Organizations give out awards not only in order to recognize individual excellence, but also to advance and reinforce values prized by their sponsors.

So it is both telling and somewhat unexpected that the U.S. intelligence community is creating a new award for certain kinds of dissidents and whistleblowers.

“The intelligence community has […] committed to establishing a National Intelligence Professional Awards program to recognize superior service by an intelligence professional in effectuating change by speaking truth to power, by exemplifying professional integrity, or by reporting wrongdoing through appropriate channels,” according to a new Self-Assessment Report on the Third Open Government National Action Plan that was released by the White House last week.

Professional integrity may be welcome everywhere, but “speaking truth to power” is rarely welcomed by “power.” Often it is not even acknowledged as “truth.” (Apparently, the IC envisions itself here as the domain of truth, and not of power. Or will those who challenge the IC leadership itself be eligible for the new award?) Meanwhile, “reporting wrongdoing” often seems to end badly for the reporter, as the frequency of whistleblower reprisal claims indicates.

Just last week, the DoD Inspector General released a redacted report on a whistleblower reprisal case at the Defense Information School at Fort Meade. According to a summary, “We substantiated the allegation that [name deleted] downgraded Complainant’s FY14 performance appraisal in reprisal for Complainant’s disclosures….”

But perhaps that is the point. Whether or not the IC intends to celebrate its own internal critics, it seems to want to encourage and now incentivize them, providing improved channels for dissent and whistleblowing that will not inevitably be career-enders or needlessly disruptive in other ways.

“ODNI has developed a new training curriculum concerning protections for whistleblowers with access to classified information. ODNI will coordinate the training curriculum with the relevant government departments and agencies. ODNI has met with civil society members to gather input,” the White House report said.

More than a dozen official intelligence awards already exist, as described in Intelligence Community Directive 655, National Intelligence Awards Program, amended February 9, 2012. But none of those existing awards explicitly encompasses “speaking truth to power” or “reporting wrongdoing.”

The House Intelligence Committee receives dozens of whistleblower complaints each year, The Intercept reported last week. The consequences of those complaints, if any, were not disclosed.

 *    *    *

The new White House report on the Third Open Government National Action Plan identified a series of intelligence-related transparency measures that will be taken to “make information regarding foreign intelligence activities more publicly available while continuing to protect such information when disclosure could harm national security.”

So, for example, “ODNI is building out content for the Intelligence.gov website and will launch the site by January 2017.”

More generally, “ODNI has coordinated and participated in ongoing engagement with civil society stakeholders including open government organizations, privacy and civil liberties advocates, community organizations, and academia. Representatives from the intelligence community also regularly participate in public events. ODNI continues to develop avenues to make such engagements a more institutionalized part of the intelligence community’s work.”

The White House report and a companion report on New Open Government Initiatives identified various other incremental steps that are planned or already in progress.

In order to “increase [the] transparency and quality of [U.S.] foreign aid data,” the ForeignAssistance.gov website has recently been established. It is already quite informative, and it is expected to grow in depth and coverage, with several additional agencies contributing new data fields.

Among other initiatives, the U.S. has also been releasing new data related to climate change, and on the Arctic.

“More than 250 high-value, Arctic-related datasets are now easily and openly available. In addition, more than 40 maps, tools, and other resources designed to support climate-resilience efforts in Alaska and the Arctic are also available.”

Publishing such information should be comparatively easy, since doing so does not directly threaten any institutional interests. But it doesn’t happen by itself, and so credit is due to the agencies involved for making it happen.

After a 5 year review process, the Drug Enforcement Agency decided to reject a petition to reduce or eliminate legal controls on marijuana. However, it agreed to authorize increased legal cultivation of marijuana for research purposes.

The current state of affairs was summarized by the Congressional Research Service in DEA Will Not Reschedule Marijuana, But May Expand Number of Growers of Research Marijuana, CRS Legal Sidebar, September 21, 2016.

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

Child Support Enforcement and the Hague Convention on Recovery of International Child Support, updated September 22, 2016

Clean Air Issues in the 114th Congress, updated September 21, 2016

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), updated September 21, 2016

U.S. Agricultural Trade with Cuba: Current Limitations and Future Prospects, updated September 21, 2016

Iran Sanctions, updated September 21, 2016

Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress, updated September 21, 2016

In recent discussions of whether President Obama should pardon Edward Snowden, it has gone unnoticed that a presidential pardon was once granted to a person who committed an unauthorized disclosure of classified information to the press, effectively erasing his crime.

In 1985, Samuel L. Morison, a U.S. Navy intelligence analyst, was convicted under the Espionage Act statutes of providing classified intelligence satellite photographs of a Soviet aircraft carrier to Jane’s Defence Weekly. He was sentenced to two years in prison, of which he served eight months.

But in January 2001, President Clinton issued “a full and unconditional pardon” to Morison.

The fact that a leaker received a pardon is an indication that the unauthorized disclosure of classified information is not so intrinsically heinous a crime as to be categorically beyond official forgiveness. Since one president pardoned a leaker, it is certainly within the realm of possibility that another president might choose to do the same.

In several respects, however, the Morison case differs significantly from the circumstances of the Snowden case.

For one thing, Morison submitted to judicial process (after his arrest, anyway), was convicted, and served his sentence. Snowden, on the other hand, is a fugitive and has neither been tried nor convicted of a crime.

Morison did actively seek a pardon, but he did so through formal petition procedures rather than through a grass roots campaign or an appeal to newspaper editorial boards, opinion leaders or celebrities.

Morison had an influential champion in Senator Daniel P. Moynihan, who wrote privately to the President on his behalf in September 1998, more than two years before the pardon was ultimately granted.

Interestingly, Moynihan did not suggest that Morison was an exemplary character or someone who was personally deserving of presidential intervention. (Morison went on to plead guilty to an unrelated crime years later.) Instead, he argued that the use of the Espionage Act as a means to regulate the press was improper and unfair.

“Press censorship has been proposed since [the enactment of the Espionage Act in 1917], but never adopted. Ironically, we now have in Samuel Loring Morison a man who has been convicted for leaking information, while so many real spies are discovered but never prosecuted,” Moynihan wrote.

“I would hope that in your review of Mr. Morison’s application for a pardon you reflect not simply on the relevant law, but the erratic application of that law and the anomaly of this singular conviction in eighty-one years,” he wrote.

Moynihan’s addressed his argument directly to the President, who has exclusive authority to issue a pardon, rather than as part of a public campaign. His letter was released under the Freedom of Information Act after the pardon was granted.

And because Morison’s advocacy of a pardon was conducted quietly, it did not elicit public opposition from intelligence agency officials or their supporters, though President Clinton did encounter significant internal resistance.

“We said we were obviously opposed — it was a vigorous ‘Hell, no’,” one senior intelligence official told the Washington Post. “We think giving classified information to people who are unauthorized to receive it is a bad thing to do and giving pardons to people who are convicted of doing that sends the wrong signal to people who are currently entrusted with classified information.” (“Clinton Ignored CIA in Pardoning Intelligence Analyst” by Vernon Loeb, February 17, 2001)

Remarkably, President Clinton disregarded such complaints from within his Administration and pardoned Samuel Morison, even though there was little or nothing to be gained politically by doing so.

In short, the Morison case represents a template for winning a presidential pardon that other convicted leakers might profitably study and attempt to replicate. But advocates of a pardon for Edward Snowden, and Snowden himself, have necessarily chosen a different path.

Last month, the 10,000th Syrian refugee was admitted to the United States in FY2016, the Congressional Research Service noted in a newly updated report. The report “details the U.S. refugee admissions process and the placement and resettlement of arriving refugees in the United States.”

See Syrian Refugee Admissions and Resettlement in the United States: In Brief, updated September 16, 2016.

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

Super PACs in Federal Elections: Overview and Issues for Congress, updated September 16, 2016

FY2017 Defense Spending Under an Interim Continuing Resolution (CR): In Brief, September 16, 2016

Israel: Background and U.S. Relations In Brief, updated September 16, 2016

Behavioral Health Among American Indian and Alaska Natives: An Overview, September 16, 2016

Department of State and Foreign Operations Appropriations: History of Legislation and Funding in Brief, September 15, 2016

Researching Current Federal Legislation and Regulations: A Guide to Resources for Congressional Staff, updated September 19, 2016

Corporate Tax Integration and Tax Reform, September 16, 2016

Nanotechnology: A Policy Primer, updated September 15, 2016

Navy Force Structure: A Bigger Fleet? Background and Issues for Congress, September 16, 2016

Public discussion of the Edward Snowden case has mostly been a dialog of the deaf, with defenders and critics largely talking past each other at increasing volume. But the disagreements became sharper and more interesting over the past week.

“Mr. Snowden is not a patriot. He is not a whistleblower. He is a criminal,” wrote the members of the House Intelligence Committee in a startling September 15 letter to the President, urging him not to pardon Snowden, contrary to the urging of human rights groups.

“The public narrative popularized by Snowden and his allies is rife with falsehoods, exaggerations, and crucial omissions,” the House Intelligence Committee wrote in the executive summary of an otherwise classified report on Snowden’s disclosures.

Remarkably, however, the House Committee report itself included numerous false statements and misrepresentations, according to an analysis by Barton Gellman, who had reported on Snowden’s disclosures for the Washington Post.

“The report is not only one-sided, not only incurious, not only contemptuous of fact. It is trifling,” wrote Gellman, who identified several apparent errors and falsehoods in the House Committee summary.

What is perhaps worse than what’s contained in the House document, though, is what is missing from it: Congressional intelligence overseers missed the opportunity to perform any reflection or self-criticism concerning their own role in the Snowden matter.

The fact that U.S. intelligence surveillance policies had to be modified in response to the public controversy over Snowden’s disclosures was a tacit admission that intelligence oversight behind closed doors had failed to fulfill its role up to that point. But since the Committee has been unwilling to admit any such failure, it remains unable to take the initiative to rectify its procedures.

Last week, a coalition of non-governmental organizations proposed various changes to House rules that they said would help to improve the quality of intelligence oversight and make it more responsive to congressional needs and to the public interest.

Meanwhile, several human rights organizations launched a campaign to urge President Obama to pardon Snowden.

“Thanks to his act of conscience, America’s surveillance programs have been subjected to democratic scrutiny, the NSA’s surveillance powers were reined in for the first time in decades, and technology companies around the world are newly invigorated to protect their customers and strengthen our communications infrastructure,” the petition website said. “Snowden should be hailed as a hero. Instead, he is exiled in Moscow, and faces decades in prison under World War One-era charges that treat him like a spy.”

However, aside from that oblique reference to the Espionage Act of 1917, the petition campaign does not acknowledge any defect in Snowden’s conduct or weigh counterarguments. (A somewhat more nuanced defense of a pardon was presented by Tim Edgar in Lawfare. A substantial rebuttal to the pardon proposal was offered by Jack Goldsmith also in Lawfare.)

But of course what complicates the Snowden matter is that his disclosures exceeded the boundaries of “democratic scrutiny” and went well beyond any identifiable “act of conscience.”

“The fact is, many of Snowden’s documents bore no resemblance to whistleblowing as the phrase is broadly understood,” wrote Fred Kaplan in a review of the new Oliver Stone movie about Snowden in Slate. Rather, he said, they represented “an attempt to blow U.S. intelligence operations.”

Advocacy journalist Glenn Greenwald replied with a debater’s point that Snowden is innocent of any such offense since he (Snowden) did not directly disclose anything at all to the public! Instead, he gave documents to newspapers that reported on his material, and those papers are responsible for any inappropriate disclosures.

“Snowden himself never publicly disclosed a single document, so any programs that were revealed were the ultimate doing of news organizations,” according to Greenwald.

In an oddly mercenary argument, he also wrote that it was hypocritical of the Washington Post editorial board to oppose a pardon for Snowden, considering that the Post had gained “untold millions of clicks” from his disclosures, and therefore somehow owed him a debt of loyalty.

But an effort to shift responsibility away from Snowden on to news reporters and editors proves too much. It implies that Snowden is not a whistleblower at all, since he himself didn’t blow any whistles, his journalistic collaborators did.

It seems more sensible to conclude that Snowden is responsible for his own actions as well as for the directly foreseeable consequences of those actions.

In an interesting response to Jack Goldsmith, Marcy Wheeler wrote that it is possible to comprehend — if not to reconcile — the sharply opposing views of the Snowden case if they are understood as a clash between professed American values (such as openness, privacy, and internet freedom) and American interests and actions (such as global surveillance and projection of military power). The former, “cosmopolitan” view presumes, however, that the favored values transcend, and can be sustained apart from, their national and institutional roots.

The number of district court vacancies during the Obama presidency grew from 41 vacancies in January 2009 to 75 vacancies in September 2016 — an unusual 83% increase, according to a new assessment from the Congressional Research Service.

By contrast, the number of vacancies decreased over the course of the George W. Bush Administration from 58 to 32 (a 45% decrease) and over the course of the Clinton Administration from 93 to 42 (a 55% decrease).

See U.S. District Court Vacancies: Overview and Comparative Analysis, CRS Insight, September 14, 2016

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

U.S. Circuit Court Vacancies: Overview and Comparative Analysis, CRS Insight, September 14, 2016

How a National Infrastructure Bank Might Work, CRS Insight, September 15, 2016

International Food Aid Programs: Background and Issues, updated September 14, 2016

FDA Regulation of Medical Devices, updated September 14, 2016

Prospects in Colombia: Cease-Fire, Peace Accord Vote, and Potential Disrupters, CRS Insight, September 14, 2016

Nicaragua: In Brief, September 14, 2016

Navy Ship Names: Background for Congress, updated September 14, 2016

The Department of Justice has streamlined its national security classification activities over the last several years, resulting in the production of a diminishing number of secrets, according to a new report from the Department’s Inspector General.

Specifically, the IG found:

*     the Department reduced the number of Original Classification Authorities (i.e. officials who are authorized to generate newly classified information) from 64 in FY 2013 to 46 in FY 2016.

*     the Department reduced its original classification decisions (new secrets) from 4,455 in FY 2013 down to zero in FY 2015.

*     the number of derivative classification decisions (involving incorporation of previously classified information into new documents) also declined from 8.4 million in FY 2012 down to 7.7 million in FY 2015.

In short, there has been “a marked shift in classification behavior throughout DOJ,” the IG report said.

See Follow-up Audit of the DOJ’s Implementation of and Compliance with Certain Classification Requirements, second audit under the Reducing Over-Classification Act of 2010, September 2016.

(The IG report also identified some areas for improvement, including more appropriate use of the ORCON dissemination marking, and other classification practices, especially at the Drug Enforcement Administration.)

The reduced scope of national security secrecy at the Justice Department has been paralleled throughout much of the executive branch in recent years, such that the production of new secrets in the last two years is at the lowest levels reported in several decades. (“Number of New Secrets in 2015 Near Historic Low,” Secrecy News, July 29, 2016). By this measure, at least, one might even conclude that the Obama Administration is the most transparent ever.

While the systemic reduction of national security secrecy does not resolve all (or any) remaining disputes over secrecy policy, it does help to clarify them and perhaps to render them somewhat more tractable.

“There’s more work to be done here [on revising classification policy],” said Director of National Intelligence James Clapper last week at a forum of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance. “And at some point, there will need to be, I believe, a fairly fundamental change in the classification system, not just in the I.C. but across the government.”

“The basic structure [of the classification system] is of course born out of a hard copy paper era and the rules we have today really aren’t compatible with the technology and the way we conduct our business. So at some point, I think there’ll be ‐‐ have to be a fundamental change. In the meantime, I’m kind of [doing], you know, what I can within the confines of the current system,” DNI Clapper said.

For at least the past six months, and perhaps longer, the Federation of American Scientists website has been blocked by U.S. Cyber Command. This week it was unblocked.

The “block” imposed by Cyber Command meant that employees throughout the Department of Defense who attempted to access the FAS website on their government computers were unable to do so. Instead, they were presented with a notice stating: “You have attempted to access a blocked website. Access to this website has been blocked for operational reasons by the DOD Enterprise-Level Protection System.”

The basis for the Cyber Command block is unclear, and official documentation of the decision that we requested has not yet been provided. In all likelihood, it is due to the presence on the FAS website of a small number of currently classified documents that were obtained in the public domain.

The basis for the removal of the block is likewise unclear, though we know that a number of DoD employees complained about the move and advised US Cyber Command that direct access to the FAS website was needed for them to perform their job.

The record of a 2015 hearing of the House Armed Services Committee on Implementing the Department of Defense Cyber Strategy was published last month.

“With few exceptions, sea levels are rising relative to the coastlines of the contiguous United States, as well as parts of the Alaskan and Hawaiian coastlines,” a new report from the Congressional Research Service observes.

“Although the extent of future sea-level rise remains uncertain, sea-level rise is anticipated to have a range of effects on U.S. coasts. It is anticipated to contribute to flood and erosion hazards, permanent or temporary land inundation, saltwater intrusion into coastal freshwaters, and changes in coastal terrestrial and estuarine ecosystems.”

The new CRS report reviews the policy choices that Congress could make to meet the challenges posed by rising sea levels. See Sea-Level Rise and U.S. Coasts: Science and Policy Considerations, September 12, 2016.

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

Dakota Access Pipeline: Siting Controversy, CRS Insight, September 9, 2016

Paris Agreement: United States, China Move to Become Parties to Climate Change Treaty, CRS Insight, September 12, 2016

The Microsoft Ireland Decision: U.S. Appeals Court Rules that ECPA Does Not Require Internet Service Providers To Produce Electronic Communications Stored Overseas, CRS Legal Sidebar, September 12, 2016

The Financial CHOICE Act: Policy Issues, September 12, 2016

Domestic Content Restrictions: The Buy American Act and Complementary Provisions of Federal Law, updated September 12, 2016

House of Representatives v. Burwell and Congressional Standing to Sue, September 12, 2016

Military Retirement: Background and Recent Developments, updated September 12, 2016

Incitement to commit an imminent act of violence is not protected by the First Amendment, and may be restricted by the government. But advocacy of terrorism that stops short of inciting “imminent” violence probably falls within the ambit of freedom of speech. A new report from the Congressional Research Service examines the legal framework for evaluating this issue.

“Many policymakers, including some Members of Congress, have expressed concern about the influence the speech of terrorist groups and the speech of others who advocate terrorism can have on those who view or read it,” CRS notes. Yet, “Significant First Amendment freedom of speech issues are raised by the prospect of government restrictions on the publication and distribution of speech, even speech that advocates terrorism.”

Essentially, in order for punishment of speech advocating violence to be constitutional, “the speaker must both intend to incite a violent or lawless action and that action must be likely to imminently occur as a result.”

At the same time, “government restrictions on advocacy that is provided to foreign terrorist organizations as material support have been upheld as permissible. This report will discuss relevant precedent that may limit the extent to which advocacy of terrorism may be restricted. The report will also discuss the potential application of the federal ban on the provision of material support to foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) to the advocacy of terrorism and the dissemination of such advocacy by online service providers like Twitter or Facebook.”

See The Advocacy of Terrorism on the Internet: Freedom of Speech Issues and the Material Support Statutes, September 8, 2016.

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

Digital Searches and Seizures: Overview of Proposed Amendments to Rule 41 of the Rules of Criminal Procedure, updated September 8, 2016

Post-Heller Second Amendment Jurisprudence, September 7, 2016

Immigration Legislation and Issues in the 114th Congress, updated September 9, 2016

Interior Immigration Enforcement: Criminal Alien Programs, September 8, 2016

The Endangered Species Act: A Primer, updated September 8, 2016

Biologics and Biosimilars: Background and Key Issues, September 7, 2016

Corporate Inversions: Frequently Asked Legal Questions, September 7, 2016

FATCA Reporting on U.S. Accounts: Recent Legal Developments, September 7, 2016

National Monuments and the Antiquities Act, updated September 7, 2016

U.S. Farm Income Outlook for 2016, updated September 7, 2016

The 2016 G-20 Summit, CRS Insight, September 8, 2016

Qatar: Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy, September 7, 2016

Argentina: Background and U.S. Relations, updated September 6, 2016

Burma Holds Peace Conference, CRS Insight, September 8, 2016

EU State Aid and Apple’s Taxes, CRS Insight, September 2, 2016

Leadership Succession in Uzbekistan, CRS Insight, September 6, 2016

Marine Corps Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) and Marine Personnel Carrier (MPC): Background and Issues for Congress, updated September 9, 2016

Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV): Background and Issues for Congress, updated September 9, 2016

NASA: FY2017 Budget and Appropriations, September 6, 2016

Information Warfare: Russian Activities, CRS Insight, September 2, 2016

U.S. covert action in Angola during the Carter Administration is among the topics documented in a new volume of the official Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series that was released yesterday. See Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume XVI, Southern Africa.

The CIA had secretly intervened in Angola in 1975, during the Ford Administration. But in 1976, Congress enacted legislation known as the Tunney-Javits Clark Amendment to prohibit any such paramilitary involvement in that country, even on a covert basis. (William Blum, an often acerbic critic of U.S. policy, wrote that this was “one of the infrequent occasions in modern times that the US Congress has exercised a direct and pivotal influence upon American foreign policy,” thereby avoiding “the slippery slope to another Vietnam.”)

In the wake of the congressional prohibition, the Carter Administration struggled to determine whether further covert action in Angola was feasible, desirable, or lawful.

Officials settled on a covert propaganda operation to focus on criticizing the Cuban presence in Angola. The new FRUS volume “contains inter-departmental records pertaining to the development and implementation of the covert operation in Angola.”

The new collection details the mechanics of covert propaganda with unusual clarity. “We […] need to get the story out in the open so that our controlled assets can use it,” wrote DCI Stansfield Turner in a 1977 memorandum (document 16).

The effectiveness of legislation as a constraint on CIA covert action was notable, and the new assertiveness of Congress regarding intelligence policy was recognized and largely accepted by intelligence officials. “Before embarking on a covert action program involving direct or indirect paramilitary support, it would be wise to ascertain the sense of Congress.”

“Our previous covert paramilitary support of UNITA in Angola [in 1975] generated a great deal of controversy. Angola may be a poor choice as to the place where we try to engage in some further covert paramilitary action. An abortive attempt to reopen the issue of covert paramilitary support of UNITA–even indirect–could lead to damage to our capability and flexibility to undertake any covert action in the future,” wrote DCI Turner. (document 21)

During the Carter years, there were several innovations in the execution of covert action policy, detailed in the new FRUS volume.

For example, a new category of presidential findings known as “Perspectives” was adopted for “worldwide” or “generic” covert operations, the FRUS editors wrote.

“Perspectives were drafted by the CIA and cleared by the Department of State, so that the CIA could vet the operational feasibility and risks of the program while State could assess the diplomatic risks and verify that the program was consistent with overall foreign policy goals.”

Another covert action document category that was first introduced in the Carter years was the “Memorandum of Notification” (MON).

“MONs were initially used to introduce higher-risk, significantly higher-cost, or more geographically-specific operations under a previously-approved world-wide or general objective outlined in a Perspectives document…. MONs subsequently came to be used for significant changes to any type of [covert action] finding, not just worldwide ones.”

However, “Entirely new covert actions continued to require new presidential findings.”

The Foreign Relations of the United States series, which now includes more than 450 volumes, is produced by the Office of the Historian of the State Department with the oversight of the Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation. FRUS is required under a 1992 law to present a “thorough, accurate, and reliable documentary record of major United States foreign policy decisions.”

Among other issues concerning Southern Africa, the new FRUS volume notably includes discussion of a suspected South African nuclear weapons test that may have occurred in September 1979.

FRUS Volume on Iran 1953 Still Unreleased

Meanwhile, a long-delayed retrospective FRUS volume on Iran in 1953, based on official Eisenhower Administration records of CIA involvement in the coup against the Mossadegh government, remains held up.

A decision on whether to proceed with publication of the 1953 Iran volume was elevated in the past year to Secretary of State Kerry, who decided to block its release. The logic of his decision is obscure, but presumably it is based on a belief that publication would somehow perturb relations with Iran in an unfavorable way. (A plausible argument could be made that the opposite would more likely be the case, and that an honest reckoning with the past is a prerequisite to improved relations in the future.)

Although many relevant records are thought to have been destroyed and others have already been released, the withheld volume on Iran 1953 includes “a lot of new material,” according to an historian who is familiar with its contents.

In its version of the pending defense authorization bill, the House of Representatives said that the U.S. Army should consist of 480,000 soldiers at the end of FY2017. That would be an increase of 5,000 over the current year level of 475,000.

But the Senate said that 460,000 soldiers would be sufficient, a decrease of 15,000.

Meanwhile, the Department of Defense itself is proposing to reduce Army “end strength” down to 450,000 soldiers by the end of FY 2018.

So how big should the Army be?

The answer is– it depends. What it depends on is, among other things, what the Army is for in the first place, what resources are available, what competing priorities need attention, and what changes in the threat environment can be foreseen.

These issues are illuminated in a new report from the Congressional Research Service. Instead of proposing its own answer to the question, the CRS report examines the premises underlying the diverse positions on the subject, helping to explain how different people could arrive at different conclusions. It is unclear that congressional leaders have any appetite for this kind of analysis, but others who are not already ideologically committed to a position might benefit from it.

“For many observers, questions regarding the appropriate end strength of the Army are related to the changing international security landscape, and the perception that those changes are resulting in heightened threats to the United States and its interests abroad. For others, the cost of increasing the size of the Army is the predominant factor,” the report said.

In any case, “Although the international security environment is arguably becoming more challenging and complex, the role of ground forces–relative to other services–in helping the nation meet those challenges is somewhat unclear.”

One threshold question, therefore, is: “What are the tasks that the Army, specifically, needs to accomplish for the nation?” See How Big Should the Army Be? Considerations for Congress, September 2, 2016.

Some related official resources include the following.

Report of the National Commission on the Future of the Army, report to the President and the Congress of the United States, January 28, 2016

Notification to Congress on the Permanent Reduction of Sizable Numbers of Members of the Armed Forces, US Army report to Congress (via FOIA), July 2015

Force Structure and Force Design Updates, Army G3/5/7 briefing (FOUO), August 2015

Stability [on joint stability operations], Joint Publication 3-07, Joint Chiefs of Staff, August 3, 2016