In the 13 seconds between explosions at the Boston Marathon, dozens of the city's first responders were already on the move. Among them were Thomas Lee and David Carabin, veteran officers in the city's police force. Lee and Carabin had something in common beyond being two of "Boston's finest." Both hold graduate degrees from the Center for Homeland Defense and…

The shocking video of the arrest of an alleged CIA agent in Moscow this week on espionage charges certainly won’t rank as one of most heralded moments in the vaunted agency’s long history of derring-do. But spying — and counterspying — happens. We may never know the whole story of this latest spy-vs.-spy case, but there’s likely a lot more afoot than the nabbing of a…

Finally, the moment of truth is at hand. After months of preparation and calculations, after checking and rechecking miles of wiring, thousands of screws and hundreds of computer algorithms, it’s launch time. In the command center, all eyes gaze at the giant monitor. The rocket’s red glare fills the screen and the boosters maneuver the kill vehicle toward its target: a…

After 9/11, the words “immigration,” “border security” and “terrorism” were often linked in the same sentence. That was unfortunate. In America, terrorism is a “retail” problem. Terrorists are a small percentage of any group: visitors from overseas, immigrants, All-Americans, criminals—you name it. Border security and immigration are “wholesale” issues. They affect the…

Build a bomb. Stash it in a backpack. Go to a major sporting event. Drop the bag. Walk away. It was a simple plan, and it worked. Some people died. Many more were injured. Panic ensued. The president called it "an act of terror." And a wild manhunt was on. The year was 1996. The terrorist was Eric Robert Rudolph, a carpenter, handyman and extremist who had no training…

Our current vice president has had some not-so-good ideas. In 2006, the then-senator from Delaware proposed portioning Iraq into three separate autonomous regions. Each state, he argued, would have "room to run." Most likely, they would have run in opposite directions making an already messy situation even messier. Fortunately. his advice -- and his disregard for the…

No matter where or how or by whom the Boston Bombers were radicalized, one of the important take-aways from the terrible terrorist attack is that the international militant Islamist movement is alive, kicking — and killing. It’s time we wake up and smell the jihad. The threat is bad and it’s getting worse. In fact, here’s a sordid sampling of foreign and domestic…

Our attention is focused on the terrorist attack in Boston last week, but just two weeks ago we were gripped by North Korean threats of a new Korean War and the possibility of New York’s being hit attacked by long-range missiles. While North Korean promises of thermonuclear war have faded from the news for the moment, the threat hasn’t gone away for good. The…

This year’s defense budget is coming into focus, and the picture isn’t pretty. Congress and the president will probably agree to increase defense spending by a small amount, but they will probably also take money away from future defense budgets. This will allow them to say that they have increased defense spending while in reality the wholesale unraveling of American…

As the confrontation with North Korea heated up, President Obama reversed course on one missile-defense decision, even as he proposed a defense budget that trimmed another half-billion dollars from the enterprise. This self-contradictory behavior on missile defense reflects the president’s ambivalence about a program that he doesn’t want, but knows he needs. As a…

A bomb exploded in a Bangkok apartment. Both apartment and bomb turned out to belong to a man who had planned to attack the Israeli Embassy. Israeli officials ultimately linked the plot to Hezbollah. Hezbollah translates to "Party of God," but the group is know internationally more for its terrorist attacks than its religious or political activities. The U.S. State…

While unconfirmed as of this writing, it’s within the realm of possibility that there’s some sort of connection between the Boston Marathon bombers and international Islamist terrorism, including the likes of al-Qaeda. True, we don’t know at this point what motivated two young men to undertake these despicable acts of terror against innocents, but potential ties to a…

Say what you will about the Red Sox, the Bruins, or Boston politicians, the city’s people sure know how to respond to an act of terror. There are textbooks on how to respond to attacks at large public events like the Boston Marathon, and what happened in Massachusetts — from the first response to the investigation to the pursuit of the perpetrators — is strictly by the…

The threats to America’s cybersecurity are serious and growing. They range from private hackers of individuals to state-sponsored cyberattacks on companies and government agencies and networks. Cyberthreats endanger the entire American financial and security system, including the flow of money in banks and the electrical grid. The federal government already has…

She had an honorable discharge ... and an eviction notice. She also had marketable skills. In the Army, she had been a personnel management specialist. She could do event planning and outreach. She had all the makings of a top-notch employee. All she lacked was a job. Luckily for her, America Works knows talent when they see it. When she went to them for help, they saw…