Simons Center News

Featured article: Improving the Intelligence Community’s Contribution to Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction by Timothy W. Fisher There is, of course, no such thing as a perfect weapon of mass destruction (WMD) threat assessment. Some of the brightest minds in the intelligence community continuously work WMD issues. The intelligence community, consisting of seventeen organizations from six departments and one independent agency, […]

U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Ethics Symposium Announcement and Call for Papers Organizers: The United States Army Command and General Staff College, Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and the CGSC Foundation, Inc. will co-host a symposium entitled: “The Impact of Diverse Worldviews on Military Conflict” War is a clash of wills […]

National Security   The Border-Wall Prototypes Are Up—Now What?, The Atlantic Three former Trump campaign officials charged by special counsel, The Washington Post National security warrants focus on space — but not a separate Space Corps, Defense News Massive classified NSA contract under protest, Nextgov Dunford: Time to Cut the Connections that Link ISIS’ Global […]

Hurricane relief efforts are still underway in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands after the territories were ravaged by Hurricane Maria in September. As of October 30, over 15,000 federal civilian and military personnel are on location in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has awarded hundreds […]

The U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee heard testimony related to defending the nation from cyber attacks on October 19. Kenneth P. Rapuano, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and global security, testified during the hearing. In his prepared testimony, Rapuano stressed that the Department of Defense (DoD) was part of a whole-of-government approach to cyber […]

This month, Defense One released a special report concerning cyber defense. Protecting Infrastructure from Cyber Threats is a collection of short pieces on various cyber threats facing the nation. Protecting Infrastructure begins with a piece on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) search for automated defenses from cyber adversaries, then moves on to a […]

National Security   The Unthinkable, The Atlantic North Korean official: Take hydrogen bomb threat ‘literally’, CNN Trump administration to add new screening for refugees: document, Reuters Trump’s New Refugee Policy Targets These 11 Countries, The Atlantic See models of Trump’s US-Mexico border wall, Defense News Post-War Syria: The Next Big Crisis Between Russia and America?, […]

On October 23, U.S. Representative Evan Jenkins (R-W.Va.) introduced legislation aimed at combating the opioid epidemic. The Fentanyl and Heroin Task Force Act creates an interagency task force focused on eradicating the illicit fentanyl and heroin trade. Representative Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) co-sponsored the legislation. In her remarks, Rep. Clark spoke about how the opioid crisis has […]

Featured article: Cape Ray Diplomacy: How a U.S. Merchant Vessel Took Center Stage in Foreign Relations by Chi K. Cheung In August 2013, chemical weapons attacks against civilians in Syria resulted in more than 1,400 deaths, including 426 children. As a result of international pressure, the Assad regime agreed to accede to the Chemical Weapons Convention […]

National Security   US Preparing to Put Nuclear Bombers Back on 24-Hour Alert, Defense One The Contradiction at the Core of Trump’s North Korea Strategy, The Atlantic Armageddon by Accident, Foreign Policy For some veterans John Kelly’s remarks add to a worrying military-civilian divide, The Washington Post TSA’s agile modernization plan is clunky, overbudget and […]