Reports & Papers

Citizens voluntarily carry Big Brother and his relatives in their pockets. Along with big data and artificial intelligence, technology has made the problem of defending democracy from information warfare far more complicated than foreseen two decades ago. And while rule of law, trust, truth and openness make democracies asymmetrically vulnerable, they are also critical values to defend.  Any policy to defend against cyber information war must start with the Hippocratic oath: first, do no harm.

In 1992, there were only a million users on the Internet; today, there are nearly three billion, and the Internet has become a substrate of modern economic, social and political life. And the volatility continues. Analysts are now trying to understand the implications of ubiquitous mobility, the "Internet of everything" and analysis of "big data." Over the past 15 years, the advances in technology have far outstripped the ability of institutions of governance to respond, as well as our thinking about governance.

Part of NTI's Innovating Verification reports series, Verifying Baseline Declarations of Nuclear Warheads and Materials analyzes how baseline declarations can contribute to near- and long-term arms control and non-proliferation goals and how to verify them without compromising sensitive information.

Despite substantial progress in improving nuclear security in recent years, there is more to be done.  The threats of nuclear theft and terrorism remain very real.  This paper recommends learning from the much stronger national and international efforts in nuclear safety, and in particular taking steps to build international understanding of the threat; establish effective performance objectives; assure performance; train and certify needed personnel; build security culture and exchange best practices; reduce the number of sites that need to be protected; and strengthen the international framework and continue the dialogue once leaders are no longer meeting regularly at the summit level.

Nearly all of the 190 signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) agree that the forty-two-year-old treaty is fragile and in need of fundamental reform. But gaining consensus on how to fix the NPT will require reconciling the sharply differing views of nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states. Strengthening the international rules is increasingly important as dozens of countries, including some with unstable political environments, explore nuclear energy. The result is an ever-increasing distribution of this technology. In this paper, Steven E. Miller outlines the main points of contention within the NPT regime and identifies the issues that have made reform so difficult.

The Preventive Defense Project convened a workshop of leading federal government civilian and military officials, scientists, policy experts, and journalists in Washington, D.C. to address "The Day After: Action in the 24 Hours Following a Nuclear Blast in an American City."

Nearly five years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, has the government adequately protected its citizens against terrorism and catastrophic disaster?

On 22 July 2004, the 9/11 Commission released its report on the events surrounding the attacks of 11 September 2001. The 9/11 Report renewed calls for reform of the intelligence community (IC), continuing a long series of intelligence reform efforts that began shortly after the National Security Act of 1947 laid the foundation of the modern IC.