The Congressional Research Service developed “a series of short primers to provide Members of Congress an overview of key aspects of the Department of Defense and how Congress exercises authority over it.” The defense primers, several of which have been recently updated, can be found here.
Other noteworthy recent CRS publications include the following.
Overseas Contingency Operations Funding: Background and Status, updated September 6, 2019
Congress and the War in Yemen: Oversight and Legislation 2015-2019, updated September 6, 2019
Afghanistan: Issues for Congress and Legislation 2017-2019, updated September 3, 2019
DHS Border Barrier Funding, updated September 6, 2019
Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons, updated September 6, 2019
The potential implication of these evidence gaps becomes more consequential when you look at how institutions actually make decisions day to day.
Every new institution inherits something – existing incentives, existing staff, decades of prior investment that shaped what’s possible.
This is not the first time Google has agreed to censor imagery at the behest of governments, but be warned: obfuscation at this broad level poses a direct threat to the public’s ability to monitor and scrutinize government operations.
America’s affordability problem is bigger than home prices and rents. The best housing policies make it easier to build homes, and recognize how housing connects to other domains.