Remotely Piloted Aircrafts (RPAs, or drones) are playing an increasingly important role in modern warfare, and performing a growing nunmber of surveillance and reconnaissance missions at home and abroad. This Primer describe how the United States, as well as our allies and our enemies, are using drones, discusses challenges posed by RPAs, and offers recommendations for future defense planning. 

Rise of the bio bot drones;
The Pentagon's micro UAVs
A new kind of submarine hunter;
Missile defense looks left of launch;
Blimp funding deflated

Penetrating the Pentagon's network;
Protecting power grids through fingerprinting;
Part man, part machine?;
How to down drones;
The Pentagon focuses on cyber-hardening

Indo-Russian defense deal in trouble;
India IS recruiter killed in drone strike;
PAK defense minister to visit Russia;
Ghani threatens UNSC action over Pak-Taliban links;
Air Force drone strikes now outnumber manned strikes

Legal questions about laser weapons;
Russia's A2AD strategy;
New drone capabilities needed;
Hardening future fighters;
Hackers turned out the lights in Ukraine

North Korea made international news last week when it declared that it had successfully carried out an underground test of a hydrogen bomb. The announcement touched off fevered speculation in Washington about the nature of the test itself (among other things, the yield is believed to have been to small to have been a thermonuclear device), as well as its larger geopolitical significance.

 What is the role of cybersecurity in the conduct of war and ongoing security operations? Policymakers, academics, and journalists often think of cybersecurity as a single domain problem. That is to say, they view cyber operations as taking place solely within its own domain—one that is separate from land, sea, air or space. This perspective, however, overlooks the fact that computer systems and networks pervade society and the physical environment, and are present to some degree in all physical environs and across the three levels of war (strategic, operational, and tactical). Modern militaries employ forces in a “joint” manner, combining the specific platforms and technologies of different services to achieve a more effective force. National security policymakers should similarly see both kinetic and cyber capabilities as part of a broad set of tools available to achieve their objectives. Thinking of cybersecurity as a limited or separate space, wholly distinct from the other domains of conflict, limits the potential for understanding its strategic utility...

In late July, the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs assembled a number of top experts to discuss a critical threat to the homeland: electromagnetic pulse (EMP).

Missile defense for the Gulf;
Ukraine seeks BMD as a hedge against Russia;
In the Army, a focus on integration;
Beijing, Moscow make missile moves

Russia's military posture a growing threat to the U.S.;
Crimean development slows amid economic downturn