Distillation of the Book, Tailored for Army Audience,
March 22, 2005
Robert David Steele
This monograph is a distillation of my book, “The New Craft of Intelligence,” but one tailored for the U.S. Army, which under the leadership of General Peter Schoomaker has gone full force into the future, creating 40+ brigades out of the 10+ divisions, creating stabilization & reconstruction forces, being the first service to designate Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) as a separate “INT” with its own concepts, doctrine, manning, and funding, and so on. US Army personnel can get a free copy from the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College, and it is also online there, visible to the public and printable as a PDF. Including in this publication are recommendations that have been considered (not necessarily adopted) by the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, who first articulated the need for universal coverage, in all languages, at the neighborhood level, 24/7, in January 2004.
Gets Right to the Point: Cheating Destroys the Commonwealth,
February 27, 2005
David Callahan
Edit of 20 Dec 07 to add links.
I recommend that this book be read together with John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man and William Greider's, The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy. As a pre-amble, I would note that a Nobel Prize was given in the late 1990's to a man that demonstrates that trust lowers the cost of doing business. Morality matters–immorality imposes a pervasive sustained, insidious, long-term, and ultimately fatal cost on any community, any Republic, and that is the core message of this book that most reviewers seem to be missing.
Any student of national security can tell you that one of the most important sources of national power is the population, followed by the economy, natural resources, and then the more traditional sources of national power: diplomacy, military, law enforcement, and government policies generally.
What this author makes clear is that our population has become a cheating population, one that cheats in school, cheats their employer, and cheats their clients (lawyers, accountants, doctors, all cheating). Such a population is literally undermining national security by creating false values, and undermining true values. Some simple examples: an estimated $250 Billion a year in individual tax avoidance; an estimated $600 Billion a year in theft from employers; an estimated $250 Billion a year in legalized corporate tax avoidance and investor fraud; and an additional $250 Billion a year in legalized theft form the individual taxpayers through Congressional support for unnecessary and ill-advised “subsidies” for agriculture, fishing, and forestry, as well as waivers of environmental standards that ultimately result in long-term external diseconomies…
At root, the author observes that pervasive cheating ensues from the perception by the majority that “everyone does it” and that the rules are not being enforced–that “the system” lacks legitimacy. In other countries, illegitimacy might lead to revolution, a revolt of the masses. In the USA, still a very rich country, the poor are cheating on the margins while the rich are looting the country, and we are not yet at a “tipping point” such as a new Great Depression might inspire.
This is a thoughtful book, and it does not deserve the negative comments from those whom the book most likely is describing all too well. Cheating diminishes trust and reduces value. America has become corrupt across all the professions, within Congress, within the media, within the political level of government (the civil service remains a bastion of propriety).
What price freedom? What price the Republic? You may or may not choose to agree with this author's diagnosis and prescription, but in my view, he gets to the heart of the matter. It's about integrity. We've lost it.
Dr. Douglas Johnston is the President and founder of the International center for Religion and Diplomacy (ICRD). The Center's mission is to address identity-based conflicts that exceed the reach of traditional diplomacy by incorporating religion as part of the solution.
In 2004 he was recognized with the Golden Candle Award of the Open Source Solutions Society:
OSS '04: To Dr. Douglas M. Johnston, president and founder of the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy, for his path-finding efforts with regard to Preventive Diplomacy as well as Religion and Conflict Resolution. Among his many works, two stand out for defining a critical missing element in modern diplomacy: Religion, the Missing Dimension of Statecraft (Oxford University Press, 1994), and Faith-based Diplomacy: Trumping Realpolitik (Oxford University Press, 2003). He has restored the proper meaning of faith qua earnestness instead of faith qua zealotry, and this is a contribution of great importance.
Dr. Johnston is a distinguished graduate of the US Naval Academy and holds a Masters degree in Public Administration and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University. He has a broad range of executive experience, including assignments in government as Director of Policy Planning and Management in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and later as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy. In academia, he taught international affairs and security at Harvard University and was the founder and first director of the Kennedy School's Executive Program in National and International Security. In the military, he served in the U.S. nuclear submarine service and retired as a Captain in the Naval Reserve.
Dr. Johnston's hands-on experience in the political/military arena coupled with his work in preventive diplomacy, has guided the work of ICRD since its inception. In 2007, he received The Founding Spirit Award for Faith by The Washington Times at its 25th anniversary celebration and in 2008 was identified in a leading Christian journal as “The Father of Faith-based Diplomacy.”
“Life is a miracle and should be treated as such.”
Douglas Johnston
For his constant demonstration of the utility of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) in the understanding of social networks, emerging technologies, and cultural realities. As a world-renowned authority on information and communications, with a deep understanding of the public policy value of open source information, he has made himself available around the world, and had much more influence than most realize. His publication of the book, “The Google Legacy,” is a mere milestone in one of the most distinguished information careers in the world
The only speaker to be invited back each year, Stephen E. Arnold has consistently been close to a decade ahead of the “path-finders” in more bureaucratic environments. Below is his presentaiton to OSS '06.
OSS '04: To Tom Atlee, founder of the Co-Intelligence Institute, for his sustained leadership in the vanguard of an informed democracy. His book, The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World that Worlds for All is in the best traditions of Thomas Jefferson, who said “A Nation’s best defense is an educated citizenry.”
We discovered Tom Atlee when we made the leap from being critical of fraud, waste, and abuse within the secret intelligence community simply on the basis of efficiency, and recognized as so many others have before us, that democracy demands public intelligence, and that secret intelligence is inherently pathological and easily corrupted or exploited by unscrupupous politicians. Tom Atlee has been our guide into the world of appreciate inquiry, deliberative dialog, conscious evolution, and citizenship wisdom councils (Jim Rough), and for that, we can never articulate thanks as profound as the difference he has made. Below is his first presentation to OSS '04.
