“Climate change is reshaping the geostrategic, operational, and tactical environments with significant implications for U.S. national security and defense. Increasing temperatures; changing precipitation patterns; and more frequent, intense, and unpredictable extreme weather conditions caused by climate change are exacerbating existing risks and creating new security challenges for U.S. interests. The risks of climate change to… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Defense
Director of National Intelligence Inaugural Estimate on Climate Change
National Intelligence Estimate – Climate Change and International Responses Increasing Challenges to US National Security Through 2040. October 21, 2021. “We assess that climate change will increasingly exacerbate risks to US national security interests as the physical impacts increase and geopolitical tensions mount about how to respond to the challenge. Global momentum is growing for more… Continue Reading
The Right to be Forgotten’ and its Unintended Consequences to Intelligence Gathering
Goldfield, Charlene, ‘The Right to be Forgotten’ and its Unintended Consequences to Intelligence Gathering (July 1, 2020). Volume 32, Issue 2, Winter 2020 , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3898887 “Social media has dramatically changed how we interact and communicate with one another. The reliance on social media has also sparked many international debates revolving around privacy.… Continue Reading
NSA, CISA publish guide for securing VPN servers
The Record: “The National Security Agency (NSA) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have published today technical guidance on properly securing VPN servers used by organizations to allow employees remote access to internal networks. The NSA said it put together the nine-page guide [PDF] after “multiple nation-state advanced persistent threat (APT) actors” weaponized… Continue Reading
14 Trillion of Pentagon Spending on war in Afghanistan went to 5 government contractors
Watson Institute, Brown University / William D. Hartung Center for International Policy: Profits of War: Corporate Beneficiaries of the Post-9/11 Pentagon Spending Surge – September 13, 2021: “Pentagon spending has totaled over $14 trillion since the start of the war in Afghanistan, with one-third to one-half of the total going to military contractors.A large portion… Continue Reading
The D.C. Underground Atlas
“Washington, D.C.’s federal architects have a special proclivity for underground tunnels. District residents navigate the tubes like human submarines, and rely on their services for basic needs like drinking water and central heat. Contributing factors include the city’s unique building height limit, extreme weather, and the security considerations of recent decades. As a result, Washington sits atop… Continue Reading
The Capitol Police Said Jan. 6 Unrest On Capitol Grounds Would Be “Highly Improbable”
BuzzFeedNews: “BuzzFeed News has exclusively obtained the permits Capitol Police issued for protests on Capitol grounds for Jan. 6 — a rare window into a secretive organization and its most consequential day. The chief of the Capitol Police and its top intelligence officer personally approved permits for six demonstrations to be held on Jan. 6,… Continue Reading
Two Decades Later, the Enduring Legacy of 9/11
Pew: “Americans watched in horror as the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, left nearly 3,000 people dead in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Nearly 20 years later, they watched in sorrow as the nation’s military mission in Afghanistan – which began less than a month after 9/11 – came to a… Continue Reading
The US Budgetary Costs of the Post 9/11 Wars
20 Years of War – A Costs of War Research Series, Watson Institute of Public and International Affairs, Brown University: “The United States has appropriated and is obligated to spend an estimated $6.4 Trillion through Fiscal Year 2020 in budgetary costs related to and caused by the post-9/11 wars—an estimated $5.4 Trillion in appropriations in… Continue Reading
U.S. Military Withdrawal and Taliban Takeover in Afghanistan: Frequently Asked Questions
CRS Report – U.S. Military Withdrawal and Taliban Takeover in Afghanistan: Frequently Asked Questions, August 20, 2021: “On August 15, 2021, the Taliban entered the Afghan capital of Kabul, completing a rapid takeover over the country that surprised many Afghans and Americans alike. The Taliban’s advance came as the United States was completing the military… Continue Reading
US mission in Afghanistan a failure: Government watchdog
Follow up to previous posting – The Afghanistan Papers A secret history of the war – see also two new reports from Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR): SIGAR released its 11th lessons learned report examining the past 20 years of the U.S. reconstruction effort in Afghanistan. After spending $145 billion trying to rebuild… Continue Reading
The Afghanistan Papers A secret history of the war
“A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals [Dec. 9, 2019] that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable. The documents were generated by… Continue Reading
