Arpan Patel is Director of Somat Engineering, Inc’s Information Engineering practice in Washington, DC. Mr. Patel has over 17 years of technology, financial advisory and operations experience.
He began his career as an investment banker at leading firms including Lehman Brothers, Lazard Frères, Wasserstein Perella and Credit Suisse First Boston, advising leading corporations and financial buyers on complex financings and M&A transactions exceeding $5 billion.
In recent years, he has gained significant operational experience and insight as a technology and financial services entrepreneur. He previously cofounded eFrontiers, a pioneering online asset management platform for institutional investors, and Plans365, a recognized developer of online personal finance and collaboration solutions.
Mr. Patel holds a BA in economics from The Johns Hopkins University and an MBA from The University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business.
Mr. Robert Young Pelton is perhaps the greatest journalist-adverturer on the planet. This is a man that gets kidnapped by accident, is recognized by the leader of the kidnappers, and is promptly released with apologies and an honor guard. His book World’s Most Dangerous Places and his TV series Come Back Alive are among the most extraordinary “ground truth” offerings available to the public and admired by the spies. In his every waking moment, in his every action, in his every report, he embodies the true spirit of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT).
“We do nothing by ourselves,” stated Information Sharing Executive Debra Filippi, of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks & Information Integration, or OASD/NII. She referred to the many-faceted dimensions of information sharing across multiple agencies, partners, coalitions, and international organizations. Multinational operations are the norm today in combat, stability operations, or crisis intervention.
. . . . . . .
Stability Operations Require Information Sharing
Aligning with the conference theme, Bill Barlow, deputy director of the Integrated Information Communications Technology office within the OASD/NII, emphasized that sharing unclassified information is essential to the success of stability and humanitarian operations.
He also said that unclassified information sharing and collaboration with non-DoD entities continues to be problematic. The DoD culture is “classify by default” rather than “share by default.” Over-classification of documents, cumbersome policies, and ad hoc networks have led to distrust by non-government organizations (NGOs) and numerous civilian agencies.
DoD leadership is now working to strengthen military support for stability and humanitarian operations by working with all entities, public and private, that contribute to mission success. All these initiatives are in line with DoD Directive 3000.05, which mandates that “stability operations are a core U.S. military mission that the Department of Defense shall be prepared to conduct and support. They shall be given priority comparable to combat operations.” The directive also states that information shall be shared among DoD, U.S. government, foreign governments, NGOs, and the private sector to “secure a lasting peace and facilitate the timely withdrawal of U.S. and foreign forces.”
The Army Strategy Conference is generally the best and most serious show in town when it comes to thinking about its topic–strategy. In 1998 the conference nailed the future, but the Services remained beholden to their budget share wars and contractor-driven bells and whistles for profit strategies–they betrayed the public interest. In 2008 the conference again nailed it, and here is the draft article in both document form (click on the image) . The military talks about “we can't do it all” but the military leadership is still not serious about enabling inter-agency planning, programming, budgeting, and campaigning.
At the very bottom, following the full-text online, Frog left is the full detailed notes from this conference, and Frog right is the summary article of the 1998 conference.
Together with C. K. Prahalad's The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks), this book redirected my life. Although I have been an intelligence and operations professional all my life, and spent the last 20 years kicking doors down all over the world to get secret intelligence communities to focus on the 96% of the information they could get legally, ethically, and generally free or at very low cost, I was lacking a strategic frame of reference.
Free Online
This book literally blew my mind into smithereens. Starting with the fact that LtGen Dr. Brent Scowcorft is one of the last adults still standing with his integrity intact, I was moved to the core of my being by the following list, which is in priority order:
I cannot under-state the force with which this list hit me. In combination with Prahalad's book, which makes the point that capitalism is focused on the billion rich with a one trillion marketplace, while the five billion poor represent a FOUR trillion marketplace, I suddenly realized that the Panel had delivered one side of a strategic matrix for creating a prosperous world at peace.
These two books led to my decision to sell my for-profit, OSS.Net, and create, with 23 other co-founders, the Earth Intelligence Network, a 501c3 Public Charity, and to commit myself to being intelligence officer to the poor for the remainder of my life.
I will just list the twelve policies and the eight humanities below, all other information is at EIN, and I do not want to distract from other reviews. This book, this list, is the single most important first step in empowering the collective intelligence of the public to the point that we can eradicate corruption, protect our commonwealths, and achieve a prosperous world at peace.
Twelve policies that must be harmonized at the budget level across all Nations and corporations and foundations, and organizations (this is important because governments are organized as stovepipes–it is lunacy to use up water we don't have to grow grain we do not need to create ethanal with food instead of sugar cane, bacteria, or algae):
01 Agriculture
02 Diplomacy
03 Economy
04 Education
05 Energy
06 Family
07 Health
08 Immigration
09 Justice
10 Security
11 Society
12 Water
The eight humanities (this is important because nothing the US or EU do unless we create, within seven years, an EarthGame that helps these dominant demographics avoid our mistakes:
01 Brazil
02 China
03 India
04 Indonesia
05 Iran
06 Russia
07 Venezuela
08 Wild Cards (e.g. Congo)
There are so many books relevant to all of the above I must point to my lists, but want to list just a couple of future-oriented books here, the last being the first by EIN (free online, but lovely here at Amazon):
Howard Rheingold may well have been the first pioneer to fall down into the chasm of cyberspace and the write about it. As Editor of the Whole Earth Review, following in the footsteps of founder Stewart Brand, he has consistently been on the bleeding edge of both righteous living for a Whole Earth, and the bleeding edge of technology and the human mind. Below are links to his books, the first of which, Tools for Thinking, catalyzed deep soul-searching within the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) which at the time (1986) had nothing to offer such as Howard envisioned. He was, with John Perry Barlow, one of the two speakers at OSS '92 who challenged virtually every aspect of the secret intelligence paradigm.
Marko A. Rodriguez is currently conducting research at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The best place to find Marko is through a Google search of his name or physically in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
