Keith Rankin – On Monday, July 20, Andy Burnham became prime minister of the United Kingdom, replacing Keir Starmer. He’ll be the second leading Commonwealth prime minister, in recent years, to have been elevated into the Prime Ministership from outside of parliament (with Mark Carney, prime minister of Canada being the first).

Keir Starmer

To many people from outside of the United Kingdom, who get their news from elite-media sources, it will be not clear why Keir Starmer became so toxic as the United Kingdom prime minister. There were two essential reasons.

The first was foreign policy. Starmer, already unpopular before his party won the 2024 election with a record-low popular vote (contrast the support that election for Jeremy Corban), ‘cooked his political goose’ early on with his unwavering support for Israel at a time when Israel was (and still is) committing live-streamed genocide. This source of unpopularity was amplified by the Starmer government’s declaration of pro-Palestinian protestors as ‘terrorists’; all at a time when the world was coming to realise that the unevidenced declaration of certain people as terrorists becomes a licence to murder or torture them.

Further, on the foreign policy front, United Kingdom elites in general – and Keir Starmer in particular – have pursued a belligerent anti-Russia foreign policy. It is not at all clear that ordinary British people are quite as animated about Vladimir Putin as Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Keir Starmer have been; I am sure Donald Trump animates more people than Putin.

Keir Starmer – along with Germany’s Friedrich Mertz and France’s Emmanuel Macron – is a principal foreign backer of Ukraine’s attacks deep into Russia (and attacks on oil facilities – including tankers – far more telling than anything Iran has done in the Persian Gulf), the world’s most heavily nuclear-armed nation. My sense is that ordinary British people are not so much concerned about Russia, and are much more concerned about ‘bread and butter’ economic issues; and dearly wish for a deprioritisation of foreign policy belligerence in favour of reduced domestic inequality and more domestic opportunity.

Thus, the second essential reason for Starmer’s downfall was domestic policy. Some of the concern about recent missteps in domestic policy has mis-translated into a very real ‘anti-immigrant’ narrative among England’s working class; Burnham will not try to placate that sentiment. The deeper concerns relate to the retrenchment of the British welfare state (with an increasingly punitive approach towards Britain’s huge and growing numbers of economic victims), and the retrenchment of the British fiscal state creating a series of leaderships characterised by a Pavlovian helplessness towards the injection of money into the economy.

On this last point, the United Kingdom suffered in 2010 by (as Ruth Richardson did in New Zealand in 1994) the passing of a law to render expansionary fiscal policy illegal; these now illegal policies, when adopted in the past, got the world out of the Great Depression of the 1930s and then built up the post-war prosperity.

(The New Zealand fiscal repression law was the 1994 Fiscal Responsibility Act, now incorporated into the Finance Act; and note The Fiscal Responsibility Act 1994: The astonishing success of a weak non-binding policy 2018 by Derek Gill. We may also note that Christopher Luxon follows the principles of fiscal repression as a matter of belief, and not because he is obliged to by the law.)

The British initiative, associated with George Osborne, established the Office for Budget Responsibility. This has led to a highly conservative form of technocratic governance informed by classical liberal principles (established 210 years ago by James Mill and David Ricardo) and disallowing governance informed by Keynesian principles (established 90 years ago by John Maynard Keynes). (For other references, see Can Andy Burnham rebuild Britain if the OBR says no? July 2026 by Richard J Murphy, The OBR and the unintended economic consequences of Mr Osborne 12 July 2024 by Nick O’Donovan, and The Role of the OBR 25 July 2024, New Economy Brief.)

Andy Burnham

Andy Burnham is popular because he’s seen as a plausible, indeed charismatic, political leader with sound albeit moderate social-democratic credentials. Yet almost all the television coverage I have seen about him focuses on domestic socio-economic and regional governance policy; none of that coverage has focussed on fiscal policy.

All this at a time when the world faces its most serious geo-military crisis, ever (or at least since the 1962 Cuba-USA-USSR crisis). And in which the United Kingdom is a central player; indeed the nuclear power whose decisions might – and sooner than many of us would prefer to think – swing the fate of the world between life and death.

(Note these two articles, both written by people who are not Russophiles, which contain warnings about what the Russian polity might do as its other politically-realistic options disappear: The Putin Escalation Risk 3 July 2026 by Ian Bremmer; and Letting Russia Burn 13 July 2026 by Nina L Khrushcheva, great-granddaughter of the leader of the Soviet Union in 1962 Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev; both articles on Project Syndicate.)

What will Burnham do if, for example, Russia strikes at a nuclear power station within a Nato country; or fires a nuclear warhead into Western Ukraine? Burnham has no track record on foreign policy, or geopolitics.

Finally, will Burnham succumb to the Office for Business Responsibility?

The Liberal Democrats succumbed in 2010 to 2015 (coalition partners in government), by going along with the damaging policies of fiscal consolidation; the policies (pursued also by Germany with its debt-brake) which delayed the European recovery by at least half a decade. The LibDems caught the wrath of the British electorate in 2015.

Brexit was an indirect result of the Office for Business Responsibility. With a referendum, the United Kingdom could not hide behind the incumbent-preservation bias of the First Past the Post electoral system (saving the Tories in 2015; this bias also preserved unpopular governments in New Zealand in 1978, 1981, 1987, and especially 1993). In the 2016 Brexit referendum, every vote counted; previously, people in the northeast of England had almost never had their votes make a jot of difference to the outcome of British elections.

Theresa May survived as prime minister for three years, benefitting from the best three years of the world economy since 2008, but being gaslit by Boris Johnson. Johnson could have been prime minister for a decade, but he undermined himself principally through issues more interesting to the media than fiscal policy. Liz Truss tried to defy the OBR (in an extreme right-wing way), and only lasted a few weeks. Rishi Sunak did his best given the political constraints he was up against, the most important having been that he was both a Conservative and a conservative.

It was Starmer who was most overtly tested by the OBR, and he failed that test spectacularly (but not as spectacularly as Christopher Luxon has failed the equivalent test in New Zealand, though Luxon may yet be saved by a number of fortuitous circumstances which are in no way attributable to him). Economic slowth in the United Kingdom has been significantly less problematic than in New Zealand.

We have no indication, yet, that Burnham has the political smarts to defeat the Treasury technocrats. But, as Richard Murphy explained, he is almost certainly Britain’s best bet at present.

Analysis of the 2024 United Kingdom election clearly suggests that Labour would have got far more than 34% of the vote had Burnham rather than Starmer been the party leader then.) Burnham does have a mandate to lead – and to change course – despite the unusual circumstances through which he has become Prime Minister.

Here’s hoping that Andy Burnham can overcome the belligerents in both the British Treasury and in Nato. Does he have the balls to be a non-belligerent on the world stage? Can he face down Mark Rutte?

About the writer:

Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

How low is too low when it comes to testosterone levels? When Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced in July 2026 that U.S. service members ages 30 and older will have their testosterone tested every year, neither he nor the Pentagon specified what level of the hormone would be considered “low” enough to require treatment – a telling omission, since where “low” begins depends on the lab conducting the test and the guidelines your doctor follows.

The announcement lands amid a national testosterone craze: Prescriptions have climbed to nearly 12 million in 2025, up 154% since 2020, and fastest among men in their late 30s and 40s. Online clinics that sell testosterone as a lifestyle upgrade have largely driven this rise in prescriptions.

As a psychologist who studies masculinity, I’m certain that while the idea that more testosterone makes a man tougher and more fit to fight seems intuitive, it’s also mostly wrong.

What testosterone actually does

Testosterone is often considered a “male” hormone, but people of every gender produce it in differing amounts.

In cisgender boys and men, testosterone levels rise at puberty, helping build muscle, grow body hair and produce sperm. Levels naturally decline in adulthood, typically beginning age 30 and onward. When levels drop significantly below normal and a person begins to experience symptoms such as extreme fatigue, low libido or drastic muscle loss, testosterone replacement therapy with medical supervision can help.

But “normal” is a vast range. Endocrinologists consider testosterone levels between roughly 300 to 1,000 nanograms per deciliter as healthy. Within that range, a man’s testosterone level tells you little about the “masculine” traits that some people think it governs.

Testosterone is tied to muscle mass, but in healthy men, it doesn’t track with actual strength – training, sleep and nutrition matter far more. As endocrinologist Adrian Dobs put it, a person at 700 isn’t stronger or more of a man than one at 300.

Moreover, an individual’s testosterone levels aren’t fixed – they swing by the hour and the season. So doctors usually test testosterone levels only when symptoms appear. Screening healthy men by the millions may be potentially harmful.

For instance, testosterone therapy often carries risks. Supplementing the hormone signals the body to shut down production of its own supply, which can shrink the testicles and suppress sperm. Some researchers have even studied testosterone for its contraceptive effects.

Moreover, because testosterone revs up oil glands and hair follicles – and partly converts them to estrogen – it can also bring about acne, balding and even some breast tissue growth.

This “high-T” ideal – sold by online clinics and now endorsed from the top – glosses over these severe risks.

The macho myth

Decades of research undercut Hegseth’s core claim that more testosterone means a more aggressive, dominant, masculine man.

A 2001 analysis of data from 45 studies covering nearly 10,000 people found only a small correlation between testosterone levels and aggression. When researchers pooled data in 2020 from experiments that actually administered testosterone to participants to study whether it causes aggression, they found only weak evidence. In fact, they saw that the effects of testosterone on aggression primarily showed up in men who were more dominant or impulsive.

If anything, the arrow runs the opposite way – behavior drives testosterone levels. One study found that men who handled a gun for 15 minutes had bigger testosterone spikes and acted more aggressively than men who touched a board game. Meanwhile, the testosterone levels of new fathers fell more steeply the more they physically cared for their child.

When men do demonstrate aggression, the trigger is typically social. In my own research, threatening a man’s sense of manhood – but not a woman’s womanhood – reliably provokes aggression, and the men who react most strongly are those who feel the most pressure to live up to masculine ideals.

The link between aggression and the fear of failing at manhood takes root early. In a study of more than 200 adolescent boys and their parents, my team and I found that boys who reacted aggressively to threats to their masculinity were mainly those who felt external pressure to be masculine. That pressure was strongest among boys whose parents endorsed specific beliefs about manhood, like the idea that men should hold power over others.

Biology, social pressure and development work together to determine how a boy grows into a man. Unlike Hegseth’s story that manhood is a chemical to be topped off, research shows that while hormones may open a window, the social environment decides what comes through.

Military life lowers testosterone

Ironically, the grind of military service can drive down a man’s testosterone levels.

A 2020 study of U.S. Army Rangers found that the sleep loss built into training significantly reduced testosterone levels.

Chronic stress, sleep deprivation, blast exposure and poor nutrition can produce a cluster of health problems called “Operator Syndrome.” In some cases, the work conditions of special operators can push a 35-year-old’s testosterone levels toward those typical of a man in his 80s.

Notice the loop: The military imposes the very conditions that suppress testosterone, then proposes to fix the result with more of it. The psychologist who named Operator Syndrome cautioned that handing troops testosterone won’t restore their health, because the real culprits are sleep, stress and injury.

Double standards

In February 2025, the Pentagon halted gender-affirming hormone therapy for transgender troops, framing such care as incompatible with the force’s “readiness” and “lethality.” Yet prescribing testosterone to bring a cisgender man’s body in line with the Pentagon’s masculine ideals is hormone therapy, too.

Legal advocates flagged the contradiction at once: The same class of medication is disqualifying for one group of service members, but for another, it’s rebranded as optimizing the soldier.

So a testosterone mandate won’t build tougher soldiers – if anything, it reveals an anxiety no hormone can fix. My research argues that the men most pressured to prove their manhood are the ones who most experience it as fragile, treating masculinity as a status that can be lost and must be won back again and again.

Telling troops that their readiness hinges on a test result can deepen their anxiety around manhood. Real strength – the kind that holds up under fire – is not something that can be topped off with a hormone. Although testosterone is biologically useful, it isn’t the measure of a man or soldier.

Adam Stanaland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/20/more-testosterone-wont-make-a-better-soldier-or-a-tougher-man-aggression-and-strength-drive-t-levels-not-the-other-way-around/

The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) reform bill, now before parliament is the centrepiece of the federal government’s budget savings measures.

It’s the biggest reform the 13-year-old NDIS has faced and aims to ensure the scheme’s sustainability by bringing long-term funding growth down to 5–6% a year.

While a Senate committee inquiry completes its deliberations, the Greens and the cross-benchers are tinkering around the edges of the bill. They’re proposing minor amendments and small carve-outs from the harshest measures.

But they should be aiming higher.

The current bill includes short-term measures that are deeply concerning: a 50% cut to every NDIS participant’s social and community participation supports budget, and a 10% cut to every capacity-building daily activities budget.

These measures should be removed from the bill. These cuts will cause unnecessary harm to disabled Australians and, as our analysis shows, they’re unnecessary. The government can meet its objective of making the NDIS sustainable without them.

What’s been proposed?

An NDIS reform bill needs to pass to ensure the government can get on with necessary structural repairs to the scheme.

The bill includes:

• fixing flaws in the scheme’s design
• increasing consistency in assessing people’s eligibility and setting their budgets
• moving away from over-reliance on markets
• improving governance of the multi-billion-dollar program.

The bulk of the current bill relates to measures that will enable this repair.

What’s proposed for social and community participation budgets?

The government has also targeted social and community participation costs because they have grown faster than the scheme average. But they’re not the fastest-growing support category.

The “support determinations” section of the bill would be used to cut every NDIS participant’s social and community participation supports budget by 50%, and every capacity-building daily activities budget by 10%.

These cuts would be expected to stick: spending in these categories would be lower than it would otherwise be for years to come.

Social and community participation budgets support people to engage in everyday social, recreational, civic and community life and are central to the program’s purpose.

This might include travel training for an intellectually disabled person to build their independence in catching public transport to TAFE, sport or social activities. Or it might mean a support worker accompanying someone to attend a cultural celebration or community group.

What would cuts mean for participants?

These cuts will increase people’s social isolation and place additional burden on families and informal carers, mostly women, who would have to pick up the slack.

These cuts would also strip the most support from the most vulnerable people in the NDIS.

People in supported independent living or specialist disability accommodation, for example, have on average social and community participation budgets more than five times as high as other people in the NDIS. As such, they would lose five times as much support.

These cuts aren’t necessary to meet the government’s target

The government wants to bring NDIS cost growth down to 5–6% a year, from 11.3% in the 12 months to March 2026.

This is a reasonable ambition, and would be similar to growth in other social programs, such as Medicare and aged care.

But this target would be achieved with or without the proposed short-term cuts.

While the short-term cuts would deliver more than a third of the package’s A$37.8 billion savings over the four years to 2029–30, they would do nothing to dampen the long-term growth rate of the NDIS.

A one-off fall in costs

The government’s proposed short-term cuts would have an almost immediate effect on scheme costs, reaching their full impact of about A$4 billion a year by 2028–29.

But after 2028-29, savings from the short-term cuts would plateau. They would increase by only 5% in 2029-30, while savings from the structural reforms would increase by about 60%.

These growth patterns mean the short-term cuts would contribute a shrinking proportion of total savings from the reform package, down from 50% in 2026–27 to 26% in 2029–30.

This plateauing of savings means the impact of the short-term cuts would be a step fall in annual scheme costs, rather than a dampening of the rate of long-term growth.

Sustainability can be achieved without the short-term cuts

According to our calculations, over the next four years (the forward estimates), the full package of proposed reforms would drag NDIS cost growth down to 1.1% a year, a cut in real terms.

Without the short-term cuts, cost growth would be 3% a year. That would still be a real cut in population-adjusted terms, and is well below the government’s target long-term NDIS growth rate of 5–6% a year.

The government has not made the case for the necessity for such deep and blunt cuts in the short term.

In the period after 2029–30, NDIS cost growth under the full package of reforms would be about 5%, from a base cost of $56.2 billion in 2029–30.

Were the bill to be passed with the short-term cuts removed, cost growth would still be about 5%, but from a $4.3 billion higher base cost of $60.5 billion in 2029–30.

Bottom line

Cuts to social and community participation budgets achieve no policy goal, and do nothing to make the NDIS sustainable, while hurting people who rely on these supports to participate in their communities.

The government’s insistence on making these cuts is about shoring up the budget bottom line – but at the expense of some of the most vulnerable Australians. A similarly blunt approach to Medicare or hospital funding would be unthinkable.

Passing the bill with these cuts included would hit the short-term savings target but entirely miss the point.

Grattan Institute’s Disability Program has support from the Summer Foundation.

Owain Emslie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/20/cutting-community-participation-budgets-isnt-needed-to-save-the-ndis/

If producing electric vehicles (EVs) was an Olympic sport, China would be dominating the medals podium.

China now leads the world in the sale and export of EVs, a term encompassing everything from battery-powered cars to plug-in hybrids. Chinese companies also produce the lion’s share of the rechargeable batteries that keep EVs running.

Between 2009 and 2022, the Chinese government dished out more than A$41 billion in subsidies and tax benefits to boost the production of electric cars, taxis and buses.

But subsidies alone can’t explain the meteoric rise of China’s EV industry. Over two decades, Beijing has built a manufacturing sector that fosters domestic competition, rapid production and company-level innovation.

The rise of Chinese EVs

By producing more EVs, China aims to reduce its reliance on imported oil from countries such as Iran, Russia and Venezuela. It also hopes to leapfrog countries that historically have dominated the global car manufacturing industry, including Germany, Japan and the US. In September 2020, the Chinese government folded these objectives into a national decarbonisation strategy.

In 2025, more than half of the new cars sold in China were EVs. And Chinese-made vehicles are gaining traction around the world. In the United Kingdom, more than 30% of the new cars sold in 2025 were EVs. In Norway, EV sales surged to represent more than 95% of the country’s total car sales in 2025.

But they are proving less popular in the United States, with EV sales sitting at just 10%. That’s even despite the US walling out Chinese EVs through tariffs.

Australia has also been slow to adopt Chinese-made EVs. But our market reached a tipping point in June 2026, when EVs made up close to 30% of new car sales.

Crucially, Chinese-made vehicles are no longer marginal. In 2026, China overtook Japan – the market leader over nearly three decades – as Australia’s primary source of new vehicles. Affordable models, rising fuel prices, an expanding charging network and the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard all accelerated this shift.

Tesla still sells the most pure electric EVs in Australia, holding 28% of the market. However, Chinese brands such as BYD, Geely and XPeng have gone from being fringe players to mainstream companies. BYD is a prime example, chasing Tesla with its 24% share of the Australian market.

Read more:
20 years ago, China bet big on electric vehicles. Now Western carmakers are feeling the pain

Survival of the fittest

These companies didn’t achieve success overnight. They spent years competing, failing and innovating in an often brutal domestic market.

At the height of China’s EV boom, more than 500 companies rushed into the EV sector. They were driven by cheap capital, local government backing and start-up enthusiasm.

Most did not survive.

As subsidies were wound back and purchase incentives became less generous, roughly 90% of early movers were squeezed out. So the state created the early market, but the market then ruthlessly punished weak players.

To stay afloat, companies had to adapt. Here are three examples.

Geely/Zeekr

Legacy brand Geely began as a refrigerator parts maker. But in 1994, it pivoted to produce motorcycles and China’s first domestically built scooters. It entered the automotive industry in 1997. To produce a competitive EV, Geely drew on the international engineering expertise of Volvo to improve on the product of premium global EV brand Zeekr.

Xiaomi

As a latecomer, Xiaomi launched its first EV in 2024. Founded in 2010 as a software start-up, Xiaomi’s first successful product was an Android-like operating system for smartphones. But it soon brought this technology into the world of smart home appliances and EVs.

BYD

BYD started out manufacturing batteries, becoming China’s largest rechargeable battery producer by the early 2000s. But in 2003, BYD made the leap to EVs after acquiring a struggling state-owned carmaker. And in just two decades, BYD has become the vertically integrated titan of the EV world. By controlling its EV supply chain – ranging from power electronics to vehicle platforms and shipping – the company is able to assemble one vehicle every 52 seconds. In 2025, BYD delivered a record 4.5 million cars globally.

China’s hubs of regional expertise ensure individual companies can rapidly move from design to production. One example is the Pearl River Delta, where EV brands can tap into Shenzhen’s electronics prowess and Guangzhou’s long history in car manufacturing.

Read more:
China’s ‘innovation machine’: how it works, how it’s changing and why it matters

Feeling the pressure

Despite its promising growth, China’s EV sector is now under strain.

The reasons for this are complex. But a saturated market and eroding profit margins are two key factors.

And domestic demand simply can’t absorb all the EVs China is producing. In the first half of 2026, Chinese car buyers spent nearly 13% less compared to the previous year. That represents the sharpest decline among China’s major consumer goods.

So for China, overseas markets are not just an expansion opportunity. They are a vital pressure valve.

Winning the global EV race requires more than low-cost production. Tariffs, data security, battery standards, charging infrastructure, resale values and consumer trust will ultimately determine if Chinese EV companies become globally-respected brands.

Read more:
Chinese electric vehicles are transforming Australia’s car market. Are we getting a good deal?

Where to from here?

For Australia, the rise of China’s EV sector presents a strategic paradox. Without our own car manufacturing industry, we have little economic rationale to impose tariffs that mirror those of the European Union or US.

And relying on Chinese EVs would put the world’s clean energy transition at the mercy of Beijing. However, these vehicles could also help countries such as Australia rapidly reach their transport-emissions targets.

Rather than resisting this shift, countries should bolster their national standards around data security, vehicle safety and battery recycling, and fund more public charging networks. If not, we risk importing thousands of Chinese-made EVs without the knowledge or infrastructure to use them wisely.

Read more:
Electric vehicles are built different. Australia needs better data to get the most out of the shift

Marina Yue Zhang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/20/chinese-companies-are-taking-over-the-ev-market-whats-behind-their-meteoric-rise/

In the United States, Google’s (now Alphabet) Debug initiative has asked the federal government for permission to release up to 32 million sterilised male mosquitoes in California and Florida.

Male mosquitoes don’t bite or carry disease. The hope is these millions of male mosquitoes will mate with disease-carrying females, the eggs won’t hatch, and mosquito numbers will fall.

Unsurpringly, the US public has questions about the plan, including whether the release is safe and will work at scale, and what happens afterwards. Google/Alphabet’s plan is to release more than 16 million mozzies each year, for two years.

More than a decade ago, I led a project with Google’s life sciences division, (now known as Verily), to test a novel mosquito-control strategy in far north Queensland.

The results showed releasing specially bred male mosquitoes can dramatically suppress populations of the exotic, invasive mosquito species Aedes aegypti. This species is responsible for spreading deadly diseases such as dengue, Zika, chikungunya and yellow fever. Given the US is seriously considering this approach, our Australian experience offers important lessons.

Using mosquitoes against themselves

This story begins in 2015, when we travelled to Silicon Valley to meet Verily scientists interested in developing a mosquito suppression technology. Their goals aligned closely with our own research, supported by an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council grant, to develop environmentally friendly tools for suppressing invasive mosquitoes.

The strategy focuses on male mosquitoes because they don’t bite, and female Aedes aegypti, which generally only mate once during their lifetime. If that mating event was incompatible – meaning the embryos don’t develop – it could not produce viable offspring. Our challenge was to make mating ineffective.

The approach we ultimately tested relied on Wolbachia, a naturally occurring bacterium found in many insects. Some Wolbachia strains create a form of reproductive incompatibility, as described above.

The theory is simple: release enough Wolbachia-carrying males into a population and, over time, the population declines. The released males are also beautifully evolved to search and find the last females – their large bushy antennae are super-radars for this job.

North Queensland the perfect laboratory

The Cassowary Coast in north Queensland provided ideal conditions for a large-scale trial of this approach. The region contained towns with abundant Aedes aegypti populations, while surrounding agricultural areas limited movement between communities. Equally important was the support of residents, local government and First Nations leaders.

Aedes aegypti likely arrived in Queensland in the late 1800s. It is distinct from our native mosquitoes because it is highly domesticated and feeds mainly on humans.

Before a single mosquito was released, the project team spent two years conducting field surveys and engaging with communities. We met with households, community organisations, First Nations leaders and local councils to discuss the technology and answer questions. The project, known as “Debug Innisfail”, ultimately received regulatory approval from multiple authorities.

Releasing three million male mosquitoes

Field surveys began in 2015, involving a collaborative team spanning Australian and US institutions. During a 20-week release period in 2018, around three million Wolbachia-carrying male mosquitoes were released into three treatment towns. Meanwhile, control towns where no mosquitoes were released were monitored.

The release system itself reflected Verily’s engineering strengths. The company developed bespoke technologies, including machine-learning-based systems capable of separating male and female mosquitoes, crucial to ensuring only males were released.

The results were striking: when compared with control towns, mosquito populations in towns where mosquitoes were released began declining within four weeks. The findings, published in 2021, demonstrated incompatible male mosquito releases could achieve strong suppression.

In two treatment towns, suppression effects persisted into the following year. In one town, monitoring detected only a handful of Aedes aegypti 12 months later, corresponding to roughly 95% suppression.

What this means for the US

The Australian trials provide evidence-based answers to many of the concerns now being raised in the US.

First, ecological impacts are likely to be very small. Aedes aegypti is an invasive species in Australia and many other countries. Because it exclusively lives around humans and bites them, removing it from urban environments has minimal ecological consequences.

Second, the approach can work at scale. Although adult mosquitoes survive for only a few days, continuous releases of highly competitive males can substantially reduce populations across entire towns.

Third, benefits may persist after releases finish. This is because the suppression outcome does not necessarily disappear straight away, and can carry over into subsequent seasons. But that doesn’t mean mosquito biology can be ignored – success depends on factors such as local ecology, mosquito movement patterns, and community participation. The technology alone is not enough.

A model for future mosquito control

Perhaps the most important lesson from the trials is the value of collaboration. This project brought together researchers from six universities and Verily. Combining scientific expertise with industrial-scale engineering accelerated the journey from laboratory concept to real-world field trial in an incredibly short time.

We are still working towards biological and mechanical approaches to efficiently separating male mosquitoes, which would have better utility in developing countries.

As Aedes aegypti expands its range and insecticides fail to suppress it, using the mosquito against itself as the biological control tool will become increasingly important.

The Queensland trials helped lay the groundwork for programs now underway in the US. And they are a reminder that when science, technology and communities work together, it is possible to solve problems that matter.

Nigel Beebe receives funding from The National Health and Medical Research Council and the Gates Foundation.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/20/google-wants-to-release-16-million-sterile-mozzies-our-australian-tests-offer-a-valuable-lesson/

The Victorian government has announced it will introduce “nation-leading” laws to make technology companies accountable for preventing hate and keeping children safe.

The announcement comes as governments around the world grapple with how best to mitigate online harms, including emerging ones associated with artificial intelligence (AI).

So what are the new laws? And how will they work in practice?

Unmasking trolls

The state will introduce a new “unmasking” law. This will enable Victorians who are being vilified online to find out who is targeting them via anonymous accounts.

The law will give the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) the ability to issue a “demasking order” to force social media platforms to identify anonymous users.

“Hiding behind an anonymous account online should never mean you can vilify someone and get away with it,” Victorian Premier Jacinta Allen said in announcing the new law.

This new law follows the April 2026 introduction of stronger civil protections for people targeted with vilification because of a protected attribute, such as their race, religion, disability, gender identity, sex, sex characteristics or sexual orientation.

It also comes amid growing debate about when someone should be afforded anonymity offline.

As antisemitism adviser and former chief scientist Alan Finkel told the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion last week:

I do feel that the cloak of secrecy across our community, not just in universities, is possibly overused, especially if somebody has been found to have breached a code.

Making it easier to sue

Victoria will also introduce a new law to make it easier for families to sue social media platforms and AI providers for negligence causing psychiatric harm to a child.

Currently, there is a legal threshold requiring “proof of a permanent impairment of 10% or more” before a family can bring an action before the courts. The new law will remove that threshhold in cases brought on behalf of children.

In making this announcement, the government pointed to overseas courts that have already found platforms liable for designing addictive features aimed at children.

For example, in March 2026, a court in the United States found Meta and Google were negligent in the design of their platforms, Instagram and YouTube. The companies were ordered to pay millions to a young woman who argued the social media platforms exacerbated her mental health conditions.

The government said it will consider whether to extend similar protections to adults.

Read more:
Meta and Google just lost a landmark social media addiction case. A tech law expert explains the fallout

Several points of concern

These laws are not yet drafted, let alone implemented. So how they will work is not yet clear. The government’s announcement explains these laws “will be developed following targeted consultation with VCAT, the courts and other stakeholders”.

The time needed for consultation and to draft the laws may also prove challenging, with a state election set to be held in November. That leaves only a few weeks of sitting time for the government to pass these reforms ahead of the election.

The consultation period is also likely to raise several points of concern.

Some cyber security experts have criticised the proposal. For example, Susan McLean, a former Victorian police officer who now specialises in cyber safety, said it “highlights the Victorian government’s lack of understanding of the digital world”.

One key criticism is that the courts can already compel technology companies to identify anonymous users, with police able to access this information through social media platforms’ law enforcement portals.

But as Susan McLean acknowledged, many cases “go unreported [as] people don’t make a police report in the first place”.

While extending VCAT’s powers may facilitate the process for identifying anonymous users in civil cases, this still places the burden on consumers to sue technology companies.

This means the benefits of this new law may be beyond the reach of those who cannot afford to pursue litigation.

Another concern is how the law would be applied to users in other countries, or those who pretend to be outside of Victoria by using VPNs. It is also unclear whether technology companies would comply with the laws and what the consequences would be for non-compliance.

Is there a better alternative?

Even if these new laws are passed, consumers living in other states would not benefit from these reforms. Other states would need to introduce similar laws, or the federal government would need to pursue legislation at a federal level.

Victoria’s consultation process may open such discussions, as happened with Australia’s social media ban. That legislation was first put forward by South Australia. It later became national law when it was taken up at a federal level. The same could happen here.

Or it may be that Victoria’s proposed laws become unnecessary as the federal government has committed to introducing digital duty of care legislation.

This law would go further than current social media restrictions to hold technology companies to account for harmful content and design features. That could address both vilification and mental health concerns.

Digital duty of care legislation could protect Australians in every state, without the need for individuals and families to pursue costly and time-consuming litigation.

Whether or not Victoria’s laws are passed, they point to the need for additional regulations to make social media, AI, and other online spaces as safe as they can be for all Australians.

Lisa M. Given receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the eSafety Commissioner. She is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and the international Association for Information Science and Technology.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/20/new-laws-in-victoria-target-online-trolls-and-harmful-tech-designs-how-will-they-work/

Earth’s orbit is getting crowded.

About 16,000 satellites currently circle our planet, supporting everything from GPS navigation and weather forecasting to banking, emergency services and internet communications.

Dozens more are launched every few weeks. Some estimates suggest the total number of satellites could exceed 100,000 within this decade, with more conservative estimates landing on up to 60,000 satellites by 2030 – still a staggering amount.

This rapid growth is creating an important challenge. How do we safely manage an increasingly crowded orbital environment while ensuring the satellites we depend on continue to work reliably?

The risks are not difficult to imagine. Large satellite constellations increase light pollution and other disruptions to astronomy and the night sky. More satellites mean more traffic, a greater chance of collisions and an increasing amount of space debris.

Read more:
Too many satellites? Earth’s orbit is on track for a catastrophe – but we can stop it

In a worst-case scenario, space debris can cause a runaway chain reaction known as Kessler syndrome, which would ensconce Earth in a cloud of debris and render its orbit unusable, without the ability to launch satellites or any other space missions.

Even short of this, ageing or damaged satellites can become hazards if they stop working, collide with other objects, or eventually make uncontrolled re-entries through the atmosphere.

This raises a practical question – satellites can’t simply be brought home for repairs. So how do we maintain tens of thousands of machines that are hundreds of kilometres above Earth?

Satellites don’t last forever

The challenge of satellite maintenance became more visible in March this year when a large NASA satellite made an uncontrolled re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.

The US Space Force confirmed the spacecraft re-entered over the eastern Pacific Ocean, and NASA expected most of it to burn up, though some components may have survived. The event attracted worldwide attention as experts tracked its descent and estimated where debris might land, including the possibility that large debris could one day cause damage in populated areas.

The incident was a reminder that satellites don’t last forever. Like any machine, they age. Batteries degrade, electronic components wear out and harsh space conditions gradually take their toll.

Unlike aircraft or cars, however, we can’t easily take satellites to a repair workshop.

Once launched, they must continue operating in an environment of intense radiation, extreme temperature changes and constant mechanical stress. Servicing missions are technically possible, but remain expensive and relatively uncommon.

How do we keep satellites ‘healthy’?

Today, satellite health is monitored largely from the ground.

Engineers receive streams of telemetry data showing battery performance, temperatures, power consumption and the status of onboard systems. They analyse this information and look for warning signs that something may be going wrong.

This approach has worked well for decades. But it may become increasingly difficult as satellite constellations grow from dozens of spacecraft to hundreds or even thousands. Human operators can only monitor so much information at once.

This is where recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) may help. Researchers have been investigating how AI can identify early signs of satellite degradation before they become mission-threatening failures.

One important example involves batteries. Satellite batteries gradually lose performance over time, much like the battery in a smartphone or electric vehicle.

If this degradation can be detected early, operators may be able to adjust how a satellite is used, extend its operational life or avoid unexpected failures. They could do this by sending new instructions to the satellite, such as reducing power-hungry activities, changing when data are processed or transmitted, or placing non-essential systems into standby.

Our recent research used publicly available NASA satellite battery data to explore how machine learning (a type of artificial intelligence) can recognise patterns associated with battery ageing and predict future performance.

The goal is similar to predictive maintenance systems already used in modern aircraft, wind farms and manufacturing plants. Rather than waiting for equipment to fail, AI looks for subtle changes that suggest problems may be developing.

Satellites can learn from each other

In our approach, we also considered federated learning.

Normally, enormous amounts of satellite data would need to be transmitted back to Earth for analysis. This requires time, bandwidth and energy. Federated learning offers a different approach. Individual satellites can “learn” from their own experience and share useful insights with other satellites or ground systems without constantly sending every piece of raw data.

In simple terms, satellites could help each other become better at recognising potential faults. Over time, this could support continuous self-monitoring across large satellite networks.

There are, however, important limitations.

AI can’t prevent every satellite failure. It can’t eliminate space debris or solve orbital congestion on its own. Predictive models require extensive testing, such as checking them against historical satellite data, simulated faults and laboratory battery experiments before they are trusted in orbit. And any autonomous decision-making systems must be reliable enough for safety-critical applications while remaining under human oversight.

The next great challenge of the new space age may not simply be launching another 100,000 satellites. It may be ensuring those satellites are intelligent enough to monitor their own condition, detect problems early and help keep the space services we rely on running safely and reliably.

Tony Jan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/20/there-are-already-16000-satellites-in-earths-orbit-how-will-we-manage-the-next-100000/

Ukraine is experiencing its largest domestic protests since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. The spark to the unrest was the summary dismissal on July 15, 2026, of the country’s youthful defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, appointed just six months ago.

Fedorov, seen as charismatic and tech savvy, was already viewed by some as a leading light for change, with a reformist message that chimed with many Ukrainians. So his ouster – the consequence of a clash with Oleksandr Syrskyi, the head of the country’s armed forces and part of the older guard — tapped into a generational clash over how best to defeat Russia.

Frustrations, though, have been building in Ukraine for some time, including over contentious recruiting methods and corruption allegations. Indeed, the latter was the primary reason for demonstrations in Ukraine in the summer of 2025.

Wars are by nature national emergencies, during which politics as normal is often suspended. Before the war and especially after 2014, Ukraine had a lively democracy and public sphere. After the 2022 invasion, Ukraine introduced martial law, placed its television stations under central government control and suspended elections.

For Ukraine, these protests raise important questions about public unity, corruption and the agility of the military-industrial establishment to fight a war now in its fifth year. Our new polling data, gathered by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), provides important context to the current demonstrations, and insights into the wartime priorities of ordinary Ukrainians. From June 9 to 26, 2026, we surveyed 1,801 people across the country in a computer-aided-telephone survey.

Here are three findings from that survey that provide a broader context to the demonstrations.

1. Anti-corruption agencies and the media need protecting

Ukraine may be at war but fighting corruption at home and maintaining media freedom still matter a great deal to Ukrainians.

Mindful of last summer’s attempt by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to scrap the independence of two of Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies, we asked ordinary Ukrainians if they felt these agencies “should be safeguarded” even with Ukraine at war with Russia. We also asked if they felt the same about “freedom of the press and media.”

About half of Ukrainians think that anti-corruption agencies should be safeguarded a lot during the war. An additional 26% of Ukrainians said they should be safeguarded a little. Only a minority (16%) think that anti-corruption agencies should not be safeguarded at all.

Likewise, Ukrainians believe in the vital role of journalism.

Despite war-time media restrictions, Ukraine retains a robust online public sphere and a free press. Indeed, it played a role in mobilizing Ukrainians against the unpopular dismissal of Fedorov.

The protests are in keeping with our poll which finds that a strong majority (62%) of Ukrainians think that freedom of the press and the media needs to be safeguarded a lot. Only about 5% do not think it should be safeguarded at all.

2. Fighting corruption during wartime matters

Previous polling by KIIS revealed that the war with Russia and corruption were what Ukrainians considered the most serious problems facing the country. We decided to follow up by asking Ukrainians what they would rank first as the bigger problem: “Russian aggression” or “government corruption, including around mobilization.”

The results were surprising. Although the most common response was Russian aggression (49%), more than a third of respondents ranked government corruption tied to mobilization as the country’s top challenge. Another 14% said Russian aggression and corruption were equal concerns.

Public opinion research elsewhere reveals that many Ukrainians still optimistically view the war against Russia as a fight for a future in which Ukraine is an established democracy within the European Union. In this sense, the values evident in the survey responses may be what makes the war meaningful for many Ukrainians.

Even during an exhausting war which of late has seen increased Russian attacks on civilians, Ukrainians prioritize domestic reforms and democratic accountability like fighting corruption.

3. Ukrainians oppose drafting younger men

Although manpower is seen as essential for Ukraine’s war effort against a larger Russian adversary, the process of getting new military recruits has proved contentious.

Ukrainian military authorities have sometimes used violent methods to enforce military service, and the lowering of the draft from 27 to 25 in April 2024 was unpopular.

We asked whether Ukrainians agreed that it “was time to draft all young Ukrainian men into military service.” A clear majority of respondents disagreed with this sentiment, with more than a fifth objecting “very strongly.” Less that 8% fully agreed.

What this indicates to us is a strong societal consensus that Ukraine should continue to protect its adolescent and young men from military mobilization, despite the persistent recruitment crisis facing its military.

One of the attractions of Fedorov to young people was that his preference for unmanned drones over on-the-ground combat forces offers a promise of Ukrainian victory without large-scale casualties. Syrskyi, by contrast, is associated with Soviet-style attritional warfare. Fairly or not, the latter acquired the nickname “the butcher” some time ago.

Fedorov’s promise of victory through technological transformation to support drone warfare may be an illusion. But his very public attack on Ukraine’s current military-industrial establishment posed a serious challenge to its legitimacy and public support. A figure with close ties to Silicon Valley and political ambitions, Fedorov is a disrupter in the mold of many contemporary tech figures.

Whether his polices ultimately serve the cause of Ukraine at this consequential moment in its war with Russia is an open question. But the demonstrations that followed his dismissal nonetheless suggest the multitude of ways Ukrainians view democracy and freedom at home and abroad.

The authors received funding from the Institute of Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado for this survey.

Gerard Toal received funding from the School of Public and International Affairs in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech to support this research.

John O’Loughlin receives funding from US National Science Foundation and the University of Colorado Boulder

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/20/amid-grinding-war-protesting-ukrainians-still-want-their-voices-and-values-heard-at-home/

Why is the US president now handing out US$1,000 to American babies – and what does it have to do with a retirement system built on the other side of the world?

President Donald Trump has pointed to Australia as an inspiration for his proposal to strengthen Americans’ long-term financial security by offering US$1,000 savings accounts to newborn babies – and it’s not hard to see why.

Over the past three decades, Australia has built one of the world’s largest retirement savings pools through compulsory superannuation, holding A$4.44 trillion (US$3.1 trillion) on behalf of workers by March 2026.

The US, by contrast, faces a more fragile retirement outlook. Social Security’s main retirement trust fund is projected to run out of reserves in late 2032. After that, incoming revenue would cover only about 78% of scheduled benefits.

Trump’s comments about an Australian-style retirement system remain short on detail. One part of his broader savings agenda, however, is already law: Trump Accounts for children.

How do the Trump baby accounts work?

“Trump Accounts”, introduced this month, are investment accounts intended to give children a financial head start.

Eligible US children born between 2025 and 2028 can receive a one-time US$1,000 government contribution, but the family needs to apply. Families and friends may contribute, while employers can also make tax-advantaged contributions, subject to modest annual limits of US$5,000.

The money is invested in a default low-cost index fund at launch, with other low-cost index fund options to be added. The savings generally remain locked away until age 18.

These are not conventional retirement accounts at the start. Their link to retirement comes later. From age 18, the account begins operating under rules similar to those that apply to a traditional individual retirement account known as IRAs, the vehicle many US adults already use to save for later life.

Trump Accounts do not replace Social Security, 401(k)s or individual retirement accounts. They sit alongside them as another way to build long-term savings.

Australia’s retirement system is different

Australia has no equivalent national scheme for children. Parents can open a savings account for a child, buy shares on their behalf, or make after-tax contributions to a child’s superannuation fund. But these are private, voluntary choices, rather than a program like the Trump Accounts giving eligible US families the option to apply for an account for their child.

To understand what has attracted Trump’s attention, we need to look beyond the children’s accounts to the system Australia built for workers.

Australia’s retirement system has two parts. The Age Pension is a means-tested, government-funded safety net for older Australians with modest means.

Superannuation does something different. It builds private retirement wealth through compulsory employer contributions, generally 12% of a worker’s salary, to provide income in retirement. That money is professionally managed in diversified investment funds.

The system began in the 1990s with an employer contribution at a 3% rate, and has gradually been increased over the years since.

It is now the world’s fourth-largest pension pool and is projected to become the second-largest by 2031, behind only the US.

Voluntary vs compulsory savings

The US Social Security system – in which today’s workers fund today’s retirees through payroll taxes – is much closer to Australia’s Age Pension than to superannuation.

The closest US equivalent to superannuation is the combination of 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts. Trump Accounts will later become part of that private savings system.

The important difference is that participation in the US is voluntary. Unlike Australia, employers are generally not required to contribute.

In fact, Trump Accounts and Australian super are not even designed to do the same job. One starts in childhood, building a financial asset from an early age. The other starts when people enter the workforce and builds retirement savings over an entire career.

The real distinction is in how money flows into the account. After the US government’s initial US$1,000 contribution, the growth of a Trump Account depends purely on voluntary contributions.

There is good reason to question whether those contributions will arrive at scale. Many US households already struggle to maintain emergency savings, let alone contribute thousands of dollars each year to a child’s investment account.

Wealthier households may contribute regularly. Many others may contribute little beyond the initial deposit.

Saving over a lifetime

Australia solved this problem differently. As long as someone remains employed, employers are generally required by law to keep contributing. Money flows into the worker’s account throughout a working life, whether or not the worker actively chooses to save extra from each pay.

For an Australian at the retirement age of 67, the average super balance is about A$279,700 (US$196,000).

That steady flow of compulsory contributions, rather than the account itself, is what built Australia’s vast retirement savings pool.

Australia’s real innovation was not inventing another account. It was making retirement saving a routine, almost automatic consequence of having a job.

Trump says Australia’s system has “worked out very well”, and he may well be right.

But the lesson from Australia is probably not the account itself. It is the contribution mechanism that keeps money flowing into it year after year.

Australia did not accumulate trillions of dollars because it invented another account. It accumulated this giant pool of savings because employers are required to contribute to those savings accounts year in, year out – rather than just having a one-off government payment when a child is born.

Kris Iyer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/20/trump-has-1000-baby-accounts-in-contrast-australia-delivers-a-lifetime-of-savings/

Few human experiences are as universal – or as poorly understood – as loneliness.

More than just a blue feeling and the inspiration for countless songs, it’s linked to poorer wellbeing, worse mental and physical health and a higher risk of early death.

Even in the age of social media, we hear of loneliness being on the rise everywhere – to the extent that some have labelled it an epidemic.

To build a better picture, we analysed responses to the Gallup World Poll from more than 218,000 people, across nearly 150 countries. We found around one in five people reported feeling lonely during a typical day.

But that global average masked a stark divide.

In high-income countries, 15.7% of people reported loneliness, including 16.2% in New Zealand and 17.8% in Australia. In low-income countries, by contrast, nearly one in three people (31.3%) reported feeling lonely.

The findings challenge the classic idea that loneliness is simply a private struggle. Instead, they suggest it is also a social condition, influenced by the economic circumstances, institutions and strength of community life.

The global picture

Across the data we analysed, one factor consistently stood out. That was the importance of social capital; the presence of trust and reliable support networks. People who report having others they can depend on are far less likely to feel lonely in every region of the world.

Other factors, such as poor health, unemployment and not having a partner, also played a part. People with more education tended to be less lonely in middle- and high-income countries. That relationship was much weaker in low-income countries, where wider social and economic conditions play a bigger role.

These findings led us to conclude that loneliness can often be the result of a person’s individual circumstances, together with their wider social and economic environment.

But was there evidence of a worsening global loneliness epidemic? While a popular idea, when we looked at data from 113 countries, between 2023 and 2024, we found no clear trend. In fact, just under two thirds of countries appeared to report lower rates in 2024 than 2023.

Again, this wasn’t uniform. While reported rates of loneliness rose significantly in low-income countries, they remained broadly unchanged in middle-income countries and declined in high-income countries.

Importantly, our findings should not be taken to mean loneliness is any less serious. It affects a substantial share of the global population and is strongly linked to poorer wellbeing, emotional distress and a range of adverse health outcomes.

Lessons for tackling loneliness

The consequences of loneliness extend far beyond feeling unhappy. Across all regions and income groups, people who reported loneliness tended to have lower life satisfaction; both in the present and in expectations for the future, though this association is smaller.

They were also far more likely to experience stress, worry, anger and physical pain, and much less likely to report enjoyment in their daily lives. While the strength of these relationships varied, the overall pattern was remarkably consistent across countries.

Our findings also suggest there is no single solution to loneliness. In low-income countries, where loneliness is both more common and increasing, reducing poverty, improving health systems and expanding social protection might all help people build stronger social connections.

In wealthier countries, where loneliness is less common but still affects millions of people, the challenge may be different. Investing in community organisations, public spaces and other opportunities for people to build trusted relationships could prove just as important as expanding mental health services.

More broadly, our findings suggest loneliness should be seen as more than an individual psychological experience. It also reflects the strength of the societies people live in.

That has implications that reach well beyond health. Tackling loneliness has the potential to improve wellbeing, boost productivity and help build stronger, more connected communities.

David Leblang receives funding from the Department of Homeland Security and the US National Science Foundation.

Dennis Wesselbaum does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/20/is-there-really-a-global-loneliness-epidemic-research-reveals-a-more-complex-picture/

President Donald Trump used a nationally televised address on July 16, 2026, to unveil a collection of declassified documents. He said these documents, which the White House posted online during the address, show serious vulnerabilities in American election systems, extensive Chinese acquisition of U.S. voter data, and an intelligence community effort to suppress reporting on those threats.

A common misconception is that declassification works like a curtain being pulled back: A “Top Secret” marking comes off, and the public sees the truth. In reality, a released record may be raw reporting, a fragment of a communication, a source’s claim or a draft assessment. Each carries a different relationship to reliability and analytic judgment.

I’m an international affairs professor with nearly 30 years of experience in the U.S. intelligence community, including executive roles in the Central Intelligence Agency, National Counterterrorism Center and National Security Agency. I would advise anyone reviewing this release – or any declassified intelligence – to keep one distinction in mind before drawing conclusions: Declassification changes who may see information, but it does not determine whether the information is true, important, current, corroborated or representative of the broader intelligence record.

The archive is not the assessment

The 17th-century French statesman Cardinal Richelieu is commonly credited as saying, “If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.” It’s an apt warning here – not because intelligence collection is indifferent to truth, but because of what it deliberately preserves.

Intelligence agencies collect widely and retain material across a full spectrum of reliability, including reporting that was later contradicted, downgraded or explicitly discounted, because judging what matters is supposed to happen through analysis over time, not by declining to collect something in the first place.

In my experience, that means the government’s holdings almost certainly contain a report that appears to support nearly any serious allegation someone could make about a public official, a foreign government or a disputed national event – sitting alongside the later reporting and analytic judgment that determined how much weight, if any, it deserved.

Mistaking a document’s existence for proof of its content – without the context of what came after it – is, in my assessment, the most common way declassified material can get misread.

‘Intelligence report’ is misleading

The phrase “intelligence report” adds to the confusion. It is often used as though it describes one kind of document. It does not. A report might be an unevaluated database entry, a clandestine source account, an intercepted communication or a finished assessment such as the President’s Daily Brief. These documents sit at different points in the intelligence cycle: planning, collection, processing, analysis, dissemination and evaluation. Evaluation, though it’s listed as a step in the cycle, is continuous.

A human-source report includes both what a source said and how the intelligence officer handling that source assessed the source’s access, reliability and possible motives. Those judgments help analysts weigh the reporting. They do not make it definitive. A well-placed source can misunderstand what he heard. A generally reliable source can still be wrong.

Signals intelligence can create a different kind of false confidence. Intercepted communications can appear definitive, but a single intercept shows only that something was said. It does not establish that the speaker knew the truth, that the communication was complete or that later reporting supported it.

Finished intelligence exists to weigh those questions. Analysts compare reporting streams, test assumptions, identify gaps, assign confidence levels and state what remains uncertain. Finished products can still be wrong.

This is why intelligence work runs on a cycle, with evaluation happening at every stage, not only at the end. That discipline is what keeps flawed or incomplete information from being mistaken for settled fact.

What a declassification review exists to catch

That distinction matters in any declassification, but it becomes especially important when the process is rushed.

Removing a classification marking is only one part of the process. Review also asks what release might expose beyond the text: a human source, collection method, foreign liaison relationship, ongoing operation or analytic context needed to keep the public from being misled.

One document can also involve several agencies. A report about a foreign leader might draw on information from a CIA source, quote communications collected by the National Security Agency and discuss a diplomatic relationship managed by the State Department. Large-scale declassification is therefore normally interagency work, not simply the decision of one office.

The Biden administration’s decision to declassify intelligence on Russian preparations leading up to the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine moved unusually fast by intelligence standards. I was involved in that process while serving at the CIA. But the speed served a specific purpose: warning allies and shaping Russian calculations before an invasion occurred. The review process was compressed, not abandoned.

What to look for once something is released

Readers should ask practical questions when declassified material appears: Is this document raw reporting, an intercept, a source account, a draft or a finished assessment? Was it released with the caveats, later reporting and interagency review needed to judge its weight? If it is being used to challenge an intelligence assessment, does the release show how analysts evaluated that material, what other reporting they weighed and why they accepted or discounted it?

None of these questions requires assuming bad faith. They are the same questions intelligence professionals ask before turning information into judgment. A raw report in a classified system is evidence that something was reported. It is not, by itself, proof that the report was true.

Brian O’Neill does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/20/declassified-intelligence-is-not-the-same-as-proof/

Arctic sea ice appeared to be entering a new phase. In the early 2020s, the rapid decline seen over previous decades seemed to ease, leading scientists to ask whether winter sea ice loss had slowed.

Our new study suggests that conclusion was premature. After two exceptionally low-ice winters in 2025 and 2026, the recent slowdown disappears. The almost 6% drop between 2024 and 2025 was the largest single-year decline on record. The latest observations restore a statistically significant downward trend, showing how a few unusual years can quickly change the overall picture.

Sea ice is a crucial indicator of climate change in the Arctic. As the planet warms, the Arctic is warming even faster, and satellite observations have shown that sea ice has declined in every month of the year since the late 1970s. The loss is largest at the end of summer, when the Arctic reaches its annual minimum ice cover, but winter sea ice has also been shrinking.

However, this decline has not been smooth. In the early 2020s, Arctic sea ice loss appeared to slow across much of the year. This did not mean the ice had recovered to what it was before modern global warming. But compared with the rapid losses seen in earlier decades, the trends seemed weaker, raising an important question: had Arctic sea ice decline begun to slow?

Exceptional winters

Our study examines why these two winters changed things. Until 2024, the recent 20-year decline in winter sea ice extent was not statistically significant – meaning the data is consistent with no decline over the past 20 years.

The record low of ice in 2025, followed by another near-record low in 2026, should rewrite the overall narrative. Using the February–March average, which we use to represent winter sea ice extent, 2025 recorded the largest single-year decline in the satellite record.

Including these latest observations changes the picture of a weakened decline. Once the 2025 and 2026 winters are included, the 20-year trend in Arctic winter sea ice extent returns to a statistically significant decline. We can now be much more confident that the trend is real, and the decline is still ongoing.

How Arctic winter sea ice extent has changed since 1980:

A fall of nearly 6% in one year also raises an obvious question: can Arctic winter sea ice really drop this quickly under current climate conditions? To answer this question, we examined climate model simulations of Arctic climates warmed by a similar amount to today, and asked whether they ever produce a one-year winter sea ice drop as large as the one seen in 2025.

They do, although only rarely.

In simulations where the Arctic has warmed by a similar amount to today, about 3°C since 1980, a one-year winter sea ice drop of this size occurs in roughly one out of every 100 simulated years. This suggests that the 2025 drop was unusual, but still physically plausible. It does not require a new explanation. Instead, it is consistent with a warming Arctic in which year-to-year variability can produce abrupt changes. From one winter to the next, the extent of sea ice can decline sharply, remain stable, or even increase.

So what should we expect in the coming years?

If warming continues, the same model simulations suggest that winter sea ice is unlikely to rebound to the higher levels seen in the early 2020s. This does not mean every coming winter will set a new record low. Arctic sea ice will continue to fluctuate from year to year. But under continued warming, these recent low-ice winters may mark a shift towards winter ice fluctuating around a lower average level.

The lesson, at least for winter, is that Arctic sea ice loss has not stopped. The apparent slowdown of the early 2020s looked real at the time, but now looks more like a pause than a lasting change. Short-term variability can temporarily mask decline, but it does not remove the underlying pressure from Arctic warming.

The open question is whether the same pattern will emerge in summer, which has also shown a recent slowdown in sea ice retreat. So far, the renewed winter decline has not yet translated into an equally clear renewed decline in summer.

Winter and summer sea ice are connected. Low winter ice may help precondition the ice cover for stronger spring and summer melt. But the connection is not automatic: Arctic sea ice does not simply move in the same direction, in every season, at the same time. Spring weather, clouds, snow cover, winds, ocean heat and ice thickness all affect how much ice survives to the summer minimum.

Understanding how these factors evolve in a changing climate will be crucial for answering whether, and when, summer sea ice decline re-emerges from its recent slowdown.

Duo Chan receives funding from UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship.

Alessandro Silvano receives funding from NERC.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/20/arctic-sea-ice-decline-seemed-to-be-slowing-until-two-record-breaking-low-ice-winters/

There’s been a lot of talk about major infrastructure projects in Canada lately, with the federal government planning to fast-track resource development across the country.

This push isn’t surprising. In 2024, the natural resources sector accounted for 16 per cent of Canada’s GDP and provided 1.8 million jobs.

Yet these economic benefits result in trade-offs for the environment, with many consequences still unclear. Before accelerating development with less environmental oversight, these unknowns need to be considered.

Read more:
Why the federal government must act cautiously on fast-tracking project approvals

Examples of unintended environmental consequences aren’t hard to find across Canada. If someone told you about a high-density network of corridors, often spaced less than 100 metres apart, you might picture city roads or an urban park trail system.

In fact, such a network of linear clearings, also called seismic lines, can be found across Canada’s boreal forest. There are an estimated over 1.8 million kilometres of such clearings in Alberta alone.

They were, and continue to be, created for geophysical exploration, allowing personnel and equipment to move across the landscape and map underground resources like oil and gas. In Alberta, early records of this type of exploration date from the late 1920s, with activity greatly expanding from the 1960s onwards.

As these exploration programs expanded, governments didn’t require companies to return the land to how it was before. The assumption was that trees would simply regrow on the narrow clearings, returning forest cover to the landscape. However, many seismic lines have remained without forest cover for decades, particularly when they cross forested wetlands.

While improvements in geophysical technology and a recognition of the environmental consequences have led to lower-impact methods, this legacy of activity remains as a grid that scars forests.

Fragmented forests

Seismic lines fragment forests and alter their ability to act as habitats and provide climate change mitigation benefits. Forest fragmentation shifts how animals use the region, and has been linked to sharp declines in woodland caribou.

These open corridors allow predators to move faster and see farther, resulting in more caribou hunted. Meanwhile, they make it easier for other herbivores, like deer and moose, to access the otherwise dense forest, increasing competition for food.

Seismic lines also affect the ability of peatlands to support climate regulation. Peatlands store vast amounts of carbon. The remains of plants deposited in peatland soil are protected from decomposition by wet, cool and acidic conditions.

These wet conditions also enable the production of the greenhouse gas methane. But much of the methane produced is consumed by microbes living in the upper soil layers and is never released to the atmosphere.

The methane-consuming microbes require aerated conditions, which are maintained due to a fluffy layer of moss at the surface that drains easily. Under these undisturbed conditions, carbon storage in the peatland more than offsets methane emissions, so that peatlands provide a net climate benefit.

Read more:
Peatlands keep a lot of carbon out of Earth’s atmosphere, but that could end with warming and development

Disturbance of the soil in peatlands by heavy equipment during geophysical surveys compresses this surface layer, leading to wetter conditions. This is one of the reasons that trees are slow to return, and it also results in higher methane emissions. This can shift the greenhouse gas balance in peatlands, causing them to contribute to climate warming.

An understanding of these unanticipated effects has only been possible due to decades of research in the boreal forest. That knowledge is now being used to develop restoration programs aimed at returning forest cover to support recovery of woodland caribou populations.

These restoration programs are aimed at providing environmental benefits, but they also come with unplanned financial costs. This highlights the need for environmental oversight that prevents such problems in the first place and provides long-term cost savings.

Effects beyond seismic lines

The story of seismic lines is not unique. Unanticipated impacts may be more the rule than the exception. For example, mining produces a range of waste products that impact water quality.

Resource access roads act as dams in wetlands, altering water flow, causing flooding and killing trees upstream.

Human development in wildlands can increase wildfire risk, leading to greater burned areas. Regulations are in place and need to be continually reviewed and updated to ensure that environmental and human health and well-being are protected as projects proceed.

Environmental impacts are assessed using our best available knowledge before projects are approved.

However, what remains hard to evaluate is the response to the combined impact of all activities on the landscape. These cumulative effects can be difficult to predict. Disturbances can interact in unexpected ways, sometimes leading to greater impact than anticipated based on the sum of the areas affected.

Understanding how to assess and manage cumulative effects is an ongoing area of research. As our knowledge grows, these cumulative impacts need to be better integrated into decision-making about future development.

Canada’s boreal forest remains one of the most intact on the planet. Protecting it comes with challenges, however, and it would be even harder to restore once the forest is lost. As major projects continue to be proposed and approved, it will be important to move forward with the goal to protect the land upon which Canada is built.

Maria Strack receives funding from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Parks Canada, Government of Alberta, the Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss Association, Ducks Unlimited Canada, Imperial Oil Ltd., Alberta Pacific Forest Industries Inc., Cenovus Energy, Canadian Natural Resources Limited, ConocoPhillips Canada, Natural Resources Canada, and the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute. As part of the Can-Peat project, Maria Strack collaborates with a network of partners across Canada including provincial, territorial and municipal governments, Indigenous organizations and private and not-for-profit groups.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/20/industrial-development-is-fragmenting-canadas-boreal-forest-governments-should-think-carefully-about-future-approvals/

Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, recently announced plans to measure testosterone levels in US soldiers with a promise of “ensuring you have the right testosterone levels to operate at your absolute best”. Soldiers found to have low testosterone would be offered treatment, although accepting it would remain voluntary.

The announcement has reignited debate about testosterone, masculinity and performance. Here’s what testosterone can – and can’t – tell us about men’s health.

Testosterone is one of the most useful indicators of men’s health, but it is not routinely checked during health screening. Although it is best known for its role in reproduction, testosterone also helps keep muscles and bones healthy and plays an important role in metabolism. Large studies have found that men with lower testosterone levels are more likely to develop obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease. They are also more likely to become frail, report a poorer quality of life and die earlier than men with “normal” testosterone levels.

Read more:
Testosterone: why defining a ‘normal’ level is hard to do

Testosterone also declines gradually with age. However, this natural decline is usually small and, in otherwise healthy men, often does not cause medical problems until much later in life.

Far greater reductions are typically seen in men with obesity, type 2 diabetes and other chronic diseases, meaning testosterone deficiency often reflects unhealthy ageing rather than ageing alone – and the relationship runs both ways. Chronic disease can lower testosterone, while testosterone deficiency may itself contribute to poorer metabolic and physical health.

This is why testosterone is such a valuable biomarker. A low result may be a sign that something has changed in the body. But deciding what counts as a “normal” level is not simple. One man’s normal testosterone level may be much lower than another’s. So comparing a man’s current level with his previous results could be more useful than comparing it with a standard population range. This is one reason why checking testosterone more often could be useful.

The blood test itself is straightforward. The challenge is deciding what the result actually means. A testosterone test can provide useful information about a man’s health. But on its own, it cannot show how capable someone is as a soldier, who needs treatment or whether raising testosterone above an idividual’s natural level would improve their performance.

Any screening programme would also need to consider female service personnel. Testosterone is important in women too, but levels are around tenfold lower than in men and cannot simply be interpreted using the same approach. Women’s testosterone levels need to be assessed differently, using their own reference ranges and medical guidelines.

The military – a different population

Active-duty military personnel are generally healthier than the wider population, with lower rates of obesity and metabolic disease. However, testosterone concentrations in this group may be influenced by factors specific to military life, including prolonged physical training, inadequate recovery, disrupted sleep and psychological stress. The important question is not simply whether testosterone is low, but why it is low.

Crucially, testosterone should not be viewed as a simple measure of military capability. A soldier’s performance depends on many factors, including physical fitness, decision-making, resilience, mental health and the conditions they are working in. Testosterone is only part of the picture.

This does not mean testosterone has no role in performance. In men with genuine testosterone deficiency, testosterone replacement therapy can improve lean muscle mass and bone density, and may improve aspects of muscle strength, physical function and quality of life.

However, evidence that raising testosterone above an individual’s natural range improves performance in otherwise healthy men remains weak. Treating a medical deficiency is very different from trying to boost performance.

One of the most important distinctions in this debate is the difference between identifying low testosterone and treating it. Hegseth says any treatment would remain voluntary.

Some experts worry that testing soldiers could encourage the belief that a lower result requires correction – particularly in younger and otherwise healthy men. In an environment where physical capability and resilience are highly valued, simply being told they have lower testosterone could make some soldiers feel they should seek treatment, even when there is no clear medical reason.

Hegseth’s announcement also reflects a wider change in how people talk about testosterone, moving beyond its traditional medical role and into broader conversations around ageing, masculinity, performance and optimisation. This comes as regulatory views on testosterone therapy have also evolved.

Following a landmark study, the US Food and Drug Administration removed previous warnings on testosterone drugs about the risk of heart disease and stroke, while more recent proposed label updates have focused on updating advice about age-related testosterone decline and prostate health.

These changes should reassure men who genuinely need testosterone treatment. But they do not mean testosterone is a cure-all for better health or improved performance. Safe treatment is not the same as appropriate treatment. If low testosterone reflects poor sleep, excessive training, psychological stress or an underlying health problem, addressing those causes may be more beneficial than simply increasing testosterone levels.

Ultimately, Hegseth’s proposal highlights an important scientific question. Testosterone is a valuable indicator of men’s health and may deserve a bigger role in routine health checks. But it is only one piece of a much bigger picture. A blood test can show that something has changed, but it cannot explain why. It cannot, on its own, show how well someone will perform or whether they will need treatment. Those decisions require expert doctors to look at the whole person, not just a single test result.

Daniel Kelly does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/20/testosterone-and-combat-readiness-what-does-the-evidence-really-show/

A recent Ontario Coroner’s Review documented 34 deaths by suicide among correctional workers over the past 15 years, with 17 of those deaths occurring since 2020.

Correctional workers are one group within Ontario’s public safety sector, which also includes communicators and dispatchers, firefighters, paramedics and police.

Growing evidence shows that the psycho-social hazards of public safety work are not being prevented and managed. These hazards include poor leadership support, excessive workloads, bullying and harassment, outdated infrastructure and inadequate resources to do the work.

The result is a workforce absorbing harm that better workplace design could reduce or prevent.

The scope of the problem

This pattern shows up clearly in a decade of Ontario workers’ compensation data.

In a study published in December 2025, my colleagues and I explored 10 years of approved workers’ compensation claims from public safety personnel to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) of Ontario. We focused on psychological injury claims, including post-traumatic stress disorder.

More than 11,000 people were in the data set, including public safety communicators/dispatchers, correctional workers, firefighters, paramedics and police from across the province. Psychological injury claims increased 400 per cent between 2014 and 2018 and have remained at that elevated rate since. Only one-third of these workers had successfully returned to work by the conclusion of the study.

Further research on this data set, forthcoming from us later this year, has documented more than $1.3 billion in costs for WSIB Ontario and employers. This includes wage replacement and health-care benefits for these psychologically injured workers.

That figure is a dramatic underestimation of the true cost to federal, provincial and municipal employers. It does not account for employer-funded sick leave, long-term disability, extended health benefits, mental health programs or the cost of replacing psychologically injured workers.

Reactions to workplace mental health supports

In the past decade, many public safety employers have moved to mitigate the impact of psychological injury. But rather than focusing on the health and safety of the workplace itself, they have put mental health support programs into place.

My recent research with colleagues shows that Ontario public safety personnel have mixed reactions to the mental health supports offered by their employers.

More than 600 study participants shared concerns about the trustworthiness and confidentiality of internal peer support and mental health programs. They also expressed frustration with the low utility of reactive supports like employee assistance programs (EAPs). Many felt that educational resources and training efforts were “tick box” exercises.

Additionally, many initiatives failed to respond to the actual stressors of the job. These included poor employer communication and change-management practices, chronic understaffing, toxic organizational culture, aging infrastructure and inadequate resources.

My previous research has shown the difficulties faced by Ontario public safety personnel with psychological injuries in planning for a return to work and receiving needed workplace accommodations.

Respondents from our current study showed a preference for privacy, variety and choice in their mental health supports. That included access to extended health benefits where they could choose both mental and physical health-care professionals, and could engage with these services in their communities rather than their workplaces.

Numerous participants addressed the need for increased or even unlimited access to mental health professionals through extended health benefits. A potential barrier identified by study participants was that part-time workers, including many paramedics, seasonal or volunteer firefighters and provincial correctional workers, may lack access to these employer-funded benefits.

Organizational change is more effective

Large-scale evidence has identified the ineffectiveness of individually focused workplace mental well-being programs. One evidence synthesis from 2023 looked at organizational-level interventions to improve the psycho-social work environment. It synthesized 52 reviews from a wide variety of workplaces.

The review concluded that changing the work itself was more effective than focusing specifically on worker well-being. That includes changes to the timing of work, workers’ influence over their own tasks, mentoring and leadership development, and workplace violence prevention. Improving the psycho-social work environment also had a greater chance of improving worker well-being as a knock-on effect.

A recent Institute for Work and Health report similarly found that employers should move away from a singular focus on individual solutions like resilience training. Instead, it recommends a greater emphasis on organizational factors such as leadership, job design and workplace culture.

Recent evidence also shows that managers have a major influence on the mental health of their employees. That further underscores the importance of mentoring and leadership training.

What employers can do differently

One way to understand these overlapping factors is through the TRi-Operational-Organizational-Personal factor model (TROOP), which points to the impacts of public safety work itself, the environments where that work takes place and the personnel who carry it out.

Employers have so far focused mainly on the personal aspects of mental health. An orientation toward organizational factors is likely a more effective and evidence-informed approach.

Employers can intervene at the organizational level in many ways, for example:

1. They can design work with more flexibility, ensure adequate staffing, encourage a culture of rest and breaks and address aging infrastructure and inadequate work resources.

2. They can work to improve organizational culture through clear and enforced harassment and workplace violence policies, anti-stigma initiatives and mentoring and team-building activities.

3. They can ensure that all employees are eligible for robust extended health benefits, supporting employee choice in confidential, community-based mental health supports.

4. Finally, they can institute leader and manager training to ensure leadership best practices, psychological safety in the workplace and a stronger understanding of disability management and return-to-work approaches.

It’s important to balance approaches to more seriously consider prevention efforts and organizational interventions if we want to decrease the rates of psychological injury, as well as help those already injured to recover.

Megan Edgelow receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/20/mental-health-programs-alone-wont-fix-psychological-injury-among-public-safety-workers/