Cultural Intelligence – Page 1000 – Public Intelligence Blog

2004/12/142009/08/01

2004 Seagrave (US/FR) Interview with Sterling and Peggy Seagrave on Gold Warriors: America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold

Cultural Intelligence, Government, Historic Contributions, Law Enforcement

We met the authors at their Knight Templar fortress overlooking a southern French bay, where they are in voluntary exile. What they have revealed about the US theft of the gold stolen by Japen from China, and the subsequent use of that gold to bribe both US Presidents and foreign government leaders, is quite intriguing–precisely the kind of information the public needs to know.

Below is the written record of their DVD interview as shown at OSS '04.

We strongly recommend their books on the corrupt Taiwanese government (Chang Kai Skek was a warlord and crime lord to the end of his days) but for our concerns about the integrity of the Wall Street-White House axis of secrecy, we particularly recommend Gold Warriors, below.

Earth-Shattering, Faith-Shaking, Well-Documented Deceit, September 25, 2003

Few realize that China (the one China, the People's Republic of China) did NOT sign the San Francisco treaty and has NOT given up the right to demand reparations of both the Japanese and of the United States of America. By rights, most of the gold the USA took out of the Philippines–and all of the cultural treasures stolen by the Japanese from China–are the legitimate historical property of China, and we anticipate that “truth and reconciliation” will one day bring the above book center stage again.

2004/12/112009/08/02

2004 Vlahos (US) The Muslim Renovatio and US Strategy

02 Diplomacy, 04 Indonesia, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Historic Contributions

GOLDEN CANDLE AWARD: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

OSS '04: To the JHU-APL, and especially to Capt Joseph Mazzafro, USN (Ret) and Dr. Michael Vlahos, for sustained excellence in the integration of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) into their complex all-source analytic efforts in support of the Department of Defense. Aided by the Gibson Library, they have set a new standard.

Michael Vlahos is an iconoclast and a free-thinker.

The transmittal memorandum below, and the paper, each shown for separate access, represent an update on his views as expressed in his seminal monographs,“Culture’s Mask: War and Change After Iraq” (62-page pdf), Johns Hopkins (2004) and“Terror’s Mask: Insurgency Within Islam” (34-page pdf), Johns Hopkins University (2002), and new thinking that has NOT been understood by either the outgong Bush-Cheney Administration or the incoming Obama-Biden Administration.

The U.S. Intelligence Community and its policy and operational consumers do not “do” culture and are seriously challenged at geo-anything. Michael Vlahos, in our view, has ably articulated the central lens by which we should be crafting our collection, policy, trade, and operational strategies with respect to the rising tide of Islam (India, Indonesia, Iran, and pockets everywhere else).

2004/12/092009/08/02

2004 Wiebes (NL) Intelligence and the war in Bosnia 1992 – 1995 The role of the intelligence and security services

Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence, Historic Contributions, Peace Intelligence

This extraordinary scholar benefits from being given access by an enlightened secret intelligence service whose Parliament demands full transparency as required. His book is one of those very, very few that can legitimately claim to be fully informed from a full examination of all classified messages and archives, as well as the usual unclassified or publicly available information, and the author is himself an extraordinary scholar and a founding member of the Netherlands Intelligence Studies Association, which which his photo connects absent an English-language biographic page.

This book is worth getting at any price from any source–we have urged the author to send us the book for a reprint at cost if his publisher will not do it imemdiately. It should not be out of print.

Below left are his remarks on the book and his investigation as made to OSS '04.

2004/04/092011/02/09

Reference: Multiscale Networks for Global Environmental Governance

Advanced Cyber/IO, Articles & Chapters, Cultural Intelligence

Summary: The rigid hierarchy that characterizes state bureaucracies has also been embedded into internaitonal institutions, and it is this architecture that can be vastly improved by restructuring it into a multiscale network. There are both descriptive and prescriptive reasons for doing so: 1) increases in functional efficiency and robustness, and 2) improvements from a normative perspective. As we enter the 21st century, the international system already exhibits many aspects of multiscale networks, but there are typically seen as liabilities and not assets. By providing a richer understanding of multiscale networks, this paper proposes an alternative to Cox's “with them or against them” ultimatum.

2004/01/212011/02/09

Reference: Panarchy–Governance in the Network Age

Advanced Cyber/IO, Articles & Chapters, Cultural Intelligence

ABSTRACT: The primary hyposthesis that I will endeavor to support is that leveraging the benefits of network organization constitutes a new source of power and a new way of accomplishing global governance.

Complexity + Networks + Connectivity = Panarchy

CONCLUSION: In this paper I have shown that the convergence of processes crosses a critical threshhold to create new possibilities for governance. The result is a new system. The key distinction between the old system and the new lies in the fact that governance in the old system was achieved through states, whereas in the new system it is not only achieved outside of hierarchies through horizontal networks, but is in fact often achieved in spite of hierarchies.

45 Page PDF

Phi Beta Iota: The author is meticulous in crediting James N. Rosenau, Turbulence in World Politics: A Theory of Change and Continuity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990) for originating many of the concepts that underlay the emergent scholarship on panarchy.

2003/12/152009/07/31

2003 Pelton (US) World’s Most Dangerous Places

Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Historic Contributions, Methods & Process, Peace Intelligence

Robert Young Pelton

PLATINUM LIFETIME AWARD, Robert Young Pelton

Mr. Robert Young Pelton is perhaps the greatest journalist-adverturer on the planet. This is a man that gets kidnapped by accident, is recognized by the leader of the kidnappers, and is promptly released with apologies and an honor guard. His book World’s Most Dangerous Places and his TV series Come Back Alive are among the most extraordinary “ground truth” offerings available to the public and admired by the spies. In his every waking moment, in his every action, in his every report, he embodies the true spirit of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT).

This extraordinary person may well be the prototype for engaged citizen investigative journalism. Below is the summary of his presence at OSS '03, and links to his two most important websites. The photo above links to his Wikipedia page.

Come Back Alive Web Site including Dangerpedia

2002/12/252009/07/28

2002 Henk (US) Respecting the Cultural Dimension: Intelligence and Africa

Cultural Intelligence, Historic Contributions

Col Dr. Dan Henk, USAF is a classical scholar-warrior, and one of the finest observers and interpreters of African realities and all of their nuances that we have encountered. He is the prototypical “class act” and a role model for what every senior analyst should be—engrossed in the subject, fluent with the mediums, open-minded, versatile, adaptive, and coherent in the articulation of who and what matters why.

Below is the outline of his contribution to OSS '02. The actual briefings, constantly updated, are replete with extraordinary photographs that make his point in compelling ways. We've found no finer briefing on regional, religious, ethnic, and tribal nuances than this officer.