Articles

Juliette Kayyem suggested that freshman Texas GOP Representative Dan Crenshaw support his argument on border security with facts — "not with mocking a woman."  This article covers the Twitter exchange.

With the rapid growth of electric vehicles in China, their benefits should be scientifically identified to support the industry development. Although the life cycle benefits of electric vehicles have been analyzed worldwide, the recycling phase has not been fully studied yet, especially in China. Therefore, this study focuses on the economic and environmental benefits of electric vehicle recycling in China. Based on the technology adopted by leading enterprises, the gross income and reduction of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are calculated to reveal the benefits.

Today, the terrorist threat looks much different than it did right before 9/11. The U.S. counterterrorism community has dramatically ramped up its intelligence capabilities. Determined to “connect the dots” in the future, the U.S. government created new agencies and instituted a new paradigm for intelligence—share by rule, withhold by exception—and set up a slew of “fusion centers” and joint task forces to foster interagency cooperation. Borders were hardened, cockpit doors reinforced, and watch lists created. In Afghanistan, the United States overthrew the Taliban regime, which was hosting al Qaeda. Today, despite recent Taliban gains, al Qaeda still does not enjoy free rein in the country. In Iraq and Syria, al Qaeda’s offshoot, the Islamic State (or ISIS), is on the run, thanks to the work of a global coalition assembled in 2014 and U.S.-led air strikes and special operations raids. The group’s Iraqi capital of Mosul fell in July, and its Syrian stronghold in Raqqa is almost certain to follow. Owing to the relentless pressure that the United States and its allies have placed on terrorists’ safe havens, the threat of a complex and catastrophic attack emanating from abroad—although not gone—has diminished. At the same time, however, the threat from homegrown and so called lone-wolf terrorism has increased.

This paper provides an overview of the debate surrounding the Nabucco pipeline’s cancellation. Conventional wisdom holds that Nabucco failed for political reasons, but the real cause of its failure was the emergence of two more economically viable pipeline plans.

"The way TSA and certainly security experts like me think about security is that we talk about layered security: That is, what you want is enough layers. None of them are perfect; everyone is willing to admit that. You might secure some doors and not others. But you put enough layers in those access points for violence to become a little bit more difficult."

Iran and six world powers clinched a deal on Sunday curbing the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for initial sanctions relief. Sounds pretty good, but of course nothing is that simple and already Israel has called it a "historic mistake." Which is it? And what's going to happen next? Harvard Kennedy School professor and GlobalPost senior foreign affairs columnist, Nicholas Burns, weighs in.

The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is among the cornerstone policies created to increase U.S. energy independence by using biofuels. Although greenhouse gas emissions have played a role in shaping the RFS, water implications are less understood. We demonstrate a spatial, life cycle approach to estimate water consumption of transportation fuel scenarios, including a comparison to current water withdrawals and drought incidence by state. The water consumption and land footprint of six scenarios are compared to the RFS, including shale oil, coal-to-liquids, shale gas-to-liquids, corn ethanol, and cellulosic ethanol from switchgrass.