In the aftermath of the massacre in Houla, Syria, pressure is mounting on the Obama administration to become more directly involved in efforts to remove the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The problem for U.S. President Barack Obama’s national security team is that there is no clear, safe course of action: Intervening or staying out of the conflict both carry their own sets of risks. Let’s start with the “knowns” that would have to guide any American decision. The first is that Russia, backed by China, will not allow the United Nations Security Council to give its imprimatur to [...]
As unveiled in a recent Washington Post article, the Defense Advanced Research Protection Agency, or DARPA, is working to improve U.S. military operations in cyberspace with a project known as Plan X. The Defense Department agency is seeking proposals this summer for the effort, which aims to create an advanced cyberspace map as well as a system capable of launching cyberattacks and withstanding counterattacks. Chris Bronk, a fellow in information technology policy at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, told Trend Lines that Plan X reveals how DARPA is moving toward a more agile form of research [...]
A recent New York Times feature article on President Barack Obama’s aggressive counterterrorism approach highlighted the administration’s use of armed drones to target terrorists whose names appear on what is known within the White House as the “kill list.” The president himself makes the final decision over whether to place a terrorist on the list, according to Obama advisers quoted in the article. That was the case for Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen and al-Qaida operative who was killed by a drone strike in Yemen, where al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is active. Though drone strikes allow the U.S. to [...]
