Ideas

South Korea Becomes a Testing Ground for Trump’s Grievances With Allies

The motto for the U.S.–South Korea alliance isn’t “We go together, if I get enough money as reimbursement,” one analyst observed.

Ideas

Two Ways the Venezuelan Crisis Might End

President Maduro seems likely to hold power only as long as he can pay off military elites.

Science & Tech

Pentagon Pushes for Speed in Cloud Strategy

The Defense Department expects multiple providers to support the different kinds of clouds of its missions.

Threats

Trump: US Will Be Working with Mideast Partners ‘For Many Years to Come’

The president acknowledged that the Islamic State continues to pose a threat even though U.S.-led coalition forces have retaken 99 percent of its territory.

Threats

Federal Agencies Ramp Up Classified Plans to Protect 2020 Elections

The departments of Justice and Homeland Security delivered their joint review of meddling during 2018 to the White House.

Defense Systems

DISA digs into blockchain as a service

The Defense Information Systems Agency is considering adding blockchain as a service to its infrastructure platform.

Policy

Trump Announces Second North Korea Summit in State of the Union

The president stuck to the teleprompter in his 82-minute SOTU speech, the second-longest in history.

Policy

Senior Officials Downplay Trump Plan to Keep Troops In Iraq to ‘Watch Iran’

Some Baghdad watchers say the president’s remarks could imperil the U.S. troop presence in Iraq.

Science & Tech

The Pentagon’s First AI Strategy Will Focus on Near-Term Operations — and Safety

The document is intended to make commander think through the implications of their new artificial-intelligence tools.

Threats

Lawmakers Tell Pentagon: Revise and Resubmit Your Climate-Change Report

The most recent one didn’t even meet the legal requirements contained in the 2018 defense authorization act.

Policy

Top General in Middle East Says He Wasn’t Consulted on Syria Withdrawal

U.S. Central Command commander Gen. Joseph Votel provided the first public confirmation that the Pentagon was caught by surprise by Trump’s December tweet.

Science & Tech

When Delete’s Not Good Enough: Navy to Burn 2 Tons of Digital Storage

Researchers at the Naval Surface Warfare Center have a lot of classified information stored on digital devices and issued a solicitation to literally watch it all burn.

Defense Systems

Who are the defense innovators among the 2019 Fed 100?

Fully one-fifth of this year's Fed 100 are military personnel or civilian defense employees.

Defense Systems

Pentagon sketches plans for cloud-based office apps

Under the $8.2 billion Defense Enterprise Office Solutions contract, the Defense Department will buy email, content management, file storage, productivity tools, web conferencing, instant messaging, native audio and video and mobility.

Defense Systems

DOD cloud strategy puts JEDI at the center

The Defense Department's strategy emphasizes a cloud hierarchy, with the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud initiative on top and MilCloud second in command, followed by multiple fit-for-purpose clouds.