In early 2014, Russia began supporting armed separatist forces in the eastern—predominantly Russian-speaking—part of Ukraine. Subsequent fighting was halted in September 2015 by a cease-fire agreemen…

The U.S. power grid has long been considered a logical target for a major cyberattack. Besides the intrinsic importance of the power grid to a functioning U.S. society, all sixteen sectors of the U.S. economy deemed to make up the nation’s critical infrastructure rely on electricity. Disabling or otherwise interfering with the power grid in a significant way could thus seriously harm the United States.

Introduction As space systems increasingly perform and support critical operations, a variety of plausible near-term incidents in outer space could precipitate or exacerbate an international crisi…

In April 2015, the author wrote an update to this memo to reflect recent developments in the South China Sea. Read the update. Introduction The risk of conflict in the South China Sea is signif…