Denmark Standings–For Reflection

08 Wild Cards, Advanced Cyber/IO, Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Methods & Process, Policies, Strategy
Hank Pellissier

Happiness, Freedom, Equality, Rudeness: Welcome to Denmark

Hank Pellissier, Ethical Technology

Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies

26 March 2011

The miniscule Scandinavian nation is a world leader in multiple best-nation categories. But is it a role model for technoprogressives?


The fevered goals of the Enlightenment are still hot today in the cold, flat, windy peninsula and archipelago of 400 islands that contains fewer inhabitants than Maryland. Once the base camp of ravaging Vikings, Denmark is now the world leader in multiple harmonious categories.

EXTRACT: To summarize … here’s a rundown on the Danish dynamo:

#1 Happiness  ..  #1 Most Democratic  ..  #1 Most Egalitarian  ..  #1 Least Corrupt  ..  #1 Press Freedom  ..  #1 Engineering  ..  #1 Best Country for Business  ..  #1 Best Country for Entrepreneurs  ..  #1 Clean Technology / Sustainable Development  ..  #3 Fewest Prisoners Per Capita  ..  #3 Most Charitable  ..  #5 Per Capita Income  ..  #7 Women’s Equality  ..  #7 Peace

Below the Line: the meat vis a vis the USA contrast.  Reliable authorities from Denmark have informed us that this is half-fairy tale and half-real, but certainly a model to aspire to for all.

Continue reading “Denmark Standings–For Reflection”

Russia Returns Heavy-Hitter to Afghanistan

02 Diplomacy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Russia, 08 Wild Cards, Advanced Cyber/IO, Ethics, Government, InfoOps (IO), IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, Peace Intelligence, Strategy
DefDog Recommends...

Highlights a classic failure of US intel and State…..no experts with the
depth or contacts necessary to conduct statecraft…….

Mullah Omar gets a Russian visitor

By M K Bhadrakumar

Asia Times, Mar 24, 2011

EXTRACT:  The executive order makes the customary reference to the new appointee's worthy credentials as “an experienced diplomat and Orientalist”. And then, out of the blue, it adds that Kabulov “repeatedly held talks on the release of Russian pilots with the leadership of the Taliban in Kandahar, including [Taliban leader] Mohammed Omar”. There was no real need to have said that. It almost seems jarring to single out one mission in a distinguished diplomat's checkered career. But it said all that needed to be said.

By the language of the sport of cricket, one would shout from the crease in the heat of the moment: “Howzaat!” Is there an umpire nearby who could annotate the trajectory of Russian thinking? Not much ingenuity is needed to comprehend that Moscow is opening a line to the Taliban leadership and sending into the Hindu Kush someone who can meaningfully converse with the Quetta shura (council). Pakistanis know Kabulov, Iranians know him and Mullah Omar knows him. Afghan President Hamid Karzai knows him, too.

EXTRACT: Kabulov's mind is an open book – as far as a diplomat's mind can be. While serving in Kabul, he was an easily accessible ambassador and even American military commanders used to drop by to pick his brains. Kabulov's main complaint, though, was that the Americans were good listeners, but not good learners.

He kept harping on that the United States was repeating the same mistakes that the Soviet Union made in Afghanistan during its occupation in the 1980s, and to complicate matters, American policies have been innovating on Soviet mistakes by inventing original mistakes of their own for which as he once told John Burns of the New York Times, “We [Russia] do not own the copyright.”

Read full article….

Phi Beta Iota: The article is a reference work, worth keeping, worthy of war colleges and those who aspire to be great leaders.

Reference: US CoC on Cyber-Security

Advanced Cyber/IO, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Government, Military
Click on Image to Expand

Source Online (26 Pages)

Phi Beta Iota: This is interesting at multiple levels.  It demonstrates that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) endeavor to achieve common solutions is not only not working, but does not properly integrate industry.  It demonstrates that Cyber-Command is off on its own warpath, and not thinking deeply about the issues that this White Paper raises.  Finally, it is a perfect display of the tail end of Industrial Era thinking, assuming that top down coordination of anything is going to be effective in a bottom-up world.  The Autonomous Internet is NOT something these people are even aware of….

Syrian Domino Teeters….

05 Iran, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Peace Intelligence
DefDog Recommends...

Syria’s Bashar al-Assad faces most serious unrest of his tenure

By Leila Fadel, Thursday, March 24

Washington Post

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was facing the most serious unrest of his 11-year tenure Thursday as anti-government protests in a southwestern city threatened to escalate after a deadly crackdown.

. . . . . . .

On Wednesday, security forces launched a pre-dawn raid in the city in which dozens of people were killed, according to witnesses and activists. Precise estimates of the death toll range from 15 to 51.

On Thursday, witnesses said, thousands of people gathered in the city to bury the dead, chanting, “Syria! Freedom!”

Click on Image to Enlarge

Phi Beta Iota: “Freedom” is neither a partisan term, nor one that can be bought by Lockheed Martin or discounted by Goldman Sachs.  Young, freedom, and the autonomous Internet.  Not at all what the “elite” had planned.  Most interestingly, the dominos falling to non-violent public will are in sharp contrast to the published plan of the neo-conservatives to take down the Middle East by force–nuclear if necessary.

See Also:

Review: Endgame–The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror

Reflections on Revolution, Information & Civil Affairs

Japan Case Study in Nuclear Information Ignorance

08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, About the Idea, Advanced Cyber/IO, Commercial Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Policies

Time does not permit the detailed study a topic of this importance merits (it would be an excellent PhD project for a bi-lingual Japanese-English speaking PhD candidate) but here is what we do know:

1.  The risks were known.

2.  A tsunami risk was specificially brought up and dismissed at a critical juncture.

3.  There was no “what if” planning or critical supply chain planning for contaminated water and food.

We speculate that an intense look at the information terrain surrounded Japan's nuclear and global warming and related environmental degradation and energy-commercial competitiveness discussions will yield an almost perfect understanding of where the data asymmetries and information pathologies were that allowed Industrial Era decision systems (inherently secret and corrupt) to ignore open source information on risk.

This is also a good place to study how disasters turn into catastrophes instead of remaining disasters, for lack of the proper political-legal, socio-economic, and ideo-cultural mindsets.

Fifty years from today, the catastrophe in Japan may be regarded as the moment of awakening for the global mind.

Reference: Religion, Science, & Philosophy

11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Religion & Politics of Religion, Science & Politics of Science
Click on Image to Enlarge

2012 is a year of awakening, and a year of convergence.  Inspired by two books by Capt Doug Johnston, USN (Ret), Religion, The Missing Dimension of Statecraft (1995) and Faith-Based Diplomacy–Trumping Realpolitik (2003), our collective concept of public intelligence has treated faith as essential and integral to the advanced Information Operations (IO) Cube.

Ref A:  Albert Einstein Four Essays on Religion and Science (1930-1948)

Web Stack

Phi Beta Iota: Integrity is the core concept.  religions that demand absolute obedience to dogma are just as bad as sciences that fabricate results, or politicians that lie.  Just as we have found that there is no conflict between the intelligence profession and the craft of politics provided they both keep their integrity, so also do we believe it possible for religions and the sciences to be brought together by the humanities (philosophy et al) in order to achieve integral consciousness as individuals, as communities, and as a species.

Selected Books on Religion & Science, Religion & Philosophy

Continue reading “Reference: Religion, Science, & Philosophy”

noble gold