“Kazakhstan, which is second only to Australia in uranium reserves and exceptionally appealing to nuclear nations that require uranium, has entered into agreements or joint ventures with many countries and corporations,” a new analysis (pdf) from the DNI Open Source Center observes. Kazakhstan has embarked on cooperative civilian nuclear projects with countries including the U.S., […]
A 1957 scientific paper on astrophysics by the late Alistair G.W. Cameron has the unusual quality of being both historically significant and very hard to obtain. A scanned copy of the paper has recently been posted online. Known to specialists as CRL-41 (for Chalk River Laboratory paper number 41), the proper title is “Stellar Evolution, […]
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) recently deleted the publications web page for its Advanced Systems and Concepts Office, inhibiting broad public access to many of the agency’s arms control and proliferation-related studies. But most of the affected DTRA publications have been recovered and reposted in a new DTRA archive on the Federation of American […]
The DNI Open Source Center (OSC) recently issued a brief report (pdf) summarizing international criticism of Guinea’s ruling military junta after Guinean security forces killed more than 100 civilians at a September 28 opposition rally. Another new OSC report (pdf) described Japanese officials as confident and optimistic about the future of their space program, following […]
Counterinsurgency refers to “comprehensive civilian and military efforts taken to simultaneously defeat and contain insurgency and address its core grievances,” a new publication from the Joint Chiefs of Staff explains. See Joint Publication 3-24 on “Counterinsurgency Operations” (pdf), 249 pages, October 5, 2009. (JP 3-24 is not to be confused with the celebrated December 2006 […]
“Important aspects of the DOD basic research programs are ‘broken’,” according to an assessment performed by the JASON defense science advisory panel earlier this year, and “throwing more money at the problems will not fix them.” But that rather significant conclusion was deliberately suppressed by Pentagon officials who withheld it from public disclosure when a […]
Updated below The Pentagon’s Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) last month announced the creation of a new password-protected portal where authorized users may gain access to restricted scientific and engineering publications. “DTIC Online Access Controlled… provides a gateway to Department of Defense unclassified, controlled science and technology (S&T) and research and engineering (R&E) information,” according […]
Newly disclosed Department of Defense annual budget documents reveal the structure and some of the contents of the Military Intelligence Program that supports DoD operations. The U.S. intelligence enterprise as a whole is funded through two separate budget constructs: the National Intelligence Program (NIP), which supports national policymakers, and the Military Intelligence Program (MIP). The […]
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence last month published a revised “Intelligence Community Legal Reference Book” (pdf), updated through May 2009. The 950-page document, which is more than 250 pages longer than the 2007 edition, includes basic intelligence-related legal materials such as the text of the National Security Act and various executive orders […]
Most of those who have heard of the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw during World War II probably think of it in connection with the uprising of a small number of Jewish fighters prior to the final liquidation of the Ghetto by German forces. Dr. Marek Edelman, who led the uprising, died last Friday at age […]
“Without reform in [declassification] policy and process, agencies will continue to spend millions of dollars each year perpetuating an ineffective and inefficient declassification system, while the backlog of records waiting to be processed for the open shelves continues to grow,” according to a newly obtained National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) white paper. The best […]
The Supreme Court has not yet indicated whether it will review a Freedom of Information Act ruling requiring the Department of Defense to disclose certain photographs of alleged detainee abuse to the American Civil Liberties Union. If it declines to do so, a federal appeals court order (pdf) that directed release of the photographs will […]