For the first time ever, a nuclear-armed state accidentally launched a missile at another nuclear-armed state. How did this happen?
India just tested a “new generation” nuclear-capable ballistic missile. We take a deep dive into why the missile is so special, and what it means for India’s nuclear forces.
As President Biden’s Summit of Democracy highlighted, it’s a dark time for democracy worldwide. Since 2020, the number of countries headed towards authoritarianism has outnumbered those headed towards democratic freedom, while the number of “backsliding democracies” have doubled in the last decade. The United States and its allies have been responsible for the lionshare of this past decade’s democratic downturn, while […]
Since the creation of this country, the American scientific enterprise has been built by talented immigrants. FAS has worked to strengthen the U.S. immigration system to ensure that experts in all scientific fields, as well as entrepreneurs with innovative ideas are able to build lives in the United States. Over the past two years, FAS […]
The American hallmark has always been its ingenuity, from the creation of the Internet to the rise of Silicon Valley. But for the last few decades, ingenuity has been on the decline: not because of a lack of genius but because of a failure of the marketplace to bring forward those new ideas in scientific knowledge, entrepreneurship, […]
When my dad turned 75 this October, he told me that it was the first birthday that really got under his skin and made him realize his age. Something about 75 years conveys the gravitas of a lifetime, encompassing three distinct generations and witnessing epic societal transformation over decades. For perspective, it was 75 years […]
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has quietly removed the F/A-18F Super Hornet from its B61-12 nuclear bomb fact sheet. No public explanation has been offered for why the aircraft was removed or added in the first place. The F/A-18F was added to a “November 2021” fact sheet published in early December, which listed the […]
[Update: Some images have temporarily been taker down because Maxar does not allow their satellite images to be overlaid on a competitor’s image.] After the discovery during the summer of what appears to be at least three vast missile silo fields under construction near Yumen, Hami, and Ordos in north-central China, new commercial satellite images […]
NATO announced Monday that it had started its annual nuclear exercise code-named Steadfast Noon. The week-long exercise is taking place over Southern Europe and involves aircraft and personnel from 14 NATO countries. According to the NATO statement, “Steadfast Noon involves training flights with dual-capable fighter jets, as well as conventional jets, backed by surveillance and […]
Our research shows that the biggest threat to reliable information access for military and DoD service members is expert opinion. A high-level analysis of anti-COVID vaccine narratives on social media reveals that opinions from experts achieve higher relevancy and engagement than opinions from news pundits, even if the news source is considered reliable by its […]
The Biden administration yesterday afternoon declassified the number of nuclear weapons the United States possesses. The act reverses the secrecy of the Trump administration, which denied release of the number for three years, and restores the nuclear transparency of the Obama administration.
Open source intelligence — which is derived from open, unclassified sources — should be recognized as a mature intelligence discipline that is no less important than other established forms of intelligence, the House of Representatives said last month in the FY 2022 defense authorization act (sec. 1612). The House directed the Secretary of Defense and the […]