Category: Communities of Practice

Posted on

Worth a Look: Public Law 109-163 dated 6 January 2006

Government, Legislation, Military, Policy, Reform, Strategy

Congress tasked the Department of Defense with ten specific OSINT-related tasks that to the best of our knowledge have never been acknowledged nor completed by DoD.

HAC DoD OSINT Tasks
HAC DoD OSINT Tasks

Highlights of the missing ten tasks:

1)  A plan for providing funds

2)  A description of management now and as it could be improved

3)  A description of tools, systems, centers, organizational entities amd procedures

4)  A description of proven tradecraft including operational security

5) A description of OSINT fusion with other disciplines

6)  A description of a training plan and guidance for DoD intelligence personnel

7) A plan to incorporate oversight of OSINT

8] A plan to incorporate the OSINT specialty int oall existing DoD personnel systems;

9) Aplan to utilize reserve personnel; and

10) A plan for the use of the Open Source Information System (OSIS).

Posted on

Journal: High-Fat Diet May Make You Stupid and Lazy

Communities of Practice, Methods & Process
Fat Handicaps
Full Story Online

LiveScience.com livescience Staff

livescience.com – Wed Aug 12, 3:03 pm ET

By now, we've all heard that high-fat diets are bad for our health in the long run. But what about the short-term?

A new study on rats finds that 10 days of eating a high-fat diet caused short-term memory loss and made exercise difficult. While the finding may not seem a big surprise, the researcher say it might suggest that high-fat diets make humans lazy and stupid.

. . . . . . .

Continue reading “Journal: High-Fat Diet May Make You Stupid and Lazy”

Posted on

Journal: A Marine’s Eye-View of Afghanistan

11 Society, Cultural Intelligence, Military

AF Burning
AF Burning

11 August [sic]

Tip of the hat to MILINET

I received this from a friend who didn't know that Mitch “Taco” Bell is the son of very good friends from my church.  He is an airline pilot who was in the USMC reserves and several years ago volunteered to return to active duty and requested service in Iraq.  He's got a great web site, the link to which he provides in his message, that is well worth looking at.  I'm not sure who is the original sender of Mitch's message.   Best, Jim

1. Mitch “Taco” Bell, our area Marines For Life Commander, gives his AARep/SitRep  of the situation in Afghanistan.  This is not some superficial product of a dilitante, but rather an insightful, unvarnished, and candid analysis that shows the military professionalism that exits in our field grade officer Corps.

These are some of my thoughts on Afghanistan.  It's long, but if you think the others would like to read it, please pass it on or send the link www.thesandgram.com

Semper Fi,
Taco

Afghanistan?

“How do you fix a problem like Maria???”

The song from the Sound of Music reverberates in my head as I sit here thinking about the situation in Afghanistan. How do you fix a problem like Afghanistan? When I tell folks that I served in Kabul, I think the number one question asked of me is, “What do you think will happen in Afghanistan?” I hate to say that my reply isn’t always positive. Our job there, and in Iraq, has come at a great price for America and her allies, and I firmly believe there are still lots of bad guys there who need to be given the chance to meet their maker, but maybe we need to change how we do business. These are my personal insights on the war there, good, bad or indifferent. They do not reflect the opinions of the Marine Corps or the administration.

Continue reading “Journal: A Marine's Eye-View of Afghanistan”

Posted on

Journal: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s Preemptive Damage Control [Manipulation of Anticipated Negative Information]

04 Inter-State Conflict, Military
Full Story Online
Full Story Online

By Robert Haddick August 2009

After appointing Gen. Stanley McChrystal the new commander in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert Gates gave him two months to write an analysis of the situation there in yet another review of U.S. strategy. But after rumors leaked out that McChrystal would ask for another increase in U.S. troops, it appears that Gates decided he would not wait for McChrystal's finished report. On Aug. 2, he summoned McChrystal and his deputy, Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, to a hastily arranged meeting in Belgium which also included Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen, NATO commander Admiral James Stavridis, McChrystal's direct boss Gen. David Petraeus, and under secretary of defense for policy Michele Flournoy.

On Aug. 5, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell briefed reporters on the results of the unusual Sunday meeting. According to Morrell, Gates instructed McChrystal to consider a few additional, and unspecified, issues in his report. Gates also instructed McChrystal to take more time, likely postponing the delivery of the report into September.

Finally, Morrell explained that McChrystal's report will not include any discussion or request for additional “resources” (meaning U.S. troops and money) for Afghanistan. If McChrystal wants to make such a request, Morrell said, he will do so separately and at a later time.

Continue reading “Journal: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates's Preemptive Damage Control [Manipulation of Anticipated Negative Information]”

Posted on

Journal: Shrinking Arctic ice will stretch a shrinking U.S. Navy

Military
USN Gonzo
USN Gonzo

Small Wars Journal

By Robert Haddick August 7, 2009

Climate change and reduced sea ice cover may result in opening up the Arctic to vastly increased resource development and commercial traffic. These trends will inevitably spark international conflicts and create a need for more military forces to provide security and protect interests in the Arctic region. This is bad news for the U.S. Navy, already hard-pressed by shrinking fleets and rising challenges elsewhere.

Continue reading “Journal: Shrinking Arctic ice will stretch a shrinking U.S. Navy”

Posted on

Journal: Global Information Grid 2.0 and Counting

Budgets & Funding, Collaboration Zones, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, General Accountability Office, InfoOps (IO), Key Players, Policies, Strategy, Threats
Oops...
Oops...

In an era when changes to the Earth that used to take 10,000 years now take three;

In an era when all information in all languages all the time is the non-negotiable first step to achieving holistic understanding of the Earth's system of systems as well as all the chaotic sub-systems;

In an era when the Nordics are far ahead of everyone else in thinking about Multinational, Multiagency, Multidisciplinary, Multidomain Information-Sharing and Sense-Making (M4IS2),

it is helpful to have a sense of what the U.S. Department of Defense is going with respect to it's own Global Information Grid (GIG).

Below are a few headlines as well as pointers to a couple of devastatingly critical reviews from the General Accountability Office (GAO).

Phi Beta Iota has just one question: when, if ever, will DoD plan, program, budget, and implement for a world in which 96% of the information DoD needs to exploit is not secret, not in English, and not originating from a DoD device?

After the GAO reports, click on the Frog Left to read what we said to the National Research Council about the Army Communications Architecture in the early 1990's and Frog Right to read about our recommendations for National Information Infrastructure (NII) cyber-security in the mid-1990's.

DoD needs a Chief Knowledge Oficer (CKO)–someone that knows the difference between knowledge management,  network management, content capture and exploitation, and the Holy Grail, organizational intelligence.

Continue reading “Journal: Global Information Grid 2.0 and Counting”

Posted on

Journal: Chuck Spinney Flags Aurback, Posts Reflections on the Economic Bust

03 Economy, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence

My bills are all due and the baby needs shoes and I'm busted

Cotton is down to a quarter a pound, but I'm busted

I got a cow that went dry and a hen that won't lay

A big stack of bills that gets bigger each day

The county's gonna haul my belongings away cause I'm busted.

Ray Charles

Economic optimism is in the air — at least in rarified air of the twin palaces of Versailles On the Potomac and Versailles On the Hudson.  And if you believe the newspapers, there are growing signs that the economy is turning around, and America has dodged the depression bullet.

Continue reading “Journal: Chuck Spinney Flags Aurback, Posts Reflections on the Economic Bust”