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Category: National Security

The missiles are aimed to the sky at sunset.

A Reflection on the Alaska Summit

by Mark Medish | Aug 15, 2025 | National Security

We are at a crossroads for global strategic stability: either regional conflicts will be reasonably settled and diplomatic engagement resumed—significantly including arms control and limitation—or the world could veer into a dangerous escalatory spiral with widening hot spots, destabilization and chaos. Strategic arms control is of supreme importance today, much as it was in the […]

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President Donald Trump and his national security team meet in the Situation Room of the White House, Saturday, June 21, 2025. (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)

Searching for the Trigger

by Jonathan M. Winer | Jun 23, 2025 | National Security

Trump has begun planning to invoke the Insurrection Act. Here’s how he could turn America’s military into a new domestic nationwide policing force. On June 7, 2025, President Donald J. Trump ordered the federalization of 2,000 members of the California National Guard under 10 U.S.C. § 12406, citing what he called an “unlawful rebellion” in […]

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A man holds flag as community organizers protest outside the Federal Building following an immigration enforcement operation by federal authorities on Friday, June 6, 2025, in Los Angeles. Photo by Ringo Chiu.

Caesar in California

by Jonathan M. Winer | Jun 9, 2025 | National Security

The legal confrontation between the federal government and the State of California entered a new phase on June 7, 2025, when President Donald J. Trump invoked 10 U.S.C. § 12406, a statute that allows the President to place National Guard units under federal control in cases of rebellion or obstruction of law, thereby federalizing elements […]

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An unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile launches during an operational test at 1:13 a.m. Pacific Time Oct. 2, 2019, at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. (U.S. Air Force photo by Michael Peterson)

Trash the $140.9 Billion Sentinel ICBM Program Now!

by Robert Rudney | Jun 5, 2025 | National Security

The Air Force has recently acknowledged that the Minuteman III ICBM decommissioning will likely not terminate until 2050 and possibly beyond. This protracted delay is due to multiple cost-overruns and scheduling setbacks in the development of the Sentinel ICBM program, the updated nuclear missile system intended to replace the Minuteman. The Sentinel deployment is now […]

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The "Baker" explosion, part of Operation Crossroads, a nuclear weapon test by the United States military at Bikini Atoll, Micronesia, on 25 July 1946. The wider, exterior cloud is actually just a condensation cloud caused by the Wilson chamber effect, and was very brief. The actual mushroom cloud is inside the condensation cloud (compare with this image, a photo taken slightly later, after the condensation cloud had cleared). The water released by the explosion was highly radioactive and contaminated many of the ships that were set up near it. Some were otherwise undamaged and sent to Hunter's Point in San Francisco, California, United States for decontamination. Those which could not be decontaminated were sunk a number of miles off the coast of San Francisco.

Operation Crossroads: “The World’s First Nuclear Disaster”

by Robert Alvarez | May 29, 2025 | National Security

With Trump back in office, the recurring question of the need for nuclear weapons testing has resurfaced in the national security debate. Project 2025’s directive that the US return to “immediate test readiness” raises further alarm, given the primacy of that document in Trump’s circle. The general uncertainty around current U.S. nuclear posture gives added […]

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Bad Faith Documentary

Bad Faith 2026. Christian nationalism in power. "A great and powerful and timely film" says Ken Burns. Host a community screening. Click here to contact us.

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