Category: Journal ISSN 1078-1935

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Chuck Spinney: Bill Polk Primer on Syria

Cultural Intelligence, Peace Intelligence
Chuck Spinney
Chuck Spinney

Below is an excellent primer on Syria — its history, culture, and the ongoing civil war. It is written by my friend and historian William R. Polk. He has given his correspondents permission to distribute it … I strongly recommend it.

PDF (21 Pages): UNDERSTANDING SYRIA -PART I – POLK

William R. Polk was a Member of the Policy Planning Council, responsible for North Africa, the Middle East and West Asia, for 4 years under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, Professor of History at the University of Chicago and President of the Adlai Stevenson Institute of International Affairs. He is the author of some 17 books on world affairs, including The United States and the Arab World; The Elusive Peace, the Middle East in the Twentieth Century; Understanding Iraq; Understanding Iran; Violent Politics: A History of Insurgency and Terrorism; Neighbors and Strangers: The Fundamentals of Foreign Affairs and numerous articles in Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic, Harpers, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and Le Monde Diplomatique . He has lectured at many universities and at the Council on Foreign Relations, Chatham House, Sciences Po, the Soviet Academy of Sciences and has appeared frequently on NPR, the BBC, CBS and other networks.

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NIGHTWATCH: Syria-Saudi Arabia – New “Fighting Force” Funded by Saudis, Trained by Pakistanis

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, Peace Intelligence

Syria-Saudi Arabia: Two western news services reported this week that Saudi Arabia is preparing to finance the training and arming of a new Syrian non-jihadi rebel force. The force is to be built around the Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam) which was created in September 2013 by a merger of 43 fighting groups.

According to the news services, Saudi Arabia reportedly has hired Pakistan to help train the re-purposed force. It supposedly would start as two brigades and would be supplied through Jordan. It would not be jihadist, but also would not be a secular force.

Comment: If this information is accurate, it implies that the Saudis judge the fighting will go one for two more years because that is about how long it would take to develop an effective fighting force. By that time, the Syrian government is likely to have stabilized the security situation or, less likely, to have fallen to the jihadists.

The amount of time, energy and multi-national coordination required in this effort, with highly uncertain prospects for a return on the investment, plus the direct involvement of Jordan as pivotal to the logistics raise suspicions that this is not a serious initiative. Rather it looks like a perception management stratagem to prompt more US assistance, if not intervention.

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Berto Jongman: Foreign Affairs on Causes of Civil War

Cultural Intelligence, Peace Intelligence
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

States of War

How the Nation-State Made Modern Conflict

Andreas Wimmer

Foreign Affairs, 7 November 2014

To explain recent conflicts in countries such as Syria or Sudan, observers have been quick to point their fingers at proximate causes specific to our times: the power vacuum created by the end of the Cold War offered opportunities for rebels to fill the void; the recent globalization of trade flooded the developing world with cheap arms; rising global consumer demand generated new struggles over oil and minerals; jihadist groups spread using networks of fighters trained in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Yet such explanations miss a bigger picture. If we extend the time horizon beyond the Cold War to include the entire modern period — from the American and French revolutions to today — we can see repeating patterns of war and conflict. These patterns are related to the formation and development of independent nation-states.

Read full article.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Foreign Affairs on Causes of Civil War”

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Marcus Aurelius: Five Takeaways from a Decade of War [Defense One] Plus Blistering Alternative View from Phi Beta Iota Editors

Ethics, Military, Peace Intelligence, Strategy
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius

Five Takeaways from a Decade of War

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, in a keynote address at the Center for Strategic and International Studies this week, signaled to military commanders that they should assume the across-the-board, automatic spending cuts imposed by sequester over the next decade will remain in place indefinitely. “We do not have the option of ignoring reality, or assuming something will change.” Before they decide how to shrink U.S. military forces and allocate scarce resources, however, uniformed leaders will have to decipher the lessons of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and how to apply them to the coming era of austerity and global instability.

Hagel gave a preview of his own thinking when he argued that the Pentagon should protect investments in cutting edge technologies that are central to the evolving, network-centric model of warfare honed in those conflicts — to include space systems, cyber capabilities, “ISR” (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance), and special operations forces (SOF).

Following Hagel’s speech, three senior retired generals offered their own thoughts on battlefield lessons. Here are five takeaways from the discussion by Gen. James Cartwright, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Gen. Peter Chiarelli, former vice chief of the Army; and Gen. Ronald Fogleman, former chief of staff of the Air Force.

Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: Five Takeaways from a Decade of War [Defense One] Plus Blistering Alternative View from Phi Beta Iota Editors”

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Stephen E. Arnold: Data Science Explained With an Infograpic [Science without Art Tends to be Stupid]

IO Impotency
Stephen E. Arnold
Stephen E. Arnold

Data Science Explained With an Infographic

Data Science is a hot career. Even though data scientists have been around for decades, but it is only the proliferation of new devices and data streams that have brought the career to the Internet spotlight. Data Science is more than monitoring reports about data or even the big data revolution. Data Science is an intricate and interesting science and to understand it better check out the Visual.ly infographic labeled: “Data Science: More Than Mining.”

The graphic explains that data science has exploded:

“Proliferation of sensors, mobile and social trends provide explosive growth of new types of data. Data scientists are creating the tools that can be used to interpret and help translate the streams of information into innovative new products. Social media platforms such as Facebook depend on data science to create innovative, interactive features that encourage users to get interested and stay that way.”

The basic of data science are data mining, statistics, interpretation, and leveraging. The data scientist interacts with the data by asking questions about how to apply the information in new ways and better the process. Data scientists are hardly people off the street, they require the skills of hacker, mathematician, and an artist. Mixing all those together goes makes a data scientist a very diverse person and able to see how to apply the data in new, unknown ways. It is amazing how data science has shaped society from behind the current since 1790.

Whitney Grace, November 08, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext

Continue reading “Stephen E. Arnold: Data Science Explained With an Infograpic [Science without Art Tends to be Stupid]”

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SchwartzReport: Lies & Truths That Matter

Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence

As you read this story please keep in mind that 46 million Americans, 17 million of them children, face poverty and hunger. This story is an obscenity, and shows how deeply out of balance our system has become.

Billionaires Collect Millions In Taxpayer Dollars Through Farm Subsidies
ALAN PYKE – Think Progress

The psychology of politics, a mix of neuroscience and psychology, is becoming one of the most interesting areas of science. And it comes not a moment to soon. It can help us understand why the Schism Trend is occurring, so that we can think about it clearly. This essay is far from the last word or the definitive statement but, at least, it is talking about the problem. Click through to see the charts.

Can Science Explain Tea Party Rage?
JOSHUA HOLLAND – BillMoyers.com/Salon

This is some very sad news about our children, and I find it very ironic that it is appearing in Forbes, a publication that depends on, and defends the corporations that make the foods that cause this problem.

Early Puberty In Girls Linked To Obesity…Again
ALICE G. WALTON – FORBES

I see half a dozen stories like this almost every day. Let this one stand for the whole. I talked tonight with Ronlyn over dinner about where one has to get in their own mind so that something like this seems a humane rational action. I can't get to that dark place that makes this action o.k.. I have written Bonnie Fried, the principal of Barber Middle School, where this happened, to let here know my feelings about what was done to this child. Please do me the service of taking a moment to also write her and let her know how you feel about what was done. Nothing reduces the power of the shadow better than shining some light on it. Her email is: bfried@dickinsonisd.org There is a part of me that would prefer to simply let Texas go. But the truth is they would fail, as they are failing now, and that would make them aggressive, as they saw the Blue value states prospering. We would end up with war as they sought to grab what they could not create.
Click through to see the video on this.

Texas School Tosses 6th Grader’s Breakfast in Trash After he Can’t Pay 30 Cents
DAVID EDWARDS – The Raw Story

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NIGHTWATCH: CIA Kills Peace in Pakistan, Saudi Goes Nuclear [with Chinese Help?]

02 China, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Idiocy, IO Deeds of War, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Strategy

Pakistan-Pakistani Taliban: The Pakistani Taliban rejected peace talks with the government on Thursday after electing hardline militant Mullah Fazlullah as their new leader.

Earlier this month militant sources said that the consultative Shura council of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chose Khan Said Mehsud known as Sajna as the new leader. But the election of Sajna, who leads the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan, reportedly was opposed by Taliban's other groups. Fazlullah was reported to have strongly objected to the choice of Sajna.

Shahidullah Shahid, the main spokesman for the TTP said talks with the government were a “waste of time” and the new chief Maulana Fazlullah was against them. “Holding of peace talks is not even an issue to discuss — this government has no authority, it is not a sovereign government, it is a slave, a slave of America. Holding peace talks is a waste of time.”

Fazlullah's men shot and wounded Malala Yousafzai last year, instantly turning Malala into a global hero for the education of girls.

Comment: Fazlullah's election does not necessarily mean that negotiations will never occur. Hardline leaders often are the only ones capable of negotiating with credibility. But that is for the future. Meanwhile, no peace talks are likely in the near term. Pakistani Pashtun savagery against Pashtun women will increase, including murder attempts against Malala in the UK.

Fazlullah's election signifies rejection of Prime Minister Sharif's peace overture. It also highlights a degenerative leadership pattern resulting from the US program of leadership decapitation. First, there is always someone waiting for the chance to be leader. Second, the new leaders are less experienced and wise than the men they replace. Third, the new generation of leaders is more extreme and theologically rigid than its predecessors. Finally, the new leaders tend to be unknown to intelligence relative to their predecessors. Decapitation is not a permanent solution to an insurgency or an uprising.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH: CIA Kills Peace in Pakistan, Saudi Goes Nuclear [with Chinese Help?]”

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