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Pentagon Shifts Its Strategy To Small-Scale Warfare

By August Cole and Yochi J. Dreazen

Wall Street Journal January 30, 2010 Pg. 4

The shift in strategy sets up potential conflicts with defense contractors and powerful lawmakers uneasy with the Pentagon's growing focus on smaller-scale, guerilla warfare.

In particular, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has come to think that the Pentagon's traditional belief that it needed to be able to fight two major wars at the same time was outdated and overly focused on conventional warfare. The new QDR moves away from that model, a mainstay of U.S. military thinking for more than two decades, in favor of an expanded focus on low-intensity conflict.

Phi Beta Iota: This is most fascinating; it is also not the last word. Here is the timeline in short and long versions. Short: 22 years from advance guard to leadership; 12 years from internal think tanks to leadership; probably further delay from leadership acceptance to bureaucratic implementation: another 20 years.

1988: Commandant of the Marine Corps Al Gray and the USMC Intelligence Center figure it out. General Gray publishes “Global Intelligence Challenges in the 1990's,” American Intelligence Journal (Winter 1989-1990).

1992: USMC seeks redirection of one-third of the National Intelligence Topics (NIT) to Third World. Across the board stone-walling by other services and the US Intelligence Community.

Continue reading “Journal: DoD Mind-Set Time Lags Most Fascinating”

2010/01/292010/01/29

Journal: Haiti–A Special Forces Sergeant Major Reports Our National Crime Against Humanity in Haiti

08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Methods & Process, Military, Peace Intelligence, Threats

From A Retired Special Forces Sgt Major:

To All,

I just returned from Haiti with Hebler. We flew in at 3 AM Sunday to the scene of such incredible destruction on one side, and enormous ineptitude and criminal neglect on the other.

Port o Prince is in ruins. The rest of the country is fairly intact. Our team was a rescue team and we carried special equipment that locates people buried under the rubble.

There are easily 200,000 dead, the city smells like a charnel house. The bloody UN was there for 5 years doing apparently nothing but wasting US Taxpayers money.

The ones I ran into were either incompetents or outright anti American. Most are French or french speakers, worthless every damn one of them.

While 1800 rescuers were ready willing and able to leave the airport and go do our jobs, the UN and USAID ( another organization full of little OBamites and communists that openly speak against Americana) [REDACTED].

These two organizations exemplified their parochialism by:

Continue reading “Journal: Haiti–A Special Forces Sergeant Major Reports Our National Crime Against Humanity in Haiti”

2010/01/28

Worth a Look: EU-UN Peacebuilding Book

08 Wild Cards, Civil Society, Government, Law Enforcement, Methods & Process, Military, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Threats

EU-UN Cooperation in Peacebuilding: Partners in Practice?

Gourlay C.
November 2009

Free
order this publication view contents
view bibliographic information

read description or summary (requires Acrobat Reader)

2010/01/282010/01/28

Journal: MILNET Selected Headlines 28 Jan 10

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Key Players, Policies, Threats, Topics (All Other)

aa cia sweeper — CIA Finds a Productive Employee

Capabilities Of U.S. Intelligence Agencies Questioned

Congressional critics have singled out the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), established as part of a sweeping intelligence overhaul after the September 11 attacks.

“I do not (have), nor do I believe the DNI as currently constructed has, all of the authorities to move all of the information in a way that will maximize the likelihood of detecting these plots,” NCTC Director Michael Leiter told the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee.

Phi Beta Iota: Of course the DNI does not have the authorities he needs. That's the plan. If intelligence were as effective as it is capable of being, we could cut the budget back to $25 billion or so, and redirect the savings to education and research, ultimately creating a Smart Nation and a World Brain. See the last item, Fact Check: How State of Union Compares With Reality, and our comment there.

Indonesia Obama Statue — Indonesia Pulling Down Statue?

Obama in Free Fall

After Van Jones, Anita Dunn, the Skip Gates mess, the “tea-bagger” slurs, the attacks on Fox News, the Copenhagen dashes, the bowing, the apologizing, the reordering of creditors, the NEA obsequiousness, the lackluster overseas-contingency-operation front, the deer-in-the-headlights pause on Afghanistan, the pseudo-deadlines on Iran, Guantanamo, and healthcare, the transparency and bipartisanship fraud, and dozens of other things, Obama simply does not have the popularity to carry unpopular legislation forward. Indeed, he is reaching a point where he may poll more negatively than his agenda does. “Let me be perfectly clear” and “make no mistake about it” are now caricatures.

Phi Beta Iota: We are not in favor of bashing the President. This paragraph is a tiny manifestation of the enormous anger across America as the 30% of the voters that elected Obama join with the 70% of the voters that did not vote for him (half of those did not vote at all) to realize that Dick Cheney was not the end of the line, Obama is. The two-party system is not working. It is not representative, it remains corrupt. We coiuld free Obama, but like the lightbulb in the shrink joke, he has to want to be free. Obama could be the George Washington of the 21st Century if he would pass Electoral Reform and lead the entire Nation

Conflict Facts 2002 — Reality in 2002--Little Change Since

Cut The Pentagon, Too: Why Obama's spending freeze should apply to (most of) the military

Like the budgets of all bureaucracies, but much more so, the Pentagon is stuffed with entrenched interests, parochial barons, and internecine rivalries.

There is no good reason to exempt the Pentagon's budget from this discipline. Of course, there are plenty of good reasons to exempt parts of the defense budget from a strict spending freeze.

Continue reading “Journal: MILNET Selected Headlines 28 Jan 10”

2010/01/272010/01/27

Event: 16-18 July 2010 NYC NY The Next Hope

Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Computer/online security, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Geospatial, InfoOps (IO), Key Players, Methods & Process, Mobile, Policies, Real Time, Strategy, Technologies, Threats, Tools

HACKERS ON PLANET EARTH (HOPE)

The Next Hope (2010)

Pre-Registration Now Open

Call for Speakers

Links to Past HOPE Events

Phi Beta Iota: Hackers are like astronauts, pushing the bleeding edge of the envelope. If the US Government had listened to us in 1991-1994, cyberspace would be secure today, and we would not be spending $12 billion a year on the cyber-scam game–outsourcing to beltway bandits fighting for the 100 folks that actually know how to do this stuff and can qualify for clearances. Our solution for the regional networks is gong to be multinational and open everything. This event is specifically recommended for young teens who show signs of intelligence and curiosity, and for mid-career officers beginning to realize that 80% of what they do is without merit, seeking a better way. This is where we do the right things righter, not the wrong things righter.

Photo Gallery (Yahoo) Photo Gallery (Google)

2010/01/272010/01/27

Journal: MILNET Selected Headlines

03 Economy, 04 Education, 05 Iran, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Communities of Practice, Ethics

Obama’s Credibility Gap (New York Times)

Americans are still looking for the answer, and if they don’t get it soon — or if they don’t like the answer — the president’s current political problems will look like a walk in the park.

Public Rifts On Afghanistan: Leaks suggest that the administration is divided, endangering Obama's strategy (Philadelphia Enquirer)

A divided administration will produce an incoherent policy.

U.S. school bans the dictionary (Many Sources)

A California school district has added a new book to the controversial list of literature that is considered unfit for young eyes. . . . It's the dictionary.

Pentagon Report Calls for Office of ‘Strategic Deception’ (WIRED)

The Defense Department needs to get better at lying and fooling people about its intentions. That’s the conclusion from an influential Pentagon panel, the Defense Science Board (DSB), which recommends that the military and intelligence communities join in a new agency devoted to “strategic surprise/deception.”

Continue reading “Journal: MILNET Selected Headlines”

2010/01/262010/01/26

Journal: White House Nightmare, Insanity, or Ignorance?

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Key Players, Methods & Process, Policies, Policy, Reform, Strategy, Threats

White House nightmare persists

At the end of Barack Obama’s worst week since taking power a year ago, the US president’s fortunes look set only to deteriorate over the coming days.

Phi Beta Iota: We find it quite remarkable that there is absolutely no “intelligence” in the sense of decision-support anywhere in this story. The last two Administrations (Bush-Cheney and now Obama-Biden) have been noteworthy for the completely absence of strategy, intelligence, Whole of Government management, balanced budget–just about everything a public has a right to expect from its elected and appointed and paid government.

Nightmare is the wrong word–this is self-imposed insanity based on willful ignorance and the absence of a national Open Source Agency (OSA) with a degree of independence equal to that of the Judiciary. In the Age of Information, information itself has become the Fourth Estate, and the Administration either needs to get a grip on reality and start governing with informed maturity, or watch as others pass them by–Brazil, China, India, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela, for example.

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