Communities of Practice – Page 1365 – Public Intelligence Blog

photo af point — On Point in AF--Full Story

Roadside Bomb Hunting: Learned Skill or Intuition?

With IED casualties since 2001 mounting (2,451 dead, 23,650 wounded, in Iraq and Afghanistan as of Dec. 5), the military is mounting a determined effort to find out whether spotting IEDs is an intuitive, innate skill, like the ability to quickly pick up a new language, or whether it is learned through experience. Because if it's learned through experience, the military can teach other people to be good at it. And save lives.

The same questions arose 40 years ago when the Army and Marines began to wonder if they could clone the guys who were really, really good at walking point and guiding the troops around mines and booby-traps. Two major studies were completed, but the military lost interest as the war wound down and its attention turned back to the Cold War.

Official: Taliban Confident Of Afghan Victory

“They have chosen the IED as the way they are going to fight us,” the intelligence official said, adding the Taliban still engage troops in firefights and use suicide bombers.

“But the IED has had a strategic effect, and it's the weapon of choice. … And I say it's akin to the surface-to-air missile system for the mujahedeen back in the Soviet era.”

AWOL From The Battlefield In war, death of trust invited defeat

With President Obama's announcement the Afghan surge is for 18 months, any possibility trust between U.S. forces and the Afghan people will factor into the stability equation is minimized. Locals will be reluctant to trust U.S. forces just “passing through” the area; reports on militant activity will trickle, not flow, in.

Also missing will be the Afghan people's trust for their own military and police. . . .Trust by NATO troops for Afghan security forces suffers, too, as militants successfully infiltrate such security forces. . . . Additionally, many Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan distrust U.S. motives in Afghanistan. . . .

Spirit Of America In Afghanistan

In 2003, Sgt. First Class Jay Smith and his Army Special Forces team were based in Orgun-e, Afghanistan and were taking regular rocket fire from al Qaeda fighters. But Sgt. Smith and his men were armed with an effective counterweapon—gifts of school supplies and sports gear for children, and clothing, shoes and blankets for nearby families, all provided by American donors.

After receiving these items, the grateful villagers reciprocated by forming a night-watch patrol to protect our soldiers. Good relations with locals helped save American lives. I've witnessed this success on the front lines, aided by support from home, repeated many times since Sgt. Smith.

Elsewhere:

Continue reading “Journal: Selected MILNET Headlines”

2009/12/282009/12/28

Journal: Evaluating the Gaza Confrontation

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Genocide, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence

The American strategist and military reformer Colonel John Boyd argued that nations and groups should shape their domestic policies, foreign policies, and military strategies so that they:

pump up one's own resolve and increase one's own solidarity,
drain away the resolve of one's adversaries and weaken their internal cohesion,
reinforce the commitments of allies to one's own cause and make them empathetic to one's success
attract the uncommitted to our cause or makes them empathetic to one's success
end conflicts on favorable terms that do not sow the seeds for future conflicts

These criteria are the essence of grand strategy and can be thought of as guidelines for evaluating the wisdom of specific policies or actions. And while they make sense logically and intuitively, the difficulty of defining policies that simultaneously conform to and strengthen to all these criteria is equally obvious. The latter challenge is particularly difficult for the unilateral military strategies and the coercive foreign policies like those preferred by Israel or the United States. Military operations and political coercion are often destructive in the short term, and these destructive strategic effects can be in natural tension with the aims of grand strategy, which should be constructive over the long term.

Moreover, the more powerful a country, the harder it becomes to harmonize the often conflicting criteria for a sensible grand strategy. Overwhelming power breeds hubris and arrogance which, in turn, carry a temptation to use that power coercively and excessively. But lording over or dictating one's will to others breeds resentment. Thus, possession of overwhelming power increases the risk of going astray grand strategically.

That risk is particularly dangerous when aggressive external actions, policies, and rhetoric are designed to prop up or increase internal cohesion for domestic political reasons. Very often, the effects or military strategies or coercive foreign policies that are perceived as useful in terms of domestic political cohesion backfire at the grand-strategic level, because they strengthen our adversaries' will to resist, push our allies into a neutral or even an adversarial corner, or drive away the uncommitted … which together, can set the stage for continuing conflict.

With these general thoughts about grand strategy in mind, read the following article by Uri Avnery and ask yourself if Israel's most recent war in Gaza made sense at the tactical level of conflict?, the strategic level of conflict? … and most importantly, at the grand strategic level of conflict?

Chuck Spinney

Full Story Online

Cast Lead 2

by Uri Avnery

Antiwar.com

December 28, 2009

Did we win? Sunday marked the first anniversary of the Gaza War, alias Operation Cast Lead, and this question fills the public space.

Continue reading “Journal: Evaluating the Gaza Confrontation”

2009/12/26

Journal: Billions in Aid Mis-Appropriated–Global to Local Needs Table Would Eliminate This Kind of Fraud

Communities of Practice, Ethics, Gift Intelligence, Key Players, Mobile, Policies, Real Time, Threats

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Sri Lanka tsunami aid misappropriated: watchdog

COLOMBO (AFP) – Nearly half a billion dollars in tsunami aid for Sri Lanka is unaccounted for and over 600 million dollars has been spent on projects unrelated to the disaster, an anti-corruption watchdog said Saturday.

. . . . . . .

The group alleged that out of 2.2 billion dollars received for relief, 603.4 million dollars was spent on projects unrelated to the disaster.

Another half a billion dollars was missing, the group said.

2009/12/26

Reference: US Responsibility for Atrocities in Indonesia

04 Indonesia, 05 Civil War, 10 Security, Law Enforcement, Military

Phi Beta Iota: We take everything with some skepticism. We are quite certain that 95% or more of the U.S. officers training Indonesian military and police personnel had no intention of enabling the atrocities that came later–the problem–as we personally experienced in Central America–is when the 1% to 5%, including personal emissaries from the White House, the Secretary of Defense, and the Central Intelligence Agency all say that there will be no U.S. retribution or blow-back from committing atrocities using US training, equipment, and forms of organization intended to counter bona-fide subversion. Hence, one bad apple rots the entire barrel of good apples.

2009/12/26

Journal: Hubris Loses to Angst & Reality–Every Time

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Key Players, Mobile, Policies, Real Time, Threats

graphic shaking earth for coins JPEG — Last Shake for Last Coin

British student held over alleged airline bomb attempt

Nigerian man reportedly linked to al-Qaida in custody after foiled terror attempt on transatlantic flight to Detroit

Police identified the suspect as Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, 23. It is understood that he is an engineering student at University College London.

One official said the man claimed to have been instructed by al-Qaida to detonate the plane over US soil.

Failed terror attack…Blizzard warning…Fuel spill in Alaskan waters

ROMULUS, Mich. (AP) — Law enforcement and counterterrorism officials say the components of a failed explosive were apparently mixed onboard an international flight bound for Detroit. Passengers subdued a Nigerian man who was apparently burned when the device fizzled, but didn't explode.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. counterterrorism officials are trying to figure out if the failed bombing of an international flight preparing to land in Detroit reveals a serious new threat. Even though it burned but didn't explode, investigators wonder how the mixture allegedly used by a Nigerian man evaded detection

Phi Beta Iota: In the time immediately following 9/11 it was clearly established by multiple parties that our asymmetric opponents were spending $1 for every $500,000 we spent. Today we speculate that the ratio is closer to $1 (them) to $5 million (us). We lack a grasp of reality; we lack a strategy; we lack a force structure; and above all, we lack the moral high ground. Imperial Hubris is what happens when government get “too big to fail” and then promptly collapse because they suffer from a culture that turns disaster into catastrophe. Terrorism is the LEAST of our problems, but for the sake of avoiding argument we accept the United Nations High Level Panel's conclusion that terrorism is number nine out of ten high-level threats to humanity. What we do every day to ourselves is easily a million times more threatening, more costly, and more immoral than anything a single terrorist or terrorist group–whatever their motivations–might do. The BAD DECISIONS made by government are the real sucking chest wound for society, both in terms of perpetuating catastrophic industrial and weather changing practices, and in terms of failing to meet the fundamental needs of people who–if empowered with connectivity and education–would create infinite wealth in every clime and place.

Continue reading “Journal: Hubris Loses to Angst & Reality–Every Time”

2009/12/252009/12/25

Search: map of iranian influence in africa

05 Iran, Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence

Phi Beta Iota: Extremely cool search! Should be combined with a map of Chinese, Turkish, and Brazilian influence in Africa. OSS.Net, Inc. drew on its European allies to provide the tribal maps for Afghanistan and Iraq to Special Forces prior to their going in, and we are still astonished at the complete lack of a serious geospatial mapping capability focused on tribes, influence, and so on.

Let's start with Iran itself. Below is a map of its own divisions.

graphic iran ethnic — Iran's Ethnic Distribution

So when you talk about Iranian influence across Africa, you want to be very clear about both the ethnic roots of the Iranian influence element at point X, and the tribal-ethnic roots of the African element coming into contact with Iranian influence.

We are long over-due for anthropologically-correct maps of the various diasporas, with China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia being among the most important, the latter because of the extreme corruption of their leadership and the extreme virrulence of Wahabbism.

See the graphic on Africa (7) and also, for excellence of depictions, Atlases & State of the World (21).

Articles:

Iran's activity in East Africa

Iran's Activity In East Africa, The Gateway To The Middle East And The African Continent

Cliick on above for a fine report with good detail dated 7 August 2009. The below images come from that report.

The Iranian regime's activities in African countries

Saudis act to counter Iran's influence in the Mideast – Africa & Middle East

The Iranians have been very active in Latin America during the past ten years, at the same time that the Chinese have been using Macao to launch very deliberate campaigns into all former Portuguese territories.

2009/12/252009/12/25

Journal: Life in the Cloud–Repeating Past Mistakes

Communities of Practice, Ethics, IO Secrets, Key Players, Mobile, Policies, Real Time, Threats

Full Story Online

January/February 2010

Security in the Ether

Information technology's next grand challenge will be to secure the cloud–and prove we can trust it.

By David Talbot

Phi Beta Iota: The story is so good we will not extract from it. It must be read in its entirety. Government is failing to do its job, leaving a “wild west” environment alive and corruptible in the cloud. Standards are beginning to emerge but security is not a priority and the end-user as the ultimate source of the security is not even being considered (over ten years ago Eric Hughes conceptualized anonymous banking and end-user controlled encryption of all data). Eventually, after great expesne and great loss of data, government and industry may realize that the ultimate security is that which originates with the individual end-user, not a central service that can be hacked by disgruntled insiders or that can make a mistake that instantly explodes tens of millions of clients. Below is the original Mich Kabay slide, still relevant.