The administration has a new plan: as it prepares for production of the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) to replace most of the nuclear warheads in the operational stockpile, it will “accelerate” dismantlement of retired nuclear warheads to “assure other nations that we are not building up our stockpile.” According to this plan, Deputy Secretary of […]
A new study published by the CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence calls for a fundamental reconceptualization of the process of intelligence analysis in order to overcome the “pathologies” that have rendered it increasingly dysfunctional. “Curing Analytic Pathologies” (pdf) by Jeffrey R. Cooper has been available up to now in limited circulation in hard […]
The latest study by the JASON scientific advisory panel to be approved for public release has the forbidding title “Quantifications of Margins and Uncertainties” (pdf). The meaning of this term is somewhat elusive, as discussed in the report, but it involves a methodology for assessing the reliability of complex technical systems, and specifically the performance […]
Some notable recent reports of the Congressional Research Service include the following: “Intelligence Issues for Congress” (pdf), updated April 10, 2006. “Iran: U.S. Concerns and Policy Responses” (pdf), updated April 6, 2006. “Israel: U.S. Foreign Assistance” (pdf), updated April 26, 2006. “India-U.S. Relations” (pdf), updated April 6, 2006. “Indonesia: Domestic Politics, Strategic Dynamics, and American […]
Electronic surveillance and physical searches conducted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) reached a new record high in 2005, according to the latest annual report to Congress on FISA. “During calendar year 2005, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) approved 2,072 applications for authority to conduct electronic surveillance and physical search,” the new annual […]
In the security policy equivalent of shutting down the government, the Defense Security Service announced Friday that it would no longer process applications from industry for new security clearances or reinvestigations of existing clearances. “Owing to the overwhelming volume of requests for industry personnel security investigations and funding constraints, the Defense Security Service has discontinued […]
There is no excuse for unauthorized disclosures of classified information, it is argued, because whistleblowers who have legitimate complaints about classified government misconduct can use official channels to convey those concerns on a classified basis. But as a practical matter, those channels are often blocked or ineffectual. That is what former National Security Agency employee […]
Some notable recent reports of the Congressional Research Service that have not been readily available to the public include the following: “China and Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and Missiles: Policy Issues” (pdf), updated April 6, 2006. “Protection of Classified Information by Congress: Practices and Proposals” (pdf), updated April 5, 2006. “Navy Ship Propulsion […]
The Chinese nuclear stockpile appears to be only half as big as previously thought, according to a new overview published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Up to 130 warheads may be deployed out of a total stockpile of some 200 warheads. Several new weapon systems are under development which the Pentagon says could […]
We have just posted a recent report from CRS on Dual Use Biological research and the role and activities of the National Science Advisory Board on Biosecurity (NSABB). The report is a summary of the history and role of the NSABB and outlines some of their activities. View the report at /sgp/crs/natsec/RL33342.pdf
U.S. News and World Report reported last January that at least three publications of the CIA’s Center for the Study of Intelligence, all critical of the Agency, had been withheld from the CIA web site (“A Tangled Web Woven,” by David E. Kaplan, U.S. News, January 30, 2006). Now two of those disfavored publications are […]
When the government revoked the security clearance of J. Robert Oppenheimer on purported national security grounds in April 1954, it sent shock waves through the scientific community and elsewhere. If Oppenheimer, the man who had done more than any other individual to advance the development of the atomic bomb, was a security risk to the […]