Intelligence Archive

Two weeks ago, while discussing last November’s tragic events at Fort Hood, Defense Secretary Robert Gates proclaimed that the Pentagon “is burdened by 20th century processes and attitudes mostly rooted in the Cold War.” This acknowledgement by a wartime defense secretary is yet another stark reminder that the broader U.S. national security system was also designed for a much different era, and stands in need of a holistic review and systemic modernization. When the National Security Act of 1947 was enacted, the national and global security environments were exceedingly different from those that exist today. Responding to the costly inefficiencies […]

In the past few years, concerns over the growing risk of cyber warfare have been supplemented by evidence of actual cyber attacks, many likely launched with the aid of nation-states. When the United States sounds the alarm on cyber malfeasance, disruption or espionage, China or Russia are typically “the usual suspects.” It’s interesting, then, that a delegation of Russian officials, led by Gen. Vladislav Sherstyuk, visited Washington in November for meetings with officials of the National Security Council and the Departments of Defense, State and Homeland Security. Currently a deputy secretary of the Russian Security Council, Sherstyuk was identified by […]

As soon as Google publicly announced on Jan. 12 that it would no longer self-censor its search engine results for Chinese users, observers debated why the company had taken such a surprising decision. Proposed explanations included recognition that Google’s presence in China has not encouraged greater media freedoms, irritation at yet another massive hacking effort by Chinese-based computers, a lack of commercial success in the large but highly competitive Chinese market, and fears about undermining faith in the security of its emerging cloud-computing networks. Now evidence has arisen about why Google executives were so alarmed: The company experienced the nightmare […]