Establishing civilian control of intelligence and security services is a challenge and a crucial milestone for any aspiring democracy. Among other post-Soviet countries of Eastern Europe, Ukraine has made some remarkable strides in this direction.
“As Ukraine continues the process of democratic consolidation, the issue of intelligence oversight remains vital, to ensure political accountability and financial efficiency,” according to a recent master’s thesis on the subject (pdf). “Oversight of intelligence is also important to the political initiatives Ukraine has undertaken to improve ties to NATO and the EU.”
The thesis, by Lt. Col. Oleksii Petrov of the Ukraine Ministry of Defense, presents an updated account of the organization of Ukraine intelligence services, and an explanation of the legal framework in which they operate.
The government of Ukraine publicly discloses current and retrospective spending levels for its various intelligence services, which is more than the U.S. has been able to manage.
Thus, the 2007 budget for the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine (FISU) is 248 million grivnas (around $50 million), and the agency employs 4350 personnel, according to online budget documents cited and translated by the author.
See “Political and Budgetary Oversight of the Ukrainian Intelligence Community: Processes, Problems and Prospects for Reform” by Oleksii Petrov, Naval Postgraduate School, September 2007.
About 86% of Colorado’s water is used for agriculture, but only about 30-60% of that water actually reaches crops. Conveyance efficiency through canal modernization is a powerful drought resilience and water saving strategy with proven technical feasibility.
“One thing became increasingly clear: AI doesn’t simply introduce a new category of risk. It changes the speed, scale, complexity, and interaction of risks that already exist.”
In an ideal world, we would not have state or federal climate intervention research bans. We would have researchers and institutions that would not shy away from revealing the good, the bad, and the ugly of these technologies and doing so responsibly.
“What excites me is that it’s very tempting to be very discouraged, and say, ‘Oh, we’ve got these archaic institutions that are calcified and you could never change them.’ But I think we’re in the middle of a technological revolution that will upend lots of things, and does provide a window.”