The Defense Intelligence Agency yesterday launched a new series of unclassified publications on foreign military threats to the United States with a report on the Russian military. “The resurgence of Russia on the world stage — seizing the Crimean Peninsula, destabilizing eastern Ukraine, intervening on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and shaping the information […]
The role of Secretary of Defense Harold Brown in managing the Pentagon, boosting the military and confronting the Soviet Union during the Jimmy Carter Administration is examined in a new Department of Defense historical volume that was declassified and published this month. It was during Secretary Brown’s tenure that the Carter Administration reversed a decline […]
As of May 31, more than 46,000 refugees from around the world were received in the United States in FY 2017 and were settled in every state except for Wyoming, a new report from the Congressional Research Service found. Though that is a small number compared with the hundreds of thousands of refugees accepted annually […]
Across the globe, “Adversary ballistic missile systems are becoming more mobile, survivable, reliable, and accurate while also achieving longer ranges.” So concludes a new report from U.S. Department of Defense intelligence agencies entitled Ballistic and Cruise Missile Threats 2017. The report provides an updated catalog of unclassified information on current and projected foreign ballistic and […]
The US and China have successfully carried out a wide range of cooperative science and technology projects in recent years, the State Department told Congress last year in a newly released report. Joint programs between government agencies on topics ranging from pest control to elephant conservation to clean energy evidently worked to the benefit of […]
If attacking the enemy and blowing things up were all that the military had to do, then its task would be straightforward. But if that was ever the case, it is no longer so. In order to execute its mission, the U.S. Army explains in a new doctrinal publication, the military must do more to […]
“The Air Force recently grounded some of its newest aircraft, F-35A strike fighters, due to incidents in which pilots became physiologically impaired with symptoms of oxygen deficiency while flying.” The background and implications of this potentially disabling problem were discussed by the Congressional Research Service in Out of Breath: Military Aircraft Oxygen Issues, CRS Insight, […]
The National Reconnaissance Office, the U.S. intelligence agency that builds and operates the nation’s spy satellites, says it is all for increased openness, within certain boundaries. “The NRO takes very seriously its commitment to greater openness and transparency, and makes every effort, in all of its information review and release programs, to release as much […]
The U.S. Air Force has upgraded the classification of information pertaining to nuclear weapons inspections performed by the Inspector General, reducing or eliminating public references to the outcome of such inspections. Until recently, the IG weapons inspections could be described in unclassified reports. Now they will be classified at least at the Confidential level. An […]
The Trump Administration requested $57.7 billion for the National Intelligence Program in Fiscal Year 2018, up from a requested $54.9 billion in FY 2017. The Administration requested $20.7 billion dollars for the Military Intelligence Program in FY 2018, up from a requested $18.5 billion in FY 2017. (The amounts actually appropriated in FY 2017 have […]
The Department of State yesterday released a long-suppressed volume of historical records documenting the role of the United States in the 1953 coup against the Iranian government of Mohammad Mosadeq. “This retrospective volume focuses on the evolution of U.S. thinking on Iran as well as the U.S. Government covert operation that resulted in Mosadeq’s overthrow […]
Is there a “readiness crisis” in the U.S. military? The answer is uncertain because the question itself is unclear. But a perceived need to improve readiness has become a primary DoD justification for increased military spending. Meanwhile, previously unclassified indicators of military readiness are now being classified so that they are no longer publicly available. […]