Robert David Steele
Recovering spy, serial pioneer for open and public intelligence
Posted: October 12, 2010 10:52 AM
Newt Gingrich, Vice-President for Global Engagement–Waging Peace
Click on Title to Read at Huffington Post and Make Comments.
Below, as a memory aid, are the elements and proposed leaders within the Vice Presidency for the Commonwealth, each linked to more information about them as individuals.
Vice President for Global Engagement: Newt Gingrich
Defense: Tony Zinni
Justice: Ralph Nader
• Homeland Security: Rudi Guliani
• Computational Mathematics Authority: Stephen Wolfram (UK)
State: Gary Hart
• Ambassador to Israel: Henry Seigman
• Ambassador to the United Nations: Carol Mosley Braun
Commerce: Clyde Prestowitz
• Trade Representative: Alfred Eckes
The bad news for Brother Newt first:
1) The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) chops immediately to the oversight of the Director for National Research, and simultaneously 50% of its budget and capabilities will immediately begin focusing on how to eradicate the ten high-level threats to humanity by waging peace.
2) Instead of the token 1% cut his predecessor cleverly presented as much greater, Program 50 will lose 20% a year each year for four years running. New initiatives not to exceed 10% each year will be considered; those that are Whole of Government in nature and focused on Stabilization & Reconstruction (S&R) are more likely to receive the approval of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), who will have a veto authority over all federal programs and proposals subject only to Presidential over-ride.
3) We will immediately begin bringing all our troops home, with no less than 25% of all bases and capabilities overseas being eliminated. The National Security Agency (NSA) and the National Reconnaissance Agency (NRO) are going to be cut back to 30% of their present budgets; the totality of the “cyber-war” initiative will roll over to be under the oversight of the Director of National Research, with support from the Director of the Computational Mathematics Authority.
Now the good news.
1) The Vice-President for Global Engagement will be the primary US Presidential-level participant in all Presidential-level encounters. For all practical purposes, a few situations not-withstanding, Brother Gingrich will BE the President of the United States of America beyond the water's edge.
2) The military will provide the “core force” for Whole of Government operations world-wide. The regional theater commanders will immediately begin the process of becoming Whole of Government commands with Assistant Secretaries of State and Assistant Secretaries of Commerce co-located with and co-equal with the Commanding General. Staffs will become both Whole of Government, and multinational in nature. In that capacity, broadened by the other capabilities under the direction of the Vice-President for Global Engagement, it will immediately begin planning, programming, and budgeting so as to restructure to provide the following eight capabilities:
a) Strategists that advise whole of government policy
b) Domestic Threat Response via the National Guard focused on plagues, fires, and disasters
c) Citizen Education bonding the nation through both entry-level and mid-career service
d) Electronic Security reinforcement focused on open standards and open source software
e) Ground Truth through a warrior's eyes–24/7, global, down to the district level
f) Constabulary able to stabilize failed states and lead multinational reconstruction endeavors
g) Small Wars force able to contain and remediate random violence including Embassy take-overs
h) Force on Force the big war force, constantly ready, never redirected to other missions
3) With oversight and vetoes of defense planning and programming subject only to Presidential (or Congressional) over-rule, the Strategy Center and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will assist the Vice President and his Cabinet sub-committee to address the following guidance from Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA), then Chairman of the Armed Service Committee (SASC):
I am constantly being asked for a bottom-line defense number. I don't know of any logical way to arrive at such a figure without analyzing the threat; without determining what changes in our strategy should be made in light of the changes in the threat; and then determining what force structure and weapons programs we need to carry out this revised strategy.
4) For planning and programming purposes there will be four threat classes, each to be addressed by a mix of commercial, diplomatic, and military means: the low-tech brute; the low-tech-seer; the high-tech brute; and the high-tech seer.
5) For government-wide strategic development purposes, there will be five strategies, all five subject to the advice and consent of the other two Vice-Presidents, and of course the Congress once approved by the President.
a) Global Intelligence Strategy
b) Global Interoperability Strategy
c) Whole of Government Force Structure Strategy
d) Preventive Diplomacy Strategy
e) Home Front Strategy
6) The following will be slated for immediate action:
a) Kill 2 theater war and Joint Vision, create long haul Air Force
b) Kill Missile Defense
c) Kill new attack submarine
d) Kill fancy TacAir
e) Build 450 Ship Navy with priority to the 75 ship Expediter
f) Retool the National Guard to needs of the Commonwealth
g) Redirect Africa Command to become the Stabilization & Reconstruction Command with oversight of the global Ground Truth Force and the Multinational Decision-Support Centre (MDSC)
h) Fund the Open Source Center at $125M year one growing to $3B by year six, with an emphasis on free global education in top 33 languages at first, all 183 major languages by year six
i) Fund the Digital Marshall Plan that provides free cell phones and cell service everywhere
k) Fund the multinational diplomatic and economic outreach and rotational program
l) Redirect $2 billion toward Stabilization & Reconstruction Programs directly employing locals
m) Fund the Peace Corps times five and the new Homeland Service Corps–the latter will be initially comprised of prisoners whose personal drug convictions have been commuted, overseen by disabled veterans–every veteran amputee without exception will have a job that challenges them daily.
Now some general guidelines:
1) Speaking a foreign language at the three level (out of five) is required for promotion to field grade or senior staff non-commissioned grade effective in two years; allocate necessary resources, and liberal paid leave, to make this happen.
2) We will stop churning people with clearances immediately. If you leave government service prior to retirement age, or if you leave one contractor position to accept another, you lose your clearances. The exception will be when the government certifies its active concurrence with the early retirement or inter-corporation transfer. This will apply especially to Special Forces and intelligence operations officers.
3) I want marijuana legalized immediately, and some form of intermediate program for other personal drugs.
4) Over-turn the missteps on copyright and patent excessive protection. Use it or lose it, and the original term periods will re-apply. I particularly want Justice to work with the Patent Office under Vice-President for Education, Intelligence, & Research to identify two kinds of patents: those that are keeping useful knowledge from the marketplace; and those that are being used to blackmail legitimate commercial enterprises.
5) Give the Computational Mathematic Authority all the resources it needs to rescue Google and explore an integration of Google with Wolfram Alfa. There's a pony in here someplace, Google doesn't get it, let's treat this as digital gold and go after it.
6) Begin the process of stopping all Foreign Military Assistance (FMA). I want a weekly report on this. I want Tony Zinni to convert the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence bureaucracy into that of an Undersecretary of Defense for Stabilization & Reconstruction, let Vickers try his hand at that for 90 days, get Bob Oakley and Mike Dziedzic and a few others in to reinforce him. He's losing all the intelligence money, so FMA dollars are all he will have to work with.
7) Israel–I want to meet with you and your cabinet heads and Ambassador Seigman right away. We are going to do a number of things quickly.
a) New trial for Pollard, I want him sentenced to death which I will commute.
b) Identify every individual in the US Government holding dual US-Israeli citizenship. Create a task force to evaluate each one individually, beginning with those in policy positions and with clearances. We're going to clean house. I will not have Israeli citizens making US policy or sharing US secrets. They can renounce or they can quit and I want blanket counter-intelligence on every one that renounces and stays.
c) We are going to have to occupy Palestine for fifty years (to raise two new generations). Effective immediately I am stopping all US subsidies of the Israeli government, the 20% we pay that allows them to commit atrocities against the Palestinians. That money will now go to Palestine. HOWEVER, and the Arabs will not be happy with my cancelling the FMA money, but I could care less, I am going to demand that they come up with a five year plan for bringing Lebanon and Palestine back into the modern world. We will try a federated two state solution with Gaza going back to holding its share of the waterfront from the maps in Biblical times. I want a regional water authority and I want you to prepare to carpet bomb any new settlements as well as settlements in the occupied territories that are not turned over to the Palestinians for immediate resettlement. This is going to be thorny. A regional and national conference to discuss the whole thing might be worth trying, we will do nothing in secret, everything will be open, transparent, and explained. I will no longer tolerate Israel manipulating the US Government or the US public. These are early thoughts, I rely on you to help me throttle back as needed.
8) Commerce has just one marching order from me: restore the integrity of the national economy. I particularly want to dump all federal regulations written by the corporate monsters (e.g. meat packing) and get back to buy local across the board. Take what works in the Pacific Northwest and New England and spread it out. I want an end to absentee land ownership–you own it you work it or you lose it. We are long overdue for restoring sustainable community in America, this will have my strong personal interest. Ralph will keep us from going overboard, but from where I sit the Wall Street phantom economy has screwed over the Main Street and Small Town economies, we need to reset the economy. Although the above makes it sound as if Commerce should be under the Vice President for the Commonwealth, that is not my strategic focus. We need to create a global economy that gets back to basics including the creation of infinite wealth everywhere else so we no longer have illegal immigration issues here. We have to restore our economic integrity in the context of restoring our role in the global economy as a force for creative moral capitalism. It's a tough job. Clyde is going to need your help, both tangible and intellectual. I picked you for this job for many reasons, not least of which I think you are the only person who can pull off a diplomatic, military, and economic tri-fecta.
Now, I have to tell you frankly, you are the most volatile as well as most educated of my Vice Presidents. I am giving you your dream job. Play straight with me and you will be the virtual benign ruler of the planet. Mess this up and you are toast.
Learn more:
2010 The Ultimate Hack Re-Inventing Intelligence to Re-Engineer Earth (Chapter for Counter-Terrorism Book Out of Denmark)
2010: Human Intelligence (HUMINT) Trilogy Updated
2009 Perhaps We Should Have Shouted: A Twenty-Year Restrospective
2008 Rebalancing the Instruments of National Power-Army Strategy Conference of 2008 Notes, Summary, & Article
2001 Threats, Strategy, and Force Structure: An Alternative Paradigm for National Security
2000 Presidential Leadership and National Security Policy Making
Thursday: Strategic Analytic Model for Creating a Prosperous World at Peace
On the left, asking these questions, Tom Atlee, co-founder of the 