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Homeland Security
The quick identification of likely perpetrators in the Boston Marathon bombing highlights how far federal, state and local authorities have come since 9-11 in preparing to cope with terrorist attacks. Less than a hundred hours after homemade bombs went off near the marathon's finish line, authorities
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Date:
4/19/2013
As the crisis with North Korea has intensified, the focus almost exclusively has been on that country’s ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. Recently, the regime in Pyongyang successfully tested a space launch vehicle, demonstrating progress on the path towards building an intercontinental ballistic
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Date:
4/8/2013
The new millennium isn't working out the way Republicans had hoped, in large part because of two wars that have distracted the political system from domestic concerns. So you'd think the GOP would be eager to avoid new conflicts. Well guess again. House Republicans are sending all the wrong messages
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Date:
4/2/2013
An important subtext running through the sequestration narrative is the issue of America's security interests and roles in a post-Iraq/Afghanistan world. Even after sequestration, the United States will spend more than any other nation on defense. Most of the other "big spenders" are America's
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Date:
3/13/2013
The 21st Century security environment is marked by an explosion in challenges to nations’ abilities to control their borders. Whether it is drug cartels operating submersibles loaded with tons of cocaine, terrorist groups seeking to employ advanced weapons against civilian targets, smugglers employing
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Date:
1/10/2013
When the U.S. intelligence community forecasts future challenges facing the nation, it nearly always focuses on man-made problems. However, the quadrennial analysis of emerging threats and opportunities released earlier this month by the Director of National Intelligence contained something different:
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Date:
12/19/2012
The presidential campaign that ends today has been long on debates over domestic issues and short on discussions of foreign and national security policy. That may be okay with the electorate predominantly concerned about jobs, deficits, health care, education and the like. Both candidates have promised
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Date:
11/6/2012
The late year hurricane that assaulted the East Coast provided a reason to consider one of the most important roles of the U.S. military: support to civil authorities. In the United States, the first line of defense against natural disasters is provided by “first responders,” local fire, police
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Date:
10/30/2012
The 2012 Republican platform rejects the extremism at both ends of the political spectrum. It explicitly takes the current administration to task for its failures to match its strategic vision with an appropriate investment of resources in military capabilities, its unwillingness to compromise on
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Date:
8/29/2012
The past ten years have seen an explosion in aerial intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) support of military operations. The skies over Iraq and Afghanistan became crowded with both manned and unmanned platforms providing overwatch for maneuvering ground units, surveying lines of
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Date:
1/18/2012
Every generation produces its share of zealots and malcontents, but ours is unique in the degree to which it has empowered them with new technology. It isn't just the possibilities presented to extremists by new methods of mass murder, but the tools that allow them to communicate securely among
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Date:
9/9/2011
The Obama Administration is worried increasingly about the danger posed by homegrown terrorism. In the past year there has been the Zazi plot to blow up the Grand Central and Times Square subway stations in New York, the Christmas Day airline bomber and the attempt to detonate a car bomb in Times
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Date:
6/2/2010
Last week’s summit in Washington focused on the threat of nuclear terrorism. In fact, we have little new evidence regarding Al Qaeda’s efforts to acquire a nuclear device than what was found in some caves in Afghanistan some nine years ago. Nevertheless, as the Christmas bombing attempt shows, terrorists
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Date:
4/19/2010
Yesterday’s release by the White House of the unclassified portion of the review of security failures that led to the nearly successful Christmas Day airline bombing, show an Intelligence Community (IC) that is little better today than it was on 9/11 at understanding and dealing with the terrorist
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Date:
1/8/2010