Category: Officers Call

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DefDog: Russian Fleet Enters Mediterranean, Parks at Cyprus

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Russia, 08 Wild Cards, Ethics, Government, IO Deeds of Peace, Military, Officers Call
DefDog
DefDog

Ho ho ho….

Russian Pacific Fleet Warships Enter Mediterranean For First Time In Decades, To Park In Cyprus

Zero Hedge, 16 May 2013

Earlier we reported that the US has now officially landed a Marine force in Israel as well as an assault ship, in a visit that the US Navy promptly assured “is not associated with, nor a reaction to, any world events.” It seems we were not the only ones who read this justification somewhat skeptically: so did Russia.

And in a historic event, the Russian Pacific fleet, for the first time in decades, crossed the Suez Canal and entered the Mediterranean, direction Cyprus' port of Limasol (hi Cyprus – Russia will be arriving shortly) in what is now the loudest implied warning to the US and Israel amassing military units across Syria's border that Russia will not stand idly by as Syria is used by the Israeli “Defense” Forces for target practice.

Russian Amphibious Ship Admiral Nevelskoi - Click on Image to Enlarge
Russian Amphibious Ship Admiral Nevelskoi – Click on Image to Enlarge

“The task force has successfully passed through the Suez Channel and entered the Mediterranean. It is the first time in decades that Pacific Fleet warships enter this region,” Capt. First Rank Roman Martov said. This is what is also known as dropping hints, loud and clear.

Admiral Panteleyev destroyer - Click on Image to Enlarge
Admiral Panteleyev destroyer – Click on Image to Enlarge

The group, including the destroyer Admiral Panteleyev, the amphibious warfare ships Peresvet and Admiral Nevelskoi, the tanker Pechenga and the salvage/rescue tug Fotiy Krylov left the port of Vladivostok on March 19 to join Russia’s Mediterranean task force.

The task force currently includes the large anti-submarine ship Severomorsk, the frigate Yaroslav Mudry, the salvage/rescue tugs Altai and SB-921 and the tanker Lena from the Northern and Baltic Fleets, as well as the Ropucha-II Class landing ship Azov from the Black Sea Fleet. The task force may be enlarged to include nuclear submarines, Navy Commander Admiral Viktor Chirkov said last Sunday.

Click on Image to Enlarge
Click on Image to Enlarge

Shore leave for a whole lot of submarines just a few hundred kilometers from Syria? Surely. From Rian.

The Defense Ministry said in April Russia has begun setting up a naval task force in the Mediterranean, sending several warships from the Pacific Fleet to the region. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in March a permanent naval task force in the Mediterranean was needed to defend Russia’s interests in the region.

A senior Defense Ministry official said the Mediterranean task force's command and control agencies will be based either in Novorossiysk, Russia, or in Sevastopol, Ukraine.

Admiral Vladimir Komoyedov, head of the parliamentary defense committee, previously told RIA Novosti that the Mediterranean task force should be comprised of 10 warships and support vessels as part of several tactical groups tasked with attack, antisubmarine warfare and minesweeping.

The Soviet Union maintained its 5th Mediterranean Squadron from 1967 until 1992. It was formed to counter the US Navy's 6th Fleet during the Cold War, and consisted of 30-50 warships and auxiliary vessels

It appears that the squadron is being reincarnated and quite rapidly at that.

It also appears that the two key naval forces in the Mediterranean are finally starting to position themselves for what may soon be a face off.

Hopefully Europe's “anti-manipulation” task force can spook enough majors to push the price of Brent much lower before the moment such an escalation becomes reality.

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Reflections on Alternative Command & Control and Four Transformation Forcing Concepts

#OSE Open Source Everything, Advanced Cyber/IO, All Reflections & Story Boards, Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Key Players, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Strategy, Threats
Robert David STEELE Vivas
Robert David STEELE Vivas

I have been reflecting on the past twenty years, and the remarkable resistence of the US Intelligence Community, seemingly impervious to all manner of reform recommendations, be they presidential, congressional, or public.  Reform is not transformation.  This from Dr. Russell Ackoff, a pioneer in systems thinking and reflexive practice:

Reformations and transformations are not the same thing.  Reformations are concerned with changing the means systems employ to pursue their objectives.  Transformations involve changes in the objectives they pursue.

And now this from Ada Bozeman:

(There is a need) to recognize that just as the essence of knowledge is not as split up into academic disciplines as it is in our academic universe, so can intelligence not be set apart from statecraft and society, or subdivided into elements…such as analysis and estimates, counterintelligence, clandestine collection, covert action, and so forth. Rather … intelligence is a scheme of things entire. (Bozeman 1998: 177):[1]

The recent NATO Innovation Hub initiative in leveraging social media is a tiny but potentially potent transformation starting point.  It reflects clarity, diversity, and integrity.  After an open brainstorming session that identified 32 opportunity areas, enablers, and concerns, the team nurturing the NATO Innovation Hub settled on three areas for focus where concept papers will be developed:

-­‐ Education and Training through New Media
-­‐ Alternative Command and Control
-­‐ Social Media Users Training

As one of the early invited participants contributing to the process, I offered the below comments toward the first draft of the concept paper for Alternative Command and Control, and am now adding to that a section on four forcing concepts or functions for transforming strategy, policy, acquisition, and operations via the alternative command and control concept.

Continue reading “Reflections on Alternative Command & Control and Four Transformation Forcing Concepts”

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Chuck Spinney: Wanna Bomb Iran?: No Worries — Think Fukushima X 10 — Good-Bye Dubai, End of Gulf States — With Compelling Graphics

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 05 Iran, 06 Genocide, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Transnational Crime, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call
Chuck Spinney
Chuck Spinney

It is a brutal fact that no country benefited more from war during in the 2oth Century than the United States. World War I enriched and invigorated the US economy, and the self destruction of the 19th Century European state system left the US as the world's mightiest industrial power.  World War II ended the Great Depression, put the US on a pathway to unparalleled world military power, and set the stage a long economic boom that created a rich middle class that, not withstanding its recent hardening of the arteries, remains unprecedented in world history.  Pearl Harbour excepted, neither war visited any significant destruction on the American homeland.

While we think of war in terms of our sacrifices, it may surprise readers to learn that the United States suffered fewer military deaths in WWII than Yugoslavia, an allied country not usually thought of in the NASCAR mentality of the United States as being a major player that war. In fact, hundreds of millions of people — mostly civilians — died in the wars (and their aftermath) of the 20th Century, while the United States in comparison paid a relatively minor price in lives lost and a vanishingly small price in terms of material destruction wrought at home.

Indeed the most traumatic material destruction and highest number of civilian deaths suffered on the US mainland since the dawn of the unprecedented state violence of the 20th Century were caused by the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in September of 2001 (the nearby NYSE was closed for only a week and the Pentagon never shut down).  While horrific and psychologically devastating in themselves, these attacks were a horrendous crime, not an act of war.

Moreover, when viewed in the grand sweep of the preceding 100 years, the material and human destruction of 9-11 was pinprick compared to that visited on the trenches in Flanders, the Somme, and Verdun, the cities of Nanking and Warsaw, London and Coventry, Hamburg and Berlin and Dresden,  Leningrad and Stalingrad and Minsk, or in the fire bombing raids on  Tokyo, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the now forgotten destruction of every city in North Korea, of millions of civilians killed by bombing (and sanctions) in North Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan.  Even casual readers of history know this summary just scratches the surface of carnage wrought by 20 Century warfare — carnage which, by the grace of good fortune, pretty much bypassed the people and land of the United States.  Perhaps some American even think this good fortune is a kind of entitlement.  Is it not surprising that President Bush's call on the American people to keep consuming and living the good life when he asked Congress to authorize a global war of terror in our national response to the crime of 9-11 was so well received?

None of these facts denigrates the bravery and sacrifice of the American soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen who fought and died in the wars of the last 100 years, but they are facts nevertheless, and they provide a backdrop against which the strength our national character is measured by others.

Nor should we be surprised, given this history of good fortune, that many leaders and opinion makers in America, especially strategic wannabees like Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina or the armchair strategists in the Heritage Foundation (which receives a lot of grant money from arms merchants who benefit from war), treat war as a cavalier endeavor.  Nothing typifies this cavalier attitude so much today as the loose talk about bombing Iran's nuclear reactors (unless it be an intervention in Syria).  The attached essay puts this kind of warmongering talk into a perspective appropriate to those who, unlike most Americans during the 20th Century, would be on the receiving end of such an attack.

Chuck Spinney

Good-bye Dubai? 

Bombing Iran’’s Nuclear Facilities Would Leave the Entire Gulf States Region Virtually Uninhabitable

By Wade Stone

Global Research, May 11, 2013

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Wanna Bomb Iran?: No Worries — Think Fukushima X 10 — Good-Bye Dubai, End of Gulf States — With Compelling Graphics”

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Robert Steele: Going Dark, Anyone Wants to Talk Future of Intelligence, Seeking ONE Audience

Advanced Cyber/IO, Ethics, Lessons, Liberation Technology, Officers Call
Robert David STEELE Vivas
Robert David STEELE Vivas

My Body Mass Index (BMI) is where it needs to be, hoping to go dark in near term (30-45 days).  Anyone that wants to talk new and evolving craft of intelligence, Open Source Everything (OSE), and M4IS2, now is the time.  Particularly interested in engaging on the below new briefing that was developed as combined keynote (45 min) and workshop (2 hrs), would like to refine it with a firm eye on the subordinate nature of intelligence within the larger Information Operations (IO) landscape that has been totally hosed by NSA and the obsession on cyber-bucks instead of cyber-brains.  Meanwhile, until I am on payroll, donations are gratefully received and individually acknowledged, and I would absolutely love to present both of these once, on video, as a milestone that can be placed into the public domain as with my M4IS2 presentation in Chile.

2013 Robert Steele Intelligence Future Overview & Workshop

See Also:

Game Plan & Logo

Manifesto Extracts

NATO OSE/M4IS2

Public Intelligence 3.2

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Penguin: General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, USMC, on Why “Too Busy to Read” Is a Moron’s Cop-Out on Leadership Responsibility

04 Education, Ethics, History, Military, Officers Call, Strategy, Teaching, Threats
Who, Me?
Who, Me?

A model for all of us.

General James ‘Mad Dog' Mattis Email About Being ‘Too Busy To Read' Is A Must-Read

Geoffrey Ingersoll

In the run up to Marine Gen. James Mattis‘ deployment to Iraq in 2004, a colleague wrote to him asking about the “importance of reading and military history for officers,” many of whom found themselves “too busy to read.”His response went viral over email.

Security Blog “Strife” out of Kings College in London recently published Mattis' words with a short description from the person who found it in her email.

General James "Mad Dog" Mattis, USMC (Ret)
General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, USMC (Ret)

Their title for the post:

With Rifle and Bibliography: General Mattis on Professional Reading

[Dear, “Bill”]

The problem with being too busy to read is that you learn by experience (or by your men’s experience), i.e. the hard way. By reading, you learn through others’ experiences, generally a better way to do business, especially in our line of work where the consequences of incompetence are so final for young men.

Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed (successfully or unsuccessfully) before. It doesn’t give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead.

Continue reading “Penguin: General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, USMC, on Why “Too Busy to Read” Is a Moron's Cop-Out on Leadership Responsibility”

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Benjamin Fulford: ZIonists Defeated, China and Russia Playing Smart, Western Banking in Panic — $1 Billion Bet on US Stock Market Crashing Soon — Internal War within USG Between DHS and Everyone Else

Blog Wisdom, Communities of Practice, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Officers Call, Policies, Threats
Benjamin Fulford
Benjamin Fulford

Cabal purge starts in the UK, what about the US?

By Benjamin Fulford　

9 May 2013

One of the world’s leading terrorists, the mass murderer Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has been summoned to China where he will be confronted with evidence of his involvement in the March 11, 2011 nuclear and tsunami terror attack against Japan, according to Chinese government sources.

The evidence is a tape recorded phone call to then Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan in which Netanyahu threatened to destroy all of Japan’s nuclear reactors if Kan did not order the Japanese government to write off its holdings of US government debt, according to Japanese military intelligence. In exchange for sweeping this issue under the carpet, the 180 nation BRICS alliance will demand an end to all further war-mongering in the Middle East.

The Israeli use of a nuclear bunker buster bomb against Syria just before Netanyahu’s departure was a futile gesture of defiance as the worldwide crackdown on the Sabbatean Satanic mafia unfolds.

In a related development, the UK Police and Crime Commission have opened an investigation into the Thames Valley police, Sara Thornton in particular, concerning, among other things, the murder of bio-weapons specialist Dr. David Kelly. This is part of a wider police investigation into the cabal that fooled the UK government into participating in the invasion of Iraq.

The heads of MI5, the London Metropolitan Police counter terror squad and of UK Special Forces have all left their posts, according to an MI5 source. Several journalists have also been arrested, he said. Many witnesses of substance (military) are coming forward in support having realized the UK police have been acting outside correct procedures in many instances, according to an MI5 source. “The emphasis will now be on internal investigations of corruption in the Police and Civil service,” the source said.

The Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, Head of the Civil Service, will also find his position under close scrutiny. Then Prime Minister Tony Blair has already been investigated and has basically sung like a canary. Blair has already implicated many EU leaders as having accepted bribes in exchange for allowing the Soviet Union modeled EU to gradually usurp the sovereignty of European nation states.

This of course, is a preliminary to investigations that will finally bring justice to the perpetrators of the 911 terror and mind-control attack against the US. The wheels of justice will roll towards George Bush Jr., Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Frank Carlucci, Michael Chertoff and the entire fascist cabal that seized control of the US following the rigged year 2000 election, according to patriotic CIA and Pentagon sources.

Continue reading “Benjamin Fulford: ZIonists Defeated, China and Russia Playing Smart, Western Banking in Panic — $1 Billion Bet on US Stock Market Crashing Soon — Internal War within USG Between DHS and Everyone Else”

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Ralph Peters: The Birth of Modern War – How the 1860’s Changed War, and the World

04 Inter-State Conflict, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence

Ralph Peters
Ralph Peters

First published by Armchair General.  Full text online for ease of automated translation.

In document form (15 pages):  2013-05-09 Ralph Peters Birth of Modern Warfare

THE BIRTH OF MODERN WAR

How the 1860s Changed the Fields of Battle Forever

By Ralph Peters

     The ten-year span that began with the American Civil War in 1861 and climaxed with a Prussian-led German army besieging Paris in 1870 changed warfare as profoundly as—and certainly more abruptly than—the introduction of steel blades or the development of gunpowder weapons.  That decade dramatically altered strategic and operational mobility, military communications, killing power, the relative value of combat arms and the tactics for employing them, the composition of armies, logistics, and medical care for the wounded (while navies moved to steam-driven ironclads mounting long-range guns).  A consideration of military leadership across the decade should teach us not to mock the inability of most generals to adjust to a disorienting environment, but to marvel at the few who managed to figure things out—despite the crushing weight of legacy thinking.

     The complexity of warfare exploded as the strategic pace accelerated.  And one rarely noted determinant of victory may, in fact, have been the decisive factor: literacy.  In the end, the armies with the soldiers who could read were the armies that were able to adapt–those of the United States and Prussia.  (Indeed, our contemporary experience in attempting to professionalize Afghan troops underscores the degree to which literacy is the fundamental building block of military modernity.)

     As this epochal decade approached, Napoleon’s shadow clouded the thinking of even the most-able generals.  Only outliers, such as Grant and von Moltke, escaped his thrall, while Napoleonic maxims, codified by Jomini and others, excused less-able leaders from thinking at all.  The 1860s came as a series of thunderbolts, following the confused military actions of the previous decade.  Even as steam power allowed for more rapid strategic concentration in the 1850s, European armies assembling in a theater of war had made no doctrinal advances since Waterloo.  Indeed, the allied armies that landed in the Crimea marched more slowly than had the troops of either the Duke of Wellington or Napoleon.  English rifles slaughtered Russian infantrymen, but English generals (and cholera) squandered English soldiers.  And when the Piedmontese and French fought the Austrians in Italy in 1859, the battles of Magenta and Solferino were clumsy bloodbaths that convinced generals that very little had changed on the tactical battlefield.  New rifles in the hands of poorly trained, unmotivated and ineptly led Austrian soldiers proved useless against superior leadership—resulting in a failure to appreciate the killing power of massed rifled weapons.

     Soon enough the race would be on to find generals who could think as fast as modern weapons could kill.

Continue reading “Ralph Peters: The Birth of Modern War – How the 1860's Changed War, and the World”