The Insider

President Obama's national security adviser, James Jones, yesterday delivered his most detailed public remarks to date on his plans for leading the National Security Council. Speaking in Munich to the annual conference on security policy, Jones said the NSC is paying increased attention to the United States' capability to counter weapons of mass destruction as well as “placing a far higher priority on cyber security.”

From the transcript:

The President has made clear that to succeed against 21st century challenges, the United States must use, balance, and integrate all elements of national influence: our military and our diplomacy, our economy and our intelligence, and law enforcement capacity, our cultural outreach, and as was mentioned yesterday, the power of our moral example, in short, our values. Given this role, the NSC is by definition at the nexus of that effort. It integrates on a strategic sense all elements of our national security community towards the development of effective policy development and interagency cooperation. But to better carry out the president’s priorities, the National Security Council must respond to the world the way it is and not as we wish it were. And it must consider the fusion of our national priorities within the broader international context and interest. The NSC’s mission is relatively simple. It should perform the functions that it alone can perform and serve as a strategic center – and the word strategic is operative here – for the President’s priorities.

Jones, retired Marine four-star general, also said the NSC must adapt to evolving challenges.

There are traditional priorities that we will manage. But we must also update our outlook and sometimes our organization to keep pace with the changing world. To give you just a few examples, the NSC today works very closely with President Obama’s National Economic Council, which is led by Mr. Larry Summers, so that our response to the economic crisis is coordinated with our global partners and our national security needs. The NSC has worked closely with the White House Counsel’s office as we implement the President’s orders to ban torture and close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. The National Security Council is undertaking a review to determine how best to unify our efforts to combat terrorism around the world while protecting our homeland. And this effort will be led by Mr. John Brennan.

The National Security Council will be at the table as our government forges a new approach to energy security and climate change that demand broad cooperation across the U.S. Government and more persistent American leadership around the world. And the NSC is evaluating how to update our capacity to combat the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction while also placing a far higher priority on cyber security. There is no fixed model that can capture the world in all of its complexity. What’s right today will have to be different four years from now or eight years from now. And that’s precisely the point. The NSC’s comparatively small size gives it a unique capacity to reinvent itself as required and to pivot on the key priorities of our time.

A new survey conducted by the National Research Council and the American Association for the Advancement of Science queried scientists about their attitudes toward research that could be used for both good and evil.

According to an NRC statement, "rapid advances in the biological sciences over the last several decades have yielded great benefits such as medical therapies and vaccines. But some of these same scientific advances could also be used for malicious purposes, a threat that has become more salient to the science and policy communities since the terrorist attacks of 2001."

To that end, the survey "also explored actions the scientists might support to reduce the risk of misuse of research, as well as steps that scientists may already be taking in response to these concerns," the statement continues. The survey's results are summarized in a new NRC report that "includes recommendations for next steps."

While the survey had "a low response rate and uncertainties about whether the sample reflects the broader life sciences community limit the ability to generalize from the responses about the full U.S. life-sciences community” the survey results are nonetheless said to be “useful and informative," according to the statement.

The results suggest that survey respondents perceive a potential but not overwhelming risk of a bioterror attack in the next five years, a risk they believe is greater outside the U.S. Most respondents do not believe it is likely that dual-use knowledge, tools, or techniques will facilitate a bioterror attack in that time period.

Survey results also indicate that some respondents -- more than the committee had expected -- have been so concerned about dual-use issues that they have already taken action to try to avert misuse of research in the life sciences, even in the absence of guidelines or government restrictions. Some respondents reported that they had broken collaborations, not conducted some research projects, or not communicated research results.

Many of respondents' precautionary actions were taken during design, collaboration, and initial communication stages of research, before reaching the publication stage, the report notes. Of particular interest and concern to the committee, a few respondents offered comments about foreigners as potential security risks, which may be reflected in the reported avoidance of some collaborations.

"The fact that some scientists are changing their research activities may indicate that the life sciences community is responsibly responding to reduce the risk of misuse of science," said committee chair Ronald Atlas, professor of biology and public health at the University of Louisville. "But it is also possible that some scientists are overreacting to the perceived threat, for example by breaking collaborations and excluding foreigners from their laboratories. Our committee feels that it's important to further investigate how research activity is being changed in response to dual-use concerns."

With regard to future actions that the life sciences community would support to reduce the threat of misuse of research, the survey results indicate that life scientists in the U.S. may be more willing to consider mechanisms to reduce risks if they are developed and implemented by the scientific community itself. Most respondents favor their professional societies prescribing a code of conduct to help prevent misuse of life science research, for example, while a minority supported greater federal oversight. Among possible government restrictions, respondents were more supportive of restrictions on access to biological agents and certification of researchers than of any control of scientific knowledge generated from the research.

In addition, respondents showed support for mandatory training by institutions for practicing life scientists regarding dual-use concerns, as well as education materials and lectures for students.

The Carnegie Corp., the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the National Academies' Presidents' Circle Communications Initiative sponsored the project.

As the newly minted Obama White House formulates policies on everything from economic stimulus proposals to defense spending, one initiative being pursued by the new administration has raised the hackles of a small but influential circle of lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

The issue that has lawmakers up in arms is a recent memorandum issued by the Office of Management and Budget requesting a cost-benefit assessment on transferring the National Nuclear Security Administration and the national laboratories from the Energy Department to the Pentagon.

First reported by media outlets in New Mexico, OMB's request calls upon DOE to “assess the costs and benefits” of shifting NNSA to DOD beginning in fiscal year 2011.

“The idea of moving NNSA into the DOD is not a new one, and has been rejected in the past for good reasons,” according to Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA), chairwoman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee.

NNSA's assignment to DOE is necessary to “ensure some independence from the military,” and the move would send a message to the international community that the United States was “militarizing control” of the nuclear weapons portfolio, she said in a Feb. 5 letter to OMB Director Peter Orszag.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and others in the Pentagon have taken significant steps to reinvigorate the importance of the nuclear mission after a number of high-profile gaffes in the handling and transport of nuclear weapons in recent years.

But those efforts, according to Tauscher, have done little to restore lawmakers' confidence in the Pentagon's ability to manage the entire nuclear portfolio. “With all the recent evidence of military neglect of the nuclear mission, it is an odd time to consider relying on that vast bureaucracy to manage the activities” of either NNSA or the labs, Tauscher's letter states.

While opposed to the effort, the California Democrat suggested that if the White House was intent on exploring this option, it should do so in a broad-based manner, “and not focused on one option for improved management.”

“Such an examination would also be best formulated in consultation with Congress, particularly the committees of jurisdiction,” she writes.

We told you yesterday about a missile defense researcher outside the government using the free Google mapping software to create pretty sophisticated visualizations. But government workers themselves -- Navy folks, to be exact -- also are employing the software giant's technology.

On Monday, officials at the the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command (NMOC) said they had entered a cooperative research agreement with Google that allows the two organizations to share unclassified data about the world's oceans.

Under the agreement, NMOC officials are making available bathymetric data sets, sea surface temperatures and ocean current information, which can now be viewed in the latest Google Earth application.

In return, Navy officials received Google Earth enterprise licenses, which gives them an easy-to-use way of visualizing their vast amount of data.

The Air National Guard finally got its new boss on Tuesday when Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz and National Guard Bureau Director Gen. Craig McKinley pinned three stars on Lt. Gen. Harry Wyatt during a Pentagon ceremony marking Wyatt's promotion to director of the ANG.

Wyatt succeeds McKinley, who was selected to be the first four-star director of the National Guard Bureau last year. McKinley's -- now Wyatt's -- deputy, Maj. Gen. Emmett Titshaw, served as acting director of the Air Guard following McKinley's promotion in December.

Wyatt takes the reins of the Air Guard as it faces dramatic reductions to its fighter fleet. Many of the Guard's 386 Block 25/30/32 F-16s will reach the end of their service lives as soon as 2016, while their replacement, the F-35 Lightning II, continues to suffer delays. This has left ANG leaders scrambling to find alternate missions for numerous flying units, Titshaw told an audience at the Reserve Officers Association Mid Winter Conference in Washington on Tuesday.

Time will tell if Wyatt is as outspoken as his predecessor about the need to recapitalize the ANG fleet. McKinley frequently told congress that the Air Guard was facing a fighter gap that would hurt its ability to perform the Operation Noble Eagle fighter patrols that defend stateside airspace against attack.

Wyatt was previously the adjutant general of the Oklahoma National Guard. The career fighter pilot has flown everything from F-100 Super Sabres to F-16 Vipers.

If you read USA Today today, you saw two stories that may have looked familiar. One dealt with a Defense Department inspector general's report on the Army and Marine Corps Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle program. If you are a regular reader of ours you saw that report, marked "official use only," here in December.

And you also read USA Today's other story here first. That story was about the new, lighter weight, all terrain MRAP. You can link to our January story here.