Enemy use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) is a growing threat to U.S. forces because of their low cost, versatility, and ease of use, according to a recent U.S. Army doctrinal publication.

“The UAS is the most challenging and prevalent threat platform to combined arms forces and therefore, a logical choice for enemy use.”

See Techniques for Combined Arms for Air Defense, Army Techniques Publication (ATP) 3-01.8, July 29, 2016.

As is the case with U.S.-operated drones, enemy UAS can be used to perform a range of functions from battlefield surveillance and targeting to precision strike, the Army document said. “The enemy will use UAS to fulfill multiple attack roles.”

The drone may deliver a weapon or be used as a weapon itself. “As an indirect attack platform, the UAS has the ability to carry the improvised explosive device or become the improvised explosive device.”

“Perhaps the most dangerous COA [course of action]… is the Swarm” in which “clusters of UAS” are used by an adversary simultaneously for surveillance, indirect attack and direct attack.

What to do about this? The answer is not fully articulated in the Army manual.

“Proper planning by leaders will ensure that units employ adequate force protection measures to counter the UAS threat. Units must develop tactics, techniques and procedures to counter this threat in their respective areas of operation.”

Simply destroying the enemy drone is not necessarily the right move, the manual said.

“Defeat does not equate [to] kinetic means; however, it is an option. Other defeat solutions could be limiting a surveillance threat from gaining information or following the air path of the UAS to the operator.”

Islamic State forces have used drones bearing explosive devices, the New York Times reported this month. See “Pentagon Confronts a New Threat From ISIS: Exploding Drones” by Michael S. Schmidt and Eric Schmitt, October 11.

Just last week, the U.S. Air Force detected and destroyed a drone “in the vicinity” of U.S. forces, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said yesterday. See “Air Force: Small, weaponized drones a growing combat problem” by Jacqueline Klimas, Washington Examiner, October 24.

The feasibility of challenging the outcome of a presidential election is examined in a new report from the Congressional Research Service.

“If legitimate and verifiable allegations of voting fraud, or indications of misconduct by election officials on election day are presented, what legal recourses are available to complainants to litigate and potentially to remedy such wrongs and to contest the result of a presidential election?” the report inquires.

Although the presidential election is a national event, it is actually comprised of fifty separate state elections, plus the one in the District of Columbia.

Therefore, “it is an individual state that has the initial responsibility for resolving a challenge, recount, or contest to the results of a presidential election within that jurisdiction,” wrote CRS Legislative Attorney Jack Maskell. See Legal Processes for Contesting the Results of a Presidential Election, October 24, 2016.

Other new and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following.

Partisan Political Activities and Federal Workers: Questions in the 2016 Election, CRS Legal Sidebar, October 20, 2016

State Voter Identification Requirements: Analysis, Legal Issues, and Policy Considerations, updated October 21, 2016

Yemen: Recent Attacks Against U.S. Naval Vessels in the Red Sea, CRS Insight, October 21, 2016

U.S.-South Korea Relations, updated October 20, 2016

DHS Appropriations FY2017: Research and Development, Training, and Services, October 20, 2016

Navy Lasers, Railgun, and Hypervelocity Projectile: Background and Issues for Congress, updated October 21, 2016

Russian Compliance with the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty: Background and Issues for Congress, October 20, 2016

Iran’s Foreign and Defense Policies, updated October 21, 2016

On October 14, President Obama signed Presidential Policy Directive 43 on the normalization of relations between the United States and Cuba.

Aside from the substance of the directive on the future of US-Cuba relations, PPD-43 has several incidental features of interest.

First, it is a public document.

“The policy directive was notable because it was public instead of classified,” the New York Times said in an October 15 story.

That’s not exactly wrong, but it misses the larger point that even unclassified presidential directives are often withheld from public release. The White House web site has sections devoted to executive orders and presidential memoranda, but not to presidential directives. (Some unclassified directives are linked from the presidential memoranda section, while others are not available on the White House site at all.)

Second, it is striking that near the end of his second term, President Obama has issued only 43 presidential directives. By comparison, President George W. Bush issued 66 National Security Presidential Directives and 25 Homeland Security Presidential Directives, President Clinton issued 75 Presidential Decision Directives and President Reagan issued 325 National Security Decision Directives.

What, if anything, these differences mean requires further investigation. They could reflect differences in governing style, in organization of the policymaking process, or in the use of directives as an instrument of executive authority.

It is possible that some presidentially-initiated actions are being directed and executed using means other than formal directives.

For example, on September 21, 2016 President Obama ordered agencies to take certain actions concerning Climate Change and National Security. But instead of being issued as a Presidential Policy Directive, his Climate Change guidance was framed as a Presidential Memorandum.

Why?

The answer is unclear. An administration official said that Presidential Memoranda “can be used to direct agencies on the manner in which they do something they are otherwise (by law, executive order or presidential directive) authorized to do.” So maybe — the official couldn’t say for certain — the Climate Change memorandum directed the manner of execution but did not authorize any new activity. Had it done so, that would presumably have required a presidential “directive.”

The release of Presidential Policy Directive 43, following the release of PPD 41 last July, also indicates that there must be a PPD 42, the contents of which are currently unknown.

And on October 13, President Obama issued Executive Order 13744 on Coordinating Efforts to Prepare the Nation for Space Weather Events. The Order refers to a previously unidentified  Presidential Policy Directive 40 on National Continuity Policy that was signed on July 15, 2016. That directive has not been released.

The reference to PPD-40 was noted in “Obama expands his executive power beyond Earth” by Gregory Korte, USA Today, October 13.

The problem of secret law, which includes those presidential directives that define national policy and allocate government resources without public knowledge, was examined in a report entitled ”The New Era of Secret Law” by Elizabeth Goitein of the Brennan Center for Justice.

A comprehensive defense against intercontinental ballistic missiles remains difficult — and perhaps impossible — for several reasons, including the difficulty of achieving “midcourse discrimination” to identify weaponized payloads in a cloud of debris or decoys.

A newly released summary of a classified 2010 report on the subject prepared by the JASON scientific advisory panel explains the issue.

“In the context of missile defense, to discriminate is to distinguish among lethal RVs [reentry vehicles] in mid-course flight that should be targeted by defensive kill vehicles, and non-lethal accompanying objects, whether deliberate countermeasures such as decoys or objects that usually accompany a missile launch, such as booster stage and rocket fuel tanks. Even in the absence of countermeasures, discrimination is still necessary to distinguish RVs from these launch-associated objects.”

“Discrimination of countermeasures is a stringent challenge, because given a reasonable amount of time, money, initiative, and expertise, the offense can (in principle) field countermeasures that the defense cannot handle at any reasonable marginal cost.”

See MDA Discrimination (executive summary), JASON report JSR-10-620, August 3, 2010, released under the Freedom of Information Act on October 3, 2016.

The JASON authors found that the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency (MDA) was not well-equipped to address this fundamental problem.

“MDA today has a good record of intercepting RVs, but under conditions that often do not challenge the discrimination capabilities of the missile defense system.”

Even the scope of the discrimination problem is not entirely clear, the JASONs said at the time. “Much remains to be learned about the practical feasibility and effectiveness of countermeasure threats.”

MDA itself “is not agile and flexible, and it may have trouble responding to opponents’ timelines for developing and fielding decoys and other countermeasures,” the JASONs said.

The JASON report recommended that MDA incorporate critical reviews of its programs by independent experts, establish a countermeasures test program through an independent agency, and work more closely with intelligence agencies on analyzing foreign missile threats and countermeasures. It was not immediately clear if the recommendations had been acted upon.

“Does federal law require the President to relinquish control of his or her business interests?” That question is considered in a new analysis from the Congressional Research Service.

The short answer appears to be No. “There is no current legal requirement that would compel the President to relinquish financial interests because of a conflict of interest.”

There are, however, certain legal disclosure requirements that apply to candidates for the Presidency. It is those requirements that are “the principal method of regulation of potential conflicts of interests for elected officials such as the President.”

See Conflicts of Interest and the Presidency, CRS Legal Sidebar, October 14, 2016,

Other new and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service that have not been publicly released include the following.

The Help America Vote Act and Election Administration: Overview and Selected Issues for the 2016 Election, October 18, 2016

Federal Citations to the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases, October 19, 2016

Collateral Consequences: What Role, if any, Should They Play in Crafting Sentences?, CRS Legal Sidebar, October 19, 2016

Clean Water Act: A Summary of the Law, October 18, 2016

Ocean Dumping Act: A Summary of the Law, October 18, 2016

The High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail (HSIPR) Grant Program: Overview, October 18, 2016

Next Steps for Auction of TV Broadcast Airwaves to Commercial Carriers, CRS Insight, October 17, 2016

Current Vacancies on the U.S. Court of Federal Claims: Overview and Historical Context, CRS Insight, October 13, 2016

Iran’s State-Linked Conglomerates, CRS Insight, October 17, 2016

The Senkakus (Diaoyu/Diaoyutai) Dispute: U.S. Treaty Obligations, October 14, 2016

President Waives Restrictions on Relations with Burma’s Military under Child Soldier Prevention Act of 2008, CRS Insight, October 12, 2016

Elections Strengthen Georgia’s Ruling Party, CRS Insight, October 18, 2016

Recent Developments in U.S.-Russian Nonproliferation Cooperation, CRS Insight, October 13, 2016

A new web site provides a searchable collection of a large number of Congressional Research Service reports, modified to remove the names of the authors and their contact information. Aspirationally named EveryCRSReport.com, it does not include the latest CRS publications such as those provided above.

One of the more encouraging changes in classification policy over the past decade has been the sharp reduction in the number of decisions to classify information reported each year by executive branch agencies.

In 2005 there were a total of 258,633 original classification actions, or new secrets, reported; in 2015, there were said to be 53,425 such actions. (See Number of New Secrets in 2015 Near Historic Low, Secrecy News, July 29, 2016).

Despite the misleading precision with which they are reported, these numbers — which are derived from agency reports to the Information Security Oversight Office and published in ISOO annual reports — were understood to be estimates, not precise tabulations.

Now, however, a new report from the State Department Inspector General suggests that State’s reporting of its classification activity to ISOO may not only be imprecise, but actually inaccurate and incorrect.

The Inspector General “found shortcomings with the count of classification decisions” reported to ISOO. The estimates that were generated were not validated, and they did not reflect the full scope of State Department classification activity.

So, “For example, classified documents created within the Office of the Secretary were not included” in the survey, the IG said. See Compliance Follow-up Review of the Department of State’s Implementation of Executive Order 13526, Classified National Security Information, Office of Inspector General, Department of State, September 2016.

The bottom line, the IG said, is that reported classification totals “will not accurately represent all of the Department’s classification decisions because not all decisions are being identified or sampled as part of the Department’s self-inspection program.”

William Cira, the acting director of the Information Security Oversight Office, said he was not surprised by the Inspector General findings, and not especially troubled.

He recalled that ISOO itself stated in its 2009 report that “the data reported has not truly reflected the changing ways agencies have generated and used classified information in the electronic environment.”

“It has been recognized, even long before we asked the agencies to include the electronic environment, that an actual count is not feasible,” Mr. Cira added. “The sampling and extrapolation technique described in that report has been in widespread use for a long time.”

“It is actually one of the suggested methods that we impart to the agencies when we send out our data collection request each year. Since FY 2009, ISOO has asked agencies to do their best to estimate the volume of all classified products in the electronic environment.”

“We have always acknowledged that this would not be easy.  We do ask them [agencies] to estimate, we do suggest that they sample and extrapolate, and we acknowledge that in almost all cases they will not have the resources to conduct a scientific survey as that is defined by professional statisticians.”

“This method may seem crude but we recognize that almost none of agency data collectors have trained statisticians to call upon, and there is no expectation that they hire one.” Still, “If the Dept. of State OIG believes that the Office of the Secretary should be included that is a welcome suggestion.”

“The one thing for certain is that this method has been consistently applied across many agencies for a very long time,” Mr. Cira said.

In other words, if the collection method is crude, at least it is consistent in its crudeness, and so perhaps some rough trend information may still be discerned within the noise.

But without real quantitative and qualitative clarity, effective management of agency classification activity will be beyond reach.

The executive branch is reconfiguring its approach to vetting individuals for access to sensitive information and granting them security clearances in an attempt to modernize and improve its procedures, according to a new quarterly report.

“The Insider Threat and Security Clearance Reform (ITSCR) Cross Agency Priority (CAP) Goals have been re-baselined so that they are aligned with the new enterprise-wide focus . . . and its four work streams (Trusted Workforce, Modern Vetting, Secure and Modern Mission-Capable IT, and Continuous Performance Improvement) for modernizing the SSC [security, suitability/fitness, and credentialing] mission over the next five years.” See the Quarterly Progress Update on Insider Threat and Security Clearance Reform, FY2016 Quarter 3, September 2016.

Translated out of bureaucratic jargon, this statement… still remains obscure and hard to understand. But at the least, it implies a determination that existing arrangements are unsatisfactory and that they require adjustment.

Among other steps, the latest Quarterly Update says that by December of this year, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence will “Establish a policy that requires the national security population to report information of security concern to the proper authorities in a timely manner.” The exact nature of such a requirement and its likely effect on “the national security population” remain to be seen.

Though security clearance “reform” of some kind has been underway for many years, the recent arrest of former NSA contractor Harold T. Martin III on suspicion of theft and retention of classified information suggests that room for improvement still exists. (“NSA case highlights growing concerns over insider threats” by Christian Davenport, Washington Post, October 6).

A new report from the Congressional Research Service considers: “What would happen in 2016 if a candidate for President or Vice President were to die or leave the ticket any time between the national party conventions and the November 8 election day? What would happen if this occurred during presidential transition, either between election day and the December 19, 2016, meeting of the electoral college; or between December 19 and the inauguration of the President and Vice President on January 20, 2017?”

See Presidential Elections: Vacancies in Major-Party Candidacies and the Position of President-Elect, October 6, 2016.

It was a pleasant surprise to read in the Food section of the Washington Post last week that a new breed of perennial wheat called Kernza has now become commercially available. (“Perennial wheat is an ecologist’s dream. Soon it may be what’s for dinner” by Jane Black, October 2).

Perennial food grains have been pursued for decades by researchers at The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas because, unlike crops that must be annually resown, perennial grains can help to strengthen soil over time rather than depleting it.

But this kind of research into sustainable agriculture is not on the research agenda of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

According to the Congressional Research Service, some critics “have argued that some of USDA’s agricultural research portfolio duplicates private sector activities on major crops, including corn, soybeans, wheat, and cotton. They argue that funding should be reallocated to basic, noncommercial research to benefit the public good that is not addressed through private efforts.” See Agricultural Research: Background and Issues, October 6, 2016.

Other new and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following.

Presidential Transition Act: Provisions and Funding, updated October 5, 2016

Paris Climate Change Agreement to Enter into Force November 4, CRS Insight, October 5, 2016

Should the U.S. Relinquish Its Authority Over the Internet Domain Name System?, CRS Insight, October 5, 2016

Social Security Administration (SSA): FY2017 Appropriations and Recent Trends, October 5, 2016

Medicare: Insolvency Projections, updated October 5, 2016

State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs: FY2017 Budget and Appropriations, updated October 5, 2016

U.S. Foreign Assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean: Trends and FY2017 Appropriations, October 6, 2016

U.S. Invokes Visa Sanctions under Section 243(d) of the INA for the First Time in 15 Years, CRS Legal Sidebar, October 5, 2016

In a dispute that pitted member agencies of the U.S. intelligence community against each other, the Central Intelligence Agency claimed that “a questionable intelligence activity” had been carried out in 2014 by agents of the Department of Defense.

But an investigation of the matter by the DoD Inspector General that was partially declassified last week failed to corroborate the CIA claim.

At issue was whether or not an unnamed individual had “conducted unauthorized intelligence activities in Europe on behalf of DoD,” as CIA had alleged.

“We were unable to substantiate the CIA allegation and could not find any evidence that [deleted] traveled to Europe or paid any sources on behalf of the DoD,” the Inspector General concluded.

“We could not find evidence of DoD intelligence tasking,” the IG investigative summary said. “In addition, we verified that [deleted] did not travel to Europe in 2014.”

The IG summary report, which had been classified Secret/Noforn, was partially declassified and released under the Freedom of Information Act last Friday.  See Investigative Results of a Questionable Intelligence Activity (redacted), DoD Inspector General report DODIG-2015-171, September 8, 2015.

Meanwhile, for his part, the alleged DoD culprit “asserts that the CIA fabricated the allegation that [deleted] had been conducting intelligence operations in Europe in order to ensure that [several words deleted] because [deleted] claimed [deleted] had previously identified and revealed analytical flaws within CIA analysis.”

However, that counter-accusation “was outside the scope of our investigation and has been referred to the Intelligence Community Inspector General for review.”

The exact nature of the alleged questionable intelligence activity and the identity of the individual(s) involved were not declassified.

Nor would CIA elaborate on the public record.

“You can say CIA declined to comment,” said CIA spokesperson Ryan Trapani.  “We defer to DOD on the document.”

The period of transition between presidential administrations can be turbulent, with potentially accelerated decision-making, diminished oversight, executive appointments, acts of clemency, “midnight rulemaking,” records management decisions, and heightened national security vulnerabilities, among other factors.

Many of these areas are considered in a newly updated report from the Congressional Research Service. See Presidential Transitions: Issues Involving Outgoing and Incoming Administrations, September 29, 2016.

Other new and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following.

Armed Conflict in Syria: Overview and U.S. Response, updated September 28, 2016

Military Construction: FY2017 Appropriations, October 4, 2016

U.S. Periods of War and Dates of Recent Conflicts, updated September 29, 2016

Kuwait: Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy, updated September 29, 2016

Navy Columbia Class (Ohio Replacement) Ballistic Missile Submarine (SSBN[X]) Program: Background and Issues for Congress, October 3, 2016

An Abridged Sketch of Extradition To and From the United States, updated October 4, 2016

Patents and Prescription Drug Importation, October 4, 2016

Poverty in the United States in 2015: In Brief, October 4, 2016

Counting Regulations: An Overview of Rulemaking, Types of Federal Regulations, and Pages in the Federal Register, updated October 4, 2016

Zika Response Funding: Request and Congressional Action, updated September 30, 2016

Energy Policy: 114th Congress Issues, updated September 30, 2016

Human-Induced Earthquakes from Deep-Well Injection: A Brief Overview, updated September 30, 2016

Statutorily Required Federal Advisory Committees that Began Operations in FY2015, CRS Insight, September 30, 2016

Internships, Fellowships, and Other Work Experience Opportunities in the Federal Government, September 30, 2016

Encryption: Frequently Asked Questions, September 28, 2016

Military doctrine has been defined as “fundamental principles that guide the employment of U.S. military forces in coordinated action toward a common objective.” Some of those fundamental principles are elaborated in two U.S. military documents that were made public this month.

A newly revised Pentagon publication addresses Joint Interdiction (Joint Publication 3-03, Joint Chiefs of Staff, September 9, 2016).

Interdiction here refers not simply to interception (as in the case of aircraft interdiction). Rather, it encompasses a broad range of military actions taken “to divert, disrupt, delay, or destroy the enemy’s military surface capability before it can be used effectively against friendly forces, or to achieve enemy objectives.”

“The purpose of interdiction operations is to prevent adversaries from employing surface-based weaponry and reinforcing units at a time and place of their choosing.” The new Pentagon publication explores the planning, execution and assessment of interdiction actions.

It notes along the way that “Cyberspace forces can employ offensive cyberspace operations capabilities to divert, disrupt, delay, or destroy enemy capabilities in support of interdiction operations.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. Army has issued new doctrine on what it calls, somewhat mysteriously, Deep Operations (ATP 3-94.2, September 2016).

“Deep operations extend operations in time, space, and purpose. . . . They involve efforts to prevent or limit uncommitted enemy forces from being employed in a coherent manner. Deep operations involving air and ground maneuver forces in the deep area may be high risk activities. Commanders should carefully consider and balance the potential benefits with the risks associated with deep operations.”

On closer inspection, it turns out that the two new doctrinal publications are related, and that the Army’s “deep operations” overlap with the Joint Chiefs’ concept of “interdiction.”

Thus, the Army document says at one point that “The joint community refers to deep operations which are not in close proximity to friendly ground forces as interdiction.”

The importance of national security terminology in facilitating common understanding — or generating needless confusion — is an underlying theme of a new book which also serves as a lexicon of current terms. See Intelligence and Information Policy for National Security: Key Terms and Concepts by Jan Goldman and Susan Maret (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016).

The conflict in South Sudan is one of four in the world — along with those in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen — that are classified by the United Nations as humanitarian emergencies of the highest order (Level 3), a newly updated report from the Congressional Research Service points out.

“U.N. officials estimate that at least 50,000 people have been killed since the conflict began, but no reliable death count exists, and some experts suggest the toll may be much higher. More than 2.7 million people have been displaced since December 2013. At least 1.7 million people are displaced internally, and in September 2016 the number of refugees surpassed 1 million.”

For background on the conflict and its humanitarian impact, see Conflict in South Sudan and the Challenges Ahead, updated September 22, 2016.

Other new and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following.

Saudi Arabia: Background and U.S. Relations, updated September 20, 2016

U.S. Strategic Nuclear Forces: Background, Developments, and Issues, updated September 27, 2016

Iran’s Nuclear Program: Tehran’s Compliance with International Obligations, updated September 26, 2016

Afghanistan: Post-Taliban Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy, updated September 26, 2016

Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC) Regulations: Background and Issues for Congress, September 28, 2016

Housing for Persons Living with HIV/AIDS, updated September 27, 2016

The Yahoo! Data Breach–Issues for Congress, CRS Insight, September 26, 2016

Wells Fargo Customer Account Scandal: Regulatory Policy Issues, CRS Insight, September 28, 2016

Monuments and Memorials Authorized Under the Commemorative Works Act in the District of Columbia: Current Development of In-Progress and Lapsed Works, updated September 26, 2016

U.S. Peanut Program and Issues, updated September 27, 2016