Geopolitics

The threat of war between the US and Iran escalated in Jan 2020 when in retaliation for the U.S. assassination of military leader Qasem Soleimani, Iran launched a ballistic missile attack on two Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops. This action marks the most direct Iranian attack on the U.S. in …

The United States is increasingly engaged in a long-term competition with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Russian Federation–a competition in which U.S. defense leaders and experts argue the U.S. military is falling behind technologically and operationally.   The traditional U.S. asymmetric technology advantage—such as highly advanced satellites, …

France suffered a series of deadly terror attacks in November 2015. In 2015, the brazen murders of 17 innocent people, in three separate attacks in as many days, have revealed serious breaches and lapses in the French system of intelligence, surveillance and security, according to numerous counterterrorism experts. In July …

All modern forces depend on unimpeded access to, and use of, the EM spectrum in conducting military operations. Therefore, there is a requirement to gain and maintain an advantage in the electromagnetic spectrum by countering adversary’s systems and protecting one’s own systems. Thus the EM spectrum can no longer be …

The Laser Directed Energy Weapons (DEWs) offer a transformational ‘game changer’ to counter asymmetric and disruptive threats, while facing increasingly sophisticated traditional challenges. Laser technology provides major advantages for military applications over kinetic weapons due to High precision and rapid on-target effect, precise and scalable effects, avoidance of collateral damage …

The exponential growth of information and communications technology (ICT) technology that includes Internet, telecommunications networks, computer systems, and embedded processors and controllers, has led to creation of Cyberspace, a global domain within ICT. The economic, social and strategic influence is exerted within, and through cyberspace domain, much like the land, …

Science’s computing needs are growing exponentially. The next big leap in scientific computing is the race to exascale capability which computes one thousand petaflops per second that is capable of performing 1 million trillion floating-point operations per second (1 exaflops). Currently the fastest systems in the world perform between ten and …

An artificial island or man-made island is an island that has been constructed by people rather than formed by natural means. Artificial islands may vary in size from small islets reclaimed solely to support a single pillar of a building or structure, to those that support entire communities and cities. Human-made …

News stories on the cyber threat that China poses appear on a regular basis. Most underscore a view that China is using cyber power to rise and ultimately win global dominance, and that the Chinese government is behind the scenes in many malicious cyber activities. Many, including the US government, …