The Journal of Defense Research (JDR) was a classified publication sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to encourage dissemination of classified research on topics of military or national security interest. It began publication in 1969, replacing the former Journal of Missile Defense Research.
Many years later, most of the Journal’s contents still seem to be classified, but the table of contents of the Journal’s first decade (pdf) has been declassified and is now available on the Federation of American Scientists website.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the names of the authors whose work was published in JDR are unfamiliar, with a few exceptions (e.g., Garwin and Augustine; Hugh Everett’s name does not appear). The topics of the papers provide a snapshot of the technologies and the strategic concerns of the time, and give an indication of the scale of classified government research that was devoted to addressing them.
“The JDR is ‘mission essential’ as a classified research tool,” a Defense Science Board Task Force (pdf) stated in 1985. “Being the only classified journal of its type, the JDR is used to communicate ideas amongst the defense community and is a basic tool for researchers.”
Update: Additional JDR index material is available here.
While advanced Chinese language proficiency and cultural familiarity remain irreplaceable skills, they are neither necessary nor sufficient for successful open-source analysis on China’s nuclear forces.
To maximize clean energy deployment, we must address the project development and political barriers that have held us back from smart policymaking and implementation that can withstand political change. Here’s how.
While rural schools are used to being scrappy and doing more with less, without state and federal support, districts will be hard-pressed to close teacher workforce gaps on their own.
At a time when universities are already facing intense pressure to re-envision their role in the S&T ecosystem, we encourage NSF to ensure that the ambitious research acceleration remains compatible with their expertise.