Special Ops, Counter-Propaganda, Overclassification
The House Armed Services Committee took a retrospective look at US special operations forces earlier this year, thirty years after the establishment of US Special Operations Command (SOCOM).
“SOCOM has a lot of missions it is responsible for, and has had several new ones added to it,” said Rep. Elise M. Stefanik (R-NY) at a hearing earlier this year. “Are there any of those missions that should go away or be reassigned?”
SOCOM Commander Gen. Raymond A. Thomas was ready with the answer: “There are no missions that should go away or be reassigned.”
See Three Decades Later: A Review and Assessment of our Special Operations Forces 30 Years After the Creation of U.S. Special Operations Command, House Armed Services Committee, May 2, 2017.
Some other notable congressional hearing volumes that have recently been published include:
Crafting an Information Warfare and Counter-propaganda Strategy for the Emerging Security Environment, House Armed Services Committee, March 15, 2017
Examining the Costs of Overclassification on Transparency and Security, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, December 7, 2016
To increase the real and perceived benefit of research funding, funding agencies should develop challenge goals for their extramural research programs focused on the impact portion of their mission.
Without trusted mechanisms to ensure privacy while enabling secure data access, essential R&D stalls, educational innovation stalls, and U.S. global competitiveness suffers.
Satellite imagery has long served as a tool for observing on-the-ground activity worldwide, and offers especially valuable insights into the operation, development, and physical features related to nuclear technology.
This year’s Red Sky Summit was an opportunity to further consider what the role of fire tech can and should be – and how public policy can support its development, scaling, and application.