The National Reconnaissance Office, which develops, launches and operates U.S. intelligence satellites, last week released most of the unclassified portions (pdf) of its Congressional Budget Justification Book for FY2009. While those unclassified portions are only a small fraction of the full budget document, they still provide a fresh glimpse or two of the agency and […]
A newly disclosed report from the JASON defense advisory panel may not excite the interest of anyone who is not a student of electrical engineering. It examines the distribution of electrical current flowing through a long, narrow conductive object. See “Current Spreading in Long Objects” (pdf), October 2008. Somewhat more interesting is the fact that […]
Last year, Congress directed intelligence agency Inspectors General to prepare an unclassified report on the Bush Administration’s warrantless surveillance program. That report has just been released. It traces the origins, implementation, and utilization of the Program, and discusses the legal questions surrounding its development. See Unclassified Report on the President’s Surveillance Program (pdf), Joint Inspector […]
A recently released report, U.S. Nuclear Deterrence in the 21st Century: Getting It Right, by the ad hoc New Deterrent Working Group with a forward by James Woolsey, is an interesting document. I believe this report is significant because it might typify the arguments that will be used against arms control treaties in the upcoming […]
The intelligence authorization bill that is pending in the House of Representatives would generally require all members of the intelligence committees to be briefed on covert actions, not just the so-called “Gang of Eight,” unless the Committee itself decided to limit such briefings. “The Committee understands well the need to protect intelligence information from unauthorized […]
The number of U.S. troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan in the decade following 9/11 is documented or projected in a detailed new report from the Congressional Research Service. “Using five DOD sources, this report describes, analyzes, and estimates the number of troops deployed for each war from the 9/11 attacks to FY2012 to help […]
Last year, the Supreme Court refused to hear a case brought by the ACLU against the National Security Agency challenging the constitutionality of the Terrorist Surveillance Program. Sen. Arlen Specter wrote to Judge Sonia Sotomayor this week asking the Supreme Court nominee to be prepared at her confirmation hearing next week to say, among other […]
Presidents Obama and Medvedev sign a joint understanding on a START follow-on treaty. By Hans M. Kristensen The Joint Understanding for the START Follow-on Treaty signed by President Obama and Medvedev on July 6, 2009, commits the United States and Russia to “reduce their strategic warheads to a range of 1500-1675, and their strategic delivery […]
Last month, the House Intelligence Committee complained that the Department of Defense has blurred the distinction between traditional intelligence collection, which is subject to intelligence committee oversight, and clandestine military operations, which are not. Because they are labeled in a misleading manner, some DoD clandestine operations that are substantively the same as intelligence activities are […]
The increasing capability of high-resolution military and intelligence sensors is producing ever growing quantities of data that could overwhelm the capacity to analyze them without new approaches to data management and analysis, according to a newly released report (pdf) from the JASON defense advisory panel. “As the amount of data captured by these sensors grows, […]
A new Joint Chiefs of Staff publication presents updated doctrine on intelligence preparation of the operational environment — which, confusingly enough, is not the same thing as “operational preparation of the environment” (OPE). See “Joint Intelligence Preparation of the Operational Environment” (pdf), Joint Publication JP 2-01.3, June 16, 2009. The Caribbean nation of Saint Vincent […]
By Hans M. Kristensen Can they do it? Expectations are high for the July Moscow Summit to produce an agreement to extent the START Treaty and commit to additional nuclear weapons reductions in the future. The following provides quick access to information about nuclear weapons numbers: Overview of World Nuclear Forces Global Nuclear Stockpiles, 1945-2006 […]