Washington, D.C., November 1, 2024 - A recently declassified “after-action” report from a 2002 war game “triggered internal warnings that the U.S. military was vulnerable to low-tech warfare,” according to an article in this week’s Washington Post written by National Security Archive fellow Nate Jones.
Washington, D.C., August 8, 2022 – After years of research and planning, U.S. officials and scientists overseeing the Manhattan Project were startlingly unprepared for the emergence of evidence of the long-term effects of radiation generated by the atomic bomb – even after the Trinity test in July 1945 and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 77 years ago this week, according to documents posted today by the National Security Archive.
Washington, D.C., May 26, 2022 – The Pentagon’s role in U.S. environmental policy expanded during the Clinton presidency as the Pentagon became a more active player at international climate change conferences and pressed for acceptance of policies favorable to the U.S. military, according to declassified documents posted today by the nongovernmental National Security Archive.
Washington, D.C., January 20, 2022 – Pentagon demands for military exemptions during the 1997 Kyoto climate negotiations posed a substantial challenge for the Clinton administration both internally and with American allies, according to a collection of declassified internal papers posted today by the nongovernmental National Security Archive.
Washington, D.C., December 6, 2021 — This week, as NATO concludes its annual flagship cyber exercise, Cyber Coalition 21, newly declassified documents detail American collaboration with NATO allies to dissuade and impede Russian advances, both in cyberspace and in European territory. The recently released materials feature after action reports (AARs) and planning documents concerning the BALTIC GHOST series of cyber exercises.
Washington, D.C., December 10, 2021 – As the United States engages in strategic stability talks with Russia and seeks similar talks with China, it is worth looking back to the origins of the concept and its early usage in the late 1950s and 1960s. Today, the National Security Archive posts selected White House and other high-level records that speak to “strategic stability’s” past – and continuing – impact on evaluations of new strategic systems and the risks of escalating the nuclear arms race.
Washington, D.C., October 14, 2021 – The Pentagon’s plan for a trillion-dollar spending program to build new ICBMs, submarines, and bombers has met pushback from critics in and out of Congress who worry about excessive military spending. Some argue that ICBMs are destabilizing and that fewer land-based missiles and bombers and continued investment in submarine-launched ballistic missiles would reduce the U.S.’s vulnerability to nuclear attack.
Washington D.C., August 20, 2021 - As the world observes the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan, the subsequent collapse of the Afghan government and the resurgence of the Taliban, it will also likely witness the targeting and persecution of thousands of Afghans, aided by U.S.-collected biometrics. In a report from The Intercept, a current U.S. military official and former U.S.
Washington D.C., May 28, 2021 – “The United States came fairly close to using tactical nuclear weapons” during the Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1958, according to a secret 1966 RAND summary report posted today for the first time by the National Security Archive. Washington contemplated this extreme response to anticipated Chinese aggression “despite opposition to its policy by most of its allies and many in the United States,” the report notes.