By Hans M. Kristensen NNSA has published the Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan for Fiscal Year 2019, which updates the agency’s work on producing and maintaining the U.S. stockpile of nuclear warheads. The latest plan follows the broad outlines of last year’s plan but contains important changes. The new plan shows significant cost increases and […]
Last year the number of patent applications that were subject to a “secrecy order” under the Invention Secrecy Act of 1951 was the highest that it has been in more than two decades, according to data obtained from the US Patent and Trademark Office. Whenever disclosure of a new invention is deemed to be “detrimental to national security,” […]
In the recent past, refugees who were fleeing gang or domestic violence in their home countries were able to present a claim for asylum in the United States on that basis. Though such claims were not always accepted, they could at least be adjudicated. But in June of this year, Attorney General Jeff Sessions ruled […]
The Federation of American Scientists asked the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense to declassify and disclose the current size of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, as they have done in past years. The number of nuclear weapons presently in the U.S. arsenal is deemed “Formerly Restricted Data” (FRD) that is classified under the Atomic Energy Act. […]
The U.S. Navy this month updated its regulations on the use of marine mammals — such as whales, dolphins, and seals — for national defense purposes. See Acquisition, Transport, Care, and Treatment of Navy Marine Mammals, Secretary of the Navy Instruction 3900.41H, 10 October 2018. The Navy policy on marine mammals follows a 1987 statute (10 USC 7524) […]
New and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following. Arms Sales: Congressional Review Process, updated October 22, 2018 Congress Considers Possible Responses to the Killing of a Saudi Journalist, CRS Insight, updated October 22, 2018 The United States and the “World Court”, CRS Legal Sidebar, October 17, 2018 The Global Compact on Migration (GCM) […]
Last year, the Department of Energy decided to declassify the fact it intended to make 25 metric tons of Highly Enriched Uranium available from “the national security inventory” for downblending into Low Enriched Uranium for use in the production of tritium. However, the decision to declassify that information was classified Secret. This year, the Department […]
Democracy as a political system has not advanced around the world in the past decade and by some measures it has actually declined, a new report from the Congressional Research Service observes. The obstacles are not all located abroad. Unlike its predecessors, the Trump Administration does not include democracy promotion as part of its national […]
The planning and execution of US Army information operations are the subject of a new Army manual for practitioners. Information operations are activities that involve the use of information to support US and allied military objectives and/or to degrade adversary functions. The field of information operations includes military deception, cyberspace operations, and other sub-disciplines. The first step is to characterize […]
Last June, the White House issued a set of proposals to reform and reorganize government functions in dozens of executive branch agencies. The proposals range from cosmetic (e.g., renaming the Department of Health and Human Services) to substantial (e.g., combining the Departments of Labor and Education) with significant implications for domestic and foreign policy, as well as […]
With the support of U.S. intelligence, the Colombian Air Force last year engaged dozens of aircraft suspected of illicit drug trafficking, leading to the seizure of 4.4 metric tons of cocaine. In 2017, “Colombia, with the assistance of the United States, responded to 80 unknown assumed suspect (UAS) air tracks throughout Colombia and the central/western […]
The most recent Department of Defense plan for its military aviation programs is unusually “full of details on specific programs, including cancellations, life extensions, and new starts. Some are explicit; others, between the lines,” writes Jeremiah Gertler of the Congressional Research Service. He identified the some of the novelties in a new CRS publication. See […]