The Center for Strategic and International Studies new “Global Forecast” offers 17 essays on the potential top challenges with security implications for the US in 2008. Leading the pack are essays featuring Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan, but the forecast also covers Asia, Europe, Africa, Cuba, and transnational threats. Concluding this forecast, which labels the upcoming US Presidential election as the “main event” for 2008 is an “afterword” in which Richard Armitage and Joseph Nye say the US should “become a smarter power by reinvesting in the global good.” Hmmm.
A new report from the Government Accountability Office calls for the Pentagon’s Chief Technology Officer to have budget certification authority over the military services’ research and development accounts—a move the services say would add a burdensome and unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.

