Category: Journal ISSN 1078-1935

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Mini-Me: Hamas Tunnels Surprise Israel – Really?

Cultural Intelligence, Ineptitude, Military
Who? Mini-Me?
Who? Mini-Me?

Huh?

Hamas’s Shift to Tunnel Warfare Catches Israel by Surprise

JERUSALEM — Israel entered its latest conflict with Hamas armed with a high-tech arsenal, real-time battlefield intelligence and strong domestic support for dealing a heavy blow to Hamas.

But again on Friday, Israeli forces were taken by surprise, this time with two soldiers killed and one taken prisoner when militants once again attacked from a tunnel in Gaza.

As frustration grows in Israel over the military’s limited success so far in trying to neutralize Hamas, the militant Islamic group that governs Gaza, despite hitting 4,300 targets in 24 days of intense bombing, some military experts say it is increasingly evident that the Israel Defense Forces have been operating from an old playbook and are not fully prepared for a more sophisticated, battle-ready adversary. The issue is not specifically the tunnels — which Israel knew about — but the way Hamas fighters trained to use them to create what experts in Israel are calling a “360-degree front.”

“Hamas has changed its doctrine and is using the tunnels as a main method of operation,” said Israel Ziv, a retired general who headed the military’s Gaza division and its operations directorate. “This is something we learned amid the fighting.”

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota: Any military “professional” that does not understand tunnels as a poor man's calvary is poorly educated.

See Especially:

Review: The Tunnels of Cu Chi

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Michel Bauwens: FLOK Economics Failure in Ecuador – Lessons

Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence
Michel Bauwens
Michel Bauwens

An assessment of the FLOK process and why the P2P Foundation will not use the FLOK brand in the future

(note: this version was originally written at the request of Jay Wallsjasper of On the Commons, slightly expanded and updated on July 13; it’s a little more elaborate than the first informal assessment shared here before)

Michel Bauwens, 19th July 2014:

We’re nearing the end of June , the day of my departure from Quito and my direct involvement in the FLOK process, where I have been director of the research team. Many people have asked about my assessment of the results of the process. The FLOK process was a complex process and the assessment can only be complex as well.

Continue reading “Michel Bauwens: FLOK Economics Failure in Ecuador – Lessons”

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Rethinking Economics: Cambridge Economics Curriculum Very Poor

Commercial Intelligence

Rethinking EconomicsCSEP Survey of Economic Students: results suggest need for curriculum reform

Students at Cambridge University have released a critical report on the state of the economics curriculum at Cambridge. The report presents the findings from a survey of 235 students and alumni. The results suggest that respondents are broadly unsatisfied with their courses and want more real‐world applicability, greater interdisciplinarity and a better training in general academic and future career skills.

A full coverage of the results and the ‘Is it Time for Change at Cambridge?' report, with a foreword by Lord Adair Turner, can be found on the CSEP's website.

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Robert Steele: Stephen Draper on Intelligence in Complex Environments, with Comment

Advanced Cyber/IO, Ethics, Government, Military
Robert Steele
Robert Steele

Intelligence in Complex Environments

by Stephen Draper

Small Wars Journal, 1 August 2014

Four years into the United States military’s effort to counter the Lord’s Resistance Army in central Africa its leader, Joseph Kony, remains elusive. This certainly isn’t for lack of effort or resources. One hundred Special Forces advisors, a robust command and control structure, contracted airplanes, even the occasional short-term deployment of a CV-22 squadron have all assisted African partner forces to remove a few leaders from the battlefield and enable many more fighters, wives, and children to escape the organization. Yet the mission still faces serious obstacles. The tyranny of distance has oftentimes been crippling to the effort, hindering logistical resupply and time sensitive strikes. In addition to geography, this mission continues to pose many challenges which test the U.S. intelligence community but, if overcome, can serve as a model for U.S. intelligence support in low-intensity conflicts and other crisis areas worldwide. Removing Kony and his LRA from the battlefield is, foremost, an intelligence problem. Without accurate intelligence of Kony and his forces’ location, counter-LRA forces will continue to be reduced to “searching for a needle in twenty haystacks.” Further complicating the situation, in addition to the joint U.S. and combined foreign forces requiring coordination, many other stakeholders are active in the area of operations. Non-government organizations (NGOs), aid organizations, the United Nations, civilian village defense forces, even the Catholic church all contribute to central Africa being a complex environment.

Continue reading “Robert Steele: Stephen Draper on Intelligence in Complex Environments, with Comment”

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Stephen E. Arnold: 1% of Science Gets Published — What Cost to Economics?

Academia, Earth Intelligence, Ineptitude, IO Impotency
Stephen E. Arnold
Stephen E. Arnold

No Search Or Publishing For Science

The scientific method is used to approach a problem logically and come to reasonable conclusion based off the presented evidence. Allow me to present the following question: if only a small percentage of scientists publish their work, does that not distort scientific information? Let us approach this problem in the same manner that Erik Stokstad did in his Science Magazine article “The 1% Of Scientific Publishing.”

Continue reading “Stephen E. Arnold: 1% of Science Gets Published — What Cost to Economics?”

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John Boik: Advanced Economics – Economic Direct Democracy and Open Source Everything

03 Economy, 11 Society
John Boik
John Boik

It seems we are in basic agreement on the problems that society faces.  You rightly emphasize the coercive nature of income inequality.  And, IMHO, you rightly emphasize the role that open-source, open-data, open-design, widening-commons, etc. must play in a better, functional society.

Please allow me to explain the strategy behind my project. In a nutshell, the strategy is to develop a parallel financial–economic–business--social welfare system, at the local level, that complements and competes with existing systems. By system, I mean the code, policies, standards, and procedures needed to encourage more cooperative and democratic economic behavior.

Continue reading “John Boik: Advanced Economics – Economic Direct Democracy and Open Source Everything”

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