Category: Communities of Practice

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Richard Wright: DoD – A Strategic Hole – A Strategic Farce

Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, IO Deeds of War, Military, Peace Intelligence
Richard Wright

A Strategic Hole – A Strategic Farce

The Public Intelligence Blog (Phi Beta Iota) has carried a number of recent articles all of which had the common theme that the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) is wasting billions of dollars and can easily sustain major cuts in the DOD budget without threatening U.S. National Security. A sub theme of this series has been that DOD’s waste is caused by a deadly combination of corruption, incompetence, and ignorance. I would add a fourth culprit to this trio, the lack of a coherent National Security Strategy.

I would argue that DOD major cuts in its budget should be informed by a national security strategy that realistically assesses who or what DOD needs to defend against. Unfortunately as Pierre M. Sprey noted not too long go on this Blog, the U.S. does not have such a strategy. Currently the DOD and especially the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), in lieu of thinking about the sort of defense the U.S. really needs, continue to try and build a defense that can defend against everything with the result that it defends against nothing and is enormously expensive to build and maintain.

The JCS structure, if it were functional, would be the obvious choice to formulate a rational defense strategy that would then guide them on the type of force structures to build and how to equip it. Sadly the JCS is completely dysfunctional and is driven by the parochial interests of the military services that collectively can only scramble each year to see which service gets the largest share of congressional defense appropriations. Simultaneously, lacking an overall strategy, each individual service is attempting the impossible task of being prepared to provide military action for any contingency, however unlikely, that might arise. As a result the U.S. Military has sacrificed actual readiness in favor of a dubious ability to respond to any contingency.

Essentially, the individual services are working blind trying to buy small quantities of ever more expensive weapons and equipment to have on hand just in case the contingency for which they were designed arises. Thus the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) was just forced to cancel an out of control program to design and build a new amphibious landing craft although the USMC has not had a real amphibious landing since the Korean War (1950-1953). The U.S. Air Force (USAF) has purchased over 200 F-22 Supersonic fighters to assure air control against what turned out to be a non-existent Soviet (now Russian) fighter. And as it turns out because of design flaws the F-22 is not really a safe aircraft (even though the USAF claims that it is now ok to fly).

Because there is no overall strategy, neither the JCS nor the DOD Civilian Bureaucracy really knows how to deal with threatened substantial cuts in the DOD budget. Indeed the only way to achieve savings so far that has been advanced by these lost souls has been to cut retirement benefits and reduce the cost of living benefits of the enlisted men and women who serve in the armed forces. This is criminal and in any case will achieve only minimal cost reduction. Surely the U.S. can do better than this.

See Also:

Journal: Reflections on Integrity

Journal: Politics & Intelligence–Partners Only When Integrity is Central to Both

 

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Steve Aftergood: Citizen Scientists Using Mobile Phones

Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Hacking, InfoOps (IO), Mobile, Policies, Real Time, Threats
Steven Aftergood

Using Mobile Phones to Engage Citizen Scientists in Research
E. A. Graham, S. Henderson, and A. Schloss
[Abstract] [PDF]

Mobile phone–based tools have the potential to revolutionize the way citizen scientists are recruited and retained, facilitating a new type of “connected” citizen scientist—one who collects scientifically relevant data as part of his or her daily routine.  Established citizen science programs collect information at local, regional, and continental scales to help answer diverse questions in the geosciences and environmental sciences. Hundreds of thousands of citizen scientists contribute to recurring research projects such as the Audubon Society’s annual Christmas Bird Count, which drew more than 60,000 observers in 2009, or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Volunteer
Monitoring program, through which trained volunteers improve the monitoring of water quality in lakes and streams across the United States. These programs have relied on traditional recruiting techniques and written observations. New methods for engaging participants through technology, specifically, mobile applications, or apps, provide unprecedented ways for participants to have immediate access to their own and others’ observations and research results.

Phi Beta Iota:  Changes to the Earth that used to take 10,000 years now take three.  Real-time science is no longer a dream, it is a necessity.  Governments and corporations as well as universities appear to be largely out of touch with the possibilities, but we do note that for years Taiwan has been paying a bounty to citizens who capture polluters in the act with a snapshot and GPS location.

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WInslow Wheeler: USAF Cost Over-Runs–DoD Micro-Look

03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Corruption, DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence
Winslow Wheeler

When a system is so slosh with money that it does not know what its costs are, it is time to take serious action.  But what do you do when no one cares?

The US Air Force misreports, even to itself (and to Congress and OSD), the cost to operate and support its own aircraft.  That is the bottom line of my recent attempt to uncover operating and support (O&S) costs for aircraft like the F-22 and the B-2.

It also gets more interesting: the official USAF data that are available show that, despite promises to the contrary, “stealth” aircraft are far, far more expensive to operate than the aging (and expensive to maintain) relics they are to replace.  Moreover, the data that are available are very likely an understatement.  Also, there are some other cost Queens in the USAF inventory; still others are hidden in the missing data.

The amounts of money involved are huge.  Generally, O&S costs for aircraft are twice (very probably more) the cost to acquire them.  For example, OSD predicts the $379 billion F-35 program will cost an additional $916 billion to operate and support.  (However, the O&S number is a low-ball prediction.)

What is happening about this?  Nothing.

These are some of the points in a 3,000 word study piece I recently completed.  The piece, with a one page summary, follows below.  It is also at the CDI website at , and you can also see journalists Colin Clark's take.

The text of the short study and its summary follows:

Continue reading “WInslow Wheeler: USAF Cost Over-Runs–DoD Micro-Look”

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Chuck Spinney: Middle East New Geopolitical Map

02 Diplomacy, 05 Iran, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Government, IO Deeds of War, Peace Intelligence
Chuck Spinney

In this very important essay, one of the world's leading authorities on the Middle East explains the tectonic shifts taking place that are clearly leaving the United States and Israel on the wrong side of history.

The Middle East’s New Geopolitical Map

by Patrick Seale

Agence Global, 20 Sep 2011

The Arab Spring is not the only revolution in town. The toppling of dictators in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya; the mounting death toll in Syria and Yemen, where the outcome is still undecided; the revival of long-suppressed Islamic movements demanding a share of power; the struggle by young revolutionaries to re-invent the Arab state — all these dramatic developments have distracted attention from another revolution of equal significance.

It is the challenge being mounted by the region’s heavyweights — Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran — against the hegemony which the United States and Israel have sought to exercise over them for more than half a century.

. . . . . . .

America’s most grievous mistake, however — the source of great harm to itself, to Israel, and to peace and stability in the Middle East — has been to tolerate Israel’s continued occupation and dispossession of the Palestinians. These policies have aroused intense hate of Israel in the Arab and Muslim world and great anger at its superpower protector.

We are now witnessing a rebellion against these policies by the region’s heavyweights — in effect a rebellion against American and Israeli hegemony as spectacular as the Arab Spring itself. The message these regional powers are conveying is that the Palestine question can no longer be neglected. Israel’s land grab on the West Bank and its siege of Gaza must be ended. The Palestinians must at last be given a chance to create their own state. Their plight weighs heavily on the conscience of the world.

. . . . . . .

Turkey, Iran and Egypt, heirs to ancient civilizations, are thus asserting themselves against what they see as an Israeli upstart. Saudi Arabia, the region’s oil and financial giant, guardian of Islam’s holiest sites, is breaking free from the constraints of the American alliance.

Israel stands accused. Will it heed the message or shoot the messenger? If true to its past form, it might well try to fight its way out of the box in which it now finds itself, further destabilising the region and attracting to itself further opprobrium.

Read full article.

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DefDog: US Surveillance Law Goes to Supreme Court

07 Other Atrocities, Civil Society, DHS, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), Ethics, Government, IO Technologies, Law Enforcement
DefDog

Court allows challenge of U.S. surveillance law

By

Washington Post, 21 September 2011

A group of plaintiffs hoping to mount a challenge to U.S. surveillance law secured a major victory Wednesday when a federal appeals court upheld their standing to sue the government.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals’ 6-6 decision allows a group of American lawyers, human rights activists and journalists to challenge the constitutionality of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as amended by Congress in 2008.

The revision expanded the government’s surveillance authority, permitting intelligence agencies to collect information on U.S. soil without a warrant identifying a particular individual — as long as the government could assure a surveillance court that its targeting procedures are designed to find people who are not U.S. persons and who are overseas.

U.S. government has typically attempted to block such challenges by arguing that litigation would reveal state secrets or that the plaintiffs lack standing to sue. But in March, a three-judge panel accepted the argument of the plaintiffs, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, that the law had harmed them by forcing them to take draconian measures to avoid government interception of their phone calls and e-mails to overseas clients.

In other words, the plaintiffs in the case, Amnesty International v. Clapper, had standing.

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Marcus Aurelius: US Intelligence Still Ignorant in Languages

04 Education, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, IO Impotency, Methods & Process, Officers Call
Marcus Aurelius

Nothing changes….

US spy agencies ‘struggle with post-9/11 languages'

Despite intense focus on Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East in the last decade, U.S. spy agencies are still lacking in language skills needed to talk to locals, translate intercepted intelligence and analyse data, according to top intelligence officials.

Telegraph, 20 September 2011

The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks prompted a major push for foreign language skills to track militants and trends in parts of the world that were not a Cold War priority.

But intelligence agencies have had to face the reality that the languages they need cannot be taught quickly, the street slang U.S. operatives and analysts require is not easy, and security concerns make the clearance process lengthy.

As recently as 2008 and 2009, intelligence officials were still issuing new directives and programs in the hopes of ramping up language capability.

“Language will continue to be a challenge for us,” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said at a congressional hearing last week.

“It's something we're working at, and will continue to do so, but we're probably not where we want to be,” he said.

Phi Beta Iota:   Languages are not hard–what is hard is the “leadership” culture incapable of leading.  US citizens by birth are never going to learn foreign languages as needed.  There are just TWO solutions, both executable today, all it takes is integrity at the top, long missing:

1.  Exempt case officers and others “on the street” from the idiotic security clearance requirements.  Hire to qualifications and manage to risk.  This includes restoration of the “principle agent” category as well as the third-country subject-matter expert category.  They never see secrets, they just do what they do, very well.

2.  Adopt the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) model of regional field stations in which multinational cadres of case officers and analysts are supported by US money and US technology.  Again, they never see secrets and are firewalled during active ops.

See Also:

Graphic: Language Basics

Graphic: OSINT Multinational Outreach Network

Graphic: OSINT, We Went Wrong, Leaping Forward

Journal: Secret World Still Short on All Languages

Journal: Military says linguists can’t keep up in Afghanistan

 

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Howard Rheingold: 30 Sep to 11 Nov Online & Live Course on Literacy of Cooperation

04 Education, 11 Society, Academia, Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Gift Intelligence, Hacking, InfoOps (IO), Methods & Process, Non-Governmental, Offbeat Fun, Peace Intelligence
Howard Rheingold

Announcing a new Rheingold U course: Toward a New Literacy of Cooperation

For the past ten years, I've worked with Institute for the Future to track the emergence of a new story about how humans get things done together. The old story of survival of the fittest, competition, rational self-interest is changing as new knowledge comes to light about cooperative arrangements and complex interdependencies in cells, ecosystems, economies, and humans. In 2005, I delivered a TED talk about this subject; the video has been viewed more than 182,000 times. In the same year, I co-taught a seminar at Stanford with Andrea Saveri of Institute for the Future, “Toward a Literacy of Cooperation.” This six week Rheingold U course builds on the texts, videos, and other materials developed over the past ten years. Under my direction, co-learners will inquire, collaborate, discuss, co-construct knowledge about the building blocks and conceptual frames of a new literacy of cooperation. The course will run September 30 – November 11

The syllabus
The schedule of live meetings

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