U.S. Armed Forces Abroad, 1978-2007, and More from CRS
Noteworthy new reports from the Congressional Research Service that have not been made readily available to the public include these (all pdf).
“Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2007,” updated January 14, 2008.
“The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11,” updated February 8, 2008.
“Defense: FY2008 Authorization and Appropriations,” updated January 23, 2008.
“U.N. Convention Against Torture (CAT): Overview and Application to Interrogation Techniques,” updated January 25, 2008.
“Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons,” updated January 16, 2008.
“Securing General Aviation,” updated January 24, 2008.
Using the NIST as an example, the Radiation Physics Building (still without the funding to complete its renovation) is crucial to national security and the medical community. If it were to go down (or away), every medical device in the United States that uses radiation would be decertified within 6 months, creating a significant single point of failure that cannot be quickly mitigated.
The federal government can support more proactive, efficient, and cost-effective resiliency planning by certifying predictive models to validate and publicly indicate their quality.
We need a new agency that specializes in uncovering funding opportunities that were overlooked elsewhere. Judging from the history of scientific breakthroughs, the benefits could be quite substantial.
The cost of inaction is not merely economic; it is measured in preventable illness, deaths and diminished livelihoods.