Congressional briefing: Potential of fluvoxamine to counter COVID-19 January 5, 2021
There has been a surge of public interest in the drug fluvoxamine as a potential treatment for individuals with mild…
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First New START Data After Extension Shows Compliance
By Hans M. Kristensen The first public release of New START aggregate numbers since the United States and Russia in February extended the agreement for five years shows the treaty continues to limit the two nuclear powers strategic offensive nuclear forces. Continued adherence to the New START limits is one…
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FAS Presses for Release of Nuclear Stockpile Data
For the past three years, the Trump Administration refused to provide an annual tally of the number of nuclear weapons in the U.S. nuclear stockpile or the number of weapons that had been dismantled each year, though that had been the practice under the Obama Administration and through 2017. The Federation…
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British Defense Review Ends Nuclear Reductions Era
By Hans M. Kristensen The United Kingdom announced yesterday that it has decided to abandon a previous plan to reduce it nuclear weapons stockpile to 180 by the mid-2020s and instead “move to an overall nuclear weapon stockpile of no more than 260 warheads.” The decision makes Britain the first…
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A New Policy on Setting Intelligence Priorities
Shortly before the end of the Trump Administration in January 2021, then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe issued a directive that altered the process for preparing the National Intelligence Priorities Framework, or NIPF, stripping out limitations on signals intelligence collection from the previous policy. The NIPF is perhaps the single most important administrative…
Read moreNNSA Nuclear Plan Shows More Weapons, Increasing Costs, Less Transparency December 30, 2020
The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA’s) new Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan (SSMP) doubles the number of new nuclear warhead programs compared with the…
Read moreDNI Tries to Abort Controlled Unclassified Info Policy December 14, 2020
In a bureaucratic bombshell, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe has asked the White House to rescind a ten-year-old executive order that required a uniform policy for marking…
Read moreCounting Electoral Votes (CRS) December 14, 2020
The procedural steps leading up to inauguration of the next President on January 20, 2021 are described in a recent Congressional Research Service publication. See…
Read moreSpanish-language vaccine news stories hosting malware disseminated via URL shorteners December 10, 2020
Through link-shortening services such as bit.ly, a third-party has disseminated vaccine-related malware across Latin America.
Read moreJASON Science Advisory Panel Endures December 7, 2020
Having survived a Pentagon attempt to terminate it, the JASON panel that performs independent technical assessments for government agencies now seems set for a period of relative stability. Last year…
Read moreDoD Legislative Proposals to be Published December 7, 2020
After failing to publicly disclose its proposed legislative agenda, the Department of Defense will soon be required to do so. Each year DoD generates proposals for legislative actions that it…
Read more2020 Declassification Deadline Remains in Force December 6, 2020
Classified records that turn 25 years old this year will be automatically declassified on December 31 — despite requests from agencies to extend the deadline due to the pandemic —…
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