and intelligence failures preceding the attack on the U.S. Capitol, and what concrete steps should be taken to combat both those failures and the rising threat of domestic violent extremism in the aftermath of January 6th.
Protecting Democracy: Jan. 6 Panel’s Recommendations, Proposed Reforms
On Thursday, 22 December, the House committee examining last year’s attack on the U.S. Capitol issued its long-awaited final report. The final report also proposes eleven reforms aiming to ensure that Trump’s attempt to subvert the will of the voters and prevent the peaceful transition of power from one president to the next would not be repeated.
Far-Left Extremist Groups in the United States
Far-left extremism in the United States was most active during the period between the 1960s and 1980s. In the 1990s, a new type of left-extremism began to emerge – what the FBI calls “special-interest extremism,” as expressed by groups such as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and Earth Liberation Front (ELF). The far left encompasses multiple ideologies, but security experts believe that a large percentage of far-left radicals subscribe to at least one of three main classifications: anarchism, communism/socialism/Marxism, and autonomous radicals.
Concerns About Extremists Targeting U.S. Power Stations
Attacks on four power stations in Washington State over the weekend added to concerns of a possible nationwide campaign by far-right extremists to stir fears and spark civil conflict. Violent extremists “have developed credible, specific plans to attack electricity infrastructure since at least 2020, identifying the electric grid as a particularly attractive target given its interdependency with other infrastructure sectors,” the DHS said in a January.
New Bill Proposes Banning TikTok in the U.S.
Both the administration and Congress have moved to limit, or even ban, TikTok in the United States because of worries about China using the Chinese-owned platform to gather personal data on millions of Americans. Justin Sherman writes that “all told, it is a noteworthy piece of legislation, and it delineates between the risk of data access and the risk of content manipulation better than then-President Trump’s executive order on TikTok.”
Was George Santos Groomed to be a Russian Agent?
Among the multitude of lies and falsehoods newly elected Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) has concocted, the most intriguing item – and likely the source of Santos’s most serious potential legal trouble – are his campaign finances. What is especially noticeable, and disturbing, are the generous contributions Santos has received from Viktor Vekselberg, one of Vladimir Putin’s wealthiest and most influential courtiers. “For all we know,” writes one commentator, “some foreign power may have bought itself a congressman. This isn’t outlandish speculation.”