Journal ISSN 1078-1935 – Page 2110 – Public Intelligence Blog

So Much Strategy, So Little Strategic Direction

Cdr Michael Junge, USN

Proceedings Magazine, February 2012 Vol 138/2/1,308

There is a strategy problem in the Navy. Take as primary evidence that only three and a half years after completing A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower , its primary author is now in favor of crafting a new strategy. ¹ That strategy was published only four years after its predecessor, Seapower 21 . And that one came eight years after Forward . . . from the Sea , which itself was a two-year tune-up of From the Sea , which replaced the 1986 Maritime Strategy . In other words, the Navy has changed its strategy five times in 25 years—while its mission has remained unchanged for more than five decades.

Frankly, it’s not that the Navy has a problem developing strategy (five times in 25 years belies that idea), rather the issue is that the Navy no longer has a culture of strategic thought, and the lack of consistent, long-term, cohesive, and followed strategy is but a symptom of this problem. The Navy is now, and has been for decades, a tactical organization seeking, rewarding, and thriving on short-term, one-dimensional thought and quick, often indecisive action.

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Continue reading “Dolphin: Assorted References on Naval Strategy”

2012/12/082012/12/08

Dolphin: Haiti Moves Up in African Union — World Routing Around the USA? + RECAP

08 Wild Cards, Cultural Intelligence, Government

Haiti To Become Full Associate Member Of African Union

Osun Defender (Nigeria), 8 December 2012

The black race is gradually coming together. Where other world groupings are primarily motivated by strategic, security, political and economic interests, Africans wherever they are can count also on their common history of being black.

Haiti currently has the status of Member Observer with the African Union and submitted to that organization, a formal request for the status of full Associate Member of the Union of Heads of State and Government of Africa, a status that will be effective starting from January 2013.

In January 2011, the Libyan leader Muammar Kaddafi who was killed by NATO in October of the same year asked the following question to delegates who were attending an international conference for the African Diaspora from around the world that he had convened in Tripoli.

“Why shouldn’t people of black descent leaving outside the African mother continent be allowed to have a referendum to decide if they wanted to be part of Africa or not.”

As we know there are many countries out of Africa, particularly in the Caribbean’s Islands, where black people constitute the majority. Even Brazil itself is getting closer to such category.

The admission of Haiti to the African Union is a significant milestone of bringing together the black family of Africans as a people.

May this reunion of Haiti with the mother continent be a strong motivation for other nations with black majorities to see in such strong relationship a source for future prosperity of respective populations either in Africa or concerned countries?

People from the South – where most Blacks are – , have in the past strongly counted on their cooperation with the North for their development. Though the latter is still dominant, there are clear signs that the tides are shifting. The more the former will find in themselves the resources to uplift their populations the better.

Source: INFO NIGERIA

Continue reading “Dolphin: Haiti Moves Up in African Union — World Routing Around the USA? + RECAP”

2012/12/082012/12/08

Berto Jongman: Interview with Dennis Meadows on Limits to Growth Today

Earth Intelligence

‘Limits to Growth' Author Dennis Meadows ‘Humanity Is Still on the Way to Destroying Itself'

In 1972, environmental guru Dennis Meadows predicted in his seminal study “The Limits to Growth” that the world was heading toward an economic collapse. Forty years on, he tells SPIEGEL ONLINE that nothing he has seen since has made him change his mind.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Professor Meadows, 40 years ago you published “The Limits to Growth” together with your wife and colleagues, a book that made you the intellectual father of the environmental movement. The core message of the book remains valid today: Humanity is ruthlessly exploiting global resources and is on the way to destroying itself. Do you believe that the ultimate collapse of our economic system can still be avoided?

Meadows: The problem that faces our societies is that we have developed industries and policies that were appropriate at a certain moment, but now start to reduce human welfare, like for example the oil and car industry. Their political and financial power is so great and they can prevent change. It is my expectation that they will succeed. This means that we are going to evolve through crisis, not through proactive change.

Read full interview.

2012/12/082012/12/08

Penguin: Larry WIlkerson Skeptical About Politicization (aka Fabrication) of Syrian Chemical Weapons Reports

Corruption, Government, Media, Military

Former Powell adviser ‘skeptical’ of ‘politicized’ US intelligence on Syria

RT, 08 December, 2012

Syria will never use chemical weapons against its own people, Lawrence Wilkerson, a retired US Army Colonel who was Chief of Staff to Colin Powell told RT. Instead, the reality is that US is “preparing the ground to intervene in Syria.”

An act which would lead to a conflict “that would take at least a decade to settle – and there aren't going to be too many victors at the end of that decade, just losers,” Wilkerson says, as Washington's ultimate aim is to overthrow the Iranian leadership.

Simultaneously, some members of Congress are talking about “impeachment” of the US president for not consulting Congress before involving the country in conflicts.

RT: You were Colin Powell's chief of staff when the decision was made to invade Iraq. In 2003, Powell made a speech that laid out the case for that war. Let's take a listen to what he said. You helped prepare that speech, and have since described it as the biggest mistake of your life. Why?

wilkerson-staff-secretary-colin.n — Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell (AFP Photo / Chip Somodevilla)

Lawrence Wilkerson: Primarily because we – to the American people, to the international community and of course to the members of the US Security Council – presented that speech… it was not accurate, it was not true, it was not valid. We did not know that, but it was not just an intelligence failure. It was also the massive politicization of intelligence by the leadership in Washington.

RT: We're currently seeing very similar rhetoric in the US in relation to Syria. Will it end in war again?

LW: I would be highly skeptical of any of the intelligence rendered by the $140-billion-plus US intelligence community as to weapons of mass destruction in possession of another country. Period.

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2012/12/08

SchwartzReport: Bill Moyers and Former FCC Commissioner — Big Media Dumbs Down Democracy, Internet at Very Beginning of Its Possibilities

IO Impotency, Media

Former FCC Commissioner: Big Media Dumbs Down Democracy

By Bill Moyers, Moyers & Company

05 December 12

EXTRACT 1:

Moyers: The argument we hear in rebuttal is “Well look, we don't have to worry about monopoly today, we don't have to worry about cartels today, because we have the Internet, which is the most democratic source of opinion, expression and free speech that's available to us. You and Moyers are outdated because of your concerns about broadcasting and newspapers and all of this.”

Copps: I don't buy that argument at all. The Internet has the potential for all of that. The Internet has the potential for a new town square of democracy, paved with broadband bricks. But it's very, very far from being the reality. The reality is – and you don't have to really look too closely – throughout history, we've seen every means of communication go down this road toward more and more consolidation. Wouldn't it be a tragedy if you took this potential of this open and dynamic technology, capable of addressing just about every problem that the country has – no problem that we have doesn't have a broadband component to its solution somewhere along the line – and let the biggest invention since the printing press probably as communication goes, morph into a cable-ized Internet? That's what I think is happening. Most of the news generated on the Internet, is still coming from the newspaper newsroom, or the TV newsroom. It's just there's so damn much less of it because of the consolidation that we've been through, because of the downsizing, and because of a government that has been absent without leave from its public interest responsibilities for many, many years – a better part of a generation now.

EXTRACT 2:

Moyers: On this particular decision now under consideration, the relaxation of some rules prohibiting further concentration, what can ordinary people do?

Copps: Well, they can get involved. It can become a grassroots movement. I spent 40 years in Washington, working on policy with the belief that you can do some good things from the top down, and I still believe that. But the real systemic reforms and the substantive reforms in this country, from abolition to women's rights and civil rights, and labor rights and all that, came from the bottom up. And I think there's enough frustration out there that it's possible to build on that right now.

Read full transcript.

2012/12/072012/12/07

Dolphin: Autism Up, Sperm Down

07 Health, Commerce, Corruption, Earth Intelligence, Government, Idiocy

Connecting the dots….isn't that what intelligence is supposed to do?

Why Is Autism So Drastically on the Rise? An Environmental Horror Story

An investigation into the relationship between environmental poisons and human health is riveting — and terrifying.

If horror is your genre, environmental writer Brita Belli’s The Autism Puzzle, is the book for you. Her terrifying look at the chemicals we eat, drink and breathe is guaranteed to make your hair stand on end.

We should thank her for it.

Statistics released earlier this spring by the Centers for Disease Control revealed that one in 88 U.S. born toddlers has an autism spectral disorder—from the less severe Asperger’s Syndrome to the so-called classical form of the ailment. Worse, it’s not just a North American phenomenon; Belli also reports a 57 percent spike in Asia and Europe.

Read full article.

Russian men: an endangered species?

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2012/12/072012/12/07

DefDog: Human Intelligence (HUMINT) Survey

Cultural Intelligence, IO Impotency

Quick survey using DuckDuckGo in order as they appear — Trilogy does well — and no one else has the idea of “full-spectrum” HUMINT at the management level, Wikipedia gets it partly right at the source level.

2012-11-20 Wikipedia / Human intelligence (intelligence collection)

— HUMINT, a syllabic abbreviation of the words HUMan INTelligence, refers to intelligence gathering by means of interpersonal contact, as opposed to the more technical intelligence gathering disciplines such as SIGINT, IMINT and MASINT. NATO defines HUMINT as “a category of intelligence derived from information collected and provided by human sources.” . . . Within the context of the U.S. Military, most HUMINT activity does not involve clandestine activities.

2010-07-10 Human Intelligence (HUMINT) Trilogy Updated

— Intelligence for the President–AND Everyone Else, as published in CounterPunch, Weekend Edition, February 27 – 1 March 2009

— Fixing the White House and National Intelligence, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Spring 2010; As published; with corrected graphic (best).

— Human Intelligence (HUMINT): All Humans, All Minds, All the Time(US Army Strategic Studies Institute), June 2010

2011-06-05 Human Intelligence in Counterinsurgency: Persistent Pathologies in the Collector-Consumer Relationship (Small Wars Journal)

— Excellent discussion of the various pathologies found in US military industrial-era HUMINT.

Continue reading “DefDog: Human Intelligence (HUMINT) Survey”