Sneaking subs into waters off the west coast — its happened before
By Wayne Madsen
The firing of a submarine-launched ballistic missile by a Chinese Jin-class submarine off the coast of southern California last Monday at the height of evening rush hour in Los Angeles was not the first time the U.S. Navy's anti-submarine warfare sensors in the Pacific have failed.
In 1981, a Soviet Victor-class nuclear submarine successfully evaded the Navy's Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) network of underwater hydrophones, Towed Array Sensor System (TASS) ships, and P-3 sonobuoy-equipped aircraft and popped up off the Oregon coast alongside a Soviet fishing fishing trawler.
Phi Beta Iota: We only know that we do not know the full story. We do believe that China and Russia are furious over Wall Street to Washington financial irresponsibility. The Chinese have a sense of humor, having previously popped a submarine up directly behind a US carrier after sneaking through an entire carrier battle group. This could be related to blocking any further US military exercises in the waters around Taiwan. The US Government really does not “understand” how quickly Taiwan is going to follow Hong Kong into mainland control. Sadly, we cannot rely on the US Navy or the US Government to be open with its own public on what is known about this matter.
Complete Madsen reprint below the line so our military colleagues do not have to visit the other site.
This article by Bill Gertz needs to be seen in perspective. During the Cold War the Soviet Union as well as a number of other countries, including China were constantly engaged in trying to acquire U.S. Technology of all types through various means from industrial espionage to bribery. The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) was extremely concerned about this and the subject of illicit ‘international technology transfer’ to the Soviet Bloc (as well as a few other countries) generated numerous DOD requirements to such agencies as NSA and CIA. Much of the urgency of these requirements was downgraded precipitously when the Cold War ended. Also the number of incidents of foreign powers trying to acquire U.S. technology has declined in the 21st Century for a very sinister reason: the U.S. is no longer the sole leader in the research and development of advanced technologies that it was after WWII. Although incidents still occur, as the Chinese Huawei example shows, they are much less common than once was the case. So DOD no doubt does not see the need for the same emphasis on loss of U.S. origin technology.
Yet financial intelligence is more than technology loss it also involves major illicit financial operations, such as money laundering, and financial operations in support of espionage and terrorism against U.S. interests. This of course includes the financial infra-structure supporting al Qaeda. If Ferguson is shutting this effort down as well he is making an unbelievable mistake.
This incident is symptomatic of an Intelligence System that is indeed out of control. In the absence of a viable strategic plan for intelligence collection, analysis, and production, every time some new crises occurs the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) resembles an ant hill that somebody has just stepped on. In the absence any real leadership or clearly defined purpose, the big four of the IC (CIA, DIA, NGA, and NSA) will continue to waste billions of dollars for minimal returns while resisting an efforts at meaningful reforms. At the same time the IC institutional bias against using non-classified (open) source information will ensure that they will only be able to provide very small windows that are of only limited usefulness to decision makers. What a way to go!
Phi Beta Iota: We are truly surprised that someone of Jim Clapper's caliber would allow an Acting Undersecretary no one has ever heard of to be named Acting in the first place; or that such an individual would do something this dumb without clearance from the DNI. There are a couple of variations on a theme: a) Clapper wants to make it obvious that Treasury is in enemy hands and DoD wants nothing to do with Treasury intelligence which does not exist–Treasury, like Energy and the other non-national security departments are patronage stove-pipes receiving direction from ideological idiots–they don't do “evidence-based” policy; b) Clapper is finally thinking about holistic intelligence in support of Whole of Government, and having DoD drop financial intelligence is a preamble to elevating the Financial Intelligence Center in some manner. On balance, as much as we admire the DNI, we think he has blown it–he will not accomplish anything consequential in the next few years by continuing to do the wrong things righter, and that is a shame, because so much could be accomplished in a mere 90-180 days, if he would empower those with the right mind-set to do the right things, which is to say, M4IS2 simultaneously with Whole of Government intelligence-support operations and the creation of a Smart Nation.
The Pentagon's intelligence directorate is killing off one of its most strategically important mission areas: monitoring efforts by foreign governments to buy U.S. firms and technology, such as the multiple efforts by China's military-linked equipment company Huawei Technologies to buy into the U.S. high-technology sector.
Defense officials tell Inside the Ring that Thomas A. Ferguson, acting undersecretary of defense for intelligence (USDI) and a former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) space analyst, initiated the dismantling of the financial-threat intelligence monitoring.
Phi Beta Iota: US Intelligence is out of control–as good as some of the leaders are in terms of diversity of experience within the OLD system, they simply do not have the mind-set nor the authorities to restructure intelligence to the point that it can meet all appropriate needs. The person ostensibly responsible for strategy, a CIA body, has just been made deputy director of DIA, and we have no doubt that a “strategy” exists that might ultimately turn DIA into the analysis center and CIA into a collection management center (while NSA becomes the all-source processing center, all as outlined in Chapter 13 of ON INTELLIGENCE: Spies and Secrecy in an Open World) as well as all subsequent books such as INFORMATION OPERATIONS: All Information, All Languages, All the Time, this is all too little, too slow, too incoherent, and too expensive. An Open Source Agency (OSA) under diplomatic auspices, and a voluntary shift of $200 billion from Program 50 to Program 150 as a lure for Newt Gingrinch coming into the 2012 coalition cabinet under Obama running as an Independent (miracles do happen), are both essential.
(1) Militaries have used working dogs for a variety of offensive and defensive purposes for years; (2) military working dogs have been very active in Iraq and Afghanistan; (3) airborne (parachute) units have been jumping dogs officially and unofficially for years, although this is the first report I've personally seen of dogs being jumped using the military freefall technique, (4) the biggest problem I see for the dogs is the landing since, before their handler lands, he will likely lower the dog on a 15-20 foot line so that the dog lands before he does so the challenge for the dog is doing a parachute landing fall with four, rather than two, rather slender and fragile legs — kind of difficult to “keep your feet and knees together”; (5) the alternative to (4) above is for the handler to execute a standing landing, something that is at least theoretically feasible for a well-trained jumper using a ram-air canopy under favorable wind and drop zone conditions; that could possibly mitigate the doggie PLF challenge; (6) I think I'm glad I'm not the free-fall jumper since, while you can see that the dog in the photo below is muzzled to prevent bites, unless he's also sedated, he could flop around enough in his harness to make a stable descent to pull altitude a challenge for his jumper; (7) I'm not sure the United States Parachute Association has ever considered this application of the Tandem technique which is well established for willing human cargoes.)
LONDON — Months after he was released from Guantánamo Bay, Abdul Rahman was back in the company of terrorist leaders along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. But he was a double agent, providing Taliban and al Qaeda secrets to Pakistani intelligence, which then shared the tips with Western counterparts.
The ruse cost him his life, according to a former Pakistani military intelligence official, Mahmood Shah. The Taliban began to suspect him, and after multiple interrogations executed him.
The case of Rahman, which Shah recounted to The Associated Press, falls in line with a key aspect of the fight against terror — Western intelligence agencies, with help from Islamic allies, are placing moles and informants inside al Qaeda and the Taliban. The program seems to be bearing fruit, even as many infiltrators like Rahman are discovered and killed.
It was a tip from an al Qaeda militant-turned-informant that led international authorities to find explosives hidden in printer cartridges from Yemen to the United States a week ago, Yemeni security officials say. Officials say the explosives could have caused a blast as deadly as the Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people.
Phi Beta Iota: Human Intelligence (HUMINT) done right, in the context of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) done right, is the cheapest, fastest, and most effective means of creating intelligence (decision-support) at all levels from strategic to tactical. After ten years of letting CIA get away with doing both badly, and ten years of the Pentagon's recovering from treating its HUMINT and CI people like shit, it appears that adults are finally back in charge. We continue to under-budget for operational HUMINT and OSINT, and we continue to grossly over-spend on contractor vapor-ware for technical capabilities that simply do not deliver 96% of what what we need, but that is a separate issue. It is good to see HUMINT (not OSINT) making some progress. However, the continued absence of a strategic analytic model and honest governance means that these capabilities are not being focused on transnational crime or on white collar crime, where the most significant gains in the public interest are to be achieved.
NOTICE: Within DoD, at least all elements of the Army as well as the Marine Corps Reserve have been given direct, unqualified, written orders not to access the Wikileaks site or read the Wikileaks document via any Government **OR** non-Government computer. This Rolling Update complies with the DoD guidance.
Monday at the height of evening rush hour in Los Angeles was not the first time the U.S. Navy's anti-submarine warfare sensors in the Pacific have failed.
