“Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it,” warned British statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke more than 200 years ago. Having recently delved into reading about the history of the first group of American atomic scientists and their efforts to deal with the nuclear arms race, I have realized that Burke was right. […]
New and improved medical treatments for infectious diseases are vital to improving global health security; however, public education is equally important. Myths and misperceptions regarding infectious diseases have detrimental effects on global health when a disease outbreak occurs. While it may seem that this problem is isolated to remote regions of the developing world, neither […]
The international terrorist group Hezbollah, driven by resistance to Israel, now regularly sends low flying drones into Israeli airspace. These drones are launched and remotely manned from the Hezbollah stronghold in Lebanon and presumably supplied by its patron and strategic partner, Iran. On the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist organizations since 1995, Hezbollah has […]
A stable and thriving Pakistan is the key to preserving harmony and facilitating progress in the broader South Asia region. Afghanistan, which is to the west of Pakistan, has a long border that divides the Pakhtun people between the countries. As a result of this border, Pakistan not only has a significant role in the […]
The Greatest Threat The weapon was ready, a simple fission device similar to the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. It had been finally assembled in a rented storage space on the outskirts of Las Vegas. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar had spent years quietly contemplating while meticulously planning this diabolical, logistically challenging mission. Among other things, the plot necessitated […]
Of the many lessons to be learned from the unauthorized disclosures of classified intelligence information by Edward Snowden, one of them is that the congressional intelligence oversight process did not function properly in the years leading up to those disclosures. It seems indisputable that the intelligence oversight committees did not accurately comprehend or effectively represent […]
A new report from the Congressional Research Service “provides an analytic overview of the professional experiences and qualifications of those individuals who are currently serving as active U.S. circuit court judges.” See U.S. Circuit Court Judges: Profile of Professional Experiences Prior to Appointment, May 9, 2014. Other recently updated CRS reports include these: Deepwater Horizon […]
Global biosecurity engagement programs are designed to prevent the harmful use of biological agents and pathogens. It is difficult to measure the effectiveness of these programs in improving biosecurity given that there have been relatively few attempts to misuse the life sciences. To understand how biosecurity engagement is conducted and evaluated, Michelle Rozo, Ph.D. candidate at Johns Hopkins University, interviewed more than 35 individuals in the United States and abroad (including government officials and their non-governmental partners) regarding current and future programs that can be used to create a cohesive, global health system approach to biosecurity.
“Without accurate and predictive intelligence, it is often better to not act than to act.” That note of prudence and restraint recurs throughout the newly revised U.S. Army Field Manual 3-24 on “Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies” that was published this month. The new manual replaces the celebrated 2006 edition of FM 3-24 (then simply entitled […]
New and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service that Congress has withheld from online public distribution include the following. Nigeria’s Boko Haram: Frequently Asked Questions, May 20, 2014 The Lord’s Resistance Army: The U.S. Response, May 15, 2014 Libya: Transition and U.S. Policy, May 19, 2014 U.S. International Broadcasting: Background and Issues for Reform, […]
By Hans M. Kristensen One of the last Chinese Second Artillery brigades with the old liquid-fuel DF-3A intermediate-range nuclear ballistic missile appears to have been upgraded to the newer DF-21 road-mobile, dual-capable, medium-range ballistic missile. A new satellite image posted on Google Earth from May 4, 2014, reveals major changes to what appears to be […]
By Hans M. Kristensen Less than a week after Russia carried out a nuclear strike exercise, the United States has begun its own annual nuclear strike exercise. The exercises conducted by the world’s two largest nuclear-armed states come in the midst of the Ukraine crisis, as NATO and Russia appear to slide back down into a […]