There's only one real way to compare military strength, and thankfully the world hasn't had many opportunities lately.  

Despite the potential powder keg in the South China Sea, standoffs in Ukraine, and proxy wars throughout the Middle East, inter-state warfare between the world's military powers has been all but banished from the global scene (for the time being, at least).

For a simpler evaluation of military power, we turned to the Global Firepower Index, a ranking of 106 nations based on more than 50 factors including overall military budget, available manpower, and the amount of equipment each country has in its respective arsenal, as well as access to natural resources.

The index focuses on quantity, ignoring significant qualitative differences — North Korea's 78 submarines, for instance, aren't exactly state of the art. It also does not factor in nuclear stockpiles, which are still the ultimate trump card in geopolitics. And it doesn't penalize landlocked nations for lack of a standing navy.

We've created a chart to compare the top 35 militaries according to the Global Firepower Index. The ranking was released in April (before events like the Russian invasion of Eastern Ukraine in August, ISIS's blitz through Iraq, and the flare-up between Israel and Hamas) and involves a complex set of data that is subject to ongoing adjustments and corrections.

The US clearly leads the world in military spending at more than $600 billion a year. China is in a distant second, at nearly $130 billion — less than one-third of America's overall spending. 

According to a report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the US has reduced its defense budget by 7.8% chiefly because of America's gradual withdrawal in overseas military operations, such as in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Russia, meanwhile, has increased its arms spending by $88 billion and plans to "modernize" its arsenal.

Aircraft carriers are key, and very few countries have one.

Aircraft carriers contribute greatly to a country's overall military strength. These massive vessels allow nations to project their force far beyond their borders and across the entire face of the globe. They're essentially mobile naval and air force bases. Aircraft carriers can also carry drones, which significantly change the global surveillance game.

The US's absolute monopoly on super-carrier vessels significantly boosts the country's forward operating power. The US has deployed an aircraft carrier toward the Persian Gulf to bolster its sea and air power before possible strikes against ISIS in Iraq. Russia has previously deployed an aircraft carrier to the Mediterranean to display its seriousness in propping up Assad in Syria.

North Korea's useless submarines.

An anomaly in the Global Firepower index is North Korea's ranking as a world leader for submarines. And while it's true that Pyongyang commands the largest submarine fleet on earth, most of these vessels are unusable.

A third of North Korea's subs are noisy diesel-powered Romeos, which have been obsolete since 1961. These submarines have a weapons range of only four miles, whereas a modern US submarine has a range of 150 miles. This fleet is unsophisticated but still durable, according to the US Department of Defense. 

SEE ALSO: MAP: All 17,000 Of The World's Nukes

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President Barack Obama directly said the CIA engaged in torture and slammed the practice during a Tuesday night interview.

"I recognize that there's controversies in terms of some of the details, but what's not controversial is the fact that we did some things that violated who we are as a people," Obama told Univision anchor Jorge Ramos.

Earlier in the day, the Senate released the results of its investigation into CIA interrogation practices after 9/11. Many of the details were shocking, including the use of "rectal feeding," insects, diapers, and mock executions. Additionally, the report found the CIA repeatedly misled both the public and other government agencies about the efficacy of its interrogation program. 

Obama labeled these actions "terrible mistakes." He banned the CIA's so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" shortly after taking office in 2009. 

"I think that any fair-minded person looking at this would say that some terrible mistakes were made in allowing these kinds of practices to take place, in part because I think study after study has shown that when people are tortured ... oftentimes they're willing say anything," he said. "So the information we get isn't necessarily better than doing things the right way."

Ramos pressed Obama on whether he would "categorically" say his own administration never engaged in torture. The president demurred but pointed to his "edict" outlawing the practice.

"I can categorically say anybody who engaged in any behavior like this would be directly violating my executive orders, and my policies as president of the United States, and would be held into account, and would be breaking the law," he said.

Watch the full interview below.

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Across the globe, there are small pockets of land where citizens have chosen to "break away" from their mother countries and forge new communities, often to escape war or turmoil.

While many of these countries begin with noble intentions, they often end up in political limbo, unable to gain recognition as legitimate countries from the global community.

Since 2005, photographer Narayan Mahon has set out to document these unrecognized states, photographing five would-be nations that are attempting to separate themselves from such war-torn countries as Georgia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, and Somalia. 

Mahon tells the New York Times that, while he expected these breakaway nations to be filled with pride, patriotism, and determination, he actually found that many nations were still at the whim of their former homes, begging for recognition while being used as pawns in a larger, geopolitical game.

“It all just comes down to nationalism, and chauvinism, and the uglier parts of humanity,” he says. “That’s kind of sad, actually.”

Mahon's series, entitled "Lands in Limbo," show that sadness and disillusion front and center.

One of the first areas Mahon visited was Abkhazia, a separatist region that broke away from Georgia during the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. It has since declared independence, built a national military, and created the usual trappings of a sovereign government.

Mahon quickly found, however, that no country in the world recognizes Abkhazia as a sovereign country, instead regarding it as part of Georgia.

In the violence that ensued when Abkhazia attempted to break away, tens of thousands were killed and several hundred thousand Georgian, Armenian, and Megrelian citizens were forced to leave the area. Only a few families still live in these apartment buildings, which are located in what was once a regional industrial center.

Russian military activity in an exclave wedged between two NATO member states has the Lithuanian military on high alert, according to The Lithuania Tribune.

Kaliningrad is located between Poland and Lithuania along the Baltic Sea coast, and was annexed by Russia from Germany at the end of World War II.

Though separated from mainland Russia by Poland and Belarus, the historical and geographical oddity gives Russia an outlet to the lower Baltic and a potential southern flank in any conflict with the Baltic States — former Soviet properties that are now members of both NATO and the European Union.

On Dec. 8, Lithuania put its military's rapid-response force on a "higher state of preparedness" in light of "a rise in the activity of the Russian Federation's forces in the Kaliningrad region as well as in the western part of the Russian Federation," as one top general told LNK TV.  

Lithuania's rapid-response force was established this past October, in the wake of Russia's invasion of eastern Ukraine a couple of months earlier. Lithuania's population is 5.8% Russian, and Russian President Vladimir Putin's meddling in Ukraine is partly predicated on his claim that Russia has the right to intervene to protect Russians in any country.

The Baltic states have been subject to their own share of Russian meddling over the past year: In September, an Estonian intelligence agent was kidnapped from the Russian border. Russian war-ships have also "approached Latvian waters" 50 times in 2014, according to Newsweek.

Kaliningrad is another source of alarm, particularly for Lithuania. In May, Russia suspended a 2001 agreement allowing for Lithuania to perform inspections of Russian military assets in the exclave. Russia deployed short-range ballistic missiles to Kaliningrad starting in 2012, and the oblast is also the home base for the Baltic Sea Fleet — it's the only Russian port along the Baltic that doesn't freeze over during the winter.

Whatever Russia's doing in Kaliningrad to provoke the state of alert next door may be less about any future military action than about keeping the other countries in the region guessing about Moscow's actions and motives. Russia's has proven increasingly willing to violate the sovereignty of its neighbors in the hopes that its frequent incursions will shift the region's security baseline, making countries accept the realities of a more assertive Moscow.

But this policy depends on Russia's neighbors being unwilling to challenge it, and on various regional players correctly interpreting each other's actions. It could be a matter of time before something as small as the current Kaliningrad buildup leads to a situation that none of them can control.

SEE ALSO: Behind the doors of the world's unrecognized "breakaway" nations

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The US military released videos on Wednesday of recent airstrikes against ISIS.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) released a total of 4 videos of US airstrikes against ISIS targets clustered around their de facto capital in Raqqa, Syria.

The strikes took place against a group of vehicles that included an ISIS truck, a tank, and an electronic warfare garrison. 

"The strikes were conducted as part of Inherent Resolve, the operation to eliminate the terrorist group ISIL and the threat they pose to Iraq, the region and the wider international community," CENTCOM stated in a press release. "The destruction of ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq further limits the terrorist group's ability to project power and conduct operations." 

The statement did not immediately clarify whether the strikes were carried out by the US or its coalition partners. 

You can view the four videos of the airstrikes below. 

Airstrike against a group of ISIS vehicles, Nov. 29. near Raqqa, Syria

Airstrike against an ISIS truck, Nov. 29, near Ar Raqqa, Syria

Airstrike against an ISIS tank, Nov. 29, near Raqqa, Syria

Airstrike against an ISIS electronic warfare garrison, Nov. 29, near Raqqa, Syria

SEE ALSO: The US-led war on ISIS now has a logo

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Leading global risk-analytics firm Verisk Maplecroft has released its Political Risk Atlas (PRA) for 2015, and the outlook is bleak.

Over the course of the next year, global stability is likely to continue to remain shaky as the world grapples with four major challenges: An increased threat from militant Islamism, aggressive Russian foreign policy, rampant global corruption, and elections in restive countries such as Myanmar and Nigeria. 

Maplecroft's predictions come after a year in which violence spiked around the world. Between Nov. 1, 2013 and Oct. 31, 2014, terrorism fatalities increased by almost 25%. Mass-casualty attacks by groups such as ISIS and Boko Haram have become more effective, leading to a higher death toll for each attack.

Verisk Maplecroft expects that despite efforts aimed at curbing terrorism, political violence will continue in Syria, Iraq, and Nigeria. Egypt and Libya have also been highlighted as potentially dangerous countries to watch for future terrorist incidents throughout 2015. 

Terrorism isn't the only reason the firm is predicting a tumultuous 2015.

Verisk Maplecroft has flagged Russia in particular as a significant source of future political risk and uncertainty. The overall concern is that as Moscow's economic situation further deteriorates, Putin may instigate external conflicts in a bid to maintain popular support.

The world also faces larger systemic issues, aside from terrorism and Russian aggression.

“Poor governance, extreme levels of corruption and civil unrest are among the key challenges facing business operations in the emerging markets over 2015,” Charlotte Ingham, principal political risk analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, said in a press release. “Corruption not only undermines overall governance levels, but also serves as a key source of popular dissatisfaction.” 

Nearly 70% of countries worldwide were rated as being at "extreme" or "high risk" in Verisk Maplecroft's Corruption Risk Index, and 41% of countries were rated in the same categories in the Civil Unrest Index. 

NOW WATCH: Bill Nye: This Scientific Fact That Blows My Mind

SEE ALSO: The 16 countries with the biggest risk of violence and unrest

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The US is ending its 13-year-old combat operation in Afghanistan later this month. But thirty-five years ago today, key players within the Soviet Union decided to commit the empire to military involvement in the country, a disastrously botched intervention that would pave the way for the Union's fall.

On December 10, 1979, Soviet Defense Minister Dmitry Ustinov "gave an oral order to the General Staff to start preparations for deployment of one division of paratroopers and of five divisions of military-transport aviation," according to George Washington University's National Security Archive, which published a series of Soviet documents related to the invasion in 2001. Ustinov also decided "to step up the readiness of two motorized rifle divisions in the Turkestan Military District, and to increase the staff of a pontoon regiment to full staff without setting it any concrete tasks."

The official authorization to invade Afghanistan — the go-ahead for the inevitably doomed Soviet effort to prop the country's communist government — came two days later. The invasion began in the last week of 1979.

The Beginning Of A Quagmire

Moscow's motives for opening what would become a failed and nearly decade-long campaign are best understood in the larger context of the late Cold War.

The invasion was the Soviets' heavy-handed response to a domestic uprising that threatened to overthrow the country's young communist regime. The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (or PDPA) had only muscled its way into power in April 1978 after a brief coup. 

Moreover, the Soviets feared that Afghanistan, even in its higher echelons, was beginning to tilt away from Soviet influence in favor of a rapprochement with the United States, as the National Security Archive documents show.

Afghan Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin, who deposed the country's president in a putsch that September, "held a series of confidential meetings with the American charge d'affaires in Kabul," according to a cable written by top Soviet figures.

In a letter to Communist Party General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev — whose doctrine staked out the Soviet prerogative for military intervention to preserve neighboring communist regimes — his eventual successor Yuri Andropov wrote that "after the coup and the murder of [president Nur Muhammad] Taraki in September of this year, the situation in Afghanistan began to undertake an undesirable turn for us."

"All of us agree," one official said in a conversation with party heavyweights like Yuri Andropov and Mikhail Gorbachev, "we must not surrender Afghanistan." 

Military involvement wasn't always on the table. The Soviet Union started by sending shipments of wheat, bread, and of course weapons to Afghanistan's fragile communist regime throughout the year, in addition to the gas it sold to the country.

What worried the Soviet Union about the country — in addition to its potentially growing western sympathies — was the unrest in Herat earlier that year. In March 1979, a popular uprising alongside mutineering Afghan soldiers led to the execution of Soviet military advisers.

Even then, Afghanistan's communist rulers appealed for a Soviet intervention. Moscow offered assurances. Speaking with Afghan president Nur Muhammad Taraki just after the uprising, a Soviet official advised a more open form of government to strengthen the communist state's legitimacy.

"We think it important that within your country you should work to widen the social support of your regime, draw people over to your side, insure that nothing will alienate the people from the government," one cable stated.

The USSR also seemed aware of its own lack of information about the facts on the ground in Afghanistan. "The relationship between the supporters of the government and the insurgents is still very unclear," one cable reads,labeling as "insurgent" any Afghan citizen who resisted the government.

Elsewhere Moscow shows a concern for sending weapons only "if we are convinced they will not fall into the hands of the insurgents."

When the Soviet invasion did come, it was a move made by a small coterie of officials. Defense Minister Dmitriy Ustinov had to steamroll past the objections of his chief of general staff, who called the decision to send between 75 and 80 thousand troops "reckless."

At a broader meeting, the chief warned that Afghans had "never tolerated foreigners on their soil."

A Soviet Strategic Disaster

Perhaps the most stunning revelation in the National Security Archive documents is how quickly the Soviet command realized that the conflict — which killed thousands of Soviet soldiers and more than a million Afghans while contributing to both the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of Al Qaeda — was a dead end.

"The realization that there could be no military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan came to the Soviet military leadership very early on," the National Security Archive writes in its introduction to the material. The issue of troop withdrawal and the search for a political solution was discussed as early as 1980. But no real steps in that direction were taken, and the Soviets continued to fight in Afghanistan "without a clearly defined objective."

Soviet troops wallowed in the Afghan quagmire for just over nine years; the cables even show Soviet decision-makers comparing the campaign to that of the US in Vietnam. The observation was made on both sides of the Iron Curtain: Even before the invasion, a US defense official wondered aloud whether it was worth "sucking the Soviets into a Vietnamese quagmire." Despite the existence of such a damning case study, Afghanistan became one of the last places where the Cold War went hot.

One US concern was that Afghanistan might serve as first grounds for the Soviet Union's growing regional ambitions. In his memoirs, then National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote that the USSR was "transforming that neutral buffer [Afghanistan] into an offensive wedge, bringing the Russians so much closer to their historic target of the Indian Ocean."

From there, the reasoning went, it might challenge the US's own strategic tilt toward the Gulf. The US had sent American warships to the Persian Gulf in the fall of 1979, and the Iranian hostage crisis, which would remain in the forefront of American public discourse until its resolution in 1981, had begun just weeks before the Soviet invasion.

The US took advantage of the conflict to drain its great rival of military resources and money, a campaign that got the Hollywood treatment in 2007's Charlie Wilson's War.

One CIA estimate was that the expense of $200 million by 1983 had bled the Soviet Union of a much greater sum: $12 billion. Thirty-five years ago, one of the last empires of the 20th century set itself on the path to ruin.

SEE ALSO: The 35 most powerful militaries in the world

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The US Senvate report on the CIA's so-called enhanced interrogation techniques that was released on Tuesday said a firm identified only as "Company Y" was responsible for developing many of the tactics used during the questioning of terrorism suspects after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

After the release of the details of the Senate investigation, NBC News reported the company that worked to develop these techniques and received more than $80 million from the government for its work was a firm based in Spokane, Washington, called Mitchell, Jessen & Associates.

While much of the attention on Mitchell, Jessen & Associates has focused on the two owners of the company who gave it its name, the firm had seven co-owners. Documents exclusively obtained by Business Insider on Wednesday confirmed the names of these seven people as well as their roles at the company. The records also detailed when Mitchell, Jessen & Associates was first established.

According to a document filed with the state of Washington in 2008, the seven owners of Mitchell, Jessen & Associates were James Mitchell, John Bruce Jessen, David Ayers, Randall Spivey, James Sporleder, Joseph Matarazzo, and Roger Aldrich.

Records show Mitchell, Jessen & Associates became inactive in October 2009. However, four of the company's owners appear to work at other firms that currently consult with the US government. Three of them — Spivey, Sporleder, and Aldrich — are still working together at a company called the Center For Personal Protection & Safety, which counts both the Department of Defense and the FBI among its clients.

Their company reportedly developed interrogation techniques the Senate report described as "brutal," including forced rectal feedings, waterboarding, sleep deprivation, mock executions, and intense psychological manipulation. Late Wednesday evening, a CIA representative said the agency would not be able to comment on this story until the following morning, at the earliest. 

Reverse-Engineering Torture

Most of the owners of Mitchell, Jessen & Associates previously worked with the military's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) program, which trains American service members to survive and resist interrogation by enemy forces. In this program, they worked with soldiers who survived being captured and abused in foreign countries. The SERE trainers studied the effects of this torture. They also engaged in role-playing scenarios in which they taught soldiers to face these techniques. 

Participation in the SERE program gave the owners of Mitchell, Jessen & Associates firsthand experience in identifying which torture techniques were most effective and the psychology behind them. The CIA later reverse-engineered these tactics to use on terrorism suspects at so-called black sites placed in foreign countries outside of US legal jurisdiction, because the practices employed during these "enhanced" interrogations were clearly prohibited by US law.

In 2011, Truthout obtained a series of handwritten notes it said were written by Dr. John Bruce Jessen, who Business Insider has learned was the president of Mitchell, Jessen & Associates. In these notes, written during his time working at the SERE program, Jessen described what he referred to as the "psychological aspects of detention."

Jessen's notes described how torture could be effective and gave US soldiers strategies to withstand abuse. He warned detainers would "manipulate and control your external environment almost at will." These notes outlined some of the same strategies CIA interrogators would later use on terrorism suspects at black sites, where the Senate report said detainees were subjected to loud rock music and severe cold temperatures.

NBC reported that Mitchell, Jessen & Associates presented the CIA with 20 techniques, and the agency passed on a few "because some of proposed techniques were considered too harsh even for terrorists." 

From A Fortified Facility To A Quiet Office Building 

SERE is based at the Air Force Survival School, located at an Air Force base just outside of Spokane. The program is overseen by the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, which conducts more secretive work and is located at a facility adjacent to the base that reportedly has a barbed-wire fence, armed guards, and "3-foot thick, blast-proof concrete walls." Through their work with the CIA, these experts from Mitchell, Jessen & Associates seem to have employed their expertise on the torture techniques used by America's enemies to develop tactics that the US subsequently used on its prisoners.

The CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques were initially used during the administration of President George W. Bush, who authorized them after the Sept. 11 attacks. The Senate report argued the interrogations that employed these techniques led to questionable intelligence and were so that violent they disturbed members of both the CIA and the FBI who were involved in US counterterrorism efforts.

President Barack Obama has acknowledged that some terrorism detainees were tortured while being questioned by the CIA. He banned the enhanced interrogations shortly after he took office in 2009.

A company registration filed in Washington in 2007 showed Mitchell, Jessen & Associates was originally formed in Delaware on Sept. 9, 2004, and began doing business in Washington in 2005. The company was operated out of a suite in a nondescript office building in downtown Spokane. In the handwritten registration, signed by Jessen, it said the company "provides consulting and training to US government." 

Read about the seven owners of Mitchell, Jessen & Associates and their connections to the CIA torture program below.

James Mitchell: A limited-liability company license renewal filed with the state of Washington in 2008 identified Mitchell as the CEO of Mitchell, Jessen & Associates.

He has been widely described as the "architect" of the CIA's enhanced interrogation program.  

According the 2009 New York Times story that first publicized his role in the CIA torture program, Mitchell joined the Air Force in 1974 and was initially stationed in Alaska, where "he learned the art of disarming bombs and earned bachelor's and master's degrees in psychology." Mitchell, who was from Florida, went on to work with the SERE program in the 1980s at the Air Force Survival School outside of Spokane with Dr. John Bruce Jessen. 

Both Mitchell and Jessen were close during their time at the Air Force Survival School. The Times said the two men "took weekend ice-climbing trips together" and became "part of what some Defense Department officials called the 'resistance mafia,' experts on how to resist enemy interrogations."

Initially, Jessen was the SERE psychologist at the school. In this capacity, he vetted instructors who portrayed interrogators at the school's mock prison camp that was used to train soldiers who might end up in enemy hands.

In 1988, The Times said, Jessen left his position at the survival school and took "the top psychologist's job at a parallel 'graduate school' of survival training, a short drive from the Air Force school." He was replaced by Mitchell.

According to The Times, Mitchell retired from the military shortly before the Sept. 11 attacks and began consulting for the CIA by "the start of 2002."

In March 2002, when Abu Zubaydah, who was suspected of being the third-ranked member of Al Qaeda, was captured in Pakistan, The Times said Mitchell traveled to a CIA black site in Thailand to oversee the interrogation.

Zubaydah's questioning reportedly included his being sleep deprived, waterboarded, held in a box naked, exposed to cold temperatures, and beaten. The Senate report that was released Tuesday identified Zubaydah as something of a guinea pig for the CIA's harsh interrogation techniques. The Times said Jessen joined Mitchell in Thailand a few months after he arrived to observe Zubaydah's questioning. 

After the Senate report on CIA interrogation techniques was released, Mitchell told Bloomberg he could not confirm or deny whether he was involved with the program because of a nondisclosure agreement. 

"I'm in a box — I'm caught in some Kafka novel," Mitchell said. "Everyone is assuming it is me, but I can't confirm or deny it. It is frustrating because you can't defend yourself."

Mitchell did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider on Wednesday.

Dr. John "Bruce" Jessen: In the document filed with Washington state, Jessen was named as the president of Mitchell, Jessen & Associates.

Jessen, who was once a Mormon bishop, became the SERE psychologist at the Air Force Survival School outside of Spokane in the 1980s. According to the Times story, while at the survival school, Jessen made an "unusual job switch" and went "from supervising psychologist to mock enemy interrogator." The Times reported Jessen became "so aggressive" in his staged interrogations that he frightened his colleagues. 

NBC's Robert Windrem, who first connected Mitchell, Jessen & Associates to the Senate report, published a story Tuesday that said "former intelligence officials and congressional investigators" confirmed the CIA began consulting with both Jessen and Mitchell about interrogation techniques in July 2002. 

"Jessen immediately resigned from the Air Force and, along with Mitchell, another recently retired colleague, founded Mitchell, Jessen & Associates," Windrem wrote. 

In 2009, the Senate Armed Services Committee conducted an inquiry into the "treatment of detainees in US Custody." Both Jessen and Mitchell testified before the committee about their work advising the government on interrogation techniques. The committee's report noted many of their tactics were developed based on their work with SERE and the JPRA. It also said Mitchell, Jessen & Associates had seven co-owners and "between 55 and 60 employees, several of whom were former JPRA employees."

The report did not name the other co-owners of Mitchell, Jessen & Associates. On Wednesday, a committee staffer told Business Insider the report was the only public record from the inquiry and that further details of Jessen and Mitchell's testimony were not released. Jessen could not be reached for comment on this story. 

David Ayres: Records for Mitchell, Jessen & Associates show Ayres was the firm's CFO. 

In January, a press release from a Virginia-based defense contractor, Tate Incorporated, identified Ayres as the company's president. According to its website, Tate "is the preeminent firm focusing exclusively on personnel recovery."

"We provide unparalleled expertise in PR training to the Department of Defense (DoD), other US Government agencies and government contractors," the site says.

In 2009, ProPublica reported that Tate Inc. was headquartered at an address in Alexandria, Virginia, that was shared by Mitchell, Jessen & Associates. 

Ayres did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Randall Spivey: The website of the Center for Personal Protection & Safety, a firm based in Spokane and Virginia, identifies Spivey as the company's CEO and founder. CPPS' site says it provides"scalable training and consulting solutions in the US for Workplace Violence Prevention, Active Shooter Response, and High Risk Travel" to businesses and several government agencies including the FBI and Department of Defense. 

The document filed in Washington state in 2008 listed Spivey as a partner at Mitchell, Jessen & Associates. His biography on the CPPS website says Spivey is a former DOD executive who "provided oversight to all Hostage Survival training programs in the Department of Defense from 1997 to 2002 and co-authored multiple hostage-related policy and doctrine documents."

According to the CPPS website, two other former owners of Mitchell, Jessen & Associates, James Sporleder and Roger Aldrich, work with Spivey at the company. Spivey did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Business Insider on Wednesday.

James V. Sporleder: A 2007 article in Spokane's Spokesman-Review newspaper described Sporleder as a former official with the secretive JPRA, which oversees the SERE program for which Mitchell and Jessen both worked. 

On the CPPS website, Sporleder is identified as the company's "president and cofounder." In this capacity, the site says he "is responsible for directly training more than 5,000 high-risk-of-capture personnel from some of the most elite units in the military."

"During his government career, he was responsible for planning, preparation, support, and execution of numerous repatriation operations reaching back to 1993. He served as team chief in repatriation preparations for three US Army soldiers held in Kosovo in 1999 and also led the debriefing team for that effort," the CPPS site says of Sporleder. "He was additionally assigned as the Repatriation Team Chief, Forward, for the return and debrief of 24 United States Navy EP-3 Crew members detained for 13 days in the People's Republic of China."

The record for Mitchell, Jessen & Associates filed with the state of Washington listed Sporleder as one of the company's partners. He did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. 

Joseph Matarazzo: In a statement emailed to The Spokesman-Review in 2007, Matarazzo said he owned 1% of Mitchell, Jessen & Associates. In spite of acknowledging partial ownership, Matarazzo, a former psychology professor who was once president of the American Psychological Association, told the newspaper he was "not and never has been involved in the company’s operational decisions" and only "attends brief and infrequent company meetings."

Matarazzo also disavowed the torture of terrorism suspects.

"I have never been involved in the use either of torture or the legal or illegal interrogation of prisoners or anyone else. And I would strongly advise against it," Matarazzo said. "I also have no knowledge of anyone who has been involved in such torture or interrogation."

On the document filed with Washington state, Matarazzo was described as a partner at Mitchell, Jessen & Associates. Matarazzo, who is nearly 90 years old, could not be reached for comment on this story. An Oregon phone number listed in his name was disconnected.

Roger Aldrich: The Times report on Mitchell and Jessen called Aldrich a "legendary military survival trainer."

On the CPPS website he is listed as the company's chief communications officer. According to CPPS, Aldrich spent 33 years working for the DOD at the JPRA, where he was "an instructor, instructor trainer, curriculum developer, and director of the US Government's only specialized, foreign governmental detention and hostage survival program." 

Aldrich was identified as a Mitchell, Jessen & Associates partner in the record filed with Washington state. He did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider on Wednesday.

View the Mitchell, Jessen & Associates records obtained by Business Insider below. Some personal information has been redacted.

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North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un's health problems have returned, according to a report in South Korea newspaper JoongAng Ilbo.

Speculation swirled earlier this year about Kim's health when he disappeared from public for over a month after he was seen limping across a stage. He then reappeared in October and was photographed walking with a cane.

South Korean government officials said on Monday that Kim, 30, has had a relapse in his health problems. He was reportedly seen "severely limping" in a video clip from an event that took place at the end of last month. North Korean state TV reportedly aired the clip on Sunday.

Kim started having problems with his leg last spring, according to the newspaper.

North Korean state TV has previously alluded to some sort of ailment, saying "Kim is suffering from uncomfortable physical condition," but has not elaborated on what was ailing him.

The most likely explanation for Kim's earlier absence is that he was recovering from some sort of operation or dealing with other health issues. A source with access to North Korea's leadership told Reuters that Kim hurt his leg while overseeing military exercises, while other North Korean officials said his health is fine.

South Korean officials say Kim underwent an ankle surgery after visiting French, Chinese, and Russian doctors, JoongAng Ilbo reports.

While Kim was out of public view earlier this year, rumors about his 25-year-old younger sister Kim Yo Jong started spreading. Some observers have said that she's rising to power in North Korea and is the elder Kim's closest confidante.

JoongAng Ilbo reports that intelligence officials think Kim Yo Jong is being groomed to succeed Kim Jong Un if an emergency arises.

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People with ties to Islamic State are reportedly trying to negotiate the sale of American hostage James Foley's remains, according to BuzzFeed News.

ISIS is reportedly attempting to sell the body and deliver it across the Syrian border to Turkey, sources in contact with the terror group told Mike Giglio at BuzzFeed.

One source told BuzzFeed that an ISIS leader approached him about the sale of Foley's body and asked if he could get in contact with someone within the US government or Foley's family.

ISIS executed Foley on camera and posted the video online in August. He was captured in northwest Syria on Thanksgiving Day 2012.

The terror group makes millions of dollars from its hostages.

They typically demand ransoms from the countries the hostages are from, but some countries, like the US, refuse to pay up. Selling Foley's remains seems to be a way for ISIS to make money off of him in lieu of a ransom.

Since Foley's death, ISIS has executed three other Western hostages — US journalist Steven Sotloff, British aid worker Alan Henning, and US aid worker Peter Kassig. The executions seem to be retaliation for airstrikes in the Middle East.

SEE ALSO: 3 Big Sources Of Revenue Help ISIS Make Millions Each Day

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Former Vice President Dick Cheney completely unloaded on the Senate's report on the CIA's brutal interrogation policies in a Wedneday night Fox News interview.

"The report's full of crap. Excuse me, I said 'hooey' yesterday let me use the real word. It's okay, you can bleep it," Cheney said.

Cheney is one of the most prominent supporters of the CIA's so-called enhanced interrogation techniques. These methods were undermined on Tuesday by the release of the Senate's report detailing the use of forced rectal feeding, insects, diapers, and death threats against detainees' family members. The report also said little to no useful information was obtained by these methods.

But Cheney accused the Senate of not doing a full investigation of the program.

"I think it's a terrible piece of work, basically. It seems to me it's deeply flawed. They didn't bother to interview key people involved in the program. And I think that it's sort of a classic example ... of where a group of politicians get together and sort of throw the professionals under the bus," he said.

Cheney also argued that the program resulted in actionable intelligence despite the report indicating otherwise. He went on to question those who would suggest less harsh questioning techniques against leading terrorists involved in the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center.

"What are we supposed to do, kiss him on both cheeks and say, 'Please, please, tell us what you know?' Of course not," he declared. "What are you prepared to do in order to get the truth about future attacks against the United States? ... I have no sympathy for them."

View his full interview below.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin isn't exactly the West's favorite person right now, but it looks like he's finally found a friend.

"Russia is India's closest friend, and the preferred strategic partner," India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday during a meeting with Putin, according to Russia's state-owned TASS news agency.

The two leaders met in New Dehli on Thursday to improve the defense, energy, and trade alliance between their nations. 

They signed numerous documents during the day, including an "agreement for training of Indian Armed Forces in the military educational establishements of the Defense Ministry of the Russian Federation," and a "strategic vision for strengthening cooperation in peaceful uses of atomic energy."

This isn't the first time Russia and India have collaborated on military and defense matters. India is one of the biggest importers of Russian arms, buying over $13 billion worth in 2013.

Additionally, Modi and Putin discussed trade relations and the construction of "high technologies such as the aircraft Sukhoi SuperJet-100 and GLONASS," according to Vesti News.

After the meeting, Putin added that Russia and India should work together to resolve the situation in Syria and Iraq, work on stabilizing Afghanistan, and create a "new architecture of security and cooperation" in Asia.

This meeting is part of Russia's larger strategic plan called "turning to the East," according to Vesti. Russia has been looking for new trading partners following the imposition of sanctions by the US and the EU.

Previously, Putin met with China's Xi Jinping several times, and the two nations signed a 30-year contract for a gas pipeline in May. Plus, China and Russia have started to work towards building a stronger military alliance.

Additionally, Putin announced that he's interested in having closer ties with North Korea.

And since India's on fire right now, it's another great non-US, non-EU ally for Russia to have.

Modi was elected prime minister on a probusiness platform in May 2014. Following his election, India's stock seriously rallied because of investor optimism. Now, the dropping oil prices are great news for India.

It will be interesting to watch how Russia's "turning to the East" plan ends up playing out — and whether or not it could help the crashing, isolated Russian economy.

NOW WATCH — Here's The Latest Airline With An Insanely Fancy Business Class

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Very little is known about the Islamic State leader who is often compared to Osama bin Laden and has been called "the world's most dangerous man."

But an interview with a jihadist who was reportedly jailed with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi a decade ago sheds more light on the mysterious figure and how the Islamic State was born from a US-run prison in southern Iraq. Martin Chulov wrote an in-depth article for The Guardian that explores how al-Baghdadi and others used Camp Bucca as a planning ground for terrorism.

Abu Ahmed, who is now reportedly a senior official within the Islamic State (aka IS, ISIS, ISIL, or Daesh), said he was taken to Camp Bucca in summer 2004. He told The Guardian that he had feared the prison before he arrived.

"But when I got there," he said, "it was much better than I thought. In every way."

Camp Bucca has previously been credited with providing the perfect environment for a terrorist group to form, but Ahmed's comments describe in more detail just how integral the prison was in allowing jihadists to organize.

Bucca held jihadists from all corners of Iraq, and it seems they were all given enough freedom within the prison to collude with one another.

"We could never have all got together like this in Baghdad, or anywhere else," Ahmed told The Guardian. "It would have been impossibly dangerous. Here, we were not only safe, but we were only a few hundred meters away from the entire Al Qaeda leadership."

Ahmed quickly realized that others in Camp Bucca deferred to al-Baghdadi.

Al-Baghdadi was detained by US forces in Fallujah in 2004 during the insurgency against US forces in Iraq. He was eventually taken to Camp Bucca.

The Americans who ran Camp Bucca apparently respected al-Baghdadi, according to Ahmed and other prison sources The Guardian spoke to.

"He was respected very much by the US Army," Ahmed told The Guardian. "If he wanted to visit people in another camp [within Bucca] he could, but we couldn’t."

Americans at Bucca reportedly saw al-Baghdadi as a "fixer" who could help keep peace at the prison. But other prisoners realized that he was chasing status and seeking out a position of power.

While al-Baghdadi was charming his captors, prisoners within Camp Bucca were formulating ideas that would eventually become the worldview of the Islamic State.

"If there was no American prison in Iraq, there would be no IS now," Ahmed said. "Bucca was a factory. It made us all. It built our ideology."

Over the past year, ISIS has risen from the vacuum created by the Syrian civil war to become may be one of the most heavily armed and well-funded terrorist organizations of all time. Since August, a US-led coalition against ISIS has launched more than 660 airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

In December 2004, when the US determined that al-Baghdadi was no longer a threat and authorized his release from Camp Bucca, he rose to power in Iraq. Many others released from American prisons in the country also went on to join ISIS.

"We had so much time to sit and plan," Ahmed said. "It was the perfect environment. We all agreed to get together when we got out. The way to reconnect was easy. We wrote each other's details on the elastic of our boxer shorts. When we got out, we called."

He continued: "By 2009, many of us were back doing what we did before we were caught. But this time we were doing it better."

US officials have wondered whether Camp Bucca helped further radicalize al-Baghdadi and turn him into the ruthless leader he is today. One former Air Force officer who was a commander at Camp Bucca noted in July, when al-Baghdadi declared himself the "caliph" of ISIS, that many at the prison wondered whether they had created a "pressure cooker" for extremism.

Once released from Camp Bucca, al-Baghdadi rose through the ranks of ISIS to become a trusted aide to the then-leader of the group, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, according to The Guardian.

In 2010, Abu Omar was killed in a raid led by US forces. At the time, Abu Bakr was one of only three people responsible for carrying important messages in and out of Abu Omar's hideout.

Abu Bakr "became the closest aide" to Abu Omar, Ahmed told The Guardian. "The messages that got to Osama bin Laden were sometimes drafted by him and their journey always started with him. When Abu Omar was killed, Abu Bakr was made leader. That time we all had in Bucca became very important again."

Here's how Islamic State's leadership structure looks right now:

Check out Chulov's full report >

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Sitting just off the coast of New York City's East River, the Brooklyn Army Terminal was first commissioned in 1918 to serve as a major military depot, carrying troops and supplies to bases and battles in Europe. More than three million troops passed through the terminal before it was decommissioned in the 1960s. 

In the 1980s, it was purchased by the City of New York and transformed into what it is today: A four-million-square-foot manufacturing hub that is bringing high-paying manufacturing jobs back to NYC.

Andrew Gustafson of Turnstile Tours and members of the NYC Economic Development Corporation recently took us around for a tour of the facility to see the building's storied past and its bright future.

The Brooklyn Army Terminal (BAT) is located in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. It is owned by the the city and run by the NYC Economic Development Corporation, which has renovated it to house more than 100 businesses, including light manufacturing, medical labs, warehouse distribution, and artists' studios.

The Terminal is approximately four million square feet. The city has spent $185 million to retrofit 3.2 million square feet of that space with new electric, elevators, plumbing, and other amenities.

The complex was first commissioned in 1918 to help move supplies and soldiers for the US's war effort in Europe. It wasn't finished until ten months after the war ended in 1919. At the time, it was the largest reinforced concrete building in the world. Here's what it looked like then.

Crossing from Israel into the Gaza Strip was supposed to be easy.

The $35-million, 375,000-square-foot border terminal at Erez looks like an international airport, with a soaring wave-like dome reaching over an inviting glass facade. When it opened in 2005, Israel was about to withdraw its soldiers and civilian settlers from Gaza, formerly Egyptian-occupied land which it had held since the Six-Day War in 1967. Each day more than 15,000 Palestinians were expected to cross here.

But since the takeover by Hamas, a US and EU-listed terror organization, Israel has imposed tight border restrictions in order to keep weapons and other financial and material resources out of the militants' hands. Traffic has precipitously declined: Erez now sees only a few hundred users a day, mostly aid workers and journalists along with Palestinians with rare permission to enter Israel for passage to the West Bank or Jordan or to visit relatives in Israeli hospitals.

The Erez terminal is flanked by a military base, and there there’s a high wall that runs along the border, ahead of a second layer of wall that protects the nearby town of Netiv HaAsara from rocket and mortar attacks.

When I crossed at 8:30 AM on a Monday morning in mid-November, the only other travelers in the broad and empty departure hall were a trio of Swedish aid workers. There was only one desk open out of 15, and no one lined up behind me. 

Making the passage was an anxious and unforgettable process. Signs in the terminal point the way "to Gaza" in English, Hebrew, and Arabic, with no hint of what awaits on the other side.

First, I entered a rectangular area in front of a passport control desk, with roughly neck-high doors on either side. Each was electronically locked. In my case, the official at passport control seemed interested in conclusively establishing that I wasn’t an Israeli citizen before allowing me to proceed. I was eventually issued an Israeli exit visa and the light over the opposite door switched from red to green. The passport control officer was the last person I encountered on the Israeli side.

The terminal is about 100 feet from the high concrete barrier marking the border. Behind the terminal is a covered area linking the facility to the border wall; a traveler walks through a broad corridor with fencing on either side before entering a second fenced-off area enclosing what appears to be a thick rectangular metal slab cut into the stark carapace.

This area has a fence-type door that remotely locks behind the traveler; for a moment, I found myself alone and seemingly trapped. I tried to pry at the metal door grafted into the border wall, assuming there was some basic cue I was missing. It turned out my movements were being carefully tracked by camera: as I turned around and tried to signal for help, the metal rectangle grafted into the larger concrete wall was slowly and somewhat ominously sliding open on its own, revealing a covered cement walkway cutting through swampy agricultural tracts. 

Immediately before me was a covered passageway several hundred-meters in length, with gridded aluminum fencing on either side and a metal canopy overhead. I wanted to walk the entire thing, just to survey the weirdly quiet border area and get used to the idea of even being in Gaza at all.

But a few moments later, a man with a golf cart pulled up and told me to get in. He sped along the otherwise-empty passageway, and before I could tip him he darted into a covered waiting area to collect what few passengers he could wrangle for the return trip.

There were two checkpoints on the Palestinian side.

At the first Palestinian checkpoint there was an outdoor waiting room and a shipping container-turned-office with a small group of non-uniformed individuals inside. They were engaged in a bureaucratic performance unconvincing even to a newcomer — miming the examination of travel documents, issuing the occasional glazed-eye look at travelers collected into gridlocked lines and rows. A banner urging travelers to Keep Palestine Free of Ebola hanged nearby.

It turned out the real border post was a few hundred yards and a 10 shekel cab ride up the road. The cabs might have license plates with a Palestinian flag on them — the Gaza Strip the only place in the world where vehicles have these. But one still pays for this cab, and just about everything else in Gaza, in Israeli currency.

The second checkpoint was staffed with vehement-looking young men, some of whom wore faded blue uniforms curiously stripped of any government or national insignia.

These men were from Hamas, and unlike at the earlier checkpoint these officials wanted to look over the contents of my backpack and examine my Palestinian Authority-issued press credential before allowing me to proceed.

It turns out the Hamas men take their job at the border seriously: They’ll hold up even UN personnel on small bureaucratic matters and can refuse passage to any Gaza resident for any reason. They insist on being informed ahead of time if a Palestinian is traveling through, regardless of who employs them or where they live.

This officious attitude is typical of how Hamas runs the Strip. While Gaza's Islamist overlords don't provide much in the way of public services and their governance is all but notional, they seize any and all opportunities to appear like an actual state.

“They believe this is strength,” one Gaza-based analyst told me, “but it is weakness.”

Hamas’s situation became even more tenuous this summer after they instigated and lost a battle against Israel, resulting in the death of hundreds of its fighters and the destruction of its attack tunnel network — along with thousands of structures inside of Gaza. Now the Palestinian Authority, which holds little actual power in Gaza but holds far more credibility globally, has even more excuse to curtail the Islamists' power. Although the PA and Gaza are technically in a unity government, the PA has cut off salaries to Hamas civil servants in Gaza and few expect the arrangement to last.

Hence power-tripping inconveniences at the border, like the annoying insistence that taxis park far down the street from the checkpoint, as well as weightier policies, like a border guard’s brief inquiries about whether I was carrying alcohol into the Strip.

My Palestinian Authority media credential was issued under PA letterhead by an office peopled with Hamas officials; I was told the $50 I paid for it, along with the hefty sales tax levied at my waterfront hotel, almost certainly went into the group’s coffers.

Visible from this second checkpoint is a line of black-scarred highrise apartments that lie just a few hundred yards inside the border. The Hamas checkpoint itself enclosed a mound of bomb-shattered cinder block, ruins of a building leveled during the war. It's only the first, comparatively mild evidence of destruction from the conflict that Hamas kicked into motion this past summer. The road to Gaza City is scattered with damaged and collapsed buildings, with neighboring structures often left remarkably unscathed.

Restrictions on the importation of construction materials — Hamas used 600,000 tons of concrete to build its attack tunnel network — mean that most buildings look only half-finished in Gaza City. Sky-scrapers give way to the concrete skeletons of unbuilt floors; in the outer neighborhoods, the buildings are little more than rectangular stacks of exposed cinder-block wedged on either side of rough or unpaved streets. 

Billboards heralding the grisly accomplishments of local militant groups make it impossible to forget the violence to which the Strip and its future are now captive. Same with the Hamas traffic cops in downtown Gaza City and the Hamas policemen manning checkpoints between towns. On the morning of my second day in the Strip, I saw unarmed men in blue khaki uniforms drilling in formation in a vacant lot across the street from my hotel near the Gaza port, members, apparently, of Hamas’s “civilian” auxiliary.

While I was crossing back into Israel, an Israeli tank was firing smoke bombs from near Erez into Gaza to ward off a gunman allegedly opening fire near the border, each burst sending up a thin pillar of dust and issuing a dull, empty thud. The red tile roofs of the nearby Israeli community of Netiv HaAsara and the layers of gray walls protecting it hovered eerily close in the background as a golf cart drove me back to the rectangular metal slab in the wall. 

Re-entering Israel through Erez is somehow an even stranger experience than leaving.

The slab rolls open remotely. Just inside the wall is a metal table in front of a pair of electronically-locked turnstiles; the light only turns green when travelers open their bags or suitcases for a remote camera. Next is the 100-foot corridor to the border terminal, followed by a second electronic lock, followed by another corridor with a third electronic lock, followed by a conveyor belt where travelers must leave their luggage — signs note that every item in their position is liable to an individual search behind closed-doors. At various points, hidden loudspeakers issue brief instruction in Hebrew.

The first human a traveler encounters on the Israeli is just after the conveyor belt and the aforementioned series of locks, cameras, and corridors; the day I crossed, this individual was actually an Arabic-speaker. There are a number of turnstiles along the way — inconvenient for one of the people with whom I was crossing, a mother attempting to angle her child's stroller through a gauntlet of cramped metallic cylinders. 

The inconvenience serves a purpose: the border is an attractive target for militant groups. Erez was the site several attacks during the war over the summer, as well as a 2004 suicide bombing in which four Israeli soldiers were killed and several Palestinians were injured. And these days, the border receives so little foot traffic that the labyrinth of locks and passage ways and conveyor belts can take dizzyingly little time if one's papers are in order. Crossing back into Israel took only about 30 minutes for me.

After I'd collected my baggage, the last obstacle was passport control. After a now-perfunctory question about my African travel and a stamp of my passport, I was back in Israel, some 300 meters and an entire universe away from where I'd stood just minutes before.

SEE ALSO: Gaza is almost totally cut off from the world, and it's getting ugly

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In a press conference on Thursday, Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan addressed the blockbuster Senate report released Tuesday that called the agency's former use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques "brutal." In his remarks, Brennan defended the agency.

"There were no easy answers and, whatever your views on EITs, our nation and particularly this agency did a lot of things right ... to keep our nation strong and secure," said Brennan.

At the same time, Brennan later acknowledged some mistakes were made, though he also criticized the Senate's investigation.

"We know we have room to improve," Brennan said. 

The Senate report, which is the culmination of an investigation that lasted several years, documented the various techniques used by CIA interrogators, including forced rectal feeding, mock executions, waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and psychological manipulation. 

Brennan, who was speaking from CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, began his remarks by invoking Sept. 11th.

"As deputy executive director of the CIA on that morning of 9/11, I knew what it was like to belong to an intelligence agency that had been ringing the bell for many months about Al Qaeda's plans to attack," said Brennan. 

He noted the agency's headquarters in Virginia was seen as a potential target following the attacks.

"The men and women at our counterterrorism center stayed at their posts despite the danger," Brennan said.   

The enhanced interrogation techniques were adopted and authorized by President George W. Bush in the wake of those attacks. Obama, who has admitted some terrorism suspects were tortured during CIA interrogations, banned the EITs when he took office in 2009. 

Brennan went on to say obtaining intelligence was the "most important" component of the CIA's mission in the aftermath of Sept. 11. He also claimed the enhanced interrogation techniques were "determined to be lawful" by the Department of Justice and "authorized" by the Bush administration.

Along with decrying the violent nature of many of the techniques used by the CIA, the Senate report concluded the intelligence obtained by these interrogations was questionable. However, Brennan said there was valuable information obtained and it is "unknowable" whether this intelligence could have been gained through other means. 

Still, in spite of his defenses of the CIA interrogation program, Brennan acknowledged "further organizational improvements to be made." He said the agency has implemented various "reforms" and promised it will continue to do so.

Brennan also admitted some of what occurred during the interrogation program was improper. He said there were "a limited number of cases" where CIA officers used techniques that were "abhorrent" and unauthorized, and "should be repudiated by all." However, Brennan said the "overwhelming majority" of CIA officers acted honorably. 

The investigation also found CIA officials misled the Department of Justice, the Bush administration, and the public. Brennan acknowledged there were "instances" where "representations" of the program made by officials were "inaccurate."

But he also suggested the Senate report, which was released by Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, was inappropriately partisan and did not include enough input from the CIA. An alternate report released by Republican members of the committee defended the agency. 

After he concluded his remarks, Brennan took questions from reporters. One of these questions was about the report's conclusion that intelligence obtained through the program did not help lead to the killing of Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. Officials had suggested information from these interrogations was crucial to the 2011 raid on Bin Laden's compound in Pakistan.

"It is our considered view that the detainees who were subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques provided information that was useful and was used in the ultimate operation to go against Bin Laden," Brennan said. 

This post was last updated at 2:45 p.m. 

NOW WATCH: 6 Compelling Correlations That Make Absolutely No Sense

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Goodreads rounded up the best nonfiction books 2014 had to offer.

To compile the list, Goodreads editors nominated titles frequently reviewed on the site, and readers voted for their favorites, casting more than 2 million votes total. 

This year's nonfiction book winners cover everything from how our brains work to the history of video games. 

"The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories" by Marina Keegan

When she tragically died in a car accident five days after graduating magna cum laude from Yale in 2012, Marina Keegan's last essay for Yale Daily News, "The Opposite of Loneliness," went viral, racking up over a million views. Though she died young, Keegan left behind a multitude of essays and prose about finding your calling and making a name for yourself in the world.

Buy it here for $17.99

"What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions" by Randall Munroe

Have you ever wondered how fast you can hit a speed bump while driving and live? Or if there was a robot apocalypse, how long would humanity last? Randall Munroe, the creator of xkcd, set out to find answers — and backed them up through science, of course.

Buy it here for $14.40

"The Underground Girls of Kabul: In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan" by Jenny Nordberg

This book explores the phenomenon of bacha posh, a common practice in Afghanistan where girls are temporarily dressed and raised as boys. Divided into four parts, it tells the stories of four different women at distinct stages in life. 

Buy it here for $16.40

Reports of sexual assault in the military have been on the rise in recent months. But a subject not often discussed is the prevalence of assault against men in the armed forces. 

A survey released last week found that 1% of men in the military had experienced unwanted sexual contact.

Produced by Alex Kuzoian. Video courtesy of Associated Press.

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It seems Putin just found an ally.

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met in New Dehli to improve the energy, military, and trade alliance between the two nations.

For starters, Russia and India will be exploring a stronger relationship in the energy sector.

The two countries will build at least 10 nuclear power plants in India over the next 20 years, and will have a joint venture in exploring hydro-electric power projects in Asia.

Additionally, Russia's state-owned Rosneft signed a preliminary agreement to supply India with 10 million tons of oil over the next 10 years.

And the most eyebrow-raising move of all is that Russia invited India to "work on projects" in the Arctic.

"Rosneft and Gazprom, our biggest companies, together with their Indian colleagues are preparing projects for the development of Russian-Arctic shelf, [and] the expansion of liquefied gas,"Putin said.

Why is this point important, exactly?

Well, back in late September, Russia's state-owned oil company Rosneft found a huge amount of oil in the Arctic — an amount that's comparable to the resource base of Saudi Arabia.

But there was a huge problem: Russia doesn't have the ability to drill in cold offshore conditions like that without Exxon's expertise. But, because of the on-going sanctions, Exxon can't drill there anymore.

And “as Russia’s existing fields in Siberia run dry, the country needs to develop new reserves as it vies with the US to be the world’s largest oil and gas producer,” Bloomberg reported back in September. So Russia really needs that oil in the Arctic.

The partnership was also key for Exxon. Since Russia is the company's second-biggest exploration area, this is a critical loss.

Putin and Modi didn't just cover energy agreements — the two countries also strengthened their military alliance. The leaders signed a document allowing Indian military to train in Russian military training camps, and Modi stated that Russia will remain India's top arms suppler.

Furthermore, while the West is punishing Russia with the ongoing sanctions, India just agreed to double its trading with Russia up to $20 billion in 2015. 

All of this is part of Russia's large strategic plan called "turning to the East," according to Vesti, as the country looks to establish partnerships outside of the eurozone and US.

Over the last few months, Russia has also strengthened its relationship with China. Putin and China's Xi Jinping signed a 30-year contract for a gas pipeline in May. Additionally, the two nations have started to work towards building a stronger military alliance.

If that weren't enough, Putin announced that he's interested in having closer ties with North Korea.

Given Russia's economic woes, it'll be interesting to see how exactly Russia's "turning to the East" plays out.

SEE ALSO: Russia Is Losing Up To $140 Billion Per Year From Western Sanctions And Oil Price Fall

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ISIS's blitz across Iraq left many stunned this past summer, especially after the jihadist group captured Mosul, the country's second-largest city in June. 

The group's meteoric rise was unexpected and the organization continued to shock the world as the jihadists turned on fellow militants in Syria, executed western captives, and tried to wipe out Iraq's Yazidi religious minority.

To make sense of the organization, the Brookings Institution has released a short video documenting the history of the terrorist group. 

As the video recounts, the predecessor organization of ISIS was founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who had previously fought alongside Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. Zarqawi, with support from bin Laden, traveled to Iraq to set up the al Qaeda in Iraq franchise.

After the US invaded Iraq, Zarqawi waged brutal attacks against the American presence, and staged attacks against the Shia majority in hopes of starting a civil war. Zarqawi also popularized the use of brutal tactics such as beheadings to further spread the group's message and instill fear in the population.

Although bin Laden privately disapproved of Zarqawi's penchant for violence and sectarian strife, al Qaeda appointed Zarqawi as the leader of operations for the entire Middle East region because of his effectiveness. 

In 2006, Zarqawi was killed by a US airstrike. In 2010, his successor, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi was also killed by US forces. 

These setbacks, along with the US-led "surge" and the "Awakening" of Sunni tribal militias opposed to Al Qaeda, forced al Qaeda in Iraq underground. The organization renamed itself the Islamic State of Iraq, and in 2012 the Islamic State created a sub-franchise in Syria called the al Nusrah Front which quickly grew to become one of the strongest forces in the country. 

Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's leader after bin Laden was killed, announced that Nusrah was al Qaeda's Syrian franchise, independent of the Islamic State.

However, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State, disputed Zawahiri's pronouncement and the two groups began to target each other in the beginning of 2014. 

Today, al-Baghdadi calls himself Caliph Ibrahim. ISIS now rules a contiguous piece of territory about the size of Belgium in Syria and Iraq and has declared itself to be a "Caliphate." A US-led coalition has been bombing the group since mid-August.

You can view the Brookings video below. 

SEE ALSO: ISIS commander reveals how the 'Caliph' radicalized under American detention in Iraq

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