Security studies and military

Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Joel Brenner, an instructor at MIT’s Center for International Studies and the former inspector general of the National Security Agency, argues that the fall of Kabul to the Taliban was a counterintelligence failure that should be examined. “The intelligence community needs to take a hard look at the scope and effectiveness of its counterintelligence operations,” writes Brenner. “Like most intelligence failures, this one was probably more the result of a lack of imagination than of operational difficulties.”

Air & Space Forces Magazine reporter Amanda Miller spotlights the Department of Air Force-MIT AI Accelerator, which is focused on furthering the science of AI. Thanks to such a close connection with “a world-class academic institution,” said Col. Tucker Hamilton, “we’re making advancements revolutionary to the entire field—the entire world.”

MIT Prof. M. Taylor Fravel and University of Pennsylvania Prof. Fiona Cunningham explores what China’s investment in its nuclear arsenal means for U.S. – China relations in a piece for The Washington Post. “Two shifts in China’s nuclear thinking may be happening. First, Chinese leaders believe that they now need to threaten the United States with greater nuclear damage to deter a U.S. nuclear first-strike: a handful of warheads is no longer enough,” they write. “Second, China’s leaders may be finding Beijing’s promises not to engage in a nuclear arms race increasingly difficult to fulfill — or less of a priority than deterring U.S. nuclear use with more confidence.”

Writing for the Financial Times, research fellow Laura Grego examines why China is developing new nuclear delivery systems and modernizing its weapons arsenal. “One core driver is to make clear to an unconvinced United States that it is vulnerable to Chinese nuclear retaliation despite enormous investments in missile defenses,” writes Grego. “Many of the technologies China is pursuing, including those believed to have been tested this summer, are designed to overwhelm or evade such defenses.” 

Writing for The Boston Globe, Gregg Martin SM ’88, PhD ’92, a retired two-star Army general and former president of the National Defense University, shares his concern for the mental health of Afghanistan war veterans. “While most troops are justifiably proud of what they did at the tactical, local level, they’re now seeing their efforts go up in smoke,” writes Martin. “They’re angry, sad, hurting, and confused, and I fear that the mental health of some of them will unravel so unrelentingly they’ll take their own lives.”

Prof. Christopher Capozzola speaks with Bob DeCastro of Good Day LA about the campaign to name a U.S. Navy Warship after Fireman 2nd Class Telesforo Trinidad, the only American national of Asian and Filipino descent to have received a Congressional Medal of Honor. “I think in some ways, there’s no better tribute to the century of work that Filipinos sailors did to keep the ship going than to name one of our ships after one of the most heroic Filipino sailors that we know,” says Capozzola.

Writing for The Washington Post, Prof. M. Taylor Fravel explores how Chinese and Indian forces have disengaged and created a buffer zone at Pangong Lake on their disputed border. “The disengagement and buffer zone creates space for further talks,” writes Fravel. “In the short term, discussions have already begun to address disengagement in other “friction areas” such as Gorga/Hot Springs. Longer term, political talks about the border may be possible if a complete de-escalation occurs.”

A new study co-authored by MIT researchers finds that claims about superweapons are not realistic, reports William J. Broad for The New York Times. “There’re lots of claims and not many numbers,” says research affiliate David Wright. “If you put in the numbers, you find that the claims are nonsense.” 

Senior research associate Jim Walsh speaks with Here & Now’s Peter O’Dowd about national security following the attack on the U.S. Capitol last week.

MIT researchers have developed a new model that helps quantify a company’s security risk, and estimates possible financial losses, reports Catherine Stupp for The Wall Street Journal. The tool “collects encrypted data from companies about recent incidents and analyzes the anonymized information to determine the probability of different kinds of attacks more broadly,” writes Stupp.

MIT and the U.S. Air Force “are teaming up to launch a new accelerator focused on artificial intelligence applications,” writes Danny Crichton for TechCrunch. The goal is that projects developed in the MIT-Air Force AI Accelerator would be “addressing challenges that are important to both the Air Force and society more broadly.”

Will Knight writes for MIT Technology Review about the MIT-Air Force AI Accelerator, which “will focus on uses of AI for the public good, meaning applications relevant to the humanitarian work done by the Air Force.” “These are extraordinarily important problems,” says Prof. Daniela Rus. “All of these applications have a great deal of uncertainty and complexity.”

The new MIT-Air Force AI Accelerator “will look at improving Air Force operations and addressing larger societal needs, such as responses to disasters and medical readiness,” reports Breanne Kovatch for The Boston Globe. “The AI Accelerator provides us with an opportunity to develop technologies that will be vectors for positive change in the world,” says Prof. Daniela Rus.

In an article for The Washington Post, graduate student Sara Plana examines the feasibility of creating a safe zone for civilians in Syria. Plana writes that, “no safe-zone option meets every criterion the United States has for a safe zone at the moment — one that protects the Kurds, requires no U.S. ground troops and avoids confrontation with Turkey.”

Reporting for Boston 25, Bob Dumas highlights the Warrior-Scholar Project, which introduces soldiers to universities such as MIT in an effort to help them transition back to civilian life. “We want to take our enlisted veterans, many of them first-generation college students, and expose what life would be like for them at a top-tier school,” explains the project’s executive director.