tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40280729547196354612024-02-23T19:36:13.004-05:00MIL INTMILITARY INTELLIGENCEMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08822415025459172603noreply@blogger.comBlogger150125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028072954719635461.post-81859073967317774612018-01-01T17:41:00.000-05:002018-02-08T17:42:40.545-05:00The Real Coup Plot Is Trump’s MI has not posted other content before. However, the essay linked below explains what MI refers to as 'American Self-Propagandizing' very well. This is a theme in MI entries because it undermines our institutions. In our view, Mounk explains the process elegantly. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/opinion/trump-republican-coup.html" target="_blank">The Real Coup Plot Is Trump’s</a>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08822415025459172603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028072954719635461.post-69668056803538800222017-12-24T01:35:00.000-05:002018-01-21T18:51:00.292-05:00MI’s Cybersecurity Tips for 2018<br /><div class="MsoNormal">
The biggest development in cybersecurity in 2017 was not a
hack. The Trump Administration has authorized Customs and Border Protection
(CBP) to demand access to electronic devices from all incoming arrivals –
citizens as well as permanent residents and foreigners. Incredibly, CBP has
also been authorized to demand social media log-in information, IDs and
passwords, so they can access your social media accounts from inside. If you
were concerned about warrantless search and seizure by the NSA as revealed by Edward
Snowden then this development should really concern you. As an aside Section
702 of what used to be called the Patriot Act also looks like it will be
extended, possibly indefinitely of some have their way. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The CBP Social Media policy is not codified in statute. The
4<sup>th</sup> Amendment is restricted at the border for routine searches. That
allows border control to conduct deeper searches of incoming passengers without
having to meet a federal warrant standard involving making a case for probably
cause. Neither Congress or the Courts have adjudicated whether this rule
applies to logging in to your social media accounts. Does it include Turbo Tax
as a social media account? Bank apps? Encrypted chat apps? Etc.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So for now, id you travel internationally and you don’t want
the federal government inside your phone and thus inside your personal
finances, taxes, private chats with your spouse or kids, either leave your
phone at home or get a burner for travel and do not leave anything on it before
you cross the border. That’s a lot of hassle but a lot cheaper than being the
test case that takes a decade to wend its way to the Supreme Court. Think of
the legal fees!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The 702 issue and the Manafort/Flynn revelations show that
the NSA remains vigilant when ot comes to communications with foreign targets.
Media suggests that 702 applies to as many as 100,000 targets. Under 702 the
NSA does not need a warrant to surveil these foreign targets even in cases
where that communication is with a US person or travels via communication links
on US territory. Section 702 needs periodic review and can fail to be renewed
if Congress does not act in time. Evidentially the deadline in Jan 2018 may be
covered by some of the language in a related law that sets the 702 cycle in
April 2018.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You might think there is no way 702 can touch you. Perhaps,
but 100,000 targets is a serious number. They are not all ISIS. They clearly
include diplomatic representation to the US, foreign governments, financial and
business leaders overseas, and so on. Maybe this does not matter to you, but MI
knows many of its readers are national security personnel and higher end
business people, this may touch you. For the record, in order to surveil a US
person as the target (not the collateral damage in targeting a foreign
communication) in their communications across the international border, the
government still needs to get a FISA warrant. To surveil you domestically, a
court issued warrant based on probable cause is required.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This background is important to know but it also the setting
for the suggestions made below. Disclaimer: MI is not a legal advice
organization, and these are suggestions that readers are free to ignore based
on their judgement. MI has no responsibility for how you conduct your personal
communications or travels. These are helpful suggestions not business
recommendations. Just don’t sue us, ok?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As the fallout from the San Bernardino terrorist attack
shows, it is not easy for federal law enforcement (FLE) to access encrypted
devices. They say they got into the terrorist’s iPhone without Apple’s help;
that may or may not have happened. Post Snowden Apple and others know that its
business model will fail to grow unless it puts people and not FLE first
(although its policies in China suggests that if the market is attractive
enough Apple’s principles may be a little softer than in a mature market). So
has MI become paranoid? Looking at the threat board too hard all year and
unnecessarily freaking out? Surely all of these measures are for criminals and spies
– they don’t apply to little ole me going about my day? What could possibly go
wrong? I don’t break the law, I help enforce it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Crime is an old canard to prevent you from protecting
yourself – ironic really. Good digital security and privacy practices are
essential and here’s why:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1. Common
sense. The Five give you their platforms for free, right? You don’t pay for
Gmail or YouTube. It’s great! Yet if that’s true, why are The Five the most
valuable companies in the world? Where does that money come from? YOU. The Five
(and others) see you as a mine of data that they use to position their own
services that do cost money and to sell to their advertisers to pinpoint your
interest in 18<sup>th</sup> C Austrian stamps. Marketing on TV is wasteful,
especially for specialized items. The cutting edge in marketing is personalized
tailored focus on individual interests. Now instead of buying ad time on TV –
very costly and basically useless for stamp collectors - highly specialized ads
can be sent very cheaply to everyone on earth who is interested in 18<sup>th</sup>
C Austrian stamps.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So you pay for these ‘free services’ of Facebook, Google,
Amazon, and so on. The fee? Your privacy. What’s that really worth to you?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2. Life
Happens. You might become incapacitated and you have always been t6he one who
does all of the administration for the family. Incapacitation or sudden death
vastly complicates managing your affairs, The set up suggested below will
enable someone you trust to pick up exactly where you left off and operate your
life when you can’t. It should be a central part of any good estate planning.
But as argued, can be there for life events or even getting stuck overseas with
a lost phone, etc. The settings below
have you backed up and secure so you (or your trusted person) can keep driving
and paying bills and not getting behind. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
3. Your
obligation to protect the country. Most of MIs readership ace national security
professionals. They know that weak security of their home, person or digital
footprint can help bad actors gain situational awareness and/or actual data and
access with which they can threaten national security directly or indirectly.
The USG has broken this professional and social contract with its unacceptable
laxness in protecting SF-86 Data that resided with OPM. Nevertheless, we all
need to work together and this is a case where protecting yourself and your
family will also maintain your sacred obligation to protect America.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
4. “But MI –
The Costs of All These Services!” See point one – your digital world is not free.
In fact, you have been commodified. This should annoy you. It annoys the crap
out of us. Your spouse and your children are commodities to be traded. Ever
wondered why little Suzie gets credit card offers at age 6? It’s not because
she is a rock star shopper (even if she is, our commiserations<span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span>) It’s because Suzie’s
very existence has been sold to someone who wants to sell to her (they just
don’t know she’s a wee tot, as they say in Scotland).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All of the systems and services we suggest below charge fees.
If they don’t, then that’s the first hint that they may not be the best
solution to your digital fingerprint and footprint privacy. Most cost tens or a
few hundred a year. All up, even with the most high end services an individual
or family might want, you are looking at around $500 a year. That’s peanuts for
what you get for that sum. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Do you really think your name, address and social are safe?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
*2013 3 billion yahoo accounts hacked<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
*2015 ALL OPM SF-86s hacked<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
*2017 143 Million credit profiles hacked at Equifax<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
*2017 198 Million US
voter records hacked<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And you call MI paranoid <span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span>
Companies like Target and a bunch of others have all been hacked too. It’s not
going to end, it’s going to accelerate and deepen. The US election was hacked
in the sense that social media was completely manipulated to pervert the course
of the election. It goes on and on. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s time to get real. It’s time to protect yourself, your
family, and your country.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here are our tips for 2018:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->1.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Encrypt
everything</b>. Phones, computers, hard
drives, thumb drives. There are now plenty of options to do this. MI recommends
picking one option across all hardware platforms. There are easy to use
software programs now that can do this. The other option is using the features
on the laptop during set up. Apple now offers this. Remember the number of
different systems you use will require remembering a lot of log-ins. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Password
gatekeeper</b>. This is a MUST. Again, as with hardware encryption options, there
are a lot to choose from – the type of program MI has in mind is 1Password and
the like. Each has different pros and cons. What they do is simple – they
create impossible to hack passwords for all the sites you use to bank, do
taxes, communicate with people, social media, etc. anything you log into – they
protect. The software conjures up long complex passwords with or without
symbols (&%$₵#), numbers, etc. It then stores these with your log-in
IDs against the relevant URLs. To access your bank, you don’t have to google
and find the bank, you simply press the bank’s icon and the password program
automatically logs you in with the long/complex password. It’s easy and
incredibly secure. The weakest link – the password you use to access the app. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->3.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Log-in
IDs and email IDs</b>. The days of using David.Smith@gmail.com are gone. Why
make it easy for the bad guys to target you. As above, you can now use password
apps to create unique log-in IDs, MI recommends random jumbles of letters,
numbers, and symbols, just like a password – so they are unintelligible to
whoever may be trying to find ‘David Smith’. MI recommends different IDs for
high impact accounts like banks and maybe a common one for low impact stuff
like Hulu. Note: Facebook is NOT low impact!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->4.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Social
Media.</b> OK, this is going to hurt. Are you sitting down? Get off Facebook.
Guess what? You can’t get off Facebook! Try it and see. It owns you. To the
extent that your data, your most private data is you, it owns you. If you load
it onto Facebook, they now own it; whether it’s a picture, your religious,
political, sexual, social, or other habits, preferences, views, etc., Facebook
owns it. This is not a rhetorical point, it is a legal fact. Remember the long
Terms of service in tiny print? Don’t worry, no one else reads it either. It’s
in there. As a matter of law, anything you put on Facebook is their property.
It’s in there. As a matter of law, anything you put on Facebook is their
property. <br />
<br />
Why is this important? Because Facebook is the greatest human intelligence
gathering platform ever devised. In the old days the following information had
to be either interrogated out of you or was the fruit of weeks if not months of
resource-heavy surveillance: your full name, date of birth, addresses of home
and work, your up-to-the-minute location (from their geo-location settings as
well as posting from your favorite café), your network of contacts from all
aspects of your life, the books, magazines, websites, blogs, and tweets you
read, your opinion on political social, international, gender, sexual
orientation issues; digital records both still and video of you, members of
your network, locations you visit, places you vacation, your home and vehicles
and so on. Facebook owns that catalog of your identity. They sell that
information and the patterns it depicts – pretty much anything can be known
about you which helps companies market to you, but it also helps people find
you and know what you are thinking and who you are associating with. If a
foreign intelligence agent asked you 5% of this kind of data you’d be down to
the SSO’s office to report a foreign intelligence collection operation in US
soil. <br />
Now, you are broadcasting all that highly personal and valuable data to anyone
who wants to look. And if you think Facebook privacy settings are going to
protect you, then… well, enjoy the ride. <br />
<br />
How to delete your Facebook account. As noted above, you actually can’t do
this. The best thing you can do is the following: Go back through all of the sub-headings that
list your preferences and delete them one-by-one. This applies to any data or
pictures you want removed. It will take a long time and be tedious. But at
least at that point you have some control over content. FB keeps the original
but this way you minimize what can be discovered if the account is hacked and
just maybe FB’s record is minimized. Then, go to “delete this account”, it will
explain that the best it can do for you is turn it off the web but it does not
delete the files and you can go back and reactivate at any time. <br />
<br />
Before you do this, however, send out a note to all your FB connections
advising them that you are deleting your account and that you are NOT
UNFRIENDING them. Account deletion can appear to friends as unfriending,
leading to awkward conversations, or worse, no conversations and the appearance
of a major social slight when none was intended. Put that message up once a
week for a month so your key friends catch it… then follow the steps above.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->5.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Google.</b>
Yep, them too, and not just their social media efforts. Let’s just start with
Gmail and YouTube. One of the many dorty little secrets of The Five as the
companies that run the world are known, is they are surveilling you all the
time. Have you ever wondered why the ads you get seem targeted to your interest
in skiing? Because they scan your emails looking for key words that can be used
to market products to you. Likewise, all your YouTube searches – like all of
your Google searches –are logged with the company. In the past the FBI and CIA
got into a lot of trouble for warrantless searches of people’s library
borrowing habits – check out the Church Commission that followed some major
espionage leaks, not of foreign threats but Uncle Sam monitoring citizens. You
can delete search histories from your browser, along with cookies, do you
honestly think that will do anything other than make you feel secure? They
already have the data, you are just deleting your record of it, not theirs!
(Still, it’s worth doing, BTW). <br />
<br />
The Fix: as with Facebook, manually delete everything, then delete the account.
This is possible with Gmail and YouTube. BUT FIRST, there are some steps you
need to make. First, you need to move your emails from the Google servers onto
your own hard drive(and/or cloud – more about the cloud below). The smartest
way is a hard drive first and then the cloud – again, more below. There are a
number if apps that will move all your emails in their folders from the Gmail
system onto a hard drive of your own, so you have a complete record (assuming
you need to keep the receipt from the Apple store where you just bought a new
laptop for $2k, for example). Then Gmail has a global delete function – it save
you going file to file and page to page. You can delete it all in one step.
THEN make sure you empty the trash! Make sure SENT mails are collected and
deleted too. Once you are satisfied that the complete record has been erased,
then shut down the account. <br />
<br />
<b>The Cloud. </b>Yes, both the company
offering the cloud and the government can access search, harvest and sell all
that data too. Google Drive, Dropbox, etc. There are cases in the courts right
now where the government is forcing US cloud companies to divulge data that is
not even resident on US cloud servers. All US providers use cloud servers here
and overseas, Because the law never imagined needing to access an American safe
in Ireland, there is no law covering accessing a US cyber safe in Ireland. MI
anticipates the courts will force US cloud service providers to cough up data
regardless if where it rests. Certainly US LE and the courts seem to have no
regard for the domestic laws of the countries in which those servers reside
(unless they are forced to, see below). Thus if you use an American cloud you
are wide open. <br />
<br />
This issue goes to the heart of the Apple v FBI situation following San
Bernardino. Apple feared losing customers id the public saw them roll over to
the FBI. So they took a stand (after years if secret collusion – the exposure
of which embarrassed The Five – see the Snowden issue). Just to note, this
impacts all The Five, not just Apple. MI welcomes the stance they have taken
post-Snowden and acknowledges it’s in their economic best interests to protect
the masses over the occasional bad actor who might benefit from their services
(more about the crime argument below). <br />
<br />
The Fix: back up all of your cloud files to a hard drive in your possession.
This is good practice anyway. Then encrypt that drive. <br />
<br />
Find a foreign end-to-end encrypted cloud service. Preferably this will be in a
country that has strong privacy laws (any EU country has much stronger laws
than the US, and some have even more stringent requirements than those mandated
by the EU, such as Switzerland). Alternatively, a cloud service in a country
that is not beholden to US pressure. The key is being in a non-US jurisdiction,
one that has strong privacy rules, and the use of end-to-end encryption - which
means that the content of the data is invisible except on the sending and
receiving computers.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->6.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Opening a
new email account.</b> Follow the same principles as the cloud – foreign
jurisdiction, foreign company providing the service, and end-to-end encryption.
Open at least 2 accounts. One for your private conversations with friends and
colleagues and one for Administration. MI recommends also opening one for low
impact activity like TV online accounts and newspapers and the like. Things
that if you lost them would not matter to you. <br />
<br />
You’ll be amazed at the sudden death of junk mail and ads and all the rubbish
that comes with American ‘service’ providers, which should be more accurately,
described as personal data wholesalers. MI hates to appear to be critical of
American firms, but in fairness, they have gotten us into this situation. You
are truly on your own when it comes to privacy and security. Most national
security professionals know this (MIs key demographic) but it’s important to be
reminded, especially when long term deep maintenance of one’s electronic
fingerprint and indeed footprint takes so much work. We get that. But you owe
it to yourself, your kids, and even the country to protect your data. With the
politicization of national security staff these days and all the
investigations, you don’t have to be a bad actor to get swept up in all if this
and for CNN to run your tweets or texts to your girlfriend as headlines, to
decide some protection is not a bad idea. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->7.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Extended
Security Questions and Dual Factor Authentication. </b>When you change
locations (either physically or via a VPN) most email companies, banks, etc.
will ask for additional security questions to verify the right person is
accessing the account. MI suggests using a bank of standard ‘answers’ that are
mini passwords– they are not actual answers to ‘who was your childhood friend’ they
are Password Gatekeeper generated (and remembered) strings that you can use in this circumstance. So
that when you are asked ‘who was your childhood friend’ the answer is not Fred,
it’s ‘*nYss₵43$’.
<br />
<br />
Dual factor authentication particularly using cell phones can be hacked, it
turns out. The bad guys can run off with the phone or cyber into it. Look for
work-arounds. Password gatekeepers alone are best, a high end thumb drive is an
alternate to consider based on your needs.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->8.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Messenger
Services.</b> IMing is becoming more popular than emails. The state of the art
for privacy right now is Signal. It’s end-to-end encrypted, and can be set to
auto-delete chats after a period of time. But look out – one of the Five will
try to buy it for billions in order to access the data. That’s why Facebook
paid ca 15 billion for Whatsapp – Facebook’s engineers can build an IM platform
in their sleep. They wanted the data, the identities, the patterns – the key to
the money.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->9.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Virtual
Private Networks – VPNs</b>. Get one, set it on a high-privacy foreign
jurisdiction (see above discussion about the cloud/email) and use it
religiously. A VPN hides your IP address. It also places all your digital
activity inside the high-privacy jurisdiction of the country you choose. Each
time you log-in to a VPN you can pick which country you will appear to be
operating out of. MI recommends moving that location to other safe locations
periodically. VPNs are available for both fixed and mobile platforms. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->10.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Alexa and
the other women in your life.</b> Don’t let them into your home! Get off your
ass and turn off the light yourself. Sheesh. Alexa and Siri and the girls are
always listening and sending back all your requests to the mothership. Alexa
has already been taken to court, or the recordings made passively (ie., not
following a command to take action) during a murder. If you do not intend to
say “Alexa give The Five all the conversations between me and my spouse and
between us and our kids and between us and anyone on the phone who calls us
etc. etc.etc.” then as delightful and ‘helpful’ as these wonderful ladies are,
don’t let them into your abode – your castle. In 1984 the TV on the wall of
your house was the interface for Big Brother – now you bring BB into your home
on your cell phone, laptop, and increasingly on anything that can transmit…
same goes for wherever you go…you Re taking a complete suite of surveillance
tools with you, which you then turn against yourself 24/7. Not smart, people. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->11.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Crossing
Borders.</b> The fix: Get a burner and don’t register it under your name! Or
use your own phone and completely wipe it – before crossing any border. If
America is forcing you to give up your log-ins, just imagine what China is up
to! First, back it up to your new foreign cloud, then wipe it by choosing to
reinstall the system software. Some shadow data will survive but a routine
border check will not go that far. Then, once on the other side, use a secure
connection and VPN to upload the phone from the cloud. It’s best to delete all
texts, IMs, and conversations from all apps as well.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->12.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Physical
Mail Security</b>. Get a UPS store account for all your physical mail. Your
mail box at home is a sitting duck, filled with personal information and is
completely open for anyone to access. Such access is a federal crime but
proving someone stole your credit card statement from your mailbox might be
hard. Avoid it by getting a street address based alternate mailbox. Sadly, USPS
does not do street addresses, thus conceding the territory to UPS and others
(no wonder they can’t compete). UPS can then forward on your mail or you can
collect on your way home. Happy in the knowledge that it is secure and
monitored by a human being and under considerable lock and key after hours.
Remember in hacking, social engineering is often the easiest way in – mailbox
jumping is old school and works just fine. Further point on mail. Given the
legalities, if you need to send something really secure, consider the post.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->13.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Cyber
Hygiene Best Practices.</b> Keep system software updated, Use anti-virus [just
not Kapersky (Google it and DHS)] – and turn off geo-location on all hardware
and software. This will make GPS maps useless – just consider cost/benefit for
your situation. Again, a burner smart phone might be a solution. Small cloth ‘Faraday Cages’ are a super
convenient way to stop the phone transmitting your locations. No need to take
out the battery and SIMs etc…just turn it off and slip it into the soft cover –
if it’s on, it will drain the battery looking for a signal. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
MI hopes you and those special to you enjoy this Christmas
present from us. Here’s to a safe, secure, private and prosperous 2018.<o:p></o:p></div>
Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08822415025459172603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028072954719635461.post-61784129539270281232017-12-20T21:03:00.000-05:002018-02-06T21:04:18.986-05:00Imagination and National Security<div class="MsoNormal">
“But that’s not the way we did it last year”. There, in a
single sentence, is the greatest threat to national security facing the United
States. How many times have you heard that miserable idiotic foolishness? That
sentence is the enemy of innovation, and it can be found throughout the
national Security establishment. MI was advising the Commanding Officer of an
elite unit in the US military charged with some of the most sensitive national
missions imaginable. They had a fantastic track record of innovation. They had
the best people, the best technology, an essentially unlimited budget and
political backing to take on the toughest missions in the most exceptional
circumstances. In a particularly sensitive area, they had a string of
successes. MI asked them why they did not undertake more missions – they had
the capacity. The CO thought about this for a minute and said, “You know, I
don’t know. We could. You know what, you’re right, we need to…” Make no mistake;
it takes a lot to mount those kinds of missions. They often span months, if not
years. But their track record of success demonstrated that a lot more could be
done. He is a great leader. He was not afraid to take thoughtful risks, he was
open to suggestion, and did not care whether they came from inside his band of
brothers or from a policy wonk. Sadly, he stands out in MI’s memory, of decades
of service, as a unicorn.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“But, we have not received guidance.” This is another
classic argument for inaction. Weak thinkers throw this out to absolve
themselves of responsibility for stasis in their organization or its missions.
They always wait for “higher” to identify and solve their problems for them.
They fear telling “higher” they have a problem, usually because they are
incapable of devising a solution. This is a classic failure of leadership in a
culture where you are supposed to identify a solution and present it to
“higher” when you report a problem. This sounds like West Point leadership 101,
but you would be astonished not only by how often this comes up, but how high
up the chain this excuse is wheeled out in defense of inaction.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the battlefield the living are the innovators; those that
could not improvise, adapt, and overcome, succumbed to stasis. So it’s ironic
that an institution and culture that thrives in the field should be so
sclerotic everywhere else. Politics is often the reason, fear of making
decisions that might later turn out to be wrong. Conflict is so contingent that
constant change should be baked into thinking. Context is important; plans
should be a starting point, not a dogma followed point by point to defeat. The
cannon of strategic to operational ‘strategies’, flowing seamlessly into plans,
culminating in ‘operational concepts’, implemented by cross-coordinated staffs
first designed in the Napoleonic wars, is all great in theory, but it fails
more often than it succeeds. The endless creation of ‘working groups’ at higher
echelons and ‘task forces’ at the tip of the spear, demonstrates how
ineffective traditional structures can be, especially in the face of new
dynamic threats. Thus bureaucracy and corporate ideology combine with politics
as great anchors in innovation.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Strategic planners tend to get mired in process and efforts
to appear to be in sync with corporate thinking. That completely misses the
point. Operations take plans as a scene-setting starting point and evolve as
circumstances change. The two methods are antithetical to one another. One is
the product of a closed system of thinking, where complexity, friction, and fog
are subordinated to rigid programmatic edicts. The other is a necessary
requirement to the realities of the world and represents an open system of
thinking that is founded in axioms but not ruled by them against prevailing
evidence. In an effort to control complexity, closed systems over-generalize
and over-simplify, which is necessary to a point but is almost always taken way
too far.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Militaries are big bureaucracies. They get obsessed with
hierarchy, process, and tradition, at the expense of flexibility. Thoughtful
risk taking is necessary to adapt to new circumstances even at the strategic
level. Failure is costly when statecraft tis on the line, but a rigid ‘man,
train, and equip’ mentality is useless in intelligence and operations. There is
a tipping point where bottom-up innovation must be forged into a greater whole.
Finding that point is not easy or clear, it often finds us, to our cost. MI
believes that we can strive to get better at finding that tipping point and
defining it before it defines us. The answer lies, funnily enough, in
epistemology.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How we think about the profession of arms and its connection
to statecraft, is vitally important. Strategy is the connective tissue between
the two. Strategy is “the use of resources to achieve an objective.” If you
look at the swath of documents that spew forth from the Joint Chiefs down to
the COCOMs, those documents are SINO (Strategy In Name Only). The truth is they
are statements of executive principles. They touch on vague ideals, like
protecting democracy, but they fail to discuss how resources should be
marshalled to achieve that outcome. Indeed, a vague principle can be an
outcome. You have to keep digging down to the CONOP level to see any serious
discussion of means, ways, and ends (the order is important). Readers who have
spent time in a COCOM planning staff know that millions of man hours are spent
annually ‘aligning’ thought from the top to the bottom. Much of this “synchronization” is an exercise
in narrowing, and more often than that it is an exercise in English literature
verbal massaging, and the creation of the harmful pretense of seamlessness. MI
has seen 100+ person staffs all scratching away on staff-wide edits of
documents no sane person will ever read. Nothing of substance comes up. At best
a slight inflection is inserted to represent the editing/commenting command’s
particular operational environment or toolset as it pertains to the ‘master
mission statement’ issued from on high. It is important to ‘be on the same
page’ – but all of this staff make-work can be reduced to a one page statement
of principles – like a commander’s intent. That’s all that is required, those
captured by the staff process will insist the Russian-doll embedding of
‘strategies’ from the top down is essential to resource allocation. That’s
total rubbish. Resource allocation happens in very discreet settings, not in
those verbose manifestos, and anything produced by the DOD is a mere guide
anyway because Congress calls the shots. All of those staffs need to be
slashed. Any document that cannot state its means, ways, and ends as they link
to foundational principles in a page or two is a total waste of time. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why do means come first? Because you go to war with the army
you have. You fit your ways to available means. In an ideal world you would
create innovative ways and then be granted the means to fulfil them, but it
just does not happen that way and we need to stop kidding ourselves
otherwise. This does not exclude
innovation, because it is generated outside that strategic loop (for the most
part). When means drives ways you end up with an F-22 in a counterinsurgency,
that was a bit of a cheap shot because F-22s will be valuable in the Pacific
and an advanced fighter program can’t be created out of whole cloth in a matter
of months. Strategic investment is the exception to the means, ways, ends rule.
It is important, but should not be dominant. Currently there is a decided
imbalance and it flows from big, long term acquisition programs to CONOPS. It
should be the other way around in most instances. MI often ears the phrase
‘strategy by CONOP’ as a derisory comment on the absence of strategy – often
due to absence of ‘guidance from higher’. Sound strategy making is in fact
reflected in the CONOP process. An objective is identified. The available means
and ways are assessed to determine whether the objective can be plausibly
achieved. This is an important distinction from what is realistically
achievable because too often that standard is an easy way to avoid entertaining
new thinking. Weak thinkers will condemn this standard as being idealistic and hopelessly
unachievable. That is not what is being recommended here. Plausible is a higher
standard than possible, they are still on the realistic side of the spectrum if
all imaginable options. Good staff work explores all the possible options;
creative staff work refines the possible into plausible options. From there the
best probable option(s) will likely present themselves. These should be shared
with decision makers to further refine the art of the possible. Interacting
with ‘higher’ presenting them with a problem-set, and a series of plausible
options, allows them greater choice and may include means and ways they had not
considered. A staffing process like this builds trust between the operational
force and ‘higher’, leading to greater autonomy and room for maneuver for both
sides. In time, everyone will realize they are on the same side. Imagine that!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Bottom up, ‘possibilist planning’, is already being
practiced out of sheer necessity. It is a practical approach that people use
when they have run out of options and yet the need for success remains
pressing. Possibilism displaces optimism and pessimism, both of which are
dangerous when lives are at stake and there is no clear path forward. They also
distort thinking in destructive ways. Possibilism requires that we be as
objective about the facts as possible. Despite the current domestic political
moment, where America is awash in highly sophisticated propaganda, much of it
home-grown; facts <u>do</u> exist and <u>can</u> be discerned. In fact, the
battle of competing narratives should be seen as nothing more than motivated
reasoning – seeking only the information that supports what you already
believe. This is an incredibly powerful way of thinking and is referred to as
“confirmation bias” in psychology. Motivated reasoning restricts consideration
of what in law is called ‘exculpatory evidence’ – those facts that do not
conform to the theory of the case. Sound strategic and operational planning
must resist the temptations of motivated reasoning. Possibilism is its antidote
and is derived from no less an authority than Aristotle himself (with a bit of
help from Hegel).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Aristotle is the father of science and the scientific
method, Science is the study of cause and effect in the world of natural
phenomena defined as those things in nature that are beyond human control. Like
gravity. Demonstration or proof is essential to finding the truth. Like an
apple falling off a tree. Hegel shows us that the same methodology can be
applied to ideas that are very much a matter of human control. The Hegelian
dialectic sifts competing ideas from hypothesis to thesis to antithesis to
synthesis. The demonstration or proof in this case being the testing of ideas
against alternatives. Therein lies truth. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Aristotle was not a determinist. He believed in free will
and human agency. Humans have the power to make choices that change situations
within their control. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Most of the thing about which we
make decisions, and into which we therefore inquire, present us with alternate
possibilities… all our actions have a contingent character; hardly any of them
are determined by necessity.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Aristotle believed that the realm of possibility was driven
not by scientific analysis but by human intervention and persuasion. His system
of persuasion or methods for reframing compelling narratives is the essence of <u>The
Art of Rhetoric</u>. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Ethos: The will to make change. The author of change must have a strong
character and possess credibility and authenticity.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Logos: The logical structure of argument. It is essential to provide a
rigorous case for transforming problems into possibilities, possibilities into
ideas and ideas into actions.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Pathos: The capacity to empathize. The author of change must be capable of
inspiring movement on a large scale. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Ordinary words convey only what we know already; it is from
metaphor that we can best get hold of something fresh. To be a master of
metaphor is the greatest thing by far. It is a sign of genius.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Possibilism is contingent on being open to new ideas – both
data and analysis. The absence of data does not preclude possibility. The only
limit to possibility is necessity, those things that can not be changed. Those
factors are not just external but internal to your decision making. The US
military often gets obsessed with data at the expense of analysis, let along
action. Collection of data is not an end in and of itself. In so many cases, US
military data collection and its application are completely unscientific and
totally meaningless. Often junior personnel who are closer to their college
experience know they are wasting their time but dare not tell ‘higher’. Or
great data is collected but not analyzed. Or, if analyzed, is resident on
servers that then leave with the unit or headquarters during redeployment
cycles. MI has seen this happen constantly in current wars and the observation
is mirrored in accounts of past wars (see the MI entry on Ellsberg’s <u>Secrets</u>).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maintaining the discipline if keeping an open system of
thought is hard. It demands much more effort than a closed system where
‘everybody knows what the boss wants’ while the boss grumbles that his/her
staff is not presenting anything new. This happens at all levels of command.
President Obama famously sent the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and SECDEF back
to create better options on more than one occasion. By that, President Obama
meant authentic choice, not two impossible ’options’ sandwiched around the only
COA that DOD wanted all along. It is true that once you get to that level a lot
of choice has been removed from the system. This is by design, easy choices
should not make the President’s desk, this merely reinforced the point that an
open system from the bottom up is important to maximize choice for all burdened
with that responsibility up the chain of command. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Empathy is vital to possibilism and effective intelligence
and decision making. It is foremost about understanding the opponent. Webster
defines empathy thus: <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
The action of understanding, being
aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts,
and experience of another of either the past or present, without having the
feelings thoughts and experiences, fully communicated in an objectively
explicit manner.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There could barely be a better definition of intelligence in
the service of statecraft. The best intelligence professionals and strategic
leaders are able to put themselves in the shoes of their opponents, to know
what he is thinking and what he values most. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The constant refrain for years after 9/11 was ‘why do they
hate us?’ Nothing could better illustrate a failure if empathy. Had we known in
advance why we were hated, there is the possibility that atrocity and all that
came after it might have been avoided. This is not to say no one knew. But they
were insufficient in number and standing to be heard. History is replete with
cases where opponents failed to grasp the thoughts and motivations if one
another. This is why Clausewitz cautioned leaders not to embark on war unless
they fully appreciated the true character of the conflict.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is insufficient to <b>collect</b>
the dots if the system is incapable of <b>connecting</b>
the dots. The collection of data is insufficient in itself to generate
meaningful understanding. It must be in the service of creating or enhancing
empathy of the opponent. This applies throughout the conflict spectrum, namely
before, during, and after wars. A strategy that lacks empathy is bound to fail
because it cannot hope to address those issues that the opponent values most,
politics concerns the negotiation of interests between two or more parties,
whether it is conducted by discussion or by other means. Clarity as to one’s
own interests and those of the opponent are vital to successful negotiations
and/or the termination of hostilities resulting in lasting agreement. The
definition of interests is one of a set of assumptions that needs to be checked
and rechecked by strategic planners and decision makers. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The international system is currently characterized as a
multipolar system at risk of destabilization due tit e rise of powerful
revisionist powers. Empathy-driven possibilism is vital to appreciating the
context if competition between status quo and revisionist powers. By
definition, revisionists seek to alter the status quo by reimagining or
reframing a collective narrative in terms of the primacy of <b>their</b> interests. We see this in
domestic politics all the time. The competition of narratives is fierce. So
far, the possibility of the resort to other means appears remote, but not
entirely implausible. Indeed, the complete absence of empathy in the domestic
political context is a driver to the dark side of human passion that appears to
be as yet unchecked. The outright demonization of political opponents and lust
for prosecutorial solutions to differing world views is one the rise in the
United States. This is a cause for serious concern and the subject of a future
assessment on MI.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
International revisionism is rampant and on the march in
almost all quarters, whether it is soft revisionism of Brexit or the hard
revisionism of Russia, Iran, China, or ISIS. Liberal democracies are under
serious threat from within and without. The rise of authoritarian revisionism
is currently enjoying a broad renaissance. It is not some stage past which
political evolution cannot return. Authoritarianism is not monolithic. It too
is a matter of degrees, best understood in a spectrum from soft to hard to
total, it is creeping into locations where it has not previously existed and
intensifying and hardening where it enjoys purchase among disgruntled or
coerced peoples. The United States is an example of the former, and the
Philippines, Turkey, and much of Eastern Europe, the latter. The great
democratic revival following the cold war, which saw a swath of countries turn
away from their authoritarian roots, is being reversed not just in Europe but
in what were fledgling democracies in Asia and Africa.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The disunity within and among the liberal democracies that
are also great powers suggests that the initiative has passed to the
revisionists. Multipolarity and the distinct withdrawal of the United States from
international leadership across a range of global issues further compounds the
power of, and opportunities available to, the revisionists. A great
illustration of the foreseeable strife to come is found in the Iran case. In
December 2017, Iraqi forces finally destroyed all remaining effective power of
ISIS in that country. It will not be long before Syria has completely crushed
its own ISIS threat. The Iraqi case should be celebrated as proof of the train,
assist, advise and support model of US operations – the light footprint
approach initiated at the end of the Bush Administration. To some degree, this
has been just such a success, particularly in light of the contribution of
Kurdish forces in the counter-ISIS fight. However, this is not the whole story.
As was the case soon after the US invasion, Iran has played a central role both
politically and militarily in both Iraq and Syria to counter the Sunni-based
ISIS threat. Iran and its proxies have arguably been much more important to the
defeat of ISIS than the efforts if the United States. Notably, Iran has long
penetrated Iraqi Kurds and has its own Kurdish proxies so there is a question
mark over how much the US has achieved even with the Kurds. For many American
military and strategic leaders, this will be a difficult data point to accept,
but it cannot be ignored. Pretending Iran is not expanding its power and
influence across the Middle East and around the rim of the Persian Gulf serves
no purpose than to confuse our own thinking. This is precisely the kind of
mistake MI is concerned about and a driver behind this assignment. The fact is
the American invasion of Iraq and the elimination of the regime removed a
bulwark against Iran’s power and influence. Iran had no hope to topple Saddam
Hussein by itself. His iron grip was too tight to allow an Iranian backed
insurgency to flourish and, following the long and inconclusive conventional
war in the 1980s, Iran had given up on conventional solutions to its Saddam
problem.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Does the United States employ empathy in assessing Iran’s
interests, capabilities and intentions? Do we really understand their drive to
Empire and objective of subordinating the Sunni world to its influence, if not
power? Further, Iran seeks to eject the
US from the region in order to further consolidate its position. Possibly the
worst thing the US could do is invade Iran. This might have been a
consideration back in the early 2000s, but it has effectively been ruled out by
Iranian subversion against the US all around Iran’s borders. American will,
blood, and treasure have been sufficiently drained over the past decade by a
thousand cuts, that Iran really does not need a nuclear deterrent to ensure the
survival of its regime. The internal threat is another matter. But again, the
unsubtle ‘diplomacy’ recently employed by Washington in the region has been a
unifying vehicle within Iran and has significantly diluted the authority and
standing if the regime’s opponents. Had empathy been utilized, this shortfall
in US persuasion efforts might have been anticipated and avoided. Both Saudi
Arabia and Israel’s influence over the White House have contributed to short
term tactical goals at the expense if a pragmatic and patient strategic policy.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Intelligence collection against Iran lacks for nothing.
Specialized assessment houses may be rich in empathic analysis. Yet the actions
of the United States suggest that Iran policy is being driven from outside
these channels, there are too many unforced errors to be the product of a
robust and rigorous possibilist approach. Without being able to look under the
hood of US diplomacy, it is hard to pinpoint where the problems lie, but then
again, the chaos at Foggy Bottom is quite openly displayed at present,
Dysfunction merely multiplies the consequences of US withdrawal from global
affairs. The recent reporting by Michael
Lewis in October’s Vanity Fair concerning the Trump approach to running the
Energy Department is alarming (Oct 2017). Lewis catalogues what appears to be a
deliberate policy to dismantle the department from the inside, which was part
if candidate Trump’s promise to essentially destroy government as we know it.
The same is happening at State and EPS et al, if reports are to be believed.
The one place where signature cut backs are needed, the DOD, is no doubt
protected by Secretary Mattis, who seems to be the only independent member of
the cabinet. MI should stress that there is a world of difference between
well-thought-out and necessary brush clearing and scorched earth ransacking.
SOS and the IC need surgery to be sire, but amputation at the neck is pushing a
good idea way too far. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The recently released National Security Strategy (2017)
outlines key principles but, like its predecessors, it fails to clearly
articulate means, ways, and ends. The nesting Russian dolls that follow,
starting with the National Military Strategy on down, will all suffer the same
failures. It’s time for a new approach. These important principles should be
distilled into a few pages. The incredible talent resident on the Joint Staff
and in COCOMs around the world need to be freed from world policing duties and
the enforcement of lock-step groupthink, and turned loose on the thorny
problems that beset America charged with finding effective, efficient, and
imaginative concepts of operations to detect, deter and defeat the full
spectrum of threats leveled at the United States, its allies and friends. The
DOD and other agencies did not spend millions on sending their top people to
Staff and War Colleges, taking a key human asset offline for a year, just so
they could forget the critical thinking skills they we taught, to go back to
changing ‘happy’ to ‘glad’ in empty documents that masquerade as strategy. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Possibilist strategic planning needs to be adopted across
the DOD and IC. Separation of intelligence from planning and operations makes
for clear hierarchical flow charts, but does not make for cohesive actions on
the ground. After studying this issue for over a decade, MI recommends a hybrid
structure, the nucleus of which is the small planning cell, called a Mission
Action Cell, or ‘MAC’, comprised of three categories of thinkers: analysts,
operators, and engineers. This works at all levels of command. Using the
supported-supporting concept, higher command will typically focus on analytical
tasks, but these must be infused with real-world insights from operators and
engineers to assess what is possible. Imagination unwedded to reality is as
useless as no imagination at all. At the pointy end of the spear, the operator
will be supported by a dedicated analyst and engineer to explore and test new
TTPs permitted by intelligence insights and technology, respectively. There
will also be unique circumstances, where the mission is technology dependent, in
which placing the engineer as the supported element makes best sense. Ideally,
these groups need to be kept as small as possible and emphasis placed on strong
working relationships. It is always better to have team players than one
all-star who infuriates the rest of the team. A true all-star (and they do
exist), who is an individualist and incapable of working in a team, should be
used as an advisor for brief periods of problem solving. Such teams can be
geographically or functionally arranged, as needed. There will always be loose
ends and difficult overlaps, as there are in any system. Teams should be
mission or objective driven (the latter indicating a wider goal than just one
mission). Planning staffs should be empowered to self organize MACs and stay
fluid. That means form and reform over missions or objectives; do not stay
static. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Leadership should be restructured, too, along ‘National’,
‘Theater’, and ‘Tactical’ lines in accordance with the mission or objective.
That way the right expertise can be applied to the problem regardless of
traditional boundaries – be they geographic, organizational, or bureaucratic.
In the MAC construct, if the engineer has the best solution, she should lead.
This is the heart of self-organization.
MI accepts this might be difficult to achieve given extant leadership
structures and chains of command, but the fact is, much of what is suggested
here for structural change has already been practiced in an ad hoc way at all
levels of command. OPERATION NEPTUNE SPEAR and OPERATION OLMYPIC GAMES are
useful examples where particular expertise were brought to bear in MAC-like
organizations, although these grew in size, the cellular structure could
accommodate the growth in the network. The rise of the Task Force at the NSC
level on down demonstrates the need for this realignment. The suggestions made
here are based on years of observing the pros and cons of the Task Force model.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mission Action Cells rightly put the emphasis of their
purpose on action. Self-organizing and self-regulating, the MAC structure pushed
decision making down to the lowest practical level. The cellular construction
if MACs around an objective or mission is inherently flexible because they are
fundamentally based on networks not hierarchies. Networks serve outcomes,
hierarchies serve bureaucracy. Look around the DOD, interagency and growth
areas of the US economy (Silicon Valley), those organizations that are
prospering are networked. Technologies like Slack can facilitate network
structures but the key is culture. By this, MI means the mindset that is
brought to bear on the problems being solved. Changing the cultures if the DOD
is an ambitious project. But, let’s face facts. We have not won any wars
lately. What better motivation do we need to engage in strategic possibilism,
to explore better ways of doing business? For all our power, money, technology,
and the best people, (defined by skills and motivation), can we not come up
with a better way of doing business than a 19<sup>th</sup> century French
general whose army marched in squares on the battlefield wearing fur topped
hats?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A final word on structure. The HQs would continue to supply
the forces that support the MACs. The ‘man, train, and equip’ function is
impossible to avoid, but that does not mean its objectives can’t be fashioned
around the MAC concept. The question is what to do with the COCOMs? Originally
organized around AOs, to their number a small group of functional commands
emerged, SOCOM, STRATCOM, and CYBERCOM. The forces behind the functional
commands are also behind the MAC concept. It is probably asking too much to
deconstruct the COCOM model, despite its obvious limitations. For example,
Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan are three sides of a strategic triangle that
is separated by COCOM boundaries. This has real world impacts on how we think
about the problems in the triangle and act on the resulting plans. Still,
organizing globally around MACs would be a disaster, at least in the
administrative sense. Just think of all the organizations required to be
involved in certain territorial spaces. Yet equally, MACs that truly transcend boundaries
will be ineffective if their chains of command get interrupted at the COCOM
boundary. One solution might be to acknowledge the administrative functions of
the COCOMs relative to the operationally focused MACs in their AM the way HQs
support COCOMs. The intelligence planning and operational functions would be
the domain of the MACs while logistics, C2 and other support functions stay
with the COCOMs. This clearly needs further expert analysis, but all of it is
possible. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
MACs would also facilitate the integration of the IC and IA
into an objective oriented missioned focus approach to solving problems and
proving options to decision makers regardless of institutional boundaries. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The bigger issue in this recommendation is not the
structure, but the culture if national security planning and execution. Closed
hierarchical innovation resistant methods have got to give. The DOD, IC, and
USG needs to get back to basics and adopt a strategic possibilist mindset,
based on Aristotelian logic, as the key pathway to innovation in thinking and
doing national security. The days of going to war on PowerPoint need to be
over. At the strategic level, we need to go back to long dorm narrative
position papers that fully explicate reasoning behind policy choices ensuring
hypotheses are rigorously tested, counter arguments are refuted or
accommodated, and effective solutions adopted. All the excuses that this is too
hard or there is not enough time, or it will never work, are just that –
excuses. We have to accept what we are doing is not working. There are patches
of excellence. We must build upon these. Strategic possibilism and a new
mission-focused MAC structure might point the way.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Military planning is suited to the machine age. It is a
‘join-the-dots’, meets ‘color-by-numbers’, rote, 12 step program. Consistency,
coordination, timing, deconfliction, these are essential to mass-based,
machine-driven warfare. By default, they also drive other operations as well,
if not directly, certainly indirectly via support requirements and the like.
The military planning process is as good as far as it goes, but it stifles creativity,
traditional military planning processes leave that to a commander and his/her
genius. Why limit possibilities? Warfare has always been a fundamentally human
endeavor. That will never change. Its character and conduct are increasingly
focused on small groups and individuals – people, not massed armies. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
America still thinks in terms of mass industrialized
warfare. WWII is over. Technology has
given individuals intelligence power in their hands that used to only be
available to commanders. There is more computing power in a smart phone than in
the systems that put man on the moon. Your phone provides you with satellite
imagery on real time that far exceeds the coverage and resolution than handed
to President Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Moving maps, mobile
communications, finance, photos and videos, everything an army needed
battalions to provide to HQ in the past, all now in your hands and that of the
WMD-armed terrorist (for example) turning that terrorist into the ultimate
smart bomb.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The ‘color-by-numbers’, top-down, hierarchical mode of doing
business has long since been abandoned across human activity, including war, at
least by adaptive thinking bad guys. They have re-visioned warfare, in the
pursuit of a ‘David’s Advantage’ against the status quo ‘Goliath’s. Warfare has
sped up since Gudarian’s Panzers swept Western Europe. Guardian’s War moves at
the speed of light flashing through fiber optic cables to supersonic drones. It
is no longer linear. Fighter Command no longer waits for the bell to ring to
run to the spitfires to engage massed bombers.
A virus sneaks undetected into the Fort and brings it to its knees
without a shot being fired. If you are reading this on the metro going to work,
the person sitting next to you in the black jacket might be the next George S
Patton, but it’s more likely he will be the next Edward Snowden or Osama bin
Laden. He is not helpfully wearing a uniform with a death skull on it to hint
at his intent. He’s just a commuter with the power to earn a salary and put his
kids through school, or to ensure you never see yours again. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The intelligence cycle and the military planning 12 step
programs are hopelessly out of date. Machine thinking needs to give way to a
biological mindset, one that emphasizes non-linearity, movement, viral
contagion, where good ideas move at the speed of social media and the limits of
possibility are circumscribed only by those things outside of human control –
the rest is up for negotiation. MI likes to think of this as moving from Circular
to Heliacal thinking. The Helix bends and curves, it has information moving in
all directions, bit the arc of the helix bends to discovery. It might mutate,
or it might evolve, but it moves. Circular thinking does not. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A counter argument for machinist thinking might be that it’s
easier to teach – a check-list can be followed by the lowest enlisted warrior
in times of stress (or those operating actual machines of war – where accurate
performance is required). Again, the
draft is over, folks. The quality of personnel is at a historical high. The
frustrations of machine thinking can be read in the blogs (and now books) of
field grade officers who got out, frustrated that their talents were not being
tapped. Hopefully they all went to satisfying jobs in Silicon Valley – many did
– and they still want to give back but the huge grey/green monster has no place
for them. This is wrong. Their opposite numbers in ISIS and Iran don’t have
Silicon Valley to turn to, so they live in and innovate with a revolutionary’s
zeal. While our best and brightest, who <u>want</u> to innovate, are sidelines
as being too disruptive. Ironic, no?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Part of MIs evolving mission is to offer new ideas
/perspectives. Some might find this disruptive. If you read MI and get agitated
– fantastic! If you got bored – that would be a million times worse. Money is
no substitute for creative thought. In fact it might be a hindrance. The
apocryphal board room meeting where the CEO says “Gentlemen, we have run out of
money, now we must think,” will always have purchase, and no more so than in
the US DOD. Constraint, and not abundance, is often the motivation to
innovation. In the comparatively resource-rich US national security world, the
key constraint more often than not is a will to innovate and a culture that is comfortable
with curiosity and novelty.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the DOD, ‘we don’t have the resources’ is a typical
lament. What is never heard is ‘alas, we don’t have imagination’ – except in
national commissions that follow strategic disasters.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We lament the lack of resources all the time. Yet, how often
have you heard someone say ‘We have too much curiosity around here. We keep
picking apart our assumptions. There is simply too much imagination being
exercised here.’<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At the risk of creating a new 12 step program and thus
defeating the whole point, MI acknowledges that PowerPoint thinking is so
deeply ingrained in DOD thinking that it would probably be useful to readers to
present possibilism in a slide, if for no other reason than to clarify where in
the process certain steps should be followed. We hope it was clear enough in
our narrative but present the slide as a summary. The key phrases are thus: curiosity
– division of necessity form possibility – analysis generated empathy –
combined with audacity – leading to the creation of an innovating plan that
uses resources to achieve an objective. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For an example of possibilist thinking, read Robert Baer’s <u>The
Devil We Know: Dealing With the New Iranian Superpower</u>, Crown: NY, 2008.
Baer completely changed MIs mind on how to deal with Iran and why it’s
important to drop established assumptions and reconsider from the ground up how
to find advantage in what appears to be a no-win situation for the US. In
short, Baer advocates dropping our long-held alignment with Sunni states in
favor of finding common cause with Shia Iran, he shows how American thinkers
have missed Iran’s evolution from revolutionary state to exporter of terrorism
to stable grounded superpower driven by interests and not as ideologically
rigid as is assumed in orthodox assessments of Iran. By contrast, Sunni states
in the Gulf are incapable of defending themselves; they are weak and states in
name only. They are challenged by radical Sunni extremists who are nihilists
without a political agenda. Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and their kin desire to kill all
those who do not believe as they do – Muslim or not. Yes, they want a Caliphate
but they offer nothing beyond a return to 7<sup>th</sup> C draconianism. Baer
makes a strong case that not only does Iran have the most powerful position and
military capabilities in the region; it is driven by traditional state
interests. “Ijtihad” is a Shia doctrine practiced by the Iranians that permits
the exercise if independent judgment and allows for interpretations of The
Koran according to reason and precedent. In sum, Iran is rational, Sunni terror
groups are not. Iran is a powerful political, economic and cultural entity
within a strong state architecture. None of these conditions apply to Sunni
states or the terrorists that seek to unseat state power. Iran is organized,
the Sunnis are not. He argues to settle with Iran as the best – or least worst
– prospect for stability in the region, allowing the US to significantly reduce
its footprint and thus resource allocation to the region. A settlement with
Iran would also reflect the power realities on the ground in the Middle East
and in many ways make local problems Iran’s problem, not ours.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let Iran assume a leadership role with all the onerous
responsibilities and costs of being a balancer.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is a radical proposition. But Baer presents it with
significant supporting evidence and reasoning. Clearly traditional ways of
doing business has not resulted in positive outcomes for the US nor do new
opportunities for stability and comity appear to be on the horizon. The Baer
plan would sure shake things up and while there is significant risk for strife,
especially given the position this would put Israel in, in the long term it
might in fact help out Israeli partners because their current trajectory is not
at all a positive one regardless of whether Sunnis or Shia are their main
opponents.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The point for our poses however, is to illustrate how
possibilism can generate some creative disruption, if for no other purpose than
to encourage reframing old problems in new ways that from a different perspective,
might offer new opportunities that otherwise were not previously visible. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Think differently.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguotNyuxt7QMi1Lf8CO5_vi-ORjFgFE52_xnMNHnOmmsGPbFAm7ib__a_FerNPWnp8LuWbw194CqFYJ0gIjkp4ako9vCXr2spdMRTJP0Nh9q1_iDTJKjppIlB_y3lkU9_jQV2RVg7sTucH/s1600/POSSIBILIST+OPERATIONAL+DESIGN+%2528imagination%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguotNyuxt7QMi1Lf8CO5_vi-ORjFgFE52_xnMNHnOmmsGPbFAm7ib__a_FerNPWnp8LuWbw194CqFYJ0gIjkp4ako9vCXr2spdMRTJP0Nh9q1_iDTJKjppIlB_y3lkU9_jQV2RVg7sTucH/s320/POSSIBILIST+OPERATIONAL+DESIGN+%2528imagination%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08822415025459172603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028072954719635461.post-69745099228412783992017-12-18T04:23:00.000-05:002018-01-31T04:24:02.516-05:00The Blockchain and National Power<div class="MsoNormal">
Bitcoin has jumped in price from $600 to $13,000 (at time of
writing) and shows no sign of slowing down. MI estimates that Bitcoin (<span lang="TH">฿) and Ether, a sister cryprocurrency will continue their
rise for the foreseeable future. its rise will not be linear as those who don’t
understand it jump in and out, but its long-term trendlinsa will remain
positive unless and until either the infrastructure can’t keep up or an as yet
unknown flaw in the blockchain is discovered. corrections wil happen and
eventually a floor will be established, but there is still a long way to go
before the world arrives at that point. This assessment will explain how
cryptocurrencies and more importantly, the blockchain technology underpinning
them, have the potential to upend global finance and thus the architecture of
economic and social relations. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="TH">The blockchain is a
global open ledger. every single transaction is resolved across the entire
distribution system simultaneously. Each transaction has a digital fingerprint
and time/date stamp. The fingerprint is independantly verified per transaction
by third party ‘accountants’. As more transactions occur, the fingerprint grows
ao that every single transaction is recorded through time and space against the
item being transacted. The item can be anything. The system started with ฿ but
the item being tracked could be physical (like a car or a house deed) or
intangible (like a cyber currency).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="TH">Tthis admittedly simple
sounding system will revolutionalize the global order. First, it removes the middleman
in any transaction. In currency, a bank is a middleman, so too are governments.
Banks facilitate and reconcile the trade of $1 from Jane to Mary. Governments
provide a legal frasmework wihtin which Jane and Mary conduct their
transaction, and in most cases take a slice (taxes). The blockchain connects
Jane to Mary directly, their transaction is not conducted by a bank or approved
by a government. Their transaction is between them, the specifics are not
visible to anyone but Jane and Mary. The existance of the transaction is
verified not by Jane or Mary but by thrid partiesm the ‘accountants’. The
verification takes place across all the platforms in the system at the same
time. It is not mediated by a central pointm like a bank.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="TH">Guess who is worried
about the blockchain? That’s right! Banks and governments! Global exchange of
value, of any value, has shifted from a hierarchy beset with choke points to a
distributed network. This changes everything! Banks and governments can no
longer control finance or any other form of exchange in human relations. In
fact, the blockchain renders banks irrelevant. We no longer need them to verify
a transaction has taken place, nor do er need them to store the thing of value
being traded or exchanged. When a
transaction takes place in the blockchain, everyone in the system is informed
of the transaction by the change in the ledger, which is available to all, not
held by a bank or a government.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="TH">What is the incentive for
3rd party ‘accountants’ to do the verification of a transaction? Simple, they
are paid for that work. In cryptocurrency terms, these accountants are called ‘miners’
which MI thinks is a misnomer. They are not really digging ฿ out of the ground,
they are in fact anonymously verifying, cross referencing, and updating the ledger in
exchange for a fracitonal payment drawn from each transaction. ฿ ‘farms’ or ‘mines’
can be built by anyone, and consist of special computer lashed up together to
maximise the processing power required to verify transactions. The more
machines, the faster they run, the more payment for providing this service. Note
this service can be preovided by anyone, not approved actors in the system –
which is what banks are in global finance.The system of verification is not
just open to anyone with the right equipment (basically a souped up PC), it is
also a global distributed network, and more importantly, it is self-regulating.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="TH">Imagine a world without
banks to process transactions and store value? How wil governments surveil,
regulate, and tax people and businesses in their territories and beyond?
Blockchain eliminates the need for offshore banking and all that comes with it –
shell company structures, lawyers and accountants, both in the home
jurisdiction and in the offshore jurisdiction. Once tax havens twig to the fact
that a ฿ wallet is a personalized offshore tax haven that you can carry in your
pocket, and that requires no administration, a lot of island paradises will have
to rely on tourism alone. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="TH">The ‘Panama Papers’ and
the more recent ‘Paradise Papers’ revealled the tax cheats of the super rich.
Perhaps ‘tax hack’ is a better term because much of offshore banking is legal.
When faced with a $14 billion tax bill in Ireland, Apple simply moved its
operations to Jersey, an island tax haven between Ireland and the UK. The 2017
tax reform debate was marketed at least in part as a way to encourage
corporations to onshore their cash back into the US (although that does not
guarantee they will automatically invest the trillions of dollars languishing
offshore. They could equally just languish in US holdings). Blockchain and cryptocurriencies remove the
requirement for all the cat and mouse with the IRS.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A key feature of <span lang="TH">฿ and the
hundreds of other cryptocurrencies springing up </span>everywhere<span lang="TH"> is they rest in a digital wallet. The identity behind that wallet is
anonymous. So too is its location. As the name should imply, a cryptocurrency
is a digital code that represents a certain value. That’s it. It is either in a
ballet or it is not. No one knows who owns the wallet r the jurisdiction in
which it exists at any point in time. A wallet is highly mobile. It can be on a
cell phone, laptop, thumb drive, or in cyberspace. Lose the chip where the data
is stored and you lose your millions. That does not mean someine else will get
access to it – they wills till ened the password. [Thus the importance of
password gatekeepers that create uncrackable passwords. Their weak spot is the
password to access the gatekeeper. Still, nothing is perfect, and the best way
in remains human engineering (social manipulation)].<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="TH">The US long ago got rid
of the $1000 bill and the EI recently eliminated the </span>€<span lang="TH">500 (euro) note to make it harder for criminals to move bulk
cash. ฿ makes it possible to move unlimited amounts on a thumb drive – or in
cyberspace. This completely bypasses state controls on borders and in global
finance – where banks communicate via the SWIFT system and via both the Reserve
bank in the countries party to a transaction but often also a major international
bank which acts as a commercial clearing house. All of that is bypassed by ฿.
Stopped at the border with more than $10,000 in cash? That’s a federal crime.
With a ฿ wallet you can walk past that nice CBP officer wiht $10M on your flash
drive attached to your key fob. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="TH">So guess who is flooding
the zone of cryptocurrencies (CC)? Banks! Morgan Stanley, Chase, and a who’s
who of American and international banking are all getting in on the act. They
know better than anyone else that if they don’t, they cease to have a reason to
exist. Talk about panic! THis is one of the motivations behind all the new
cryptocurrencies flooding the market. Each is looking to enhance the drawbacks
of ฿ but much more importantly, to insert some form of control into this new
financial space. All of this misses the point that anonymity and privacy are
the most prized feature of CC. This also partly refelects the fact that a lot
of people are still struggling with comprehending what the blockchain represents and how
influential it will turn out to be. Is it a stock? Is it a currency? Is it an
inventory control system? Is it a clearing house for property transactions? The
answer is yes. ots confusing to people because blockchaings revolutionize all
of these vital elements of economic interaction in the US and around the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="TH">Of course, none of this
matters if businesses do not accept payment in ฿ (etc). A key reason why the
value of ฿ shot through the roof in 2017 was its adoption by major movers in
retail. Its adoption by second tier corporations was a useful indicator, but MI
along with the rest of the world, or so it seems, was waiting to see if the
silverbacks of global retail would permit payments in ฿ on their platforms. As
soon as Amazon and Walmart moved, ฿ would take off. They both started accepting
฿ in their websites in early 2017 and ฿ value has been surging ever since.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="TH">its seemingly astronomic
value will keep surging as the rest if the retail and banking world bandwagons.
Hedge funds are now rushing into the zone. The general public, wondering what
this strange button is on their Amazon pages, or hearing about massive price
spikes, are treating ฿ like a stock and also rushing in – why use it to buy a
tv when its price might double by next week. When it first started out an early
adopter decided to convince his local pizza delivery company to accept ฿10,000 for a pepperoni pie. He advertised the
transaction on social media and the value of ฿ doubled to a few cents.
At the time of writing, ฿ was $13,000. That was some pizza! </span><span lang="TH" style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-language: TH; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span><span lang="TH"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="TH">฿ has been volatile.
Savvy investors know, where volatility exists, so does risk, but also
incredible profit. Aside from the herd rushing in and out on the occasional
scare, the big boys keep coming in – hard. That’s the key metric. They are not
taking on that much risk as yet, but nor has ฿ reached anything like a plateau.
The most serious risks involve a failure of the blockchain software(there have
been legitimate scares and corrections in this domain and its governance
remains opaque, by design, but possibly not sustainable in the long term), or a
failure in supporting infrastructure. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="TH">Coinbase is instructive
in this regard. It is currently one of the top CC exchanges in the US at the
time of writing. The USG has been trying to force Coinbase to give up the
identities of its customers. It got ugly pretty quickly. So far Coinbase has
refused to hand over all its files but but has agreed to disclose its top 3% of
CC holders. What the USG is missing in
its overzealous pursuit of ฿ traders is
they don’t have to use US exchanges. They will force buyers and sellers of CC
off shore where they will be that much harder to surveil and control. For an
Administration that is supposed to be about eliminating regulations and being
pro-small business, this attack on Coinbase seems to be poorly thought out and
slapdash in implementation. It will
likely be futile. The smell of panic behind that action may indicate that
Treasury does not have much faith in its joint partnerships with other CC
purveyors who are marketing CCs wiht tracking features (which of course defeats
the point of CCs). Still, there is a long way to go and this is just a first shot
across the bow by a worried government. They should be worried, they have a lot
to lose (see below).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="TH"> MI’s
guess is that most ‘mom and pop’ users of CCs will see them as an investment
not a currency and treat them accordingly. They will buy them via their 401ks
in their own names etc. Those that are offshoring today will be CCing tomorrow
and they will be very hard to control as things currently stand. The USG needs
to sit back and take a long perspective on this challenge and be smart about
it. Panic will only hasten the thing they fear the most.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="TH">What is this fear? The
blockchain blinds the Leviathan. The domestic and international financial power
of the United States will be profoundly impacted by the blockchain. Without the
ability to observe financial transactions, the US loses control. it’s that
simple. This will have prosaic and profound implications. Financial
intelligence is a huge industry but it is also a crucial element of national
intellegence that it little understood outside if financial circles. Iran came
to the negotiation table because of targeted sanctions (and unlike the DPRKm
its economy was more advanced and thus vulnerable to economic pressure). America’s power to manipulate global finances
has dramatically escalated in the wake of 9/11 where Congress weaponized
finance as a counter terrorism tool.Such weapons can manipulate a whole economy
or be applied just against a dictator and his cronies – which in turn may promot
that dictator to try and meddle in a US election as payback... just sayin’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="TH">But the dangers to the
USG are more profound than its ability to directly control the system of clobal
finance and trade. It should fear its loss of indict control and indeed
influence on the system. In other words, the primacy of the US dollar ($) as
the global reserve currency. During the 2008 crisis, there was talk of the Euro
superceeding the $ as capital flight to stability assessed Europe as the best
bet. At that point , so the reasoning went, Brussels and not DC would call the
shots, creditors and debtors would flee into the Euro and the valus of the US$
would plummet as teh mask protecting massive US debt, trade imbalances and all
the rest, was ripped away by the force if the crisis. When the world depended
on the US$ all of these pressures could be ignored, take away that dependance
and things would change overnight.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="TH">There is an intersting
anecdote in </span>David E. Sanger’s <u>Confront and Conceal</u>
that discusses a Chinese delegation that came to the US during the crisis. They
had no interest in discussing macro or micro economic policies and plans, all
they asked about was how was the US$ going to be stabilized so the debt they
were owed would not simply disappear. America’s banker had come to town and
they wanted to be sure they would be paid back. Indeed, it was they who floated
the threat to shift to the Euro but that was always more rhetorical than real
given the crippling effect it would have had on their debtor’s ability to pay
them back.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Should the<b> </b><span lang="TH">฿ supplant the
US$ and the global reserve currency, the US would lose its direct and indirect
control over global finance overnight. A generation of irresponsible governance
that blythely allowed cheap gimmick tax cuts in the face of two endless wars,
and at the expense of much needed investments in infrastructure, people and
services upon which a modern economy depend, has run up an unimaginable tab
that will one day have to be paid. Such a day of reckoning would dwarf the 2008
crash because the entire system would implode, not just one important sector
(housing finance).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="TH">If America sneezes and
the world catches a cold, then it follows that if America has a massive brain
hemmorhage, the world as we know it could end. The one possibility to avert
total disaster may be in the seeds of its potential destruction. The blockchain.
If it is introducedm adoptedm and settled into dominance through careful
planning and implementation, there may be ways for the economists to avoid
catastrophe. Thankfully, Washington is well known for long range, well thought
out, deliberate planning. Where other countries think in 24 hour news cycles or
2 year election cycles, Washington thinks in terms of generations and is
willing to sacrifice its acute need for immediate gratification in order ot
position itself for gain in the medium to long term. (That’s MI sarcasm, dear
reader.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="TH">In every great crisis, a
leader for the times seems to emerge. Who will be the blockchain Lincoln?</span><b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08822415025459172603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028072954719635461.post-24914238543176158692017-12-01T04:40:00.000-05:002018-01-25T04:41:53.720-05:00Little Big Horn – Cyber Edition<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="MsoNormal">
1Dec17</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
The Fort has fallen. Its defenses are down. The armory has been
blown wide open and every last weapon stolen. Thousands of defenders manning
their positions in a series of layered perimeters were unable to detect, let
alone stop, the onslaught. The Fort’s Commander was unable to rally his troops
to protect the heartland. The frontier will never be the same again. The
insurgents are now in charge. With the weapons they stole they can roam,
pillage, and destroy at will. No target is out of their reach. The world will
never be the same again.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At Fort Meade, Maryland, cyber-Custer, Admiral Mike Rogers, and
his once-invincible forces were not left in a bloody heap. They continue to sit
in their cubicles, sipping their lattes, careful not to burn their lips. The
absence of physical destruction belies the devastation within. Make no mistake,
they have been hit much harder than George Custer and his troops. Their deaths,
while tragic, did not change the strategic landscape, the contemporary reprise
of Little Big Horn has already eclipsed
anything that has come before it. The Snowden revelations are nothing
compared to cyber-Little Big Horn. This assessment will explain the
significance of the attack and explore the consequences for US Security going
forward.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Edward Snowden did not release his stolen files directly to the
web, He handed them over to newspapers, leaving their editorial processes to
decide what was, and was not, in the public interest. The worst of the Snowden
files exposed Top Secret ‘named operations’ then underway. It revealed a vast
surveillance program that operated outside of established conventions and laws.
Snowden’s files were very valuable to America’s enemies because they enabled
them to ‘connect the dots’ on NSA capabilities and operational focus. By
contrast, cyber-Little Big Horn exposed named operations, but went much further
– actual weapons were stolen. Weapons that took billons of dollars to develop
in the most clandestine labs run by the USG. Weapons that gave their possessor
untold power. Weapons that could now be turned against the mist technologically
dependent country in the world. The United States of America. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In Confucianism, the TAO is ‘the correct way’ (or ‘Heaven’s way’)
to understanding the source of all things. America had decoded the TAO. This
precious knowledge was used to create the closest any country has come to
omniscience, and thus, omnipotence. The TAO was stolen right from under the
nose of the NSA and is now for sale on the dark web to anyone. Iran, North
Korea, ISIS, fat kids in basements, for a small fee they now wield the greatest
cyber weapons ever invented. In the secret world, particularly at the cutting
edge, where imagination and creativity reign, special organizations take on
names and unit patches that are in-jokes to the select few who are ‘read-in’ to
their programs. Tailored Access Operations, or TAO, was the jewel in the crown
of the NSA and US Cyber Command. TAO gave these powerful intelligence and
operations arms of government god-like access and control of virtually any
system on earth – even ‘air-gapped’ systems. There is almost no human activity
on earth that is not dependent at some point on networked computers. TAO gave
America the source of all things.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
From this secret knowledge, a series if super-weapons were created
that facilitated clandestine and covert access, and if needed, control of
computer networked operations both military and civil, of any country on earth.
Need to shut down an air defense system in order to run a CT mission undetected
inside a city? TAO might be one of the arrows in the quiver. Need to ensure an
opponent can’t access funds or special components for their WMD programs? TAO
might help. Need to break a sufficient number of centrifuges to delay the
progress of a secret nuclear program? TAO is there for you. Need to blow up ICBMs on their launch pads
before they are launched against San Francisco> Who ya gonna call?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Often TAOs weapons were not used because the risk of revealing the
existence of the program was a far higher cost than the estimated benefit if
the deployment if the weapon. This is a serious leadership challenge. Getting
the cost/benefit risk assessment right for programs of national significance
requires very fine judgement. There will be cases where very important
operations that can’t be done by other means, will be passed over simply
because the risk of exposure. This should give some sense of the importance and
impact of this hack.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Fort was attacked by a group that goes by the name ‘The Shadow
Brokers’. Unsurprisingly very little is known about them and just how, exactly,
they took down Ft Meade. The NSA and USCYBERCOMMAND are at the very forefront
of cyber security, both defense and offense. It is unimaginable that they were
hacked. Unimaginable to whom? Herein lies an important challenge in
intelligence, seeing things for what they are, not as we’d like to see them. To
date, investigations have focused on three employees. Human error or outright
espionage are suspected. The following observations are all made based on
alleged conduct portrayed in credible newspapers. One suspect has not been
named nor much information released about them at all. Another, Reality Winner
[sic] is accused of releasing one Top Secret document that refuted a claim by
President Trump. The final person of interest is Harold T Martin III who was
arrested after a significant cache of classified materials was found at his
home. Based on current reporting, neither of the named suspects appears to have
had sufficient data to be part of the Shadow Brokers plot, at least knowingly
and directly. Mr. Martin’s story will sound familiar to those who know the Ft.
Highly intelligent, a huge nerd (that should go without saying), possibly
lacking many friends and certainly lacking any hobbies, was fascinated by his
work and took it home with him, despite the prohibition on removing classified
information from secure facilities. Reports suggest he was removing classified
information from secure facilities. Reports suggest he was over-dedicated to
his work, not a spy. Still, the poor guy will pay an outsized price for being
an eccentric who lost track of the rules in his laser focus on the fascinating
challenges of solving puzzles. It is a crying shame the system didn’t help him
before his obsession went this far. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The unknown suspect is the most interesting at this stage. He or
she was a software developer and arrested for taking NSA classified material
home in 2015. It is alleged that Russian hackers accessed some of those files,
whether wittingly or not, has not been disclosed. Given the status of this
individual, the chances are their identity and details about their activity are
being suppressed so that the Russians and/or Shadow Brokers di not learn from
the case. He or she might be working with law enforcement, helping to catch the
culprits. Human engineering is always the easiest way in to a hard target, so
it makes sense that effort is being put in to evaluating operational security
protocols. But what if the NSA/USCYBERCOM was hacked pure and simple? Will over
confidence prevent the cyber=spooks from really finding out what happened? In
WWII the Nazis could not imagine that the British cracked their codes. The
German obsession with order was, in part, their undoing. Starting and ending
every message with ‘Heil Hitler’, for example, enabled Bletchley Park to often
get the key for the day. Likewise, each Enigma operator has a signature style
on their Morse key. They soon had personalities. It was then possible to link
‘Operator X’ with his wheel settings, which would always be his girlfriend’s
initials or a birthday (for example), the wartime equivalent of using an easy
password (such as ‘password’). MI encourages NSA investigators to not be over
confident, not to assume anything, and to follow every lead down. If it was a
direct hack on the Ft, as embarrassing as that might be, it is essential to
know it and act on it accordingly. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>What is
cyber warfare?</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Way back in the 1990s when MI (in a different guise) was writing
about the emergence of warfare in the cyber domain, there was a lot of
discussion about cyber-Pearl Harbor’s and what ‘virtual war’ would look like.
Could it actually kill people? How did hacking a website change anything if
military, let alone strategic, significance? We have come a long way since
then. Cyber is still rapidly evolving and is still confusing even to those who
study it. MI has an easy to understand explanation of cyber warfare.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Cyber warfare operates in two primary dimensions = the physical
and the narrative. The 2016 election is a classic case in point. At first, mist
of the commentary was concerned about hacking of ballot boxes to change votes.
Except, as the news media soon learned, US elections are incredibly
distributed, low tech affairs, governed by local laws and/or arrangements. In
short, most ballot boxes were manual, not digital. There was almost nothing to
hack. It did not take long for evidence of narrative driven cyber ops to come
to light. These turned out to be devastating in part because they were largely
invisible to victim and systems alike.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Narrative cyber ops are another way of saying digital propaganda.
The United States is awash in digital propaganda, both home grown and foreign.
In a meeting of senior defense leaders MI (again in another guise) decided to
conduct an unwitting test of the audience.
MI said that ‘of course, Fox News has been paid millions by Iran to sow
confusion and discord into the American electorate in order to advance
clandestine Iranian programs’. Incredibly, the audience didn’t even blink. The
response was akin to ‘tell us something we don’t know’. When MI quickly told
the group that this was a fake claim to see how they would react to the
proposition that America was awash in homegrown propaganda, various viewpoints
were expressed but the ‘take away’ was that America was being manipulated both
from inside and out. This was not a 2017 discussion, this occurred in 2012. The
dangers if the era of ‘fake news’ was apparent ling before even 2012.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One of the greatest ironies of US national security is that while
Madison Avenue, media conglomerates, corporations, political parties,
super-empowered pundits, and incredibly influential blogs like MI ( ;-) - not true, only the facts and profound
analysis here), have been spinning Americans into complete incomprehension even
about simple facts, the US military is utterly hopeless at propaganda and
influence operations. They still think pamphlet drops are game-changers, while
kids in the west sit for hour after hour and day after day, watching ISIS
‘heroes’ making war on allied forces and being told that they are winning.
Efforts to create ‘counter-narratives’ have been laughable, if well intentioned
and funded. Just ask the State Department’s experts in this field.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So the 2016 election was the natural outgrowth of homegrown spin.
An unstable polity was angry and ripe for disruption. There was a great story
early in the election about a bunch of kids in Macedonia who ran fake news
sites with the most outrageous headlines, all for a lark. There were soon
shocked to discover that not only were their obvious lies making money
(clickbait) but people were taking their prank seriously, and in some cases to
absurd ends. A 61yr old interviewed for the story said he could not believe
anyone would take the stories seriously, it was a prank, and they had no
intention of changing an American election.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There were much more extreme examples of digital manipulation. The
conspiracy theory site info-wars ‘reported’ that Hilary Clinton was murdering
people and chopping them up. Then came the ‘Cosmic Pizza’ story. It alleged
that a presidential candidate for a major political party was running a child
sex ring from a suburban DC pizzeria while running for the highest office in the
land. That’s not the shocking bit. Thousands of citizens took this very
seriously, as fact. One was so distressed by the story he drove to DC from NC
and shot up the pizzeria with an assault rifle in an attempt “to free the
children”. These and hundreds of stories like them were circulating and
significant portions of the voting public believed them. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Think about that for a minute.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In Britain, the tabloids have always been full of what we now call
clickbait. They are a source of amusement as people ride the Tube home after a
hard day’s work. It’s tongue-in-cheek and everyone knows it is frivolous
‘entertainment’. In America, clickbait is treated as if it came directly from
Walter Cronkite. At the same time, quality established news sources, like <u>The
New York Times</u>, and BBC America, are derided as elitist and manipulative,
but a kid’s website in Macedonia is credible. Fox News, which never fails to
proclaim that it’s the most authoritative, most watched, most highly rated news
channel, simultaneously claims to be the underdog fighting the insanity if the
‘mainstream media’.it does not get more mainstream and controlling than Fox.
The fact they can pull this blatant propaganda off without being called on it
blows MI’s collective mind. [Their current attacks on the Muller probe as being
a new KGB is the kind of ‘journalism’ MI condemns].<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was reported in the <u>New York Times</u> that “nearly one in
three Americans cannot name a single branch of government. [and] When NPR
tweeted out sections of the Declaration of Independence…many people were
outraged. They mistook Thomas Jefferson’s fighting words for anti-Trump
propaganda”. This led Tim Egan to assert that “a huge percentage of the
population cannot tell fact from fiction” (“Look in the Mirror: We’re With
Stupid”, <u>NYT</u>, 11/18/17, p.A18). <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With a population that gullible, the Russians had a field day with
the US election. Is there a ‘smoking gun’ that proves beyond all doubt that
cyber narrative ops swung the election to Trump? No. That’s why it’s the
perfect weapon. The Russians didn’t need
to break into ballot boxes; they just had to play with the fears and rage
Americans were ‘feeling’. It was embarrassingly easy, a bunch of kids could
have done it… oh wait…. Not only could
the NSA and USCYBERCOM not stop the Shadow Brokers, they couldn’t stop a bunch
of kids in the Balkans from brain washing the American public. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Cyber
warfare and Social Media: Narrative Ops Gone Wild.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Remember the old New Yorker cartoon “On the internet, no one knows
you’re a dog!” That author completely nailed it. He did so in the pre-social
media era, which makes his insight that much more impressive.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
During the 2016 election Facebook became a doggy day care center.
First, conservatives assailed Mark Zuckerberg for manipulating people’s news
feeds to downplay conservative viewpoints. The algorithm was quickly reset.
Then, right after the election, allegations began to surface that the Russians
had manipulated Facebook via its ‘troll armies’, creating fake profiles for
individuals and groups, as well as buying advertisement space. Again,
Zuckerberg came out with denials, and again, he soon changed his tune. Turns
out, Russia was willing to pay. The old Soviet toolkit of ‘active measures’ has
been updated for the digital age and applied to social media. The outcome?
American citizens facing off against each other in the streets and fighting
erupting between them, all thanks to fake groups stirring up tension and
organizing protests. It was remote control protest from Moscow and Americans
mindlessly doing their bidding. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s not just bogus advertisers and bogus accounts; it’s the
manipulation of users’ emotions. It was undetected (at the time) and was
incredibly successful. In the old days, agi-prop took time, effort, money, and
most of all, a lot of people. Now it’s instigated with a few hundred thousand
bucks and the click of a mouse. The best thing? It’s impossible to prove if it
happened and if it gave the election to Trump. There can be no counter-call to
action when it’s impossible to prove an action took place. This changes
politics.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is not the first time that Facebook has been used to create a
mass effect. Social media is free. You do not pay a subscription for it’s
services. Yet social media companies are some of the most highly valued
corporations in the world. Where does the money come from? Data mining.
Facebook has changed how people discover they really needed something they were
not thinking about two minutes ago. Previously ads were wide-cast on TV. Great
for mass consumption but not helpful for boutique interests that were hard for
retailers to target. Facebook solves all that. If you have listed your interest
in Taylor Swift or ancient Egyptian artifacts, moments later direct and
indirect suggestions will come flooding in. The same applies to your political
beliefs. Hate Hilary? Then guess what suggestions ‘you might like’ will come up
with in both news feeds and other merchandise on offer. What the railroads and
oil were to the 18<sup>th</sup> and 19<sup>th</sup> centuries, datamining is to
the 21<sup>st</sup> century. The best thing is you no longer buy a ticket or
fill a tank, you just ‘like’ stuff and you are instantly surrounded by it,
whether it’s physical or narrative. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Social media has changed society in so many ways, but the most
pernicious is its impact on out attitudes to privacy. Think about the
information you freely give to social media. On dating sites, for example, you
provide pictures as well as highly personal and detailed sexual, drug, employment
and social histories. Some sites employ Miers-Briggs psychological surveys.
Often in-depth mini narratives are required revealing all sorts if incredibly
persona; preferences. In a court case in NY, Facebook submitted the following
summary to the court, as reported in Robert Scheer’s <u>They Know Everything
About You</u>, (2015, p96):<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
People use Facebook to share
information about themselves, much of it personal. This information includes:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->The person’s age, religion, city of birth,
educational affiliations, employment, family members, children, grand-children,
partner, friends, places visited, favorite music… movies, television shows,
books, quotes, [foods, beverages], things ‘Liked’, events to attend, affiliated
groups, fitness, sexual orientation, relationship status, and political views.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->The person’s thoughts about: religion, sexual
orientation, relationship status, political views, future aspirations, values,
ethics, ideology, current events, fashion, friends, public figures, celebrity,
lifestyles celebrations, grief, frustrations, infidelity, social-interactions,
or intimate behavior. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->The person’s photographs and videos [Here he
quotes a long list of examples, most containing geo-location and time-stamped
data.]<o:p></o:p></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]-->The person’s private hardships [and] intimate
diary entries….<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Targeted marketing is nothing new but its reach in the information
age has become almost limitless. Data broking is a multi-billion dollar
industry. It combines mass consumer surveillance derived from patterns in
spending collected by credit and loyalty cards, with off-line data collected from
real estate and motor vehicle records, warranty cards, home ownership and
property values, marital status, annual income, educational levels, travel
records, credit records, to provide a detailed picture of an individual’s life.
The biggest corporation in the personal data field in the US, Acxiom advertises
its ability to soon reach “more than 99% of the adult US population…across all
channels and devices.” (Scheer, p.59).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If almost total access to your data was not enough, people are now
handing over their DNA to corporations – not digital DNA (corporations have had
that for years), actual biological DNA. For the low, low, fee of $24.99 a
variety of companies will now collect and analyze your biological DNA,
ostensibly for the purposes of helping you understand your ethnic background
and to assist working on family trees. Smart watches are now mini all-purpose
health monitors, assessing everything from heart rhythm, sleep patterns,
insulin levels, exercise monitoring, and so on. People are paying for
corporations to monitor their every word said in the ‘privacy’ of their homes.
Alexa and her sisters are always listening and recording, sending big sister <u>all</u>
of your utterances (not just commands). Alexa and the girls have to listen to
ensure they know when you call, but people have not yet cottoned to the fact
that Amazon has sold them a baby monitor for their house and the consumer is
the baby. Alexa has already been subpoenaed to testify in a murder trial. I’m not making this up. Her constant
surveillance and recordings were collected in order to determine what really
happened in someone’s living room where an occupant was left dead. No one
called out “Hey, Alexa, I’m about to kill someone.” Every Google and YouTube
search you do is recorded. That’s how they get the predictive searching as you
type something into the search window.
The metadata collected forms fascination patterns that are mined for
commercial purposes. The same patterns can be mined for other purposes, too. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When the Obama Administration went after journalist James Risen,
on suspicion of printing leaks of classified material, they did not have to
threaten Mr. Risen with contempt and thus jail time. They just had to access
his cell phone and laptop data and/or records to harvest the metadata, see the
patterns and find the leaks. There is a case before the Supreme Court right
now, US v Carpenter, which will determine if 3<sup>rd</sup> party data, such as
phone records, should be protected under the 4<sup>th</sup> Amendment. Current
law states that no warrant is required to harvest 3<sup>rd</sup> party data.
The Onion satirical newspaper and video YouTube page, which masquerades as a
“news site”, has a video of “CIA Special Agent Mark Zuckerberg” getting a
special award for making the job of intelligence and law enforcement
effort-free. Nut the joke is on social media users and the electorate.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are now seizing tens of
thousands of digital platforms at the border and have been empowered to demand
log-in data, such as your ID and password, so they can log in to your social
media. This applies to US citizens, green card holders and foreign visitors.
The “border exception” to the 4<sup>th</sup> Amendment permits searches and
seizures during routine border searches (they cannot be used, for example, as
part of an ongoing investigation to deny a suspect’s 4<sup>th</sup> Amendment
rights).So far this extraordinary invasion of privacy has not been challenged in
the courts, but it’s only a matter of time. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The news is constantly pulsed with hacking stories. From the White
House to your house, nothing seems sacred. In 2013, 3 billion Yahoo accounts
were hacked. In 2017, 143 million credit reports owned by Equifax (one of the
big three credit reporting agencies and upon which the entire US economy
depends). Also in 2017, 198 million voter records were accessed (all stats
from, “How Privacy as We Know It Died”, <u>NYT</u> 6Oct17, p.A27). Ever keen to
exploit an opportunity, Google announced that it would move into the credit
reporting space by linking billions of credit card transactions to the online
behavior of its users (Google announcement, 23May17).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With all this data available and the ready ability to sift, sort,
and find patterns, incredible power is now on the hands of those who own the
data and the patterns it creates. Before the 2016 election, which was a proof
of concept in many ways, a group of social scientists get permission from
Facebook to conduct an experiment to assess if it was possible to artificially
create a mass “emotional contagion”. The experiment allowed the scientists to
manipulate the news feeds of 700,000 FB users to see how they would react. The
study was reported in the <u>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</u> (June 2014) found that:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Emotions expressed by friends, via
online social networks, influence our own moods, constituting, to our
knowledge, the first experimental evidence for massive-scale contagion via
social networks.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The controversy surrounding this experiment, that forced FB CEO Sheryl
Sandberg to apologize, was nothing compared to the manipulation that took place
during the 2016 election. FB is still coming to terms with just how deeply they
were played, with fake accounts, groups, chat rooms and so on. FB was not alone;
troll armies had invaded a range of platforms. Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) spoke
for many on the Intelligence Committee when he remonstrated representatives if ‘The
Five’ over their lack of understanding and even concern at the degree to which
they were unwitting vehicles of Russian ‘active-measures’. The corporations
treated the hearings as spin sessions and have still yet to really get to grips
with the incredible power and reach of cyber narrative ops. The less educated,
more politically frustrated the general public are, the more susceptible they
will be to orchestrated mass contagion mounted by our friends in Moscow, Tehran
and Beijing.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The
ultimate ‘off-line’ data<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One database that should have never been accessed is the Office of
Personnel Management’s security clearance data base for the entire federal and
contractor workforce. The OPM is not a national security agency, yet it was
charged with conduction all security clearance investigations for the United
States, The records if those investigations, which include the SF-86, biometric
data, interview records (with both the subject of the investigation and those
selected by OPM to verify the professional and personal history of the
subject), as well as internal OPM assessments of each security clearance
candidate, were stolen by the People’s Republic of China. The human capitol blueprint
of the entire national security establishment is now in Beijing.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The SF-86 contains all the data in FB and then some. Going back
either 5 or 10 years applicants must provide a complete and accurate record if
their residential, educational, financial, travel, social, and political
history. These records are cross checked
on databases and in personal interviews. Failure to accurately record the
correct information or changes to the record over time (new travel, meeting
foreigners etc.) can result in criminal indictment. This has been a factor in investigations of
various Trump Administration officials who have been required to update their
SF-86s as reported in the media. The central concern in granting a security
clearance is that the subject cannot be blackmailed. That can happen if someone
other than the USG knows all the details of someone’s life, including some
specifics that might be embarrassing. The
usual position is that so long as the subject reveals all to the USG they
insulate themselves from blackmail. It takes a lot of trust to give the federal
government all that detail. There is an expectation that the trust will be
returned in the USG protecting all that sensitive data (and analysis thereof),
if not as part of a social contract with the national security employee, then
for simple national self interest. This trust was broken by lax security
standards at OPM and carries phenomenal national security risks.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
China has a complete roster of every single American with a
security clearance. That allows them to instigate social contagion within that
sensitive group. It facilitates attempted blackmail to gain national secrets. It
allows China to track and constantly monitor anyone of interest to the PRC,
from deep under cover CIA officers to Tier I special forces, to the
administrative assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence against whom
HUMINT, SIGINT, CYBERINT, assets can be brought to bear. Anywhere there is a
camera or mic there is a threat. By tapping a target’s cell phone, lap top,
vehicle, home security system, either tapping into the cameras on these devices
or audio or keyboards, the Chinese can monitor, spoof, manipulate, or ruin
anyone they want. Further, anywhere else there is a camera: gas stations, Starbucks,
airports, ATMs, city streets; targets can be monitored domestically or
internationally. Try passing through Europe undercover when China taps into any
device in your person or around you. Both targeted operations as well as wide
area surveillance of key choke points (airports, embassies, hotels authorized
by the Defense Travel System) will catch undercover or overt operatives, as
well as run of the mill national security personnel. The OPM hack is an
unmitigated disaster and it will only be diluted over time as personnel change –
assuming of course that the OPM records are secured into the future. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Cyber
Warfare and Big Data<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Big data provides a link across mixed database platforms to scan,
sort, associate and see patterns that would otherwise be invisible. It can take
a CCTV feed from the streets of London and cross reference it to FB, Twitter,
and OPM records, to provide near real time feedback if a person or a device
associated with them walks within surveillance range, for example. It knows
where you are and what your typical spending patterns look like, so when your
credit card is used to buy an air ticket, the credit card company is notified
along with the TSA and other agencies, to question who is really travelling. The
examples of the application of big data are only limited by your imagination. There
is a full-blown Tom Clancy novel just waiting to happen where the guys in
charge in the narrative are not in Washington, but Tehran or Beirut or Addis Ababa.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
People, places, things, and actions, are now essentially totally
transparent. Placing Social media records, against consumer data, against
offline data, and cross checked against OPM data, virtually removes the shadows
in which America’s leading covert and clandestine operators dwell. The same
applies to senior leadership of national security agencies, government
scientists, your mom and your kids’ little league team. This is particularly
dangerous for USG employees, but it is equally as potentially threatening to
the average citizen. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mass manipulation, social contagion, is possible if it appears
credible. Big data gives users the ability to create highly credible narratives
that can be used to sell you something or to create a political effect. It can
be a mass effect or targeted to an individual. Mixing narrative cyber ops with
physical cyber ops in the context of big data changes everything. The scope,
depth, and speed of these drivers of change are unrelenting and
expanding/accelerating. Consider the impact of future technologies that are
already emerging.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Future
Tech and National Security<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
IFlyTek, a Chinese artificial technology company, has been busy
creating a biometric image and voice recognition database, most likely drawing
from 800 million subscribers to China Mobile, its parent company. This technology
allows it to pick a target in a crowd either by recognizing their face or voice
and “record everything that person says” (“Pushing AI Boundaries in China”, <u>NYT</u>,
4Dec17, p.B1). it already has President Trump’s voice in its database. On his
recent visit to Beijing he spoke via teleconference to a technology conference
and switched from English to Mandarin. Except Trump can’t speak Chinese; it’s
the technology that made it appear as though he could. Linking voice, and face ‘finger
prints’ across big data platforms is impressive. Taking that data and applying
CGI, 3D imaging, and other audio-visual artificial ‘creative technologies’ to
it, opens a pathway to the creation of completely artificial ‘videos’ of people
saying and doing anything.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This will make today’s ‘fake news’ a charming historical artifact
soon enough. If we already struggle with defining what is real based on
manipulation of text, which can be back-checked easily enough, the creation of ‘artificial
reality’ videos will up-end all social relations, form the political and
national security to the personal. Empowering narrative cyber-ops with these
new technologies will be a game-changer.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Right now, the combination of biometric data (finger prints,
facial recognition, voice recognition, and even gait recognition) with
geo-location, autonomous armed drones, all linked across big data, makes for
some interesting scenarios involving the uses od such technologies. MI can see
a bright sunny spring day in Washington, the President walking along the colonnade
from the West Wing back to the Residence and a distant hum that sounds like a
lawnmower trimming the ellipse, yet that humming is getting louder and louder…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Conclusion<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For all the billions
invested in cyber security, the millions of top security professionals
inside government and contracted to it, the cyber national security
establishment has singularly failed to protect the government, national institutions,
American economic icons, and the public from surveillance, threats, and
outright attacks emerging from the cyber domain. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
MI has an abiding concern that the Executive branch of government
has got far too big, lumbering, unimaginative, and bureaucratic, for it to meet
its primary mission of protecting the American people. The structure of
government, and in particular the power of the purse in Congress, creates a
mindset in government that innovation is easily obtained by throwing more money
at a problem or worse, creating yet another bloated bureaucracy to address some
emerging suite of threats. MI thinks the opposite is true. The Executive needs
to radically slim down and to reassess how it can go about achieving its ends
by thinking smart, not spending large. The 16 intelligence agencies never fail
to <b>collect</b> the dots; they failed to <b>connect</b> the dots. Insiders know that
all that exhaustive collection is done because it can be done. It is not used
to anticipate and deter or defeat threats. It is used to assess what happened in
the aftermath. America is great at disaster recovery but not prevention. This
generalization does not hold across all areas of national security. Where creativity
is allowed to flourish free from nagging budgetary considerations, with the
right people, with the right education and corporate mindset, by which MI means
an architecture of ‘open’ thinking, not the ‘closed’ thinking that is typical
of government and the all too real caricature that most citizens have of
government, America can do almost anything. We see the right corporate culture
in Silicon Valley – not everywhere or evenly. But if it can still be said to
exist anywhere in America, that’s the place. Great studies do not need to be
done, May have already been done. The key distinguishing characteristic if
innovation is open versus closed thinking, trial and error, willingness to take
risks in an environment free from petty accusation. MI acknowledges this is a pretty
tall order. But the fact is, not everyone can be a US Navy SEAL, and not every
SEAL can be in SEAL TEAM VI. Likewise, not everyone can earn a PhD and not
every PhD is from Harvard. America needs to see competence for what it is and
stop this cultural revolution of anti-elitism. High end national security
requires the very best people and the creation and nurturing of the very best
open cultures. MI’s team has been lucky enough to see places where this happens
in the top security teams – like the NSA’a TAO. Organizations like that make working
in government so incredibly rewarding, so long as they were well led and everyone
is able to put differences aside and focus on the mission. At a time when
America is ceding its advantages in a highly competitive world, where China’s President exclaims that China will move to
center stage and the very smart President of France is caught off-mic saying ‘China is now the leader’, America
needs to look beyond its endless psy-ops in itself and focus in maintaining
what we are good at and improving on where we have been slipping. Given the
trend lines of both the technologies considered here and the threat streams that
we face, we will suffer minor and major loss after loss on the battlefield if
we don’t change. The battlefield is now in your phone and in your mind. <o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<o:p></o:p>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08822415025459172603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028072954719635461.post-82911538683366904402017-10-01T23:44:00.000-04:002020-02-17T14:54:23.026-05:00ARAB SPRUNG: THE FUTURE CATCHES UP WITH THE HOUSE OF SAUD<div class="MsoNormal">
How do you change a system that is determined never to
change? You rush it, the more radical the change, the better; said no strategic
adviser, ever. This elementary mistake us unavoidable when they people unite
behind change. For those who desire to remain in control, rushed radical change
is best avoided especially when trying to anticipate and avert undesirable
bottom-up change.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Repressive regimes seeking to liberalize have three pathways
to clinging to power. Double-down and hope for the best (the North Korean
Model). Instant political freedoms (the Soviet Model ca. 1989). Gradual
economic reform, followed by strengthening and modernizing the military, all
cloaked by projecting low expectations internally and offshore, with the
occasional crackdown as needed (the China Model 1978-Xi).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s instinct is spot-on. Yet, his
execution is more likely than not to precipitate the change he most needs to
avoid. It may not be too long before he appreciates the ultimate irony of
rushing to liberalize just as the rest of the world, including many of the old
democracies, slide into varying degrees of authoritarianism. Oh, to be young
again!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you are excited about women getting driver’s licenses,
you are completely missing the point. Less reported, but about a thousand and
one times more important was the disempowerment of the religious police. The
nexus of power in Saudi Arabia lies at the intersection of Mosque and State.
Saudi Arabia has always been a revolutionary Islamic power. Its Sunni
revolution predated the Iranian Shiia revolution by centuries and was neatly
masked by an institution European powers could recognize: a Royal family.
Superficial mimicry of western institutions concealed an ancient culture that
lived by the sword coupled with implementation of the literal word if the
Prophet. Radical Sunni Islam was exported in exchange for maintenance of the
mask. Iran had a royal family, too. At least until radicalism could no longer
be contained. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Prince Mohammed bin Salman (known as MBS in the social
mediasphere) struck the religious community hard. Scores of clerics have been
arrested in simultaneous raids across the country. Said one, “all those who
thought about saying no to the government got arrested.” (<u>NYT</u>, 6Nov17,
p.A9). This action extends beyond the Mosque, particularly given the judicial
bureaucracy is the domain of the clerics. At least until now. It remains to be
seen whether MBS is challenging this arrangement beyond symbolic gestures.
Formally, the Royal Household interacts with the religious community through
the Council of Senior Scholars. Its carefully selected membership is unlikely
to represent the full spectrum of religious thought resident in the Kingdom.
Nevertheless, the Council has got behind the mass arrests of clerics, possibly
seeing some opportunities for its members in the short term. Yet that is no the
same as endorsing MBS’ vision if a “moderate, balanced Islam that is open to
the world and to all religions and all traditions and peoples” (Ibid).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
MI is skeptical that centuries of conservative religious
belief can be overturned by a round-up of radicals and the selection of
acceptable replacements. More likely, the lightning strike against extremist
elements will empower their message and drive their supporters underground. The
world has had some experience if radical Islamic extremists reacting to what
they perceive as oppression by heretical rulers.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This profound shake-up of the religious order has been
joined by similarly novel strikes against the political and financial order.
Under the guise of an anti-corruption royal decree, MBS and his faction may
“detain individuals or seize assets without any trial, process or disclosure.”
(Ibid). Thus far, four ministers and 11 princes have been detained, with a ban
on travel for all royal family members numbering in their thousands. The
arrests have relieved key leadership positions in the remaining national
security establishment that had not hitherto been effected by the rise of MBS.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
King Salman, 81, initially appointed MBS as defense
minister, chief of the royal court, a top economic adviser and deputy Crown
Prince. Prince Mohammed bin Nayef was Crown Prince and interior minister
responsible for internal security forces, the secret police and all
counterterrorism operations. All of these roles shifted to MBS when his father
put Prince Nayef under house arrest in June of this year. Of the three core
ministries underpinning power, the National Guard was the last remaining power
base outside MBS’s grip, until Prince Mutaib bin Abdullah’s arrest in the most
recent crackdown. Another surprise was the arrest of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal,
billionaire investor and pro-reform modernizer.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The timing of the crackdown is also significant. It follows
weeks after MBS brought the world’s financial leaders to Riyadh to discuss his
Vision 2030 project and within it, the IPO of Saudi Aramco estimated to be
valued to be valued at $2 trillion which would make it the largest company in
the world. The money would be added to the recently created sovereign wealth
fund which is the vehicle to a diversified economy. No doubt MBS has in mind
the kind of visionary transformation that has taken place in neighboring UAE. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The arrest of Prince Alwaleed, the most business and finance
savvy of all Saudi leaders seems incongruous in this setting. Except that it
makes perfect sense once the role of the Trump Administration is taken into
account.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jared Kushner had just returned from the third major
Administration visit to the Kingdom mere days before the Royal round-up.
Kushner reportedly spent four days with MBS, bonding into the early hours in
private talks.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Prince Alwaleed had famously tweeted that Donald Trump was
“a disgrace not only to the GOP but to all America” during the 2016 election.
He had not endeared himself to King Salman or MBS either, having been outspoken
against the latter’s appointment as Crown Prince. Reportedly the Talal clan had
been one of only three dissenters among 34 members of the allegiance council
that endorsed the King’s appointment of MBS.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Did Jared Kushner greenlight the crackdown? It certainly
looks like it. MI is reminded of Kissinger’s visit to Jakarta just days before
the Indonesian invasion of neighboring East Timor in 1975. The Kushner visit
bears all the hallmarks of very close coordination. This follows the visit if
President Trump at the end ot which he vocally declared the US’ seemingly total
commitment to the Kingdom. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Saudi Aramco IPO will net as much as $1 Billion in
commissions and fees. On Kushner’s return to the US, President Trump, not known
for his subtlety, patience, or tact, tweeted that Saudi Aramco should list on
the NYSE. The smart play would have been to cut the deal privately and crow
about it afterward. Now London’s bid will be taken more seriously, if only to
give the appearance of independence. The fact is, however, the listing will go
to the US not because of anything Trump has said but because it’s the natural
choice given the focus of the US economy and the scale it will bring the
transaction.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This raises the bigger question of Trump’s Middle East
policy. OK, so that was a stretch; there is no policy in the traditional
sense. As in domestic policy, Trump’s
sole objective is to reverse whatever Obama did, regardless of the
consequences. The Saudis have been unhappy with America ever since President
George W. Bush ignored their advice and invaded Iraq. They knew the most likely
outcome would be an empowered Iran – their arch enemy. Why? Because America
likes to impose democracy and the majority of Iraqis are Shia. The chaos that
ensued was far worse than even the Saudis imagined. Iran was not only able to
essentially take over Iraq’s political life, it ran covert ops against the US,
killing thousands of US service men and women on Iran’s home turf. The Bush
Administration wanted to ‘bring it on’ by encircling Iran and ratcheting up the
pressure; at least, that’s how they spun it when the wheels fell off. Instead, Iran jumped at the opportunity to
engage in ‘forward defense’, killing representatives in adjacent lands. It
turned out that in fact America wan encircled in Iraq and Afghanistan, not
Iran. Welcome to 4<sup>th</sup> generation warfare.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Saudis showed their displeasure by ignoring W’s pleas to
open up the spigots during a desperate 2006 visit to the Kingdom. Five dollar a
gallon gas was his punishment and contributed significantly to the economic
slow down that became a rout by 2008.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Obama fared no better. Wanting out of Iraq (the war of
choice) in order to focus on Afghanistan (the war of necessity), Obama’s
planned drawdown was too rapid to be stable by the time he was able to act. The
2017 putdown of ISIS in Iraq and Syria by indigenous forces shows that the
Iraqification of the war, had he stuck it out a little longer, would have
worked. Hindsight is a cruel master and unfair given that America’s war in Iraq
seemed endless and there were no good alternatives. The only way to get Iraq to
take responsibility was to force it. The free riding on the US had to stop. The
cost was the rise of ISIS.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In visits to the Kingdom at this time, Saudi military
officials were vocal in their criticisms on US policy under Obama in particular
as it impacted Syria. MI responded that the KSA had a substantial military
doing nothing and that America was reluctant to get into yet another ground war
in the Middle East. It was a rhetorical point, yet subsequent Saudi engagement
around the region suggests that on some level they agreed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Saudi has long engaged its region via the deployment of
covert funds, not forces. Sometimes it worked with Israel, with whom it has a natural
intersection of interests against Iran and its proxy forces Hezbollah and the
IRGC’s Quds force. To these traditional foreign policies Saudi has recently
added conventional military deployments against Iranian backed aggressors in
Yemen (where Saudi has a long history, including participating in its civil
war).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
More recently, under MBS, the Kingdom has used its new-found
American backed freedom to act forcefully in quarantining Qatar (home to the
USAF in the region) and to force the resignation of the Prime Minister Hariri
of Lebanon. Neither of these moves makes much sense to MI. Any dispute with
Qatar should have been managed subtly in the shadows for the sake of the
appearance of unity among Gulf Cooperation states. The Lebanon example seems to
be directed at destabilizing that country which is defacto a safe haven for
Hezbollah. Hariri was the key Sunni in a complex sectarian power-sharing
arrangement designed as a check and balance against sectarian forces prone to
violent disputes. MBS must have made the judgement that having Hariri inside
the tent was not enough. With the Syrian civil war resolved in the regime’s
favor with the support if Russia and in particular Iran and its proxies, the
calculations must have been that the Lebanese safe haven had to be denied to
Iran et al, even at the cost of another civil war in that fragile country. No
doubt MBS wanted to turn Lebanon into Iran’s Yemen. Further, this action would
not have been taken without American assent, either active or passive. Given
the instability along Iran’s direct borders in Syria, Iran, and Afghanistan,
the choice of Lebanon seems wrong-headed in the extreme. There already exist
plenty of opportunities to take the clandestine war to Iran right up to its
border and in extant conditions that are amenable to a proxy war. The choice of
Lebanon might also hint at a sub-rosa concord with Israel which has much
stronger reasons and access to disrupt on its northern border. Yet even in
their case, there are better reasons to undertake covert actions further away
from home while running traditional HUMINT ops inside Lebanon.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Saudi even went do far as to issue a warning to its citizens
in Lebanon to leave. If MI’s analysis is right, and there is a good chance that
we do not have sufficient insight from this remove to appreciate all the factors,
KSA and Israel (more accurately PM Netanyahu )
have much more to lose than to gain in the Lebanon gambit. That all of this is
taking place with US acquiescence is disturbing. Iran must be countered, but in
such a way as to use the abundant opportunities for clandestine mischief making
that already exist, not by spreading the regional war yet further.
Traditionally, Lebanon has been a difficult but useful space where all sides to
complex security dilemmas could meet and interact in the shadows. That can
still happen under a new civil war, or Israeli invasion, but these objectives
are unnecessary and will be counterproductive. Lebanon is at the brink with
Syrian and other refugees. If MBS/Netanyahu/Trump’s plan leads to war, it will
result in destabilizing Jordan, the last bulwark from which US forces and
covert teams can move with relative operational freedom. MI feels for the King
of Jordan and hopes that his counsel will be heard in Washington, if he judges
it even worth the political capital in making a case for moderation combined
with a smart covert plan. MI suspects that there is a stronger linkage between
the young princes in Saudi and UAE to the Administration through Jared Kushner
(all in their 30s) than there is between the Jordanian and Saudi Kings and
President Trump.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When he came to power, Obama wanted to reframe America’s
outlook in the region and clarify America’s respect for religious tolerance.
The focal point if this was the Cairo speech. Knowing bin Laden’s rhetoric
against US regional allies was effective and dovetailed with American distaste
in dealing with dictators, Obama wanted to walk the fine line between
criticizing Hosni Mubarak (for example) and encouraging sustainable (read
democratic) reforms. It turned out that the people of the region read much more
into Obama’s intentions than was actually there. Like Gorbachev, he read the
symptoms correctly he read the symptoms correctly, but his recommendation to
take some aspirin was interpreted as a call for open heart surgery. It did not
take long for the region to burst with reformist zeal. The people demonstrated
for jobs and a good life – after a decade of war imposed by the US they were
not calling for death to America or burning the flag. The Arab Spring suddenly
gave voice to a thousand pro-democracy micro-movements that were crushed by the
patient and highly organized radical Islamist movement that seized the
revolution and turned it into a democratic gain for the long-repressed Muslim
brotherhood. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This did not win Obama any friends in Riyadh, Bahrain, UAE,
Qatar, or Kuwait and elsewhere in the Gulf. Suddenly they all faced challenges
to varying degrees. It was known that, as in Egypt, there was no cohesion to
pro-democratic forces and that the instability of the Arab Spring would provide
a vacuum in which militant Islam could flourish. Some of these regimes were
reforming, but far too slowly to absorb the shock waves emanating from North
America. In addition to the regime v radical split, the Sunni v Shia overlay vastly
complicated things when Iran seized the moment to instigate turmoil from
Bahrain to Yemen.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To top it all off, Obama’s strategic nuclear agreement with
Iran, while masterful from the vantage point of global security and US interests,
outraged the Prince’s because it flooded Iran with desperately needed funds with
which they could intensify their proxy wars from Syria to Bahrain and beyond. The
long war in the shadows between Iran and the US and its allies, was thrust into
the limelight. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So by the time the real estate mogul and reality TV host,
who had a fine appreciation for gaudy mock-baroque interiors, was feted in the
finest palaces in Riyadh, he was ripe for the anti-Obama protests if the
princes. In fact, to the extent that Trump has any policy, foreign or domestic,
it is repudiation of anything Obama accomplished. The Trump-Saudi relationship
was a match made in heaven. Not surprisingly, Trump came out swinging against
Iran, Qatar, and in complete alignment with Saudi objectives. He was willing to
destroy the nuclear agreement despite the fact that the funds that concerned
the Gulf States had already been released to Iran. All that was left to lose in
the agreement was Iran’s obligations to refrain from developing a bomb. Giving
them the money and carte blanche to continue the weapons program was the worst
of both worlds for all concerned. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So why did he do it? Well, it was an election promise,
whether well conceived or not. It was also a Saudi demand. It repudiated Obama.
The fact that these superficial reasons were nothing by comparison to the
impact the decision would have by the time he took it seemed to concern him not
at all. At least some of his advisors seemed to realize what was going on and
prevented him from cancelling outright. But the bigger point here is the degree
to which he had been captured completely by Saudi thinking. As a diplomatic novice, he was not well
served by his number one domestic priority, to shrink the bureaucracy, and in
particular in this case, the Department of State. Still, when challenged about
the cutbacks at Foggy Bottom his response said it all: “I’m the only one that
matters”.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Capturing the undivided and uncritical attention if a new
and inexperienced Administration may appear to be a positive in the short term
but pose unanticipated costs over time. The emerging Trump=MBS relationship may
afford a degree of freedom that might otherwise have been moderated by good
judgement.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At first MBS appeared to be pursuing a China reform model.
Vision 2030 was ambitious, but it had to be if it wanted to catch up with the
degree if economic and social development sustained by similar reforms in other
Gulf states. Countries like UAE saw the coming peak in energy a while ago and
diversified. They offer attractive places to visit for Muslims and non-Muslins alike.
Saudi, by contrast, has a long way to go, outside of the comfort of royal
palaces. MBS knows this and no doubt has been champing at the bit to initiate
reforms for years. His ardor for change may be as insatiable as some of his
fiercest critics, with the exception that their ends are worlds apart. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Post Trump’s visit and the multiple visits by high level
delegations, including three Kushner trips, MBS seems to have decided to do
everything at once. He is following a hybrid China/USSR/North Korea reform
program, mixing economic reform with instant political freedoms (declawing of
religious establishment and police/driving for women), all topped off with a
draconian power-politics crack-down against alternative sources of authority
among the seven main branches of the ruling family. He now controls all
instruments of state power and authority in his hands. Previously these were carefully shared out
among competing factions in a balance of power among the families and tribes.
At the same time he has radically upset the political-religious balance of
power that has existed between the House of Saud and the clerics.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
International relations is fundamentally about the study of
human thought and action. It is not like physics. It does not have hard and
fast rules. But if it did, the first rule if international relations would be
rapid political/economic/cultural change set in a contested strategic
environment, never ends well.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
MBS is gambling the house that he can pull this off all at
once. No doubt he is driven by a concern that the forces of darkness within and
around the Kingdom have the advantage of time and energy. He is right to be
concerned. Yet despite the very different setting between the three models of
change and contemporary KSA, he may come to regret not sticking just to his
economic vision.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What’s the worst that can happen? Most commentary harks back
to 1979. It was a revolutionary moment. Iran underwent a radical Islamic
revolution. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and a group of inspired Sunni
radical terrorists went all out for the ultimate prize - the Grand Mosque at
Mecca. There is no more serious responsibility in the Islamic world than to be the
guardian of the holy shrines. Thus the extended time it took to put down the
attack was a profound humiliation for the guardian, the King, and through him,
the entire system underpinning the state.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
MI thinks that 1975 may be a better date to remember going
forward in thinking about KSA’s future. Ten years before, a nephew of the King
was killed by riot police as he demonstrated against the introduction of
television into the Kingdom in 1965. His brother, Faisal bin Musaid, mourned
his brother’s loss very deeply over the ensuing years. He assassinated King
Faisal, his uncle, in 1975. Palace intrigue is not new in the Kingdom. Faisal’s
father was himself deposed by a consortium led by the clerics. So recent events
are in some degree merely part of the ebb and flow of Saudi political life.
What is unprecedented is the concentration of all positions of power into one
pair of hands, at the same time as a wide spread crackdown against all
competing bases of power – religious, economic, financial and socio-cultural. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Grievance is the most powerful driver in contemporary
culture and politics. It is driven by narrative. One consequence of information
technology and social media in particular is the empowerment of people relative
to states, an individual or group can compete for global attention today in
wats that were simply not available pre-2000. The most compelling narrative
wins over the power of even the most repressive state. This is the context in
which one of the last near-absolute rulers created systemic instability in
their country by choice. It was not a necessity, at least not yet. The concern
here is that MBS has inadvertently merely hastened the day of reckoning and in
so doing foreshortened a wide range of viable options that might have mitigated
the radical change that would finally transmit the spring to Arabia.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Historically the greatest grievance and the power to do
something about it was resident within the House of Saud. Palace intrigue,
coups and even assassinations came from within. Focusing on the threat from
below at the expense of balancing internal divisions within family factions,
could well result in proving Lincoln’s old adage, that, "A house divided against itself cannot
stand."<o:p></o:p></div>
Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08822415025459172603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028072954719635461.post-34527449148408778402017-09-25T21:08:00.000-04:002018-02-06T21:08:36.606-05:00Providing Strategic Advice to SECDEF or POTUS<div class="MsoNormal">
25 September 2017</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, you want to be a senior strategic advisor to the
Secretary of Defense or the President of the United States of America? Wouldn’t
it be useful and interesting to know what you might be getting into ahead of
time? Read on…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Context: An unpopular President, controversy swirling around
their foreign and domestic policies; tensions between the White House and the
Department of Justice, eventually culminating in the resignations or firing of
Attorneys General; all during the country’s longest, most unpopular, and
failing war of choice in which the other side is winning.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The following is a confession of a Dept. of Defense (DOD)
Strategic Advisor with the diplomatic rank of Lt General (3 stars), who has
worked alongside all the top generals, civilian leaders, counterinsurgency
experts (COIN), diplomats, National Security Council (NSC) leaders, academics
and allied partners. This advisor is no armchair observer; he started his
career as a Marine Infantry Rifle Company Commander, earned a Master’s degree
and PhD in Economics at Harvard specializing in decision making. Thereafter,
think-tank work and various consultancies led him to the E-ring of the Pentagon
where he became special assistant to a 4 star leader. Hand-picked by the
country’s top COIN expert, the advisor deployed on a two-year tour of
observation and analysis wearing a helmet and carrying his AR-15, going deep
behind enemy lines to observe the challenges facing American ground forces at
forward operating bases (FOBs) and among the people.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Author of an NSC review midway through this very long war,
he asks the United States Government to provide department-by-department
assessments of the progress of the war and prognosis for the best courses of
action to win the war. The government is split down the middle. The optimists,
including the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JOS), the Combatant Command in charge of
the region, and sometimes the relevant Bureau inside State; face off against
CIA, OSD, INR (State’s intel arm), and the majority of government and think
tank analysts, who see no end in sight and no way to win in any meaningful
sense of the term. Even the optimists are not enthusiastic, the Combatant
Command assesses:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Three fourths of battles are at the
enemy’s choice of time, place, type, and duration. ..Less than one percent of
nearly two million allied small unit operations in the last two years resulted
in contact with the enemy. The enemy basically controls both sides’ casualty
rates. (p. 240)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That TOP SECRET assessment merely served to illustrate the
many problems America was facing fighting a war on the other side of the world
with a weak local partner and an adversary with a fanatic will to win. Suicide
attacks, women and children as human shields, threatening local towns and
villages to support the insurgency at the risk of beheadings, stolen crops, and
violent intimidation; low tech solutions to counter the high tech war mounted
by Washington that was running the coffers dry and stirring resentment at home;
this reality prompted the following insight:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
“What I saw as the major lesson [of
the war] was the impact on policy failures of internal practices of lying to
superiors, tacitly encouraged by those superiors, but resulting in a cognitive
failure at the presidential level to recognize realities. This was part of a
broader cognitive failure of the bureaucracy I had come to suspect. There were
situations in which the US government, starting ignorant, did not, would not,
learn…” There “[were] institutional ‘anti-learning’ mechanisms working to
preserve and guarantee un-adaptive and unsuccessful behavior. There was the
fast turn-over in personnel [fighting a 1 year war 7 times]. Lack of
institutional memory at any level… A general failure to study history or to
analyze or even record operational experiences, especially mistakes. Above all,
effective pressures for optimistically false reporting at every level for
describing ‘progress’ rather than problems or failure, concealed the very need
for change in approach or for learning. (pp. 185-6)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On his return to Washington after 2 years downrange, the
advisor returns as a consultant to the NSC, hired by the National Security
Advisor himself, to conduct the aforementioned TS assessment. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The war? Vietnam. But it just as easily could have been Iraq
or Afghanistan. That should be something that concerns strategic thinkers. The
strategic analyst? Daniel Ellsberg. Reading <u>Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and
the Pentagon Papers</u> (2002), an important book that somehow evaded MI’s desk
until recently, has been a fascinating experience. Ellsberg is not some fringe
recalcitrant who was seeking publicity by spilling secrets. Whatever one makes
of his decision to release the Pentagon Papers – he will always be a traitor to
some and a freedom fighter to others – that’s the inevitable outcome of
whistleblowing on this scale – Ellsberg can’t be dismissed as a beatnik
professor. Far from it. <u>Secrets</u> is exceptionally well-written,
insightful, balanced (yes, really), written by someone who was a product of
what today might be fashionably referred to as the ‘deep state’.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ellsberg’s PhD
advisors included Thomas Schelling; he worked for and often directly engaged
Robert McNamara; he regularly engaged Bill Bundy (State), Walt Rostow (NSC),
Averell Harriman (Ambassador at Large since FDR), and Clark Clifford (advisor
to president from FDR onwards); and was hired by Henry Kissinger to produce the
incoming Nixon administration’s scene-setting NSSM-1 (National Security Study
Memoranda #1). That was the first if
hundreds of studies commissioned by Kissinger to help him control the organs of
state. Indeed, Ellsberg and Kissinger had crossed paths surprisingly
frequently, starting back in 1959 when Kissinger invited Ellsberg to deliver a
lecture series to his graduate students on “The Art of Coercion”, which
included classes on “Theory and Practice of Blackmail” and the “Political Uses
of Madness”, both based on Hitler’s techniques in dealing with Austria and
Czechoslovakia in 1937/8. At a lunch attended by Kissinger, Alexander Haig, and
Ellsberg at President Nixon’s home in San Clemente in August of 1970, Kissinger praises Ellsberg to Haig as the
source of the strategic thinking behind the Cambodia invasion – Namely Nixon’s
intent to be unpredictable as a means to get the Vietnamese to the negation
table. The parallels to Trump’s statements on North Korea are straight out of
the same playbook. Readers can judge which President was effective using this
strategy, laid out to Kissinger’s class by Ellsberg in 1959.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
During the Cuban missile crisis, President Kennedy relied on
the EXCOM or Executive Committee formed specially to manage the crisis.
Ellsberg’s first major break in DC comes with his appointment to the EXCOM
staff due to his research record on nuclear issues and decision making. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
His first experience with the divergence between official
and public information occurred when the fall 1961 National Intelligence
Estimate (NIE) revealed the missile gap was completely wrong. Prior NIEs on the
subject of Soviet capabilities estimated that they had 120 missiles (June
1961), while Strategic Air Command’s estimate was 1000. The reality was the
United States in fact had a 10:1 superiority of missiles to the Soviets, the
Fall 61 NIE counted 40 Atlas and Titans in the US arsenal, compared to just 4
Soviet ss-6 ICBMs. Leading Ellsberg to observe:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
Each side had grossly misunderstood
the other, wrongly estimated its behavior, failed to understand the actions of
the other as responses to interpretations od the combination of their own words
and actions. There had been ‘failures of communication’ of the sort risking the
most dangerous of consequences. (pp. 33-34)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Following the crisis, Walt Rostow, Policy Planning Chair at
State, convened an inter-agency panel of deputies to sponsor a study of past
crises to assist the President in enhancing his control over the bureaucracy
and the machinery of government’s interactions with Soviet counterparts to
reduce the likelihood of disaster. The study’s lead was Daniel Ellsberg.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
From there Ellsberg
is hired as the senior advisor to John T McNaughton, the Assistant Secretary of
Defense for International Security affairs, Ellsberg’s portfolio was restricted
to one topic alone: the war in Vietnam. The book provides a fly-on-the-wall
account of what it was like to be at the top of OSD. Indeed, his very first day at work was
consumed by FLASH traffic from a US Navy destroyer off the coast of North
Vietnam that reported it was under torpedo attack. Messages continued to stream
in from the USS MADDOX as the play-by-play of the attack unfolded. Ellsberg’s
role was to filter the traffic upwards for Secretary McNamara via McNaughton.
Toward the end of a long and confusing engagement the ship’s CO recommends
restraint before jumping to conclusions. The CO was starting to have doubts
about what had really happened during the nighttime action in the South China
Sea. It turns out his creeping caution was justified, the multiple torpedo
attacks that were passing right by the hull of the MADDOX appeared in hindsight
as the result of a very excited sonar man listening to the MADDOX’s own screws
churning up the black waters, While some large caliber machine gun fire had
made it’s mark on the superstructure, it soon appeared to inside experts that
the whole thing was blown out if proportion, as often happens with initial
reports of action at moments of high tension.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ellsberg explains how he soon after discovered that the
action, such as it was, by the North Vietnamese was not unprovoked aggression,
but a response to a US covert operation (34A OPS) that had earlier shelled a
North Vietnamese island. That was on top od regular ‘Desoto’ patrols inside the
12 mile limit designed to provoke the North to illuminate its costal radar for
signature collection.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So the origin if the Gulf of Tonkin ‘incident’ and
subsequent Resolution by Congress was all a big misunderstanding. Ellsberg does
not rail at this act of falling backwards into war as a big lie or conspiracy,
even writing decades later. Indeed, his assessment at the time was full of
empathy for decision makers. He gives an example that on just one busy day in
the office, China tested its first nukes; Khrushchev was ousted from power; and
there was a change of government in London. He wondered, “Can men even as
brilliant and adroit as these – for sheer brainpower and energy, the Kennedy
crew… could not be bettered – manage safely and wisely so many challenges at
once, with so little time to acquire more than a shallow understanding of any
one? Can you really run the world this way?” (p. 47) MI has often had cause
based on recent observations to wonder the same question. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Reflecting his long incremental intellectual journey,
Ellsberg recounts his thinking and reactions during his service in the
Pentagon. He was struck, for example, by the fact that both he and his boss
seemed to share the same growing reservations about the war and its trajectory.
Both wanted out of Vietnam yet “there is scarcely a hint of any of these
attitudes in any piece of paper he drafted or signed from 1964 to 1967”… This view was shared by almost all those with
whom he interacted just under the top level if government “but not by any of
their bosses” (p. 57).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He was not aware at the time of the various highly
classified critiques of the war, such as the Ball memo of 1 July 1965 or the Clifford
Camp David briefing to Johnson and McNamara, both of which accurately predict
the outcome of continued involvement. “To have read even one of these critiques
in June 65 would have punctured…the spell of apparent unanimity of support by
insiders for what seemed a crazy but consensual policy”. He later came to
realize these views were restricted in their circulation in order to protect
the President, should the war turn sour, lest critics point to ignored advice
as a massive failure of judgement (p. 83).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ellsberg applies the decision-making scholar’s gaze to
events as they unfold and discerns a cognitive dissonance that he tries to
explain to himself over the course of his life and, in turn, this book. He goes
from trying to understand official decision making to eventually trying to
understand his own. This journey of discovery is the core of this book. His
principle conundrum extends from his first official work on Kennedy’s EXCOM and
builds from there. The curiosity that eventually becomes a torment surrounds
example after example, like the aforementioned missile gap ‘data’ and road to
war narrative, where official insiders’ understanding of what’s really going on
differs so markedly from presidential statements and actions.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why would every single President from Eisenhower onwards
allow the United States to get slowly sucked into involvement in a war that
most if not all of their top advisors warn <b><u>in
advance</u></b> will result in utter failure and ruin for the US? The defense
scholar simply cannot understand why rational actors, who are thus forewarned
by their smartest and most experienced advisors, would continually choose a
path that the best advice relentlessly warns is not just high risk, but almost
certainly a path to disaster. General of the Army and later President
Eisenhower is no strategic fool. Ellsberg’s faith in the system and in its
leaders is so complete, at the outset, that by the time he finally puts the
pieces of the puzzle together, it feels like a great betrayal. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Vietnamese had fought the Chinese for centuries, then,
more recently, the Japanese and the French. Kennedy himself had visited Vietnam
in 1951 on a CODEL. He spent most of his day with French Général Jean de Lattre
de Tassigny, who assured Kennedy of victory.
What else would a commanding general of a theatre of war say to a
prominent allied lawmaker? Yet that same evening on the roof top deck if the
Caravelle Hotel in Saigon, as artillery sounded softly in the distance, JFK had
a few quiet drinks with US diplomat Edmund Gullion, who the Senator asked for
an assessment. Gullion replied without missing a beat:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
In twenty years there will be no
more colonies. We’re going nowhere out here. The French have lost. If we come
in here and do the same thing, we will lose, too, for the same reason. There’s
no will or support for this kind of war back in Paris. The home front is lost.
The same thing would happen to us. (p. 197)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ellsberg observes, “Ask the right person the right question
and you could get the picture pretty fast.’ The challenge at the time of making
a decision is knowing who the right person is to ask, and what to ask them.
It’s all obvious in hindsight bit the role of the analyst is to understand and
contextualize all the competing pressures and viewpoints as they present at the
time. They bulk of the book shows that Ellsberg gets this all too well. What he
was trying to convey is that leaders should have given more weight to not only
advice of this kind, but also the track record of the Vietnamese against
outsiders. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ironically enough, Ellsberg’s blind spot, as far as MI can
discern, is his faith that the system will act on evidence and realistic
advice; he seems to be genuinely shocked that great leaders like Kennedy and
Johnson could be swayed by non-rational considerations, by ideological and
emotional considerations. Ellsberg’s field is economics, where game theory and
mathematics explain behavior – until they don’t. He lacks the historian’s eye
for human frailty.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In strategic terms, America in the 1950s was a hormonal
teenager newly emerged from Isolation into a cruel world. It had new-found
strength in the form of nuclear weapons, wealth, vast natural resources,
scientific and technological advantage, radically new industrial processes, and
unprecedented moral license found in the lofty ideals of the Declaration and
Constitution. For two centuries, Europe had squandered its advantage in wars of
conquest that resulted in bankruptcy, financial and moral. America was about to
find out what the Great Powers had long known – the compromise required to
maintain power, and even more so, control, over a diverse human landscape that
was increasingly able to reject that control thanks to changes in technology
wrought by war, and to international norms forced on the world by Woodrow
Wilson and later FDR (19 points and Atlantic Charter respectively).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Self determination, the international extension of the
American Revolution to the world was glorious in principle, until America was a
superpower locked in a global struggle with a competing economic, military and
‘moral’ system that in every detail was anathema to the American ideal. Thus
reframed, the context of global competition for dominance got caught up in vast
complexities, corner cutting, and expediency, where winning mattered more than
principle. The exigencies of global leadership forced a Pandora’s Box of
non-linear demands on American power. Nor the need to show resolve to Western European allies, by not ‘cutting
and running’ from a trivial small war in the third world that had no strategic
value to the US, became a matter of great importance ti American statecraft.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Rational cost-benefit analysis alone is insufficient to
understand international relations. Statecraft is the continual negotiation
between fear, honor, and interests, in the pursuit of comparative advantage in
the international system. Try to do that rationally, without contradiction,
across all of the pressing global issues a Great Power must control. It’s
impossible. This is not to say that abandoning moral principle is necessary in
statecraft nor is it an endorsement of US Policy towards Vietnam across the
decades from 1948 to 1975. It is merely MI’s attempt to explain why Ellsberg
feels unease and later betrayal. He is a gifted strategic thinker. His
commitment to understand the cognitive dissonance he was experiencing led him
to volunteer for a two-year tour in Vietnam when he could have just as easily
become a radical critic from the comfort of his armchair. As one strategic
analyst trying to understand another’s personal and professional journey, this
seems to be the best explanation for what Ellsberg missed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In Vietnam, Ellsberg’s growing reputation at the highest
levels of government continues with the extraordinary opportunity to work
directly for legends in the US COIN world. Ed Lansdale, a retired general and
CIA officer, personally insisted on Ellsberg’s participation. The latter went
into the field for long stretches at a time, by road, not air, through VC
territory, with another legend, John Paul Vann. Luckily for history, Ellsberg
recounts directly from his contemporary notes what he learned from Vann as they
toured US and SVN outposts. Those who found value in the “Fixing Intel” report
by Mike Flynn and his team in Afghanistan will see echoes in Ellsberg’s
reporting. The importance of getting outside the wire, knowing the language and
people or being with those who do, being able to sort out the people from the
enemy and understanding their concerns, needs and interests. Being able to
assess how and why policy or operations fit US objectives or accidentally
assist the enemy. The list goes on. Reading these chapters in Ellsberg and
comparing them to contemporary accounts of war in Afghanistan, in particular,
there is a dreaded sense that really nothing has changed. MI has a theory about
why this is and it can be summarized in the bumper sticker “Metrics over
Meaning”, a theory MI will expand upon at a later date.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the plane ride back to DC from Saigon after this
incredible insight into the war he never wanted the US to engage in, he is
called to the back of the plane and joins another COIN legend Robert Komer and
SECDEF McNamara in their debate over the progress of the war. McNamara is
arguing that the US is in fact going
backwards “we’ve put more than a hundred thousand troops in… and there’s been
no improvement… that means the underlying situation is really worse.” Yet an
hour later as they land at Andrews AFB McNamara steps off the plane to a set of
microphones and says, “I’ve just come back from Vietnam and I’m glad to be able
to tell you that we are showing great progress in every dimension of our effort.” (p.142)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That tension between reality and salesmanship drives
Ellsberg to eventually understand that not only is the war lost, but that
someone has to tell the public. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yet even then he does not rush to leak classified
information. He returns to Rand and writes assessments. He rallies colleagues
at Rand to publicly present a critique, which is a morally courageous thing to
do given their funding is almost all from DOD contracts. He then speaks at
public debates. At one, he re-connects with a fellow speaker, Robert Kennedy,
who invites Ellsberg to join him in his limo ride back to the Senate. This culminates in RFK asking Ellsberg to be
his Vietnam advisor for the coming election, an opportunity Ellsberg resists so
that he can inform all candidates and not be perceived as anyone’s ‘man’. Their
exchanges are interesting reading in their own right, RFK insists that JFK
would not have escalated or put ground troops into Vietnam. Ellsberg visits
RFKs hotel and finds him wandering the halls in a bathrobe before anyone else
had awoken for the day and wonders id his security is lacking… it’s just one if
the many snippets of this book that shows that Daniel Ellsberg is not some
outsider intent on bringing the country down. He genuinely tries all sorts of
pathways to power to get his message across. One can only speculate that had
RFK lived, how much different things might have been; or, on the contrary, how
frustrated Ellsberg might have become as RFK got drawn into the same escalation
spiral that consumed all the others before and after him.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
His first leak is to RFK who used the information passed him
to challenge the conduct of the war. He also shares information with a range of
others in Congress. Senator Fulbright later says that had he known the Tonkin
evidence at the time he would not have authored the resolution. Ellsberg is
hired by Kissinger to author and run the NSSM-1 study after Nixon’s
inauguration. He continues to have meetings with Nixon Administration
heavyweights including Kissinger, but does not break through. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To his closest friends, he predicts that Nixon will escalate
in order to try and find some space to get the North to the negotiation table.
Nixon’s “secret plan” was an election trick (which has contemporary echoes in Trump’s claim about a secret plan for ISIS
and claims he knew more than the generals, etc.), and eventually Ellsberg
decides that the president is the problem.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The fallout of the release of the Pentagon Papers and the
connection of that and Ellsberg to Watergate is a subject in its own right and
will be treated as such in a coming installment. The parallels with the
challenges besetting the Trump Administration are truly remarkable and demand
separate treatment. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Daniel Ellsberg’s book is not a hindsight self justification
diatribe. It’s and honest portrayal of an ultimate insider at the highest level
of government as they struggle with the contradictions and contrivances at the
intersection between American ideals and extant global and domestic political
exigencies of the day. Two thirds of the book provides readers with an
excellent snapshot of what it’s like to be in the room among senior
decision-makers when major events happen. Likewise, it also provides an excellent
assessment from the ground up of tactical, operational, and strategic mistakes
in the war. A former Marine Company Commander, Ellsberg knows what he’s doing
as he travels around the country. Veterans of America’s recent wars will no
doubt be surprised by the echoes within his pages. In the end, the strategic
advisor does want to do all his professional life. Going outside imposed many
costs on him, but his conscience allowed him no alternative path. The judgement
as to whether it was worth it is up to the reader. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The question of the most effective way to advise a senior
leader permeates this fascinating account of American strategic decision
making. There are really two choices: provide a consensus viewpoint, or outline
both pros and cons. Does the leader want to be given a solution or are they
more comfortable engaging in dialectic: thesis, counter thesis, synthesis? It
all depends on the leader. Readers might be thinking just about now that any
decision-making process that merely provides a solution is deeply flawed, but
that would be to forget the sheer volume if decisions senior leaders have to
make and the finite time available. Ask any leader in government or the private
sector (of a comparable size to a department of state), their most precious resource
is not money. It’s not even people. It’s time. When President Obama was
presented with the traditional bureaucratic solution of three Courses of Action
(COAs), where two were essentially implausible, he hit the roof and demanded
that SECDEF Robert Gates and his team go back to the drawing board to develop 3
genuine COAs for Afghanistan. That this shocked an old hand like Gates is
telling, given he has served multiple presidents in various capacities since
Reagan.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
MI’s view is that the only responsible way to advise a
senior leader is to engage in dialectic. Most importantly, it has to be via long-form
narrative memoranda. PowerPoint is incapable of providing complex rich
arguments on highly contested topics of national importance. It was not designed
for that purpose, but it has been used for that purpose. PowerPoint is great to illustrate a simple
idea, operational design, a map or picture or video, the stock in trade of
modern intelligence systems. But decision making about war and the competitive
positioning of a superpower in a world teaming with complicated relationships,
challenges, and limited resources requires that effort is made to explain
assumptions, present evidence, contrast ideas, develop theories for obtaining
the objective (indeed defining exactly what that is can be the hardest part)
and exploring all the possible challenges to pathways to success, in order to
properly see what’s at stake and assess the level of risk that one is willing
to take to achieve the objective. Strategy has to be brutally honest and admit
when an objective is out of reach.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Strategy takes time and effort. For each COA, a responsible
strategist should lay out to the decision maker a series of “branches and
sequels” along the pathway. Donald Rumsfeld was roundly criticized for many
things, not the least of which was his comment regarding strategic planning.
But it was an insightful observation, namely that known unknowns and unknown
unknowns vastly complicate thinking through each COAs branch and sequels. [Branch
and sequels refers to the choice of a certain COA and what might be expected to
happen along that pathway as the war unfolds. It is a very useful technique to
thinking through the action-reaction cycle of battle or the larger war. It’s
imperfect but it must be attempted in order to better grasp the risks involved
in every action so that the strategy selected maximizes opportunity and
minimizes risk, while trying to anticipate the same calculus of the other side.
MI wonders how often this traditional form of strategic assessment is practiced
in DC today. It’s hard, takes time, and a lot of thought. It’s highly
contentious. Which means it’s thought-provoking – it’s the opposite of
consensus reporting].<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The strategist’s job is to anticipate known unknowns and be
adaptable enough to accommodate the unknown when it inevitably happens. This is
why strategy is an art. It is an art that uses science – correct information is
foundational to developing a sound strategy – but as a human endeavor, war
requires judgement based in well-reasoned analysis, and that us beyond the
simple collection of metrics (which is what science means on the modern
battlefield). Metrics without context is a sure fire way to lose a war. For
example, what is more important: the number of hours Baghdad has electricity or
the perception among the Iraqi people that their liberation has turned into an
occupation?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Alert readers will see the correlation between the basic
systems of analysis taught at any good university (the dialectic) and how to do
strategic intelligence and planning. The 9/11 Commission Report’s top finding
was the failure if imagination – this cannot be repeated enough – it remains
the core problem today. Yet after that failure, the Report focused on the dire
need for better analysis. In management speak, it called for the use of “Red
Teaming” and alternative analysis. This has always struck MI as a failure to
understand what dialectic is and how it must be used. Thus, by definition,
alternatives and branches and sequels, and even unknown unknowns, get compared
and contrasted in the strategy making process. MI knows from professional
experience in Red Teams within DoD and the IC (the vast majority of which have
been killed off or have simply withered) are unpopular because they often
confuse their task with merely being contrary or are seen by decision makers as
such. If strategic questions before the US are seen as being binary either orthodox
or unorthodox… then something very wrong is going on.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The hard work of assembling facts, building a hypothesis,
testing it and presenting the findings of that assessment in developing a
series of COAs, each with it’s own branches and sequels that attempts to
anticipate (as best as imagination allows) what the opponent might do, and thus
force the US to do in response, is absolutely vital to doing sound strategic
analysis.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>Secrets</u> should be read by national security
strategists for its insights into decision making within OSD. Written by the
ultimate insider, connected professionally to both ground truth (COIN experts)
and the highest decision making office in the land – the NSC.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>Secrets</u> should be read by anyone interested in
undertaking strategic analysis at the highest level in the United States
government. The parallels to contemporary challenges is one of the most notable
features of this insightful book. The passage of time and a series of reviews
(e.g. 911 Commission Report) for how to improve strategic assessments have not
resulted in stark improvements in strategic analysis and high level government
decision making. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The burden of choosing to be the indispensable nation forces
unpleasant choices on leaders that often result in contradictions and
expediency that flies in the face of American values as enshrined in
foundational documents. Our opponents revel in provoking us to undertake
actions that appear hypocritical. Whether for pragmatic or moral reasons, this
must be guarded against. The contemporary world is one in which symbolism <u>is</u>
meaning – control the narrative and you control the war. Weak states and
non-state actors encourage American momentum in directions suited to their
objectives, and step aside as America’s sheer size and velocity propels the
country down un-advantageous pathways. Dexterous and agile America is not,
except in very niche, special capabilities that all too often the USG prefers
not to use for fear of exposing an advantage that a thinking enemy may quickly
emulate. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The only way to avoid such traps is to creatively outthink
the other side. We have the technology. We have very smart people. What we seem
to be missing is the creative space vital in open systems to conduct rigorous
dialectical analysis that anticipates enemy COAs and tricks them into unforced
errors. They are fanatical suicidal neck cutting monsters and we are struggling
to win the narrative. That’s a strategic disaster of the first order. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Equally, Russia is a failed state, its sole resource is in
the doldrums, and its dictatorship is in reality holding on against a rising
awareness among the young that might result in open challenge. Yet it has just
bought an American election for pennies on the dollar, using troll armies
manned mostly by kids. Reading interviews
with these master manipulators of social media there is a clear sense that they
never believed that Americans would be dumb enough to actually take their crazy
social media postings seriously. Love her or hate her, who in their right minds
would honestly think the leader of a major American political party would be
running a child sex ring out of a pizzeria? Turns out, quite a lot of people.
Including at least one who followed his leader’s suggestion and sought out a
way to exercise his second amendment rights to save the nonexistent children. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
America is a superpower. It’s behaving like a tin pot
dictatorship. It should be mastering social media, the vast bulk of which is
American owned, to discredit the insane and desperate antics of terrorists and
kleptocrats. Universal human rights reflect ideals enshrined in the
constitution and Bill of Rights for a reason. America still has a powerful tool
to attract supporters all around the world. Yet our actions repel possible
friends and partners. Clear, creative, strategic thinking will not change our
position in the world overnight but it will act as a long term guide to the
changes we need to make. We are losing multiple narratives to what should be
easy marks. We won the Cold War against a global enemy, armed with thousands of
nuclear warheads, through patience and often smart choices. Today a bunch of
fanatics roaming the world with AK-47s seem powerful. This is ludicrous.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08822415025459172603noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028072954719635461.post-48754620396147526832017-09-04T04:15:00.000-04:002018-01-29T23:50:59.598-05:00North Korea - A fait accompli<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Introduction<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Casualty estimates for day one of a
war with North Korea in the millions are predicated on a set of assumptions
that are not explored in public debate. Central to this thesis is the
assumption that the US and its allies are unable to defeat that threat posed to
Seoul from artillery and missile systems numbering as high as 8000 platforms.
This estimate presupposes 100% readiness on the part of the North and an
inability of allied conventional weapons systems from successfully striking so
many targets on day one. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Military experts will acknowledge
that high states of readiness are hard to maintain and decline rapidly with
inaction. The weapon to target ratio issue is very significant, but it’s not
impossible to drive down the risk. Small
yield nuclear weapons can be deployed in ways that target only Northern
military capabilities, located in remote mountainous regions away from
population centers, with no threat of fallout, and with sufficiently wide
coverage to drastically reduce the threat to Seoul. The weapon to delivery
platform ratio the US can bring to bear in the small yield scenario does not <u>eliminate</u>
the threat to Seoul – the North might always be able to launch a lone
retaliatory missile – but that risk is nothing like the millions cited in
public discussions. Crucially, the North’s testing of missiles and nuclear
warheads demonstrates that they are still unable to marry the two technologies
along with requisite reentry, intelligence and targeting technologies required
to field an operational capability. Therefore, there is a limited window of
opportunity to act. The question for
decision makers is this: risk retaliation on Seoul today or accept the risk of
a thermonuclear detonation on an allied capitol or an American city tomorrow.
This assessment explores the risks inherent to both options and outlines both
military and normative challenges presented by the DPRK threat. It shows that
this administration will likely do exactly what every administration before it
has done, namely, be held hostage to the invisible threshold game where a
trigger threshold is never reached as fear of the consequences of action spur
inevitable inaction. In an ironic twist, this assessment estimates that South
Korea, Japan and possibly others in the Asia Pacific region will follow North
Korea’s strategy of nuclear proliferation for exactly the same reasons – namely
to safeguard the territorial integrity of the state against great powers. The
impetus for this radical shift in regional security is the inevitable outcome
of America’s withdrawal from the world scene and the requirement to find a
cost-effective means to deter the provocative rising nationalist power in the
region – the People’s Republic of China.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
4 September 2017<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
This moment is decades in the
making. Administrations over the years have refused to act when thresholds have
been crossed. There <i>are</i> military
options for the DPRK threat. The North has the South in check, but not
checkmate. It is possible for the US and its allies to minimize the
stranglehold on Seoul, but not eliminate it entirely. There is no such thing as
a casualty-free war as America has re-learned over the past 16 years in hot and
cold wars spread across the globe. The question is what level of pain the US
and its allies are willing to endure for the status <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">quo option, vice,</span> the pain it’s willing to
take for the counter-DPRK threat option? Regardless of rhetoric, history and
recent events suggest that the lesser of the status quo has been the only
option all along. Bluff, sometimes mixed with reward for bad behavior, has characterized
US policy since the DPRK started down the road to WMD which it knows is
essential for regime survival. The Kim family has taken serious risks over the
years, including torpedoing a Republic of Korea (ROK) destroyer and shelling
civilians on islands owned by the South, and essentially nothing happened.
Peace, even at the risk of outright acts of war, was deemed the cost of doing
business in NE Asia while the major powers grew ever deeper trade ties. The US
has accepted the fait accompli of the reality of the DPRK becoming a nuclear power.
Were that not the case, not acting before now is irresponsible in the extreme
because advantage lies to the counter-proliferator at the early part of the
nuclear weapons development cycle. This strategic assessment will explore the
remaining military options with an eye to the pros and cons of action and
inaction. The bottom line assessment is that unless the US is willing to use
small yield nuclear weapons against the key threat to Seoul then mainstream
nuclear deterrence against an accepted DPRK capability is the inevitable
future. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
America has got caught in what
might be called the invisible threshold game in its approach to the DPRK over
the years. Each observable step in the nuclear weapon development cycle heralds
a decision-point that policy makers eventually rationalize as insufficient to
trigger military action. It used to be that development of a small nuclear
warhead was unacceptable. That followed the successful step of a true
ICBM-range missile. Yet recently, these thresholds were superseded at least in
public debate, by the observation that a functional re-entry vehicle had not
yet been perfected, which seemed to be used by <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">the commentariate as sufficient</span> doubt to continue
to wait before action to defend against a nuclear threat to CONUS. Given past performance,
we can expect a future ‘shock’ that a re-entry vehicle has been accomplished,
months if not years in advance of intelligence estimates. Then the next
question will be just how effectively Kim Jong Un (KJU) can target US
installations in Guam, Hawaii or the mainland. Then one day it will be
announced that all of the necessary systems, technical and human, are in place
and America will just have to learn to live with a Korean bomb. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Were it not for the fact that Seoul
is held hostage by the North’s artillery and missile systems, the world would
not be faced with this dilemma. North Korea would have ceased to exist a long
time ago (and the regime knows it – always has). KJU, like his father and
grandfather, is perfectly rational. He is doing exactly what he needs to do to
stay in power. For a small weak state that has nothing to offer the world,
nuclear weapons guarantee territorial integrity and provides a platform to make
a lot of noise untouched by superpower preferences for how the people in that
territory should live (read: democracy and capitalism – which equals regime
change). The dirty little secret of nuclear counter-proliferation is that a
state bent on developing nuclear weapons quite simply cannot be topped – the <i>best</i> that can be hoped for is delay.
Only the weapon developing state can decide to stop its programs – short of
invasion and occupation – if there are sufficient resources and the will to
weaponize a state will eventually get there. The second, even dirtier, little
secret is that giving up nukes is the worse thing that a state can do. Just ask
Ukraine. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons
in exchange for security guarantees that were geographically next to impossible
for the guarantors to deliver. Had Ukraine kept even a small deterrent, Putin
would have been given sufficient pause before invading and annexing Crimea and
the eastern region of Ukraine. Had he been around to be interviewed, Colonel
Gaddaffi might have had a few worth-while observations on the costs of giving
up the security buffer nukes offer. He made a choice at the time that not giving
up WMDs might tempt America to extend its Afghanistan and Iraq policies to
Libya – which in that unique context might have been the best course of action
at the time. KJU will never willingly give up his only tool to keep himself in
and keep America out. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
China’s national interests are
served by the status quo in multiple ways. First, the buffer provided by the
North is one of its most vital interests. The last thing it can afford is the
South and by proxy the US sharing a land border with the middle kingdom.
Second, the more attention KJU generates for himself, the more distracted
Washington DC becomes, thereby allowing the PRC to quietly build islands in the
SC Sea, develop its ‘belt and road’ infrastructure/trade program, and shore up
its periphery with the related Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), an
influence architecture that enables and multiplies China’s reach as far afield
as Europe. Third, China benefits is the global narrative war when America
thrashes against the prevailing winds and tides in the Pacific while China
extends a helping hand through carious mechanisms like the Asian Development
Bank. When America’s closest ally in the region ignored warnings from
Washington and was the first to sign up to be a member of the bank, and thus in
for the inevitable gold rush, America completely missed the significance of the
move, When Australia abandons you for China, you have a huge soft power crisis
on your hands. The idea that China is somehow going to abandon its smart
economic diplomacy and be a pro-US envoy to Pyongyang all because President Xi
said some nice things at Mar-a-largo is simply absurd. Beijing has America
right where it wants it and plaintive tweets from the White House merely
reinforce America’s true weakness relative to the Asian power-house. Finally,
where did all these new missile systems come from? For a long time North Korean
missile systems literally failed to launch.
The <u>New York Times</u> and other outlets have reported the reason
being that the US had a successful clandestine program that ensured mission
failure. A fantastic delaying tactic and worth doing, but recent initiatives
and the appearance of wholly new
systems, in particular the sudden appearance of solid fuel rockets and a
brand new submarine launched ballistic missile that looks several stages ahead
of where there were just 12 months ago, suggests that KJU got some help. It’s
not hard to imagine who might benefit if Kim’s programs resume. Let’s face it;
he’s not going to target Beijing (or Moscow).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
China’s vital national interests
stop short of provoking Washington into war. However, it is possible to see
that perhaps Beijing has overplayed its hand by giving KJU a little too much
leverage. The tensions between the PRC and its client state are well known and
as much as it would like to think it has control, Beijing is no doubt
frustrated with the current state of play. KJU has gone too far. Statements out
of Washington that all trade with the US will be cut off if China does not
force the DPRK to stop its nuclear weapons program will only encourage the
Chinese to push the limits yet further because such threats are empty.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
This leaves the US with really bad
options. Either it has to go to war or back down, neither of which leave the US
in a strong position. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
So what are the military options?
How can the US remove the threat against Seoul? Can it eliminate North Korea’s
nuclear weapons program by the use of force? One thing is certain. The US
cannot eliminate the North’s nuclear programs with diplomacy or sanctions. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
According to various press reports
around 8000 artillery pieces are within range of Seoul. Beyond that, the next layer
in the North’s defensive ring is its missile systems that are road-mobile and
very hard to target (remember the so-called SCUD hunt in the Gulf War?) The
North is known to have chemical warheads for both artillery and missiles. They
may also have biological warheads, which are an order of magnitude worse than
chemical weapons. Its navy and air force are not much to worry about, but that
does not mean that it poses no threat to allied air power. Even without the
S-400 systems recently offered by Putin, the DPRK is believed to have a robust
integrated air defense system. This is not insurmountable for the US but it
adds to the complexity of air operations against the prime threats to the South
Korean capital. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Ideally, a bolt-from-the-blue
attack on the North during a period of low tensions and at a suitable point in
their training cycle, would offer the highest chances for success. As happened
before the Gulf War, there was excessive over-estimation of the enemy, which
shared dome of the same features of the extant threat pointed south on the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">peninsula.</span> It’s a fact
of military life that not all 8000 systems will be fully manned with the
highest quality troops and combat ready at all times. Of course, even a 50%
readiness would still pose a terrible threat and a possibly unacceptable risk.
Undertaking such an attack even if the conditions permit, which they most
certainly do not (currently), would pose all sorts of diplomatic and moral
questions. The status of armistice, the endless threats of war by the North,
and the very real threat that exists to the South and the US, might justify a
bolt-from-the-blue attack, but memories of Pearl Harbor and the self-imposed
junction against surprise attack all point to the US never taking this action.
Something the DPRK has taken to the bank, year after year. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
In a situation of escalated
tensions, any move to shore up or pre-position the requisite forces for an
attack would clearly signal to Pyongyang and especially Beijing that military
action was immanent and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">would
therefore trigger one or the other or both shooting first.</span> China has
stated that it will remain neutral if the North shoots first but will extend a
nuclear umbrella to KJU if the US takes the initiative (more on that below). In
short, with the impossibility of strategic surprise, and only marginal
opportunities for operational or tactical surprise, the options available to
the US are extremely limited. Remember that the key criteria fir action is to minimize
as much as is practicable, the damage the North is able to inflict on Seoul.
(For the history buffs, I did deliberately paraphrase Lee’s instructions for
Gettysburg for artistic effect.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Under these circumstances, the best
way to maximize surprise and to limit the North’s counterpunch is to use small yield
nuclear weapons against the artillery positions in the mountains near Seoul.
Via various techniques, including the vector/azimuth of attack, the elevation
of detonation, and the yield deployed, it would be possible to use the
mountains as a shield to reflect the blast effect back into the North and to minimize
fallout. These weapons and their delivery systems would give the allies very
good coverage of the threat , certainly compared to trying to achieve the same
effect with conventional weapons, which would require more sorties, and a
dramatically higher risk of a substantial number of DPRK systems surviving
sufficiently intact to mount the famed ‘sea of fire’ threat against Seoul.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
At the same time, all known missile
launcher lagers north of the DMZ would need to be hit simultaneously. Again,
for maximum effect nuclear weapons would be preferable for this mission and
plausible as most of these targets are away from major population centers.
Conventional weapons could also be used, but for the same reasons as stated
above, would pose disadvantages with the added risk of the targets being
located deep behind the air defense perimeter, thus posing much higher risks to
allied airmen and women. The risk of Northern counterattack from forces that
survive an allied first strike with conventional weapons, demands the low yield
nuclear solution to minimize that risk.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
In this scenario (or as a stand
alone mission) the question of regime change and a decapitation strike are
often raised. US Policy rejects the nuclear targeting of cites (as opposed to
military industrial targets that may be adjacent to cities) and it also rejects
assassination. Wiping out Pyongyang with a nuclear weapon in the hope of a
collateral hit on KJU is the moral equivalent of the North’s ‘sea of fire’
threat against Seoul. It’s very hard to see that as a viable option. The use of
Special Operations Forces in a targeted mission against KJU is theoretically
within US capabilities; however the operational reality of such a mission is
challenging to say the least. The North is a completely closed society, with
people spying on one another. KJU is known to move about on a daily basis,
precisely because of the assassination threat. Such a raid would be better
mounted by ROK Special Forces but would almost certainly be a suicide mission
even for men culturally similar, but not the same as, DPRK security.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The loyalty of DPRK forces and
especially, key leadership is not well known outside the system and not much
better understood within, as widespread executions of leaders suggests.
Attempting to establish and maintain contacts within the Hermit Kingdom among
those who might be an alternative powerbase seems to have been mounted by the
PRC as an insurance policy. KJU’s elder brother, recently assassinated by VX in
Malaysia, may be evidence that the regime discovered China was keeping the
elder Kim up their sleeve in case an opportunity arose to install a more
Beijing-friendly North Korean leader. How deep the PRCs links go remains to be
seen, but as China is the predominant military and economic partner, it’s safe
to assume that they have spent their time and intelligence resources wisely. It
is unknown what programs of this kind the ROK or the US has, but without dependency,
let alone a network, there are next to no HUMINT vectors for the allies,
compared to the PRC.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Were it possible to eliminate Kim,
a whole new set of challenges would unfold. Most likely, there would be a new
strongman to take his place. The DPRK is so deeply enmeshed in the Kim family
and related ideologies, the chances are that a single power base arises is low.
More likely, a fracturing would occur, resulting in internal turmoil. The key
question is, how will the North Korean people react? We simply don’t know. If
experts tell you otherwise, think back to all of the flowers and candy that
greeted the US forces in Iraq. The public may genuinely be brainwashed. They
may pretend to be brainwashed but in fact hate the regime. They may welcome
regime change or resist it. Will a change be followed by foreign occupation or
will the North be left to sort it out for itself? Most likely, China will send ‘peacekeepers’
and ‘humanitarian relief’, while excluding ROK and allied assistance so as to
ensure the territorial integrity of their highly prized buffer with the West. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
With or without leader elimination,
the limited nuclear option does not guarantee that Seoul will be untouched. But
it would vastly reduce the threat and consequent damage. Media estimates of
millions killed as a result of a conventional allied strike against the North
are exaggerated, notwithstanding the admittedly heavy population density
numbering in the millions within range of Northern military systems. Assuming
the use of Northern WMD makes those estimates much more realistic. That is what
makes the use of small yield nuclear weapons by the US essential to minimize
casualties. Unfortunately, even that proposal could not guarantee any outcome.
It becomes a question of risk. The risk would be driven right down but a single
chemical or nuclear warhead getting through would result in tens of thousands
dying. That assumes of course that the North is ready and its WMD systems are
at the highest operational capability and readiness.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
In judging the risks of the aforementioned
options, intelligence is essential. Accurate and actionable intelligence is
always hard to come by despite the abundance of capabilities and resources on
the allied side. A plan similar to the one above would have to be incredibly
confident of its intelligence assessments. For example, if I were the Commander
of the US Forces Korea would want a daily assessment if readiness if the forces
that threaten Seoul – which is why a bolt-from-the-blue attack in a
non-escalated environment <span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">would
be so much more preferable</span> </span>to what is possible under the current,
strained, and thus alert, environment. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
A small yield nuclear attack on
military targets that threaten Seoul is the best military option available to
the allies. It has the highest chance that it will destroy most but not all of
the road-mobile missile systems deep inside Northern integrated air defenses.
Casualties in the South would range from 10,000 to 200,000 assuming that no
Northern WMD makes it through. Without nuclear weapon use by the allies,
casualty estimates would likely be as much as an order of magnitude higher.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The North Korean military would be
dealt a death blow and the shock factor if US nuclear use would most likely
break the back of the Army. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
It would likely not be necessary to
use nuclear weapons against massed land formations but that option would have
to be available. In either case, the allies had better have thought past the
phase of major combat operations and have a series if contingencies to cope
with the wide number if postwar scenarios that might develop. As noted above,
the PRC is most likely to drive deep into the North in an effort to maintain
their buffer and in many ways it might be preferable that Beijing, with its
strong finances and abundant personnel, picks up the postwar challenges in the
North.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Given that KJU has not yet fielded
operational ICBMs with thermonuclear warheads capable of surviving re-entry,
now is the last best chance to act. <span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Indeed, it has been left quite late, but one thing is for sure: very
soon it will be <i>too</i> late.</span> </span>So
if the US is going to strike, it must do so now, while accepting the risks
outlined above. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Failure to act now will result in
the North solidifying its status as a rogue nuclear power and all the risks <i>that</i> poses to the security of its avowed
enemy, the United States. The terrible reality is this: Does America risk tens
of thousands in Seoul today, or possibly many more in Seattle or LA in a few
months time?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Accepting North Korea as a nuclear
power capable of attacking the United States is viable if you believe in the
deterrent effect of assured destruction. Note the word mutual is missing. North
Korea is by far the weaker actor in this scenario. On launch the US and its
allies with Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) destroyers at sea adjacent to the
peninsula, have their first opportunity to attempt to shoot down a missile as
it gathers speed in the boost phase, heading for space. The sensor-shooter loop
is pretty tight and, providing ships are on station and ready to shoot, there
is a good probability that a single missile (or missiles in single digits)
would suffer some degree of loss. Exactly how much is hard to say. There may
also be options in cyberspace prior to launch but the more exotic the option,
the higher the risk something will fail. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
A US BMD destroyer has already
demonstrated its capacity to destroy a target in space. So in the second layer
of defense after the boost phase, the orbit in space is also vulnerable. Again,
it’s a question of readiness, available shooters at sea and on land, and a
numbers game – how many incoming targets, and the ratio of defenders to
targets. Destruction in the boost phase is highly desirable because the warhead
and other debris will fall either on the North or into the sea. A space
intercept creates huge problems, including, but not limited to, orbital debris
fields, the possibility of electromagnetic pulse, and nuclear detonation, all
of which are not conducive to satellite operations. Intercept in the re-entry
phase is the hardest and most dangerous, due to the speed if the warheads,
upwards of twelve times the speed of sound, and again, debris that would rain
down on Earth. If the hardware survives re-entry, in the terminal phase even a
hammer moving at Mach 12 would create incredible damage.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Beyond military options against a
launch, the US would face some very difficult policy questions. In order to
male its deterrent credible, the US would be required to retaliate. Successful
intercept of an incoming missile would seriously challenge international
political and moral norms, in that some, maybe many, would question the
proportionality of assured destruction of all of North Korea in response to a
missile launch that failed – by way of intercept. Would shooting the same number of missiles or
warheads back be proportional when we know that the enemy is unable to
intercept them and thus would guarantee mass death, especially in the case
where the US suffered little to no casualties? Failure to retaliate would be
viewed as exceptional restraint in civilized societies, but phenomenal weakness
by America’s ever-multiplying enemies, both state and non-state. Such weakness
in the past has invited ever more damaging attacks. Scholars of global jihad
point to the US withdrawal from Lebanon (and Somalia) as key turning points in
the thinking of bin Laden and his ilk, prompting them to go larger and go hard
against the far enemy which had hitherto seemed so powerful as to be
untouchable. Pulling out weakened deterrence. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
This dynamic raises the resolve
dilemma. Part of the justification for staying so long and at such cost in
Vietnam was the important message it sent Western European allies about
American resolve. In the nuclear North Korea shooting war scenario, even if the
missile is intercepted, if the US shows too much restraint then it will be seen
as lacking resolve, thus inviting ever more significant attacks (in scale or
number).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The resolve dilemma gets even more
complicated if an American territory or an ally is the target. Would the US
kill millions of oppressed North Korean men, women, and children, who have had
to suffer under the tyranny or the Kim jackboot, all because our military base
at Guam suffered a hit? One of the surprises of the recent crisis was China’s
implicit offer of a nuclear umbrella to North Korea. If not implicit, then
certainly sufficiently ambiguous as to make Washington think carefully about
any reaction to provocation from Pyongyang. This is the first time the PRC has
offered a nuclear umbrella to a satellite (and a signal of how seriously it
takes the buffer question, something Washington should heed in its
calculations). America believes that it convinced its allies not to develop
nuclear weapons because Washington promised to retaliate against an aggressor
who used WMDS on its allies. This is a basic proposition of non-proliferation;
the fewer who have access to these difficult and terrible weapons, the safer
the world will be from accident, inadvertent or deliberate use. Many countries
trusted in this system (or could not afford to do otherwise); some, like
Britain and France, did not. The idea
that America would risk New York or Miami (and, post escalation, the entire US)
in response to a hit on Canberra (for example) was absurd. The Chinese offer
has to be seen in the same light.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
This leads to one of the only
viable solutions outside of the short term horizon. It is self evidently clear
that the national interests of South Korea and Japan would be best served by
withdrawing from the NPT (which would send a much more powerful signal than any
White House tweet to both Pyongyang and Beijing), and develop their own nuclear
deterrent. American leadership in the region notwithstanding, the only
guarantee of putting KJU in check-mate is for Seoul and Tokyo to protect
themselves. To this end, it is quite telling that public opinion polling in
South Korea for the first time shows a majority in favor of developing an
independent nuclear deterrent. No doubt Britain and France are relieved that
they have the final guarantor against Putin’s Russia that seems hell-bent on
making as much trouble for the West as a broke economy, two-bit kleptocracy can.
(Further, it’s remarkable how successful it has been with its low-cost
clandestine methods against the fragile US polity – Thankfully, NATO and the EU
have proven more robust than the American Republic.) Likewise, against the
immediate threat from the DPRK it the long term regional encirclement by the
PRC, American allies in Asia may well come to see <i>their</i> vital national interests served by the only weapon that will
make China stop at the border. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Proliferation is a terrible
prospect. No one would advocate it if they knew the terrible costs and risks
involved. But as American leadership and resolve shift to the service of
America First, which so far in practice is largely unclear due to a lack of
ideological vice pragmatic (and thus contradictory) impulses, our allies will
get the message if they have not already. Large scale conventional military forces,
especially at the high technological end of the spectrum, are rapidly becoming
too expensive for even wealthy countries to field. Witness the NATO debate over
the 2% (which they can afford). But the long term trends are there. If
protection against invasion is the primary motivation, a nuclear deterrent
combined with effective special operations forces, cyber. Drones, propaganda,
and spies, is a low cost effective way to achieve many (if not all)
contemporary objectives in international security.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
It worked for North Korea… why not
South Korea?<o:p></o:p></div>
Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08822415025459172603noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028072954719635461.post-51512909893832727032017-08-23T21:05:00.000-04:002018-02-06T21:07:14.319-05:00Trump Puts Pakistan on Notice<div class="MsoNormal">
23August2017<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In a refreshing departure from past US policy toward
frenemy, Pakistan, President Trump stated before the world the key conundrum in
US policy until now: Pakistan has manipulated both terrorist groups and the US
for decades, seeking advantage in the tensions between the two parties that are
central to Pakistan’s perception of its own security. While reaping billions in
US military aid each year which America hoped might make some contribution to
Pakistan’s counter-terrorism (CT) programs, the Pakistani military was
delighted to modernize its conventional forces for a different enemy entirely,
India. The Pakistani military and its intelligence arm, the ISI, have been
running terrorist groups since the 1980s, first against the Soviets and
thereafter against Indian regional interests, and since 9/11, against American
interests in South Asia. Pakistan’s identity and its existence are defined in
Islamabad by both elites and the public in opposition to India. Any enhancement
of Indian influence in Afghanistan is perceived as a direct threat to Pakistan.
With President Trump calling for enhanced Indian engagement in Kabul, Pakistan
will feel encircled. The sense of threat will only be enhanced by Washington’s
threats that “no place is beyond our reach” and that Pakistan has “much to lose
from harboring terrorists”. President Trump may intend to reorder the balance
of power in the region away from Pakistan and towards India in order to push
Pakistan to comply with US aims in Afghanistan. It remains to be seen whether he
has pushed too hard and what second or third order consequences are likely to
arise in the wake of this shift. What is clear is sixteen years of soft
peddling has resulted in providing Pakistan with opportunity to play America
that has perhaps finally backfired.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
President Trump did note that Pakistan has fought terrorists
within its own borders; something the Pakistanis have long felt is not
appreciated in Washington. What is unstated by both sides in this CT point
scoring is that Islamabad is paying for the monster it created. They lost
control of the beast quite some time ago, a fact that was really not fully
understood in Pakistan right up until the Swat Valley fell all those years ago.
Until then, all eyes were turned south to India. Today, perhaps some eyes are
turned northwest – indeed, in many directions – to the terrorist threat within.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Another surprise in the speech was acknowledgement of the
importance of Afghanistan as a footprint from which US forces can mount
counter-WMD missions against Pakistan. The possibility that a loose nuke
scenario develops across the border from Afghanistan is a genuine concern
especially in light of the endless instability in the polity, the
civil-military divisions, the rise of radicalism within the Army (and the population
generally), and the direct threat posed by terrorists to the continued
stability of the state. All of these drivers of instability are underpinned by
dire economic indicators. Some Pakistan observers like Tariq Ali acknowledge
these factors but dismiss an ‘Arab spring’ in Egypt scenario, leading to a
Taliban takeover of the state. They argue that the Army and merchant class
elites will muddle through as they have for decades. Yet even Ali’s denunciations
of the unthinkable scenario are much less strident than in the past. The new
strategy for Afghanistan and <u>South Asia</u> (emphasis added) suggests the
new Administration is not willing to take the risk that one day Pakistan won’t
muddle through and will in fact suffer a wild card event leading to a ‘sum of
all fears’ scenario.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The shift to a conditions based approach is militarily
sensible and politically genius. You can just imagine Obama’s advisors smacking
their foreheads when such a simple solution to the Washington DC game of ‘how many,
for how long’ was dispensed with in that simple rhetorical trick. The only way
to encourage a political solution is to deny a military solution. Until now,
the Taliban won by not losing. Using a conditions based paradigm offers the
allies a chance to attrite the enemy all the way to the negation table. The
fact is that Congress will have no choice but to get into numbers of troops and
costs, but the new signal is American sunk costs are such that we will stay the
course to the bitter end. The sooner the other side embraces that commitment
the sooner they may seek to negotiate. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This raises one of the tensions in the new policy. Just how
far is Washington willing to allow “the Afghan people” to determine their
future? Does this mean that America will now negotiate with the Taliban? Will
America accept a shift away from democracy? “We will not tell them how to
govern themselves” certainly seems to open those doors and more. “We will make
common cause with anyone who wants to join us” also suggests the negotiation
table awaits the mullahs. It is unclear this is President Trump’s intent, which
may cause trouble downstream. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When General McChrystal was given carte blanche to create a
new strategy in Afghanistan, his freedom to drop all extant assumptions stopped
at the baseline that the government in Kabul must be protected/maintained.
President Trump’s frequent references to “the people of Afghanistan” seems to
this author’s ears as a group distinguished from the government, and, as such,
hints at the possibility that the structures and institutions that are alien to
Afghan history and culture (at least until American intervention) might be up
for negotiation. Lack of clarity on that point will inevitably be viewed as an
unwelcome ambiguity in this speech. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As a people, Americans are obsessed with metrics and far too
often tend to ignore or downplay context. Thus the hoped-for flexibility or
nuance of a conditions based approach will quickly be assaulted by demands for
definitions of what the conditions are, thereby making metrics out of
conditions. To paraphrase the original Clinton campaign, ‘it’s the context,
stupid!’ Afghanistan will not be fast or cost free. It never was going to be, and
yet, year after year, demands were made ‘to just get out’ regardless of the
facts on the ground/ Once a commitment was made, the battle of wills was
unleashed – it continues to be an arc described by both sides, the outcome of
which remains unknown. That will
frustrate many people, but that is the essential nature of war. As the American
Civil War reminded us just this past month, there is no end state, there is
only the ‘next-state’. The termination of hostilities does not terminate the
reinterpretation of identity, grievance, and justice.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The expansion of ‘Afghanistan’ the problem-set to include
India and Pakistan was an innovation from the ‘Af-Pak’ prism which was fatally
flawed due to its cultural ignorance, born of DoD Combatant Command (India was
in Pacific Command’s Area of Responsibility, Pakistan in CENTCOM’s). However
the new Administration would do well to acknowledge that ‘Afghanistan’ the
problem-set reaches much further in geography and significance. Iran, China,
Russia, and Saudi Arabia, all hot-topic countries in US foreign policy of late,
all have key interests in Afghanistan that in some cases rival India and
Pakistan. There was no evidence in the speech that the Administration is fully
cognizant of the many inter-related connections that only serve to complicate
defining the most effective solution. For example, given the new priority
placed on the ‘sum of all fears’ Pakistan scenario, why is it that the US has
not engaged regional actors in discussions of how such an eventuality might be
collectively managed. At a minimum some consideration of deconfliction is
essential in order to ensure that national response options do not
inadvertently lead to avoidable escalation and conflict. Reports of unfilled
positions across the national security system will only serve to exacerbate the
policy coordination process that is so vital in complex problems like
Afghanistan.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The safe haven issue is one this author has written about at
length elsewhere. Still, it is worth reminding readers that many safe havens
exist for radical Islamist terrorists. America has been conducting a long
covert war all around the world, from Yemen to the Philippines to Syria.
Afghanistan remains a safe haven to a certain degree but it is nowhere near as
attractive a base as Pakistan, for example. Until this statement, Pakistan was
the ultimate safe haven for jihad i’s. If the gloves have truly come off, and
the Administration will no longer be inhibited by sovereign boundaries, as was
suggested by the comment that “no place is beyond our reach” – then can this speech
be read as a soft declaration of war against Pakistan? America, for all its
power, cannot invade and occupy Pakistan – it’s simply too big geographically
and demographically.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
From the jihad i’s perspective, Pakistan is the jewel in the
crown – an unstable majority Muslim state with an increasingly radicalized
military and, of course, nuclear weapons. Lots of nuclear weapons, including a
growing number of ‘small’ weapons that are highly mobile and thus hard to
control. The Pakistanis always respond with a hand-wave when questions are
raised about the security protocols surrounding their nuclear weapons. The
situation today is far improved from just a few short years ago, with
permissive action links, personnel screening, and other confidence-building measures.
These improvements have to be balanced against the fact that key military
installations have been subject to severe terrorist attacks, in some cases with
total loss of control of key bases for days. Consider how concerned US
policymakers are that Iran might gain nuclear weapons. Consider also the
lengths to which world powers are willing to go to prevent Iran from crossing
the Nthreshold. Pakistan is already there, has all sorts of political, social,
economic, and security problems, and yet it almost seems like no one really
cares, at least by comparison to the effort put into Iran. There is one group
that cares, the Pakistani Taliban and their fellow travelers. America is on the
right track towards a South Asia policy, but it still has a long way to go. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
China and Pakistan are old friends. Islamabad is an observer
to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a fledgling alliance system
constructed along the lines of the PRC’s vast infrastructure projects that
cross central Asia into Europe. The Asian Development Bank and ring road
projects, are all mechanisms Beijing has quietly instituted to foster stability
in its supply lines and on its strategic flanks. Indeed, its activity in its
interior is possibly more important than its gradual creation of a string of
artificial armed islands in the SC Sea - a development that seemed to catch
America almost totally by surprise and which has matured to the point that any
effort to check its progress carries too high a risk of a shooting war between
China and America. China’s rise is not risk free for Pakistan. The Chinese
Communist Party is very sensitive to any insurrection or insurgent activity and
its western provinces bordering on Pakistan are a key source of the Uyghur
problem. To the extent that Pakistan is not doing enough on its side of the
border to police radical safe havens from which attacks or full-blown
insurgency might be launched against the PRC, Pakistan can expect no mercy in
Beijing’s response. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Afghanistan is home to considerable rare-earth mineral
deposits and pipeline opportunities, both of which are highly prized by the
Chinese. If President Trump really wanted to make a deal, he could do worse
than trading Afghanistan for concessions in the SC Sea or perhaps the Korean
peninsula. As things stand, President Xi of China seems to be saying all the
right things to President Trump, and delivering next to nothing. American
diplomacy will have to seriously up its game if it is going to get ahead of
Beijing. The key is a focus on what China holds most dear. As the above
suggests, there are opportunities aplenty to play the PRC around its periphery,
instead of being played by China. Some imagination and risk will be needed in
coming years to turn events to America’s advantage. Seeing Pakistan clearly and
setting clear boundaries for future relations is a very important first step.
Will President Trump turn out to be a modern Bismarck balancing Pakistan and
through it, China, or will his efforts to balance merely become a trigger
provoking an escalation that an overstretched America can ill afford to service
with military force alone.<o:p></o:p></div>
Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08822415025459172603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028072954719635461.post-90411784748442951482011-11-02T08:22:00.000-04:002011-11-02T08:22:06.579-04:00Intel Spending<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhus-ZKyklZ_uoaZx54RSJJCn0_GGJvQ72y2j47OErqYjMZwIfqbLyMdq6jvYPWvUbVp8_mVJV3FYSD_qB3NmdpDmTHGItlozLMJk6AvBAGSWcQXWlXrcw6iuckv1Za4Iz5Jh3Li_y89iw0/s1600/south-carolina-school-spending.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="135" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhus-ZKyklZ_uoaZx54RSJJCn0_GGJvQ72y2j47OErqYjMZwIfqbLyMdq6jvYPWvUbVp8_mVJV3FYSD_qB3NmdpDmTHGItlozLMJk6AvBAGSWcQXWlXrcw6iuckv1Za4Iz5Jh3Li_y89iw0/s200/south-carolina-school-spending.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Intel Budget news from other sites:<br />
<br />
Intel spending reported as <a href="http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2011/11/intelbud_2011.html">already in decline</a> over the past year.<br />
The issue of a <a href="http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2011/11/prospects_fade.html">global intel budget under DNI seems to be fading.</a>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08822415025459172603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028072954719635461.post-56436645492421740442011-10-27T11:49:00.003-04:002011-11-05T10:06:24.905-04:00China-Pakistan: China Seeks Army Bases in Lawless Regions in Pakistan<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib8iZffe6YP0LKOOJYEqOaSSqwUkiT8GKVajs6KK4NseIP5YdxxAVgD4QL_ydON9TuRdRIq0lkeS1eDMqaayBihhzJZXK6PTh99aXbYyFmdaO7dA-rzgdH01JShoA1SqzUntC57BKuN67u/s1600/6a010536a841fa970c0128756f9f3b970c-800wi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib8iZffe6YP0LKOOJYEqOaSSqwUkiT8GKVajs6KK4NseIP5YdxxAVgD4QL_ydON9TuRdRIq0lkeS1eDMqaayBihhzJZXK6PTh99aXbYyFmdaO7dA-rzgdH01JShoA1SqzUntC57BKuN67u/s200/6a010536a841fa970c0128756f9f3b970c-800wi.jpg" width="200"></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">ALEXANDRIA, October 27 - As MIL INT <a href="http://mil-int.blogspot.com/2011/08/china-pakistan-troubles-ahead.html">reported back in August</a> after the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) [that is also described as the Turkistani Islamic Party (TIP)] launched terrorist attacks in Kashgar, a city in Xinjiang province (Western China) killing 18, the Chinese have actively engaged Islamabad on options to address the separatist threat.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/MJ26Df03.html"><i>The explosions provoked senior government officials in Xinjiang to publicly claim for the first time in recent years that the attackers had been trained in explosives in ETIM/TIP camps run by Chinese separatists in the Waziristan tribal regions of Pakistan. The Chinese allegation was described by many in the diplomatic circles of Islamabad as a clear sign of the growing impatience of Beijing with Islamabad's failure to control radical groups operating within its borders. </i></a></blockquote>Pakistani journalist Amir Mir claims in an <a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/MJ26Df03.html"><i>Asia Times</i></a> article that "Beijing is ... interested in setting up military bases either in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan or in the Federally Administered Northern Areas (FANA) that border Xinjiang province." Mir does not directly substantiate that claim but provides considerable background to recent rounds of Sino-Pakistani engagement.<br>
</div><a href="https://mil-int.blogspot.com/2011/10/china-pakistan-china-seeks-army-bases.html#more">Read more »</a>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08822415025459172603noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028072954719635461.post-31598588080466012792011-10-23T23:56:00.004-04:002011-10-24T21:44:41.338-04:00Gaddafi's Riches and the Academics Who Adored him<div style="text-align: justify;">ALEXANDRIA October 23 - As the first evidence of Gaddafi's ransacking of his country and people comes in from the <i>LA Times<span style="font-size: 18pt;"><span style="color: windowtext; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none;"> </span></span></i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><i><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-kadafi-money-20111022,0,5740812.story"><span style="color: windowtext; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none;">New estimates of the former leader's assets — more than $200 billion — are called 'staggering.' If they prove true, he would rank among the world's most rapacious leaders.</span></a></span> </i></blockquote><br />
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</style> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">let's not forget how he was treated by the LSE. <a href="http://mil-int.blogspot.com/2011/07/pme-it-could-be-worse-lot-lot-worse.html">This blog</a> explains the background but you can jump right to <a href="http://youtu.be/-vOVRLBQuDQ">the video</a> of the <a href="http://www2.lse.ac.uk/researchAndExpertise/Experts/profile.aspx?KeyValue=a.brahimi@lse.ac.uk">LSE 'academic'</a> greeting "Brother Muammar" (just the introduction will suffice). Tony Blair did it too I know... but MIL INT is sickened by this video and they way this monster is treated. <a href="http://mil-int.blogspot.com/2011/07/pme-it-could-be-worse-lot-lot-worse.html">As argued in the related blog</a>, it was not like his past activities were not well known. MIL INT wonders whether anyone at the LSE feels any shame about their activities here?<br />
<br />
Update: SWJ found this gem - a life imitates art story - <a href="http://youtu.be/1lw2tRvTmVM">a video of a 1980s sitcom that guessed Gaddafi would be killed in 2011 </a></div>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08822415025459172603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028072954719635461.post-20913507515143906562011-10-23T16:05:00.001-04:002011-10-23T16:05:58.508-04:00Iran - Leaving Iraq Might Pave Way for Israel to Strike Iran<div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvoGdKbiL8xHWmP5BAsLYC5wrfZyYYf682DY3ZqjG2M7Vbvqg4CIcyWRJ_mSKU9BBV_p2iJ1bWmryC9xiuqOpcYuQ0-8b_9pA1s8OaxZ-zCEEddYQ8Br1chTwoJEFPEEcklUb_jTrOZWE7/s1600/Mission-Accomplished.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvoGdKbiL8xHWmP5BAsLYC5wrfZyYYf682DY3ZqjG2M7Vbvqg4CIcyWRJ_mSKU9BBV_p2iJ1bWmryC9xiuqOpcYuQ0-8b_9pA1s8OaxZ-zCEEddYQ8Br1chTwoJEFPEEcklUb_jTrOZWE7/s200/Mission-Accomplished.jpg" width="183"></a>ALEXANDRIA, October 23 - “<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/all-us-troops-to-leave-iraq/2011/10/21/gIQAUyJi3L_story.html">After nearly nine years, America’s war in Iraq will be over</a>,” President Obama said as he declared complete troop withdrawal from Iraq. In one of those ironies that only international relations can deliver, this moment of gratitude to our troops for all they have accomplished under such incredibly difficult circumstances and conditions, could pave the way to a much bigger crisis.<br>
</div><a href="https://mil-int.blogspot.com/2011/10/iran-leaving-iraq-might-pave-way-for.html#more">Read more »</a>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08822415025459172603noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028072954719635461.post-50696206657393581592011-10-23T12:12:00.004-04:002011-10-23T12:28:30.450-04:00Afg - "We side with Pakistan in war with US" Karzai<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjacJxNHdQqEUiZLoOMMf9RiWeGc5JCvGHGVoW0bkuDxNn20TdG6dg7L1uVltOTFcT-I8hhHyEgafxK3tB19BrEjR0fQermO6pBIW8UACfjCWdj2jclo_q3Re8-l2aLYm9-gsXsucmXFMha/s1600/db101020.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="66" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjacJxNHdQqEUiZLoOMMf9RiWeGc5JCvGHGVoW0bkuDxNn20TdG6dg7L1uVltOTFcT-I8hhHyEgafxK3tB19BrEjR0fQermO6pBIW8UACfjCWdj2jclo_q3Re8-l2aLYm9-gsXsucmXFMha/s200/db101020.gif" width="200"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: Political Carnival</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">ALEXANDRIA October 23 - The Afghanistan peace envoy to the Taliban is killed by the Taliban [hint?] and "President" Karzai who days ago <a href="http://mil-int.blogspot.com/2011/10/pakistan-why-you-will-soon-miss.html">sat next to Hillary Clinton</a> and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/karzai-criticizes-pakistan-for-supporting-terrorists/2011/10/03/gIQAWABWIL_story.html">accused Pakistan</a> of facilitating attacks on his country today says “<a href="http://www.armytimes.com/news/2011/10/ap-afghanistan-hamid-karzai-side-with-pakistan-over-us-102311/">Anybody that attacks Pakistan, Afghanistan will stand with Pakistan</a>,” he said. “Afghanistan will never betray its brother.”<br>
</div><a href="https://mil-int.blogspot.com/2011/10/afg-we-side-with-pakistan-in-war-with.html#more">Read more »</a>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08822415025459172603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028072954719635461.post-26658343007963076242011-10-21T22:31:00.003-04:002011-10-23T20:55:12.409-04:00Pakistan - Why You Will Soon Miss Washington<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCQ4jKpb7u7h9DEzbs0gH1T2aRfv4r6Q1jm6D65RX-aBXlz2AZpslI_m5YZpJt-SdkIYi3QTkwe6W2JqaZ7Lf-ZNQMIKTNZDKmw6Awc7pPIKh-OB4A2RJ0isjZ07GgsFxGqYeYUD-u3OkK/s1600/pakistan-us-clinton1-460x307.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCQ4jKpb7u7h9DEzbs0gH1T2aRfv4r6Q1jm6D65RX-aBXlz2AZpslI_m5YZpJt-SdkIYi3QTkwe6W2JqaZ7Lf-ZNQMIKTNZDKmw6Awc7pPIKh-OB4A2RJ0isjZ07GgsFxGqYeYUD-u3OkK/s200/pakistan-us-clinton1-460x307.jpg" width="200"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The A-Team's In Town</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">ALEXANDRIA VA, October 21 - The United States has sent the foreign policy A-Team to Islamabad to deliver a stark new message - renounce support of terrorist organizations or else. SECSTATE, DCIA, and CJCS traveled together and presented a united front to the Pakistani government and military. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><i>“This is a time for clarity,” </i>Mrs. Clinton declared in Kabul, Afghanistan, where she met President Hamid Karzai before leaving for Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/world/asia/clinton-issues-blunt-warning-to-pakistan.html?_r=2&ref=asia">“No one should be in any way mistaken about allowing this to continue without paying a very big price.” </a><br>
</blockquote></div><a href="https://mil-int.blogspot.com/2011/10/pakistan-why-you-will-soon-miss.html#more">Read more »</a>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08822415025459172603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028072954719635461.post-18977768085638078442011-10-21T20:52:00.003-04:002011-10-21T20:58:29.226-04:00Energy Security - A Rare Thing: New Ideas<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbA0qDyqMchL1olx1o9XXWWdzo8J6S6JWpu3tZL0MqWuxsqUA8fi8E9dgUsexT-EVSmPZY4Cld7PkDcdzbP4VZQXI_svL2Di9_z5nLuDKuyw5boiyKflvH3S1-r4qJdLltmC9LoX9m_OS8/s1600/18014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbA0qDyqMchL1olx1o9XXWWdzo8J6S6JWpu3tZL0MqWuxsqUA8fi8E9dgUsexT-EVSmPZY4Cld7PkDcdzbP4VZQXI_svL2Di9_z5nLuDKuyw5boiyKflvH3S1-r4qJdLltmC9LoX9m_OS8/s200/18014.jpg" width="150"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Great Walls [sic] of China </td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">ALEXANDRIA VA, October 21 - In this age of extremes, the only way to make change is to incentivize it. This depressed, zero-sum world, is profoundly skeptical about the idea of a win-win. Critics of anything with even a hint of green scream that jobs will be lost - irrespective of whatever the idea might be.<br>
<br>
If you think the idea of going green is for hippies and commies - <b><i>think again</i></b>. We are not talking Al Gore here, we are talking Admirals and Generals passionate about the <a href="http://www.cna.org/reports/climate">national security consequences of climate change</a> and the <a href="http://www.cna.org/reports/energy">relationship between energy and national security</a>. Indeed, the <a href="http://www.defense.gov/home/features/2010/1010_energy/">US DoD has been pushing green initiatives for some time now</a>. <br>
</div><a href="https://mil-int.blogspot.com/2011/10/energy-security-rare-thing-new-ideas.html#more">Read more »</a>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08822415025459172603noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028072954719635461.post-68509296109876332232011-10-21T12:51:00.000-04:002011-10-21T12:51:39.484-04:00IED Attacks in 99 countries including the US<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_a0wul7lmZDVG4_K8V45RQ3O9HHoegPRiXbR3B7MM2-GqCbmOcNZRYKfr3HEKPIRdGl_3-ikXoqRog96H30X4_yMQy6dLTyK696SIVB7wsF84bzOzRveXAdi9itLpYvWe1xp0KjA7KyxF/s1600/ied1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_a0wul7lmZDVG4_K8V45RQ3O9HHoegPRiXbR3B7MM2-GqCbmOcNZRYKfr3HEKPIRdGl_3-ikXoqRog96H30X4_yMQy6dLTyK696SIVB7wsF84bzOzRveXAdi9itLpYvWe1xp0KjA7KyxF/s200/ied1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Here is an interesting story from <a href="http://www.armytimes.com/news/2011/10/usat-ied-attacks-increase-beyond-afghanistan-iraq-101911/">Army Times</a> <br />
<blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><i>From January to September, there was an average of 608 attacks per month in 99 countries. During that time, there were 367 homemade bomb attacks in the United States.</i></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>“It’s cheap, effective and readily available,” said Army Lt. Gen. Michael Barbero, director of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization.“If we think it’s going to go away after Iraq and Afghanistan, we’re dreaming,” he said. “It’s going to confront us operationally for decades and domestically. We need to come to grips with that. It’s an enduring threat.”</i></div></blockquote>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08822415025459172603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028072954719635461.post-48356248198147763532011-10-21T12:17:00.002-04:002011-10-21T12:36:32.696-04:00Gen McChrystal Stalks GEOINT2011<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWi5-Hu6gTq8pSL2lrx8hF_v9kFnog1YFDrd3uZWz89CaM3nXYMtRAefI5gRP0S4lBY3ikqjgXaehehp6CRrLqjkX8suVn3DPBz4AsTrcYsHAtjIo8rgE-97du53v02Edltvi2ubng22fO/s1600/gen-stan-mcchrystal.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWi5-Hu6gTq8pSL2lrx8hF_v9kFnog1YFDrd3uZWz89CaM3nXYMtRAefI5gRP0S4lBY3ikqjgXaehehp6CRrLqjkX8suVn3DPBz4AsTrcYsHAtjIo8rgE-97du53v02Edltvi2ubng22fO/s200/gen-stan-mcchrystal.png" width="200"></a></div>ALEXANDRIA VA, October 21, 2011 - Intelligence integration is a critical challenge for both the National and Military Intelligence Programs. One organization that is know to be at the forefront of this effort is SOCOM and its subordinate commands. Prior to Admiral McRaven, the greatest influence over the integration challenge has been Gen Stan McChrystal, USA Ret. While he was not in attendance at the conference (as far as general attendees could tell) he was everywhere - or at least, his ideas and influence among the combined IC and OPs communities. <br>
</div><a href="https://mil-int.blogspot.com/2011/10/gen-mcchrystal-stalks-geoint2011.html#more">Read more »</a>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08822415025459172603noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028072954719635461.post-61994417789366005542011-10-20T19:09:00.000-04:002011-10-20T19:09:00.370-04:00AQ and the US INT Budget<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRbUDKtCLPx_eEHYPGwsvp7yyszFXhmt3Z19zuL8FVZ9J4exM1BUItCRJDtkrmDESE2AAbKy_X50z4dg3am0ZuyTMreLC_qp2C0_Q9f71z7zKPH8eJepyZz37TXN4bqxRi1e8fMzUT0cop/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRbUDKtCLPx_eEHYPGwsvp7yyszFXhmt3Z19zuL8FVZ9J4exM1BUItCRJDtkrmDESE2AAbKy_X50z4dg3am0ZuyTMreLC_qp2C0_Q9f71z7zKPH8eJepyZz37TXN4bqxRi1e8fMzUT0cop/s200/images.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>SAN ANTONIO - October 19, 2011 - Speaking of the budget crunch the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Mike Rogers, criticized the peace dividend of the 1990s and the way it was implemented, repeating similar comments he has made before that "we cut too hard in the 1990s based just on money - at the same time that AQ was getting into position and started its program." He noted that the US had to completely rebuild its HUMINT programs that were "all but decimated" by the cuts in the 1990s. He noted that AQ is now on the run and this would be the absolute worst time to "pull back". He could not be more right - it would be like Meade not pursuing Lee after Gettysberg.Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08822415025459172603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028072954719635461.post-27285422112850032602011-10-20T19:07:00.000-04:002011-10-20T19:07:51.106-04:00RUSSIAN LOOSE NUKES AND TERRORIST GETTING WMD - in 2011 NOT 2001<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1gX_079O9TplbJYjR1S5S3vMr0RSIwmhnYX9od7dlcS_F1yrFgfMFGnTOqW8XKK1Yz08SQxzAqMD9o1yPloytQk61vvvv4oo3uARDHH1QPKppflZzI4K_MJSLmGO9y1boInVqrp2r4VDc/s1600/kehlerr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1gX_079O9TplbJYjR1S5S3vMr0RSIwmhnYX9od7dlcS_F1yrFgfMFGnTOqW8XKK1Yz08SQxzAqMD9o1yPloytQk61vvvv4oo3uARDHH1QPKppflZzI4K_MJSLmGO9y1boInVqrp2r4VDc/s200/kehlerr.jpg" width="160" /></a></div>SAN ANTONIO - October 19, 2011 - Events like GEOINT are interesting for what officials sometimes say. One of the first things Chairman Rogers said was Russian loose nukes remain a credible threat, something that has largely slipped into the background of the national security debate. MIL INT got the impression from his demeanor when discussing this problem and the prominence he gave the issue in his speech that he has been thinking about this a lot recently. Now combine that datapoint with comments made in an earlier keynote speech by COMSTRATCOM. Gen Robert "Bob" Kehler said the issue he is most concerned about is WMDs falling into the hands of terrorists - he did not say in what context. Post Iraq, it is unusual to hear this scenario being raised again. The most credible way this might happen is if Pakistan falls to islamist radicals - a highly credible scenario. <br />
<br />
Russian loose nukes and Pakistan collapse are not interrelated scenarios. The appearance of these two issues from highly placed speakers may be purely coincidental. But it may also suggest that the highest levels of government have a renewed focus on the broad domain of WMD terror due to new signaling being received around the IC. Perhaps there is more to the Libya story than meets the eye?Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08822415025459172603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028072954719635461.post-20097493611749455992011-10-20T19:05:00.007-04:002011-10-24T10:10:21.413-04:00CHINA STEALS $200 BILLION A YEAR IN IP<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7q3D0Ze0K3gU84WihF47n5fDqtkqfb3kRaedyjzzvT7e6MYZ-_jtgNz5e6xMptQTiJyfMMIF76iZhmZoqVBx4sG_dCRk2Ij1FxKatSZDJu_aAi5lF0SInUI0ft7UdKJebUaYBn01GY643/s1600/Rogers+GEOINT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="101px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7q3D0Ze0K3gU84WihF47n5fDqtkqfb3kRaedyjzzvT7e6MYZ-_jtgNz5e6xMptQTiJyfMMIF76iZhmZoqVBx4sG_dCRk2Ij1FxKatSZDJu_aAi5lF0SInUI0ft7UdKJebUaYBn01GY643/s200/Rogers+GEOINT.jpg" width="200px" /></a></div>SAN ANTONIO - October 19, 2011 - The Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee today accused China of widespread illegal cyber activity claiming that "<a href="http://geointv.com/archive/geoint-2011-cong-mike-rogers-r-mi-cong-dutch-ruppersberger-d-md/">$200b a year [is stolen] in IP and they steal to compete directly with US industry.</a>" He continued "I believe you can't steal your way to leadership of the world... we are going to ask you, our IC community, to make sure we are not going to find that out. Now is not the time to back off."<br />
<br />
Perhaps he is referring to the recent private sector stats of $2 billion a year mentioned by COMCYBERCOM this week in San Antonio? - A call has been made to the Chairman's office seeking clarification - check back here for updates on this story.<br />
<br />
UPDATE October 24, 2011<br />
<br />
The House Intelligence Comittee responded to the MIL INT inquiry and provided the following sources in support of Congressman Rogers statistics. This puts COMCYBERCOM's statistical reliance on McAfree in an interesting new light.<br />
<br />
<div class="yiv617433257MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.commerce.gov/news/secretary-speeches/2010/02/04/national-exports-initiative-remarks"><b><span style="color: #1f497d;">“Every year, American companies in fields as diverse as energy, technology, entertainment and pharmaceuticals lose between $200 billion-$250 billion to counterfeiting and piracy.”</span></b><b><span style="color: #1f497d;"></span></b></a></div><div class="yiv617433257MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="yiv617433257MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: #1f497d;"><a href="http://trade.gov/press/publications/newsletters/ita_1106/fair_1106.asp">“According to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, intellectual property theft costs American corporations $250 billion every year.”</a></span></b></div><div class="yiv617433257MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="yiv617433257MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: #1f497d;"><a href="http://www.ustr.gov/archive/assets/Document_Library/Transcripts/2006/September/asset_upload_file794_9872.pdf">“This data also shows that counterfeiting and piracy are costing the United States 200 to 250 billion dollars each year.”</a></span></b></div><div class="yiv617433257MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="yiv617433257MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08822415025459172603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028072954719635461.post-7541654492967814082011-10-20T19:02:00.002-04:002011-10-20T20:19:04.289-04:00House Intelligence Chair Confirms Hard Evidence of Iran Plot<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGpgAw_uZBRrLidxgrIkpdEeXIsx4smvwBhW4-xR9hYiNdj4qS3sVNAIVVZrKHTUuPPGPT1W8Ve6H9Wo7BPhDqtWGOTIDsI4Rj6jYxLWl6722WluyC6GSlW36fxsid-_vlJirFQwXSZVMw/s1600/Saudi+ambassador.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGpgAw_uZBRrLidxgrIkpdEeXIsx4smvwBhW4-xR9hYiNdj4qS3sVNAIVVZrKHTUuPPGPT1W8Ve6H9Wo7BPhDqtWGOTIDsI4Rj6jYxLWl6722WluyC6GSlW36fxsid-_vlJirFQwXSZVMw/s200/Saudi+ambassador.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>SAN ANTONIO - October 19, 2011 - THERE IS SOLID EVIDENCE IRAN WAS PLANNING THE SAUDI HIT<br />
The Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee today confirmed that the Iranian Quds force was involved in the plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the US. Mike Rogers said "the plot to commit assassination on US soil is real. I can tell you as a former FBI agent, that there is such a thing as intelligence and there is such as thing as evidence, and none of us should have a doubt that there is evidence that the Quds force and senior Iranian leadership gave... approval to commit assassination in the United States of America". Further specifics were not offered.<br />
<br />
MIL INT has held back comment on this issue because the story did not add up. As<a href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/10/iran-bomb-plot-true/"> DR has argued</a>, if the story is anywhere near true, then it indicates that Iran's intelligence services have significant trade craft issues. MIL INT will not speculate at this stage as to why the plot was revealed when it was revealed. One thing is for certain, if it was intended to drive a wedge between the US and Saudi Arabia, it had the opposite effect.Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08822415025459172603noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028072954719635461.post-24174255016442236622011-10-18T18:55:00.002-04:002011-10-18T19:16:55.344-04:00MG Custer GEOINT 2009<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTEjLnMvEzDaXL-K2y5nAS7ailufAbp2HAwJSQw4wnsQ-B35TkQCsdq3LkKIHIqBm-Cp-gM-QXkk1v8OA0AGuz41B68McF0EGx89Mf_k-WbAL_w0FU2S4-IkteK-1kNMMjOAw-4CA7Dko3/s1600/Custer+GEOINT2011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="90" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTEjLnMvEzDaXL-K2y5nAS7ailufAbp2HAwJSQw4wnsQ-B35TkQCsdq3LkKIHIqBm-Cp-gM-QXkk1v8OA0AGuz41B68McF0EGx89Mf_k-WbAL_w0FU2S4-IkteK-1kNMMjOAw-4CA7Dko3/s320/Custer+GEOINT2011.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">MG Custer sporting "relaxed grooming standards" <br />
according to MG (P) Legere USA the next G2</td></tr>
</tbody></table>SAN ANTONIO, October 18, 2011<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">One of the stars of GEOINT2011 is MG John Custer USA Ret. He was the MC of today's plenary and managed it with aplomb. His <a href="http://blip.tv/geointv/geoint-2008-maj-gen-john-m-custer-2004217">2009 speech is worth watching</a> in its entirety. It would be good to see LTG Flynn get an opportunity to speak for a solid hour on all the issues on his mind. Based on today's performance MIL INT is pretty sure it would be one hell of a show.</div>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08822415025459172603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028072954719635461.post-12310698278360008532011-10-18T18:43:00.004-04:002011-10-25T10:34:17.947-04:00LTG Michael Flynn IC Reform Challenge<style>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizEF8cca3Ds7oiY0W_oHGM_7gd_svmrD4SZ2yZAkN1PrUx8bneAjYU_ikSKK7rzw4DYqzZRu5SQ9uUQDEO8RSvsrJ5tqxuKi163BCGSmP2uvf4YrdCQheGGOPZd2BajeeGG0dimj5Ovupv/s1600/Flynn+GEOINT2011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizEF8cca3Ds7oiY0W_oHGM_7gd_svmrD4SZ2yZAkN1PrUx8bneAjYU_ikSKK7rzw4DYqzZRu5SQ9uUQDEO8RSvsrJ5tqxuKi163BCGSmP2uvf4YrdCQheGGOPZd2BajeeGG0dimj5Ovupv/s200/Flynn+GEOINT2011.jpg" width="200"></a></span></div><div class="Body1" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">SAN ANTONIO, Oct 18, 2011</span></div><div class="Body1" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br>
</span></div><div class="Body1" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">Newly promoted <a href="http://mil-int.blogspot.com/2011/05/general-mike-flynns-works.html">LTG Mike Flynn USA</a>, famous for his <i>Fixing Intel</i> paper, continued to provoke the IC today at the GEOINT2011 Conference. <a href="http://geointv.com/archive/geoint-2011-panel-forging-collaboration-in-the-coalition-environment/">Flynn's opening statement was a clear shot across the bow of the techno-centric GEOINT crowd: "the major barriers to INT integration are cultural, not technological" he said</a>. </span><span style="font-size: small;">LTG Flynn spoke of the world being in a perpetual war with a related requirement for perpetual high quality intelligence, not just in combat but in anticipation of future crises. </span><span style="font-size: small;">He went on to highlight one of the biggest issues facing the IC - how to get useful predictive strategic analysis in Phase 0 - in other words, before getting involved in international disputes in the first place. Notably no one had a response to his challenge. Questions by MIL INT on this issue were not selected for discussion. (See also the <a href="http://geointv.com/archive/geoint-2011-panel-on-integrating-intelligence/">Integrating Intel Panel</a> with future G2 MG (P) Legere).</span></div><a href="https://mil-int.blogspot.com/2011/10/ltg-michael-flynn-ic-reform-challenge.html#more">Read more »</a>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08822415025459172603noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028072954719635461.post-90149528703804273522011-10-17T17:08:00.008-04:002011-10-22T10:25:27.072-04:00DNI: Double Digit IC Budget Cuts and NSA: We Are Moving to the Cloud<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUPXVn9jKrfAkg8UnO2FCS9kih2Jbu2hflwVcuK2DQxkZ28kdIferHryBzpBrbqPBNJShs3KDwPF-gLlabxbnPrAn8XgmEVSEMADPf2_vixpes9HM1-eevfg_pu-ty56BSoM3scV6b1I4e/s1600/clapper_1651387c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUPXVn9jKrfAkg8UnO2FCS9kih2Jbu2hflwVcuK2DQxkZ28kdIferHryBzpBrbqPBNJShs3KDwPF-gLlabxbnPrAn8XgmEVSEMADPf2_vixpes9HM1-eevfg_pu-ty56BSoM3scV6b1I4e/s200/clapper_1651387c.jpg" width="200"></a></div>SAN ANTONIO, October 17, 2011 <br>
DNI CLAPPER</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Speaking at the GEOINT 2011 Conference in San Antonio today, Director of National Security James Clapper said that "we will all have to give at the office - cuts in double digit numbers with a B" for billion, will be needed. Spending on the NIP (National Intelligence Program) and MIP (Military Intelligence Program) in 2010 totaled $80 billion. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br>
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We have been luxuriously funded over the last ten years under supplemental funding. We used contractors to rapidly expand the workforce. We were not as disciplined as we might have been and now we have to be. If contractors failed to come to work tomorrow intelligence would stop. I hate to say it to this group, but we are going to have to reduce our contractor profile."<br>
</div><a href="https://mil-int.blogspot.com/2011/10/dni-double-digit-ic-budget-cuts-and-nsa.html#more">Read more »</a>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08822415025459172603noreply@blogger.com0