• Last of the ‘True Believers’ or Harbinger? Ana Montes and the Future of Espionage Against the West

    Ana Montes was U.S. Intelligence’s ‘Queen of Cuba’. The Defense Intelligence Agency’s leading Central America analyst; go-to voice on Cuban intentions and capabilities; eldest daughter of a family dedicated to U.S. government service. She was also a Cuban spy her entire professional life. She was a ’True Believer’ –motivated not by material rewards but by commitment to Castro’s revolution and opposition to U.S. policy in Latin America.

  • Research Espionage Is a Real Threat – but a Drastic Crackdown Could Stifle Vital International Collaboration

    In 2024, China is a peer of the US in research and knowledge creation. We must be clear-eyed about threats to “research security”. But a one-eyed focus on China, and adopting a simplistic and heavy-handed approach to managing these threats, will only leave us worse off.

  • How People Get Sucked into Misinformation Rabbit Holes – and How to Get Them Out

    As misinformation and radicalization rise, it’s tempting to look for something to blame: the internet, social media personalities, sensationalized political campaigns, religion, or conspiracy theories. Researchers found that radicalization is a process of increasingly intense stages, and only a small number of people progress to the point where they commit violent acts. The misinformation radicalization process is a pathway driven by human emotions rather than the information itself – and this understanding may be a first step in finding solutions.

  • Lifting of Federal Funding Ban Tied to Increase in Gun Violence Research

    The lifting of a two-decade drought in federal funding for firearm injury prevention research was strongly associated with an increase in both clinical trials and publications on gun violence, according to a new report. 

  • Will The EU Ban Russian Aluminum?

    It is estimated that the European Union still imports the metal from Russia to the tune of 2.3 billion euros ($2.5 billion) per year. The bloc also exports various aluminum products to Russia, worth some 190 million euros. About 85 percent of Russia’s aluminum business — including the lucrative construction and automotive industries – are so far untouched by sanctions. EU member states want to change that.

  • Japanese Yakuza Leader Charged with Trafficking Nuclear Materials

    Takeshi Ebisawa of Japan, leader within the Yakuza transnational organized crime syndicate, was charged with trafficking nuclear materials, including uranium and weapons-grade plutonium.

  • Murder and Extremism in the U.S.

    Each year, people in the United States are killed by individuals with ties to extreme movements and ideologies. In recent years, extremists from the far right (such as white nationalists or sovereign citizens), the far left (such as Black nationalists or anarchists), Islamist extremist movements, and other, more obscure causes or groups have all committed murders in the United States.

  • How You Can Tell Propaganda from Journalism − Let’s Look at Tucker Carlson’s Visit to Russia

    In the 1930s, the New York Times’s Moscow bureau chief Walter Duranty wrote glowing reports about the achievements of the Soviet state while ignoring the Stalin dictatorship’s starvation of millions of Ukrainians. These days, conservative TV personality and former Fox News star Tucker Carlson is providing Vladimir Putin and his regime propaganda services similar to those Duranty offered Stalin – except that Carlson goes farther: narrating a series of reports extolling the glories of Russian society, culture, and governance under Putin, Carlson said that these achievements “radicalized” him “against our American leaders.”

  • Ongoing Conspiracies Pushed Out the Elections Staff in This Texas County. The New Director Won’t Budge.

    Jim Riley, who took the job as elections administrator in Gillespie County more than a year after the entire staff there quit, says he won’t give in to demands from voter fraud activists who want to ditch electronic voting equipment and hand count ballots.

  • In $100 Million Colorado River Deal, Water and Power Collide

    The Colorado River District plans to buy the water rights that flow through Colorado’s Shoshone hydropower plant. The acquisition is seen as pivotal for a wide swath of the state, and has been co-signed by farmers, environmental groups, and local governments.

  • Shoring Up Ports to Withstand Cyberattacks

    There are more than 300 ports in the United States, employing an estimated 31 million Americans, and contributing about $5.4 trillion to the country’s economy The White House is moving forward with reforms aimed at shoring up cybersecurity at U.S. ports, some of which may already be in danger of falling under the sway of hackers linked to China.

  • Charting the Future of Maritime Security

    The United States is a maritime nation surrounded by 95,000 miles of shoreline. Changes in economics, geopolitics, society, demography, or other factors, pose varied and evolving threats to the country’s maritime space – its waterways, ports of entry, and coastline borders.

  • Cybersecurity for Satellites Is a Growing challenge, as Threats to Space-Based Infrastructure Grow

    In today’s interconnected world, space technology forms the backbone of our global communication, navigation and security systems. As our dependency on these celestial guardians escalates, so too does their allure to adversaries who may seek to compromise their functionality through cyber means.

  • How Was Israel Caught Off-Guard?

    There were several reasons for Israel’s intelligence and operational failures on 7 October. But the context within which these failures occurred, what Ariel Levite calls “the intelligence-policy nexus,” was created by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. For over a decade, he helped strengthen Hamas as part of his effort to prevent the emergence of a moderate and pragmatic Palestinian leadership. And, throughout 2023, he caused deep and bitter divisions in Israeli society and military by pursuing a regime-change legislative agenda aiming to hollow out Israel’s democracy. He was repeatedly warned by Israel’s military and intelligence leaders that both policies were weakening Israel and the IDF and making Israel more vulnerable to attack, but he rejected these warnings.

  • AI and Election Integrity

    We don’t yet know the full impact of artificial intelligence-generated deepfake videos on misinforming the electorate. And it may be the narrative around them — rather than the deepfakes themselves — that most undermines election integrity.