Governance

352 Items

Newspaper Article - The New York Times

N.Y.P.D.'s New Intelligence Chief Takes Reins of Secretive Unit

    Author:
  • Maria Cramer
| Aug. 13, 2023

Former International Security Program Research Fellow Rebecca Weiner is profiled by the New York Times after becoming the New York Police Department's deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism. The former deputy commissioner of the bureau, John Miller, in 2014, said she had a "remarkable" ability to recognize how security threats were changing.

Stacks of boxes in the ballroom of Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla.

U.S. Justice Department/Getty Images

Analysis & Opinions - The Washington Post

Our Job was to Brief Trump on Intelligence. His Job was to Protect the Secrets.

| June 27, 2023

It was the Intelligence Communities job to provide information and the president’s job to use the information to further the nation’s interests and to protect the capabilities that created such advantage. The only duty to national security that Trump retained upon leaving office was the lifelong responsibility not to disclose the information. He’s now being held accountable for his alleged failure to do so, as our system demands.

Report - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Intelligence Community Ethical Practice

| June 2023

This paper provides a framework for a program to advance IC ethics professionalization, to better serve the national interest, avoid ethical lapses or moral pitfalls, and strengthen US national security and the Intelligence Community against the risk of politicization. The program would serve as catalyst for national security intelligence officials to better perceive, reflect on, make judgments about, and potentially act on ethical lapses in the midst, in adjacent units, or higher in the chain of command. The program would provide a means for officials to deliberate on real or hypothetical ethical dilemmas, both as individuals or in groups.

A worker cleans glass panels of the Bank of China headquarters building near a decoration setup for the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Beijing, Sunday, Aug. 26, 2018. Chinese President Xi Jinping will chair the forum held in the capital city from Sept. 3-4, 2023.

AP Photo/Andy Wong

Paper

China's 21st Century Aspirational Empire

| May 2023

This paper addresses the question of how the Chinese party-state chooses to exercise its economic, financial, diplomatic, military and soft power in the next 25 years will make a great difference to US national security and foreign policy, and to developments in the rest of the world. The paper makes three key points:

The core argument of this paper is that Beijing will likely aspire to pursue an empire-like position globally, not just seek an Asia-Pacific sphere of influence, and that this aspiration will founder. Achieving an empire-like position is both an imperative and is infeasible. The tensions between goal and reality will likely characterize China’s role in the world in coming decades and will be central to the difficulties of US-China relations. Second, there is heuristic value for US policymakers and analysts to consider a 20-year outlook on the rise of China that encompasses China’s pursuit of a global empire-like position. Third, paying close attention to how Beijing organizes its own government, corporate, and non-governmental organizations to seek an empire-like position will provide important signposts emerging tension and trends.

An entrance of the Lefortovo prison, in Moscow, Russia

AP/Alexander Zemlianichenko

Analysis & Opinions - The Cipher Brief

Russia's State-Sponsored Hostage Taking Reaps Rewards for the Kremlin

| Apr. 10, 2023

Paul Kolbe and Calder Walton analyze Russia’s arrest of Wall Street Journal journalist and US citizen, Evan Gershkovich, on espionage charges. This is the latest example of the Russian Federal Security Service's long practice of state-sponsored hostage taking and repression of the press. 

Report - Intelligence Project

Report: Marking the CIA’s 75th Anniversary: Reflections on the Past, Visions of the Future

Since its creation in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been at the heart of supporting United States foreign policy and national security decision-making. From the early days of the Cold War to Russia’s war against Ukraine, the CIA has been a critical instrument of foreign intelligence collection, analysis, and operations. However, the CIA is often misunderstood, as its own work and history, particularly its successes, are rarely seen by the public. To help unpack this storied history, and in honor of the agency’s 75th anniversary, on September 16, 2022, former directors, officers, scholars, students, and the public gathered to discuss the past, present, and future of the agency. 

A set of NanoRacks CubeSats is photographed by an Expedition 38 crew member after the deployment by the Small Satellite Orbital Deployer (SSOD).

NASA

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Small Satellites, Big Data: Uncovering the Invisible in Maritime Security

    Authors:
  • Saadia Pekkanen
  • Setsuko Aoki
  • John Mittleman
| Fall 2022

The world’s oceans have always provided ships with room to hide. New technology is changing that. Small satellites now collect terabytes of global data daily. Computational analytics can mine that data as humans cannot. Increasingly, this information expands the ability to identify and track ships and their activities, including those affecting national and international security.