The average amount of time required by the government to conduct a background investigation and process a security clearance application has been around one year for a Top Secret clearance and 5 to 6 months for a Secret or Confidential clearance, which is “a totally unacceptable length of time,” according to a new report to Congress from the Office of Management and Budget. The February 15 Report of the Security Clearance Oversight Group (pdf) describes efforts underway to reduce security clearance processing time.
“The Putin Era in Historical Perspective” (pdf) was the topic of a conference of non-governmental experts sponsored by the DNI’s National Intelligence Council. The conference report hews closely to received wisdom and is surprisingly devoid of significant insight. (“Bereft of its former empire, Russia still aspires to be a great power and to be respected as such.”)
“The Infantry Battalion” (large pdf) is a new U.S. Army Field Manual (FM 3-21.20, December 2006) that describes the roles and missions of Army battalions at great length (599 pages, 20 MB PDF).
From grassroots community impacts to global geopolitical dynamics, understanding developing data center capacities is emerging as a critical analytical challenge.
Over the past few months, the Trump administration has been laying the foundation to expand the use of the Defense Production Act (DPA) for energy infrastructure and supply chains.
Get it right, and pooled hiring becomes a model for how the federal government decides what to do together and what to do apart. That’s a bigger prize than faster hiring. It’s a more functional government.
As of March 2026, there were at least nine documented U.S. wrongful arrests tied to face recognition misidentification. Errors like these are as much human as machine.