Military planners should not anticipate that the United States will ever dominate cyberspace, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a new doctrinal publication. The kind of supremacy that might be achievable in other domains is not a realistic option in cyber operations. “Permanent global cyberspace superiority is not possible due to the complexity of […]
The Justice Department has not reported to Congress on the government’s use of the state secrets privilege since 2011, the Department acknowledged this week, contrary to a policy promising regular reporting on the subject. In a 2009 statement of policy and procedures concerning the state secrets privilege, then-Attorney General Eric Holder said that “The Department […]
“The situation at the border and U.S. immigration authorities’ response to it has prompted significant attention and, in some cases, confusion regarding the governing laws and policies,” the Congressional Research Service said with some understatement in a new brief. The CRS document reviews the laws on admission and exclusion of aliens at the U.S. border, […]
By Hans M. Kristensen During the past two years, the Russian military has carried out a major renovation of what appears to be an active nuclear weapons storage site in the Kaliningrad region, about 50 kilometers from the Polish border. A Digital Globe satellite image purchased via Getty Images, and several other satellite images viewable […]
With exquisitely strange timing, the Department of Homeland Security today unveiled a “Northern Border Strategy” to protect the United States against threats originating in Canada. The new Trump Administration strategy acknowledges that “the Northern Border remains an area of limited threat in comparison to the U.S. Southern Border.” “However,” it goes on to say, “the […]
The annual number of drug overdose deaths in the United States involving opioids has more than quadrupled since 1999, a new report from the Congressional Research Service notes. “CDC estimates that in 2016, more than 63,000 people died from a drug overdose, and more than 42,000 of these deaths involved prescription or illicit opioids.” See […]
The National Declassification Center at the National Archives is looking for a director to help implement its declassification agenda. The National Declassification Center was established by President Obama’s 2009 executive order 13526 “to streamline declassification processes,” and it has had some success in bringing order to an often arbitrary declassification environment. One of the Center’s […]
The U.S. Department of Defense spent $11.3 billion on purchases abroad in 2015, including $1.6 billion worth of goods or services from the United Arab Emirates, according to a newly released DoD report to Congress. The majority of foreign purchases by DoD were for fuel, services, construction and subsistence. The DoD report breaks down the total […]
Iran’s central bank has filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to overturn a lower court ruling that would have transferred Iranian funds to the U.S. and made them potentially available for awards to victims of terrorism. At issue is the legal interpretation of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. A new brief from the Congressional […]
The US is no longer complying with the Iran nuclear deal and is poised to re-impose some previously lifted sanctions on Iran and its trading partners. But the legal basis for that action is a bit murky and contested. A new analysis from the Congressional Research Service tries to make legal sense of what has […]
By Hans M. Kristensen Despite their age, U.S. nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) continue to carry out strategic deterrent patrols at a steady rate of around 30 patrols per year, according to data obtained from the U.S. Navy under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project. Yet […]
“Pyongyang portrays nuclear weapons as its most effective way to deter the threat from the United States,” the Department of Defense says in a newly disclosed report to Congress on North Korean security policy. “North Korea’s primary strategic goal is perpetual Kim family rule via the simultaneous development of its economy and nuclear weapons program […]