Background and Purpose On July 26, 2022, MIT Mobility Initiative, MIT Washington Office, and The Engine hosted a workshop with leaders from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and infrastructure stakeholders — industry veterans, startup founders, federal, state and local policymakers and regulators, academics and investors. The purpose of this convening was to engage a […]
A new Air Force environmental assessment reveals that it considered basing ICBMs in underground railway tunnels––or possibly underwater.
Congressional negotiations over the massive bipartisan innovation bill have stumbled over a controversial proposal to expand the geographic footprint of National Science Foundation (NSF) funding. That proposal, in the Senate-passed U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (USICA), mandates that 20% of NSF’s budget be directed to a special program to help institutions in the many states […]
Two weeks ago, the IPCC released their most dire warning yet – that we have just three years to prevent the most catastrophic storms, natural disasters, and droughts human civilization might ever see. We are getting closer and closer to the temperature that scientists have warned us for decades would do irreversible damage to our societies and […]
The Federation of American Scientists regrets to share news of the passing of long-time board member Don Lebell at age 95. Don Lebell was an active voice in national security, working not only with FAS, but with the Ploughshares Fund’s Nuclear-Free Society and the Department of Defense’s Task Force on Globalization and National Security, Amnesty […]
US Defense Department documents show that NATO has quietly added the United Kingdom to the list of nuclear weapons storage locations that are being upgraded. The documents do not identify the specific facility, but it is believed to be the US Air Base at RAF Lakenheath in southeast England approximately 100 kilometers northeast of London. […]
Shortly after Russian military forces invaded Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin said that he had ordered Russian nuclear forces on high combat alert – apparently to deter the United States from getting directly involved, and the United States condemned the statement as “unacceptable” nuclear saber rattling but refused to respond in kind, the two vehemently […]
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, […]