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Articles by Don Snyder
The Effects of High-Altitude Nuclear Explosions on Non-Military Satellites
Key Findings A detonation of 110 kilotons or greater would jeopardize up to about 20 percent of the satellites in low earth orbit (LEO) from prompt radiation. Detonations larger than 110 kilotons would expose the same number of satellites to greater radiation. A detonation of considerable yield could jeopardize another large fraction of LEO satellites from delayed effects of trapped electrons for years. Relaunching and quickly reconstituting a satellite constellation might not be feasible.
A Proactive, Network-Based Approach to Defense Supply Chain Capacity
Availability: Web-Only Year: 2025 Pages: 12 DOI: https://doi.org/10.7249/PEA2899-1 Document Number: PE-A2899-1 Harshberger, Ted, Don Snyder, Kristin F. Lynch, and Heidi Peters, A Proactive, Network-Based Approach to Defense Supply Chain Capacity, RAND Corporation, PE-A2899-1, January 2025. As of January 29, 2025: https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PEA2899-1.html Harshberger, Ted, Don Snyder, Kristin F.
Considerations Regarding Changes to the Organizational Design of the U.S. Air Force
Key Findings There is no such thing as an optimal organizational design. Any organizational design facilitates some activities and impedes others. Although there is no optimal organizational design, an organizational design can be assessed by whether the design is fit for its intended purpose and the degree to which it is coherent across its design elements.
Enhancing Cybersecurity and Cyber Resiliency of Weapon Systems
This research was prepared for the Department of the Air Force and conducted within the Force Modernization and Employment Program of RAND Project AIR FORCE. This report is part of the RAND research report series. RAND reports present research findings and objective analysis that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors. All RAND reports undergo rigorous peer review to ensure high standards for research quality and objectivity.
A Primer on Graph-Theoretic Models and Metrics
This research was prepared for the Department of the Air Force and conducted within the Force Modernization and Employment Program of RAND Project AIR FORCE. This report is part of the RAND research report series. RAND reports present research findings and objective analysis that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors. All RAND reports undergo rigorous peer review to ensure high standards for research quality and objectivity.
Findings and Recommendations for Funding Technology-Related Business Initiatives in the Department of the Air Force
The U.S. Air Force (USAF) is undertaking an effort to use information technology (IT) to transform human resource management (HRM). This effort will require sustained funding that can be challenging to secure in the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) process.
Three Strikes! : The Local By Joey Hartstone
arts Review I’ve said before that I’m a fan of John Grisham, especially his legal dramas full of courtroom spectacle and intrigue, with a sharp eye on legal protocol and intricate detail. Well, this debut novel by a well-established script-writer, follows in Grisham’s footsteps. Slightly shorter, slightly easier to read but still with plenty of drama and spectacle and not just in the courtroom.
A Different Kind Of War: The Tin Nose Shop By Don J. Snyder
arts I sometimes wonder if I am a glutton for punishment, choosing as I so often do, to read novels which reflect on grim details of our past, but I console myself in the belief that we ignore history at our peril if we are to make a better future and, thankfully, most of the books I read end with a promise of better times ahead. So, yet again, I found myself engrossed as I read The Tin Nose Shop in just two days.
Melody Of Peace: The Electric By Tim Murgatroyd
arts How often do we give any thought to the effect a film’s musical score has on an audience? Music has a vital role to play. I recently heard it referred to as a leading character. It reflects the mood of the scene and helps the audience to anticipate what is about to happen; repeated motifs are used to highlight the ascendancy of a character: think Bond or Ethan Hunt when the hero once more gets the upper hand.
Exploring Cyber Security Policy Options in Australia
Research Questions Where do private-sector and government cyber security roles intersect (such as in developing and implementing standards for cyber security), and what governance and information-sharing processes could facilitate collaboration? How can Australia collaborate internationally to strengthen its cyber security defence and response capabilities? What priority should such arrangements place on identifying and punishing international cyber attackers?
Opinion: New memorials first to acknowledge difficult truth of slaves in Greenwich
Memorials to victims of the Holocaust, known as “stolpersteine” or “stumbling blocks,” are found throughout Europe from Trondheim, Norway to Thessaloniki, Greece. More than 75,000 of these brass plaques, created by German artist Gunter Demnig, have been placed outside the former homes of the victims, whose names are engraved on the plaques. “Emordet”— “Murdered” — appears under their names. These “stumbling blocks” have inspired the American Witness Stones Project that began in 2017 in Guilford.
Why the Guinn Center’s affiliation with UNR is good for Nevada
University of Nevada, Reno on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2020. (David Calvert/The Nevada Independent) By Phil Satre, Don Snyder, Kathleen Conaboy and Nancy Brune On Friday, December 4 the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education approved the University of Nevada Reno’s request to formally locate the Guinn Center on its campus. We believe the Guinn Center’s affiliation with the university will serve our respective entities and the Silver State.
Bombshell accusations by German comedian claim police have ties to death threats from neo-Nazis, far-right extremists
Idil Baydar had gone to the police eight times over death threats she received, and each time they closed her case without doing anything. Now an explosive claim suggests police had links to the death threats she faced. The 45-year-old German comedian, who is of Turkish descent, said the threats began about a year and eight months ago. The most recent threat was just two days earlier, she told Fox News in a telephone interview on July 25. “I am not seen as a German,” she claimed.
Family haunted by secret legacy of notorious Nazi Horst Pilarzik: 'By hiding him, they carried his guilt'
The name Horst is an indelible stain, forever darkening the fabric of Christiane Falge’s childhood memory. It haunts her to this day. Falge, born in 1970, never met Horst Burkhart, who died five years before her birth, but the image of this playboy relative – her father’s uncle – who drove a sports car and wore expensive clothes is engraved in her mind. “He owned a Porsche after the war,” Falge said in a telephone interview from her home in Bremen, Germany. “That’s what impressed my father so much.
Daughter of scuttled German WW2 battleship commander calls for him to be honored
This Christmas Inge Nedden will honor a father she never knew in a land thousands of miles from her native Germany. Her father, Captain Hans Langsdorff, was the commander of the German battleship Graf Spee during World War II. He is buried in Argentina’s National Cemetery in Buenos Aires, the city where he died by suicide in 1939.
ISIS still strikes fear in Germany amid reports of government losing track of 160 former militants
The Islamic State caliphate may have fallen in the Middle East, but the terrorist group still strikes fear in Germany. A newly released German government intelligence report for 2018 finds a high level of danger from ISIS returnees. Of the more than 1,000 Germans who traveled to Syria and Iraq to fight for the terrorist group, 350 are back in Germany. Others have died, or remain in Kurdish prisons, mainly in Syria, with a small number in Iraq.
Great Synagogue of Warsaw to 'reappear', 76 years after being destroyed by Nazis during Ghetto Uprising
The Great Synagogue of Warsaw, destroyed by the Nazis in 1943 during World War II, will re-appear as an image in blue light, brightening the sky above the city Thursday night.
German auction house pulls Adolf Hitler artworks days before sale
A German auction house has been forced to pull several paintings attributed to Adolf Hitler just days before they were due to be put up for sale. This Saturday, Auktionhaus Weidler in Nuremberg, Germany, was set to auction off 31 drawings and watercolor landscapes attributed to the Nazi dictator. But on Wednesday, they announced that “some of the pictures have to be canceled due to a review.
Jewish members join German party accused of anti-Semitism because they are taking on Islamization of country
Dimitri Schulz is Jewish, and yet he is running as a candidate for the Alternative for Germany (AFD), a party with anti-Semitic leanings and a leader who has been accused of echoing Adolf Hitler. But Schulz, 31, believes the AFD is the only German party that's fighting Muslim anti-Semitism. "I am a Jewish member of the AFD because anti-Semitism is growing with the Islamization of our nation, and Jewish life is in danger," Schulz told Fox News.
Terrorism on the rise in Germany, prompting police to clamp down on extremists
The number of terror-related investigations opened by German police this year jumped from 250 to 1,000 in 2016 – a dramatic increase in a country still reeling from a string of deadly terrorism attacks. During a recent broadcast on German television, Holger Munch, director of the Federal German Police, said the terror threat is high and will likely stay that way for years to come.
Jamil and Siri: Two lives intersect and both are saved
Six-year-old Jamil starts school on September 11. There will be no ISIS fighters in his first grade class in Ulm, Germany, but Jamil, haunted by nightmares, is still fighting the ISIS demons. The boy’s ordeal began in northern Iraq on August 3, 2015. Then four-years-old, he was one of many Yazidis captured by ISIS, crammed into a bus, and taken to Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, then under ISIS control.
Meet The Jewish Activist Who Boosts Trump, Netanyahu — And An Anti-Semitic Polish Priest
Leaders of Poland’s Jewish community were deeply upset last month when President Trump defied precedent to be the first American leader in decades to forego visiting the monument that commemorates the doomed revolt of Warsaw’s Jews against the Nazis. Worse yet, Trump went to a different monument hailing Polish heroism in World War II where he referenced Jews, briefly, only as victims.
Meet The Jewish Activist Who Boosts Trump, Netanyahu — And A Powerful Anti-Semitic Polish Priest
Leaders of Poland’s Jewish community were deeply upset last month when President Trump defied precedent to be the first American leader in decades to forego visiting the monument that commemorates the doomed revolt of Warsaw’s Jews against the Nazis. Worse yet, Trump went to a different monument hailing Polish heroism in World War II where he referenced Jews, briefly, only as victims.
Despite threats, woman who opened liberal mosque in Berlin keeps fighting for religious freedom
Seyran Ates has gotten used to the hundreds of threats she receives daily. “She is the devil,” they say. “She should burn in hell.” Since founding a liberal and controversial mosque in Berlin last month, Ates has been constantly targeted by those who have a strict interpretation of Islamic law. She vows to fight for religious freedom and challenge radical Islam – even if it puts her life in danger. German authorities are taking the threats seriously. Six policemen guard her around the clock.
Freed ISIS child soldier recounts horrors of brutal training, years of torture
Akram was 7 years old when he learned how to behead a person. The lessons started with pictures that showed the way to decapitate an enemy. He then graduated from drawings to a town square, where he witnessed a real beheading. Akram, now 8, was a prisoner of ISIS for 2 ½ half years. In captivity, he underwent brutal training, including torture, as he learned to become a child soldier.
Germany's national security breakdown, which failed to prevent terror attack, spurs debate
Germany, still reeling from its first large-scale radical Islamist terrorist attack, is now embroiled in a heated debate over the failures of its system of national security and the effectiveness of its counterterrorism measures. This debate could impact the German national elections in September. On December 19, Anis Amri, a Tunisian, drove a trailer truck into a crowded Berlin Christmas market in a terrorist attack that killed 12 people and wounded 53.
‘Rent-a-Jew’ Brings Real, Live Jews To German Youth Schooled Only In The Holocaust
Do Jews get a discount when they buy a car? Do they own McDonald’s? Do Jews control the media and international banking? Do any of them live here anymore? These are among the questions German school children ask Jews who volunteer in a new outreach program with the provocative name, “Rent A Jew.” The Jews in question are not actually “rented” since they volunteer their time.
Russia's newest target is German Chancellor Angela Merkel
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a major defender of Western democratic values in Europe, has become the target of a Russian campaign to derail her bid for re-election this year. Merkel is up for re-election in September for her fourth term. Russian media is mounting a fierce campaign to defeat Merkel because it apparently sees her as a threat.
Anti-Semitism Spikes in Poland—Linked to Rise in Islamophobia
Anti-Semitism is on the rise in Poland, a country with almost no Jews. A new national study conducted by the Center for Research on Prejudice at the University of Warsaw finds a significant increase in negative attitudes toward Jews since 2014. The research, covering the years 2014-2016, shows that anti-Semitic hate speech is becoming increasingly acceptable and enjoys a growing popularity on the Internet and on Polish television.
Anti-Semitism Spikes in Poland - Stoked by Populist Surge Against Refugees
Anti-Semitism is on the rise in Poland, a country with almost no Jews. A new national study conducted by the Center for Research on Prejudice at the University of Warsaw finds a significant increase in negative attitudes toward Jews since 2014. The research, covering the years 2014-2016, shows that anti-Semitic hate speech is becoming increasingly acceptable and enjoys a growing popularity on the Internet and on Polish television.
European Jews Alarmed by Israeli Outreach to Anti-Semitic Far Right
Jews in Europe are voicing increasing consternation about Israel’s budding engagement with surging far-right European parties that have anti-Semitic histories. In Poland, Austria and the halls of the World Jewish Congress, among other places, Diaspora activists are raising sharp questions about the morality of Jerusalem’s foreign policy.
Israel’s Outreach to Europe’s Far Right Parties is Alarming Europe’s Jews
Jews in Europe are voicing increasing consternation about Israel’s budding engagement with surging far-right European parties that have anti-Semitic histories. In Poland, Austria and the halls of the World Jewish Congress, among other places, Diaspora activists are raising sharp questions about the morality of Jerusalem’s foreign policy.
Germany warns Facebook over hateful posts, igniting free speech debate
Germany is taking on Facebook, threatening criminal action against the world’s biggest social media company if it doesn’t stem the swelling tide of racist postings. Entries such as “gas the Jews” are examples of the repugnant postings that have appeared online, said Piotr Malachowski, spokesman for the German Ministry of Justice. “Facebook doesn’t take postings down unless they get complaints, or they don’t remove it fast enough,” Malachowski told FoxNews.com.
Germany considers law to invalidate Muslim refugees' underaged marriages
The German government is preparing legislation to outlaw child marriage, an accepted practice among the country’s more than 1 million Muslim refugees. The proposed bill is likely to become law because it has the support of the Social Democrats and the Christian Democratic Union, which are the majority parties in the country’s ruling coalition. This legislation reflects a larger cultural clash between Western democratic values and those of traditional Muslims.
Refugee crisis threatens Merkel's legacy
It was anything but a show of unity in Dresden on Oct. 3, the Annual Day of German Unity, which marked the 26th anniversary of the reunification of East and West Germany. Crowds shouted “traitor” and called for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s resignation, voicing their dissatisfaction with her decision to welcome more than 890,000 refugees, mainly Muslims, into Germany last year. Most of the refugees came from Syria. Others were from North Africa, Eritrea and Afghanistan.
‘Like killing a chicken’: Trauma expert on mission to record ISIS horror stories
Abu Chiad boasted about beheading infidels, raping women and children and slaughtering in the name of Islam. Speaking from a prison in the city of Kirkuk, in northern Iraq, he told Dr. Jan Kizilhan that these acts would get him to heaven. Kizilhan, 49, a German of Kurdish background, is a psychology professor and trauma expert who has worked with trauma victims in Rwanda and Kosovo.
Poland Poised to Put ‘Bad’ Holocaust Historians in Prison
Jan Grabowski, a historian at the University of Ottawa, expects his upcoming book to be controversial in his native Poland. But if a proposed new law is approved by Poland’s parliament this fall, as expected, Grabowski’s book, which examines the role of Poland’s police force in robbing and murdering Jews under the Nazis, may also get him sentenced to prison if he visits the country.
Poland Poised to Put ‘Bad’ Holocaust Historians in Prison
Jan Grabowski, a historian at the University of Ottawa, expects his upcoming book to be controversial in his native Poland. But if a proposed new law is approved by Poland’s parliament this fall, as expected, Grabowski’s book, which examines the role of Poland’s police force in robbing and murdering Jews under the Nazis, may also get him sentenced to prison if he visits the country.
Terror-weary Germans turn on Merkel over refugee policy
Five violent terror-related attacks in a two-week span are prompting Germans to turn on longtime Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has continued to embrace a liberal refugee policy some say has compromised safety. Although Germany has so far been spared the kind of atrocities that shook Brussels, Paris and Nice in the last year, there have been 15 deaths and dozens injured in attacks in Germany since July 18.
The Stolpersteine: Memory of Holocaust victims marks path along European streets
Reminders of Germany’s dark past confront 7-year-old Juri Hesselmann each morning as he walks to school with his father. The Stolpersteine, or “Stumbling Stone” memorials – handmade plaques that memorialize the Jews who once lived in Juri’s neighborhood – are found in front of every other house on the tree-lined Guntzelstrasse, a main street in what was a heavily Jewish area of Berlin before World War II. Many Jewish intellectuals, including Albert Einstein, lived in this neighborhood.
Rise of Germany's right reflected in anti-Muslim platform
The anti-refugee backlash in Germany hit new heights earlier this month, when a surging far-right political party made slamming the door on Muslims part of its official platform. Alternative for Germany (AFD), the nation’s fastest growing political party, announced the formal stance in Stuttgart on May 1. The AFD also called for a ban on minarets – the mosque towers from which Muslims are called to prayer – and the burqa full-body covering for women.
Plight of refugees on Greek island Lesbos
Pope Francis will visit the Greek island of Lesbos Saturday to highlight the plight of the refugees who are fleeing war in the Middle East. His visit is intended to show solidarity with the thousands who have risked their lives in the perilous journey here, and now face an uncertain future in detention camps. Today, 52,000 refugees are trapped in Greece after the Balkan countries closed their borders to block the path to Germany and Sweden.
Germany's Jews mark Holocaust as new threat rises
As Germany’s dwindling survivors of Nazi death camps mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day Wednesday, they and younger members of the nation’s Jewish community are fearful of a new tide of anti-Semitism driven by old hatred and a new influx of Muslim refugees. Commemoration of the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the camp in Poland where 1.1 million Jews were murdered, is always a somber event, but on the 71st anniversary current events have cast a new and dark shadow.
Poles Call for Hate Speech Crackdown After Demonstrators Burn Jew in Effigy
Poland’s B’nai Brith has denounced the burning of a Jew in effigy during an anti-refugee rally. The anti-Semitic act followed tirades against Muslim refugees at a rally in Wroclaw, a major city in southwest Poland. “Raped, beaten and murdered by the Islamic savages,” the Polish nationalists shouted in the market square this week.
Incoming Polish Defense Minister Praised Anti-Semitic 'Protocols'
The Anti-Defamation League has called upon the new Polish Defense Minister to apologize and retract 2002 comments about the anti-Semitic “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” On Monday, the ADL charged Polish Defense Minister-designate, Antoni Macierewicz, with making an offensive anti-Semitic response to a caller during a broadcast on Radio Maryja, a notoriously anti-Semitic radio network.
'Tensions are heightened': Germany struggles amid tide of Middle East refugees
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government faces a staggering challenge, with an estimated 800,000 refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and Eritrea expected to join by year’s end the half-million already there. Merkel, who says she will not limit the flow, has been praised in some quarters for humanitarian leadership, but the huge wave of Muslim asylum seekers has also engendered considerable controversy.
Refugee crisis stokes anti-Muslim fervor in Poland, Eastern Europe
The wave of refugees streaming into Europe from the war-torn Middle East has stoked unabashed hate for Muslims in Poland and other Eastern European nations where many want no part of EU-mandated resettlement quotas. With 8,000 mostly Muslims streaming in daily from Syria and other conflict zones, causing the largest immigration emergency since World War II, a split has formed between eastern and western Europe.
74 Years After Terezin, This Survivor Is Still Drawing What She Sees
Helga Weiss-Hoskova, a short woman with closely cropped gray hair and sparkling blue eyes, stood in the doorway of her fourth-floor walkup in Prague. “I climb these stairs once or twice each day,” she said as my wife and I, out of breath, approached the fourth-floor landing. The 85-year-old artist and Holocaust survivor has received international acclaim for her drawings of life she created inside the Terezin concentration camp while she was imprisoned there.
German critics blast Berlin over economic minister’s ‘scandalous’ trip to Tehran
The ink was barely dry on the international agreement to drop sanctions against Iran before a top German official led a delegation of business leaders to Tehran to drum up business, leading to criticism from Jewish leaders and the German press. Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel’s trip to Tehran last month in an apparent effort to re-establish Germany as Iran’s primary trading partner in Europe.
Poland Poll Reveals Stubborn Anti-Semitism Amid Jewish Revival Hopes
A majority of respondents in a recent Polish national survey believe that there’s a Jewish conspiracy to control international banking and the media. And 90% of these Poles say they’ve never met a Jew. The national study, conducted by the Center for Research on Prejudice at Warsaw University, found that in Poland, the belief in a Jewish conspiracy remains high – 63% in 2013 – and relatively unchanged from 2009 when 65% of respondents held this belief.
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