The website's target audience includes journalists, policy-makers, scholars, political scientists, military and defense personnel, and the public.[13][11] It supplies background information and developing news stories,[14] providing online analysis and articles that analyze what are sometimes little-discussed topics[11] in categories that includeWMDs, military and defense,security andcybersecurity,intelligence, andspace technology.[15][16][17] It also disseminates primary documentation and other original materials,[11] provides detailed, high-resolution satellite images and video footage from war zones,[18][19] and provides definitions of widely used terms for the public.[20] The organization also serves as a defense, military,foreign policy, and national-securitywatchdog group.[19][21][22][23][24][25][excessive citations]
In part it seeks to find new approaches to international security, and promotes achieving cooperative international security and preventing nuclear proliferation.[11][16][26] To this end it seeks to improve intelligence-community capabilities to respond to new threats and to prevent the need for military action, while at the same time enhancing the effectiveness of military forces when needed.[16]
GlobalSecurity.org was listed in the War Intelligence category ofForbes' now-defunct "Best of the Web" directory from 2001 onward; the directory cited its "Depth of military information", and noted its "collection of satellite images and video footage from the war zone".[18] In his 2004 bookPlan of Attack, about the behind-the-scenes decision-making that led the Bush administration to invade Iraq,Bob Woodward called the website "an invaluable resource on military, intelligence and national security matters".[27]
