Threats
What’s Great Power Competition? No One Really Knows
It’s the “trillion-dollar question,” one Marine Corps planner says.
Defense Systems
Air Force slows roll out of new cyber career category
Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson announced delays to plans for new career categories and promotion paths, including in cybersecurity.
Science & Tech
'Siri, Watch That Guy': Pentagon Seeks AI that Can Track Someone Across a City
The intel community's researchers are looking for datasets to help train their computers.
Ideas
Trump’s ‘Maximum Pressure’ Won’t Make Iran Yield
The one thing Tehran would find more intolerable than the crushing impact of sanctions is raising the white flag because of them.
Ideas
How to Really Honor the Troops
Thousands of soldiers have successfully led combat units without committing atrocities. Pardoning war crimes dishonors them.
Ideas
The Brain of the Pentagon
Andrew Marshall leaves behind an American tradition of strategic thinking that will live well beyond him.
Science & Tech
Engineers Pitch Clean-Energy Plants Along Border
A proposal imagines how building solar panels and wind turbines along the U.S.-Mexico border could unite calls for a Green New Deal and a border wall.
Science & Tech
Pentagon ‘Matchmakers’ Aim to Keep US Tech Firms from Taking Chinese Money
Defense officials hope to protect cutting-edge technologies by getting innovative firms funded by U.S.-friendly investors.
Ideas
Some Cautionary Notes on the New ‘Knife Missile’
Will the blade-wielding Hellfire variant actually reduce civilian casualties? Maybe.
Defense Systems
DOD considers releasing list of blocked software vendors
The Defense Department is working with congressional constraints on information it can share with defense industrial base regarding restricted vendors.
Ideas
Trump’s Bet on Kim Might Not Pay Off
All that’s preventing the collapse of talks is that North Korea’s missiles haven’t flown far enough yet.
Science & Tech
The Push to ‘Predict’ Police Shootings
Tracking officers’ stress exposure and body-camera practices could help keep them from pulling the trigger.
Defense Systems
Air Force moves to speed up operating authorities
The Air Force plans to migrate 100 applications to the cloud this year with as many as possible opting for the fast track authority to operate process.
Policy
Trump Taps Shanahan To Lead DOD, Ending Months of Speculation
The nomination marks the beginning of the end of the tenure of the longest-serving acting defense secretary.
Threats
State-Sponsored Breaches of US Government Networks Rose 168% Last Year: Report
“Cyber-espionage is rampant in the public sector," Verizon analysts wrote in their annual study of data breaches.
Ideas
How Authoritarians Manipulate Elections
From Russia to Venezuela, the strongmen who have destroyed democratic institutions won high office at the ballot box.
Threats