Month: December 2009

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Worth a Look: First Ever UN Joint Military Analysis Centre Course (October 2009)

IO Sense-Making, Peace Intelligence

Course Information
Course Information

First UN Joint Mission Analyses Centre Course (UNJMAC) ever held

The last seven days of October have been groundbreaking and interesting at Nodefic. A new course has been born and introduced to life.

Text: Maj Erik Haugstad
Tasked by the UN, and in close cooperation with other NORDCAPS countries, a pilot course for personnel going to serve in JMACs around the world has been conducted at Nodefic. Being a pilot course for the UN, this is of course the first time ever a course like this has been held in the world.

Knowing as much as possible about the area and environment, in which we are participating in a peace support operation, is of vital importance for the contribution of the International Society to succeed. This has been common knowledge throughout times. A slight rewrite of Sun Tzu’s “Know your enemy”, will lead us to the very same conclusion. For a long time, also reflected in the philosophy of integrated missions, the UN has recognized that the need for coordination and sharing of information is essential for operational efficiency and mission accomplishment. In the UN Missions we have for some time seen the gradual introduction and testing of the JMAC, Joint Mission Analyses Centre, concept.

UN JMAC postponed

Our UN JMAC Course, scheduled for November 3 to 14, has been postponed as requested by UN DPKO.

The course will instead be conducted from 9-20 March 2009 at our peacekeeping training centre in Oslo.
We will come back with invites and more information in due time.

Phi Beta Iota: A Multinational Information Sharing Course, also under UN auspices, is offered in Sweden by the Folke Bernadette Academy, as developed by Col Jan-Inge Svensson, Land Forces (Ret), one of the UN intelligence pioneers, see Who’s Who in Peace Intelligence: Jan-Inge Svensson and also  Books: Intelligence for Peace (PKI Book Two) Finalizing.

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Reference: Walter Dorn on UN Intelligence in Haiti

01 Poverty, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, Academia, Analysis, Articles & Chapters, Civil Society, Ethics, Government, InfoOps (IO), Law Enforcement, Methods & Process, Military, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence, United Nations & NGOs
Walter Dorn on UN Intelligence in Haiti
Walter Dorn on UN Intelligence in Haiti (MINUSTAH U-2)

UPDATE:  Superceeded by final published version a tReference: Intelligence-Led Peacekeeping

Phi Beta Iota: Dr. Walter Dorn is one of a tiny handful of truly authoritative academic observers of UN intelligence, a pioneer in his own right, and perhaps the only person who has followed UN intelligence from the Congo in the 1960's to the creation of new capabilities in Haiti and elsewhere in the 21st Century.  He is the dean of UN intelligence authors.  See also Who’s Who in Peace Intelligence: Walter Dorn.

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Journal: ClimateGate 19 December 2009 Morning

Earth Intelligence
ClimateGate Rolling Update
ClimateGate Rolling Update

Fraud in Europe's Cap and Trade System a ‘Red Flag,' Critics Say

The top cops in Europe say carbon-trading is an organized crime scheme that has robbed the continent of $7.4 billion — a massive fraud that lawmakers and energy experts say should send a “red flag” to the U.S., which approved cap-and-trade legislation over the summer amid stiff opposition.

How Uncertain Are Estimates of CO2 Emissions?

Can satellite or other remotely sensed data provide independent estimates—or even confirmation of existing estimates—for emissions from power plants, highways, projects, cities, countries, or groups of countries? The answer for now is no; estimates of emissions from fossil fuels are actually one of the best constrained pieces of data in analyzing the global carbon cycle.

Copenhagen: Key questions on climate deal

Amid the chaos and confusion of frantic negotiations on the final night of the summit, what kind of deal actually emerged

Message on climate emotive, but a fraud

THE Copenhagen conference was rightly killed by greed, science fiction and a surfeit of hot air emitted by the 45,000 delegates, rent-seekers and assorted hangers-on, all of whom attempted to defy common sense and cripple the global economy.
Mass insanity in Copenhagen
A good definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.   In that sense, the approach of the United Nations in Copenhagen to addressing climate change has been insane.

As they did 12 years ago in Kyoto, Japan, world leaders have apparently jammed together an eleventh-hour deal in an atmosphere of manufactured hysteria and artificial deadlines.  This is a farcical way to deal with what these leaders claim is an existential threat to mankind. Whatever they've agreed to has nothing to do with cooling our planet.

Continue reading “Journal: ClimateGate 19 December 2009 Morning”

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Review: A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq (Yale Library of Military History) (Hardcover)

4 Star, Insurgency & Revolution, Leadership, Stabilization & Reconstruction
Amazon Page
Amazon Page

4.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant but Narrow, Simplifies A Bridge Too Far

December 19, 2009

Mark Moyar

EDIT of 21 Feb 2010:  A colleague in COINSOC has pointed out that I missed one key aspect of this book and I hasten to add it: “Moyar's point that we are applying peacetime personnel policies by putting people in place based on factors other than their leadership ability and continuing to allow poor leaders even after their capabilities are apparent is a good one though.  It's kind of like we are the Titanic and the inertia is too much.”  It is an important point.  It takes two years to weed out the unfit leaders in a real war, but first you have to admit you are in a real war, and the USA has still not gotten to that point so we are damned on both sides: not taking the fight seriously, and leaving the home front wide open to attack (see my review of Charles Faddis's two books, one on CIA and one on DHS).

I first encountered the author when I read and reviewed Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965, but in ordering this book, took no notice of who the author was, I rarely do, and thus was surprised to discover this is the second work by the author, now at the Marine Corps University where I served as Adjunct Faculty once upon a time.

This book is brilliant and unique in its chosen focus, but I have to leave it at four stars because it simplifies in a manner that is almost neo-conservative in its sharpness.

The single most important insight is that the single most important intelligence quesiton as we get into any insurgency or counter-insurgency is this: who are the elites on either side of the confrontation, how good are they, do they have the special character (that this book helps define), and what does this mean to us?

The problem I have with this book is that it dismisses legitimacy and morality, does not recognize the futility of being on the wrong side of the conflict (as we were in Viet-Nam and have been on hundreds of occasions) or on having ideological traitors or blatantly corrupt self-serving partisan hacks in the White House making decisions that are grounds for impeachment if our flag officers had more character and could remember they swore an oath to uphold the Constitution against all enemies domestic and foreign, not an oath to be blindly loyal to the craven and the corrupt.
Continue reading “Review: A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq (Yale Library of Military History) (Hardcover)”

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