Michael Nasuti of Kabul Press recently published an article in which he calculated that killing each Taliban soldier in Afghanistan costs on average of $50 million to the US. The article, seemingly carefully. researched with all assumptions laid out so that anyone can examine them, is well worth reading. Nasuti, “Killing Each Taliban Soldier Costs $50 million.” He points out that at this rate, killing the entire Taliban forces (only 35,000) would cost $1.7 trillion, not a small amount for a country suffering from a severe economic downturn to spend on a war with no apparent purpose. And Nasuti's number, of course, assumes that they coud not be replaced faster than they are killed, but it appears that they can, easily.
Nasuti, who actually uses a “conservative” number (assuming that he has undercounted the number of Taliban casualties by one half), states that he had previously served “at a senior level” in the United States Air Force. He says,
The reason for these exorbitant costs is that United States has the world’s most mechanized, computerized, weaponized and synchronized military, not to mention the most pampered (at least at Forward Operating Bases). An estimated 150,000 civilian contractors support, protect, feed and cater to the American personnel in Afghanistan . . . The ponderous American war machine is a logistics nightmare and a maintenance train wreck.
Listen to the generals speak, and you’d think the Pentagon’s networks were about to be overrun with worms and Trojans. But a draft federal report indicates that the number of “incidents of malicious cyber activity” in the Defense Department has actually decreased in 2010. It’s the first such decline since the turn of the millennium.
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In the first six months of 2010, there were about 30,000 such incidents, according to statistics compiled by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Last year, there were more than 71,000. “If the rate of malicious activity from the first half of this year continues through the end of the year,” the commission notes in a draft report on China and the internet, “2010 could be the first year in a decade in which the quantity of logged events declines.”
The figures are in stark contrast to the sky-is-falling talk coming out of the Beltway.
“Over the past ten years, the frequency and sophistication of intrusions into U.S.military networks have increased exponentially,” Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn wrote in a recent issue of Foreign Affairs.
Mikhail Gorbachev, who has been neutralized by the succession of Russian rulers, especially Putin) has just advised President Obama to get out of Afghanistan. Jonathan Steele suggests here (also attached below) that Obama ought to heed that advice, because Obama is in a similar albeit somewhat worse position than Gorbachev was in 1985-6.
Analogies are dangerous, because they can capture your thinking and take you off the cliff. But here goes.
If Steele's analogy is accurate, it suggests some pregnant ramifications that are not addressed directly by Steele: Russia (Putin and Medvedev) appear to be helping US/Nato in Afghanistan with training programs and by providing access routes for northern logistics lines of communication. This cooperation serve both parties by improving relations in the short term, but it also helps US/Nato stay on its disastrous course in Afghanistan. Are there other reasons why would Putin, an ardent nationalist, would what the US to remain stuck in Russia's backyard?
Russia needs help in staunching spillover of Sunni radicalism into its Moslem areas and its Central Asian sphere of influence (a variation of the original reason USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979). The US war on the Taliban serves that interest. So from Putin's point of view, keeping US/Nato bogged down in Afghanistan serves Russian national interests for free.
Putin, a former member of the KGB and an ardent nationalist, certainly knows the US fomented Sunni extremism in Afghanistan to sucker the Soviets into invading Afghanistan with the aimed of bogging the USSR down in its own VietNam-like quagmire (a policy proudly acknowledged by President Carter's National Security Advisor,Zbigniew Brzezinski in his notorious interview in Le Nouvel Observateur, January 1998). Putin must also know that the US/Nato engagement in Afghanistan, is (1) a huge resource drain that is weakening US economically and militarily, as well as (2) weakening the bonds giving the US political control over its Nato allies. From his point of view, these two outcomes would certainly improve Russia's relative power with respect to Europeans (especially Germany) and in the world, at the expense of the US. Moreover, in Putin's eyes, these outcomes might seem to be justified as payback to the US. After all, did not the US unleash the Islamic radicalism with its efforts to maneuver the USSR into Afghanistan in 1979 and did not the US humiliate Russia by the exploiting Russia's economic misery and military weaknesses, after Gorbachev had done the the US and the West a huge favor by precipitating collapse of the Soviet Union and ending the Cold War without bloodshed?
So, who should Obama and his advisors listen to? Putin the nationalist and go for a short term political gain at expense of remaining stuck in the quagmire that serves Russia's interests, or Gobachev the statesman who advises Obama to bite the bullet and absorb short-term political pain to gain long term benefits of exiting a quagmire that is weakening the US economically and militarily?
Of course the war advocate could counter by saying this is based on an analogy run amok. We are not making the gross mistakes the Soviets made in Afghanistan, and besides, it is cutting and running that weakens us. After all, Gobachev is just an old man who refuses to see that his time has past and is struggling futilely to remain relevant.
Designed to press the “reset” button after east-west tempers flared over the war in Georgia, the meeting ended with several agreements, the most dramatic of which was Russia's nod for the US to send military supplies across Russian territory to its forces in Afghanistan. Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin wanted to give Obama a reward for taking a calmer view of Russia than George Bush, in particular for accepting Georgia's share of blame in the South Ossetian crisis and for cancelling the most provocative aspects of Bush's missile defence scheme which Moscow viewed as a threat.
Throughout this highly charged election season, government spending and the federal deficit have been a linchpin of political arguments. At the same time, a gridlocked Congress means that very little has been accomplished despite all the debate.
But a report published earlier this month highlights seven ways that, using existing technologies, the federal government could save $100 billion dollars a year for the next 10 years, not-insignificant portion of the current federal deficit.
The report, “One Trillion Reasons,” was published by the Technology CEO Council, a group chaired by IBM CEO Samuel Palmisano. It lays out how technologies from data center management to fraud-fighting tools can improve efficiency and productivity in the government.
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Initiative 1: Consolidate Information Technology Infrastructure
Initiative 2: Streamline Government Supply Chains
Initiative 3: Reduce Energy Use
Initiative 4: Move to Shared Services for Mission-Support Activities.
Initiative 5: Apply Advanced Business Analytics to Reduce Improper Payments.
Initiative 6: Reduce Field Operations Footprint and Move to Electronic Self-Service.
Initiative 7: Monetize the government's assets
Somalia anti-piracy patrol: Update. The Danish navy says it sank a Somali pirate boat in the Gulf of Aden. Spokesman Kenneth Nielsen said Wednesday that the command and control ship HDMS Esbern Snare intercepted a suspicious boat Tuesday, confiscated weapons and fuel, and detained six pirates. The Danes then used explosives to mine and sink the boat. The suspected pirates were later released since officials said no crime had been committed.
Earlier Wednesday, the European Union's anti-piracy force said pirates attacked but failed to hijack a French-flagged ship off the coast of Tanzania. The Danish navy ship is part of NATO's anti-piracy operation in the region.
European Union's anti-piracy force says the pirates are holding 19 ships and more than 420 hostages.
NIGHTWATCH Comment: After several years of trying, the some 40 ships on anti-piracy patrols have made scant progress against the pirates but have maintained skills.
Phi Beta Iota: As long as the IC persists in sticking with the TS/SCI “all or nothing” approach to information, it will continue to fail in serving the needs of virtually all of the current and all of the unrecognized but potentially legitimate customers for its proven sources and methods. The Open Source Agency under diplomatic auspices, that includes both the 50 community intelligence networks managed by the National Guard as well as the Multinational Decision Support Centre with regional multinational Stations, are necessary first steps if intelligence is to be useful into the future.
Regarding the polygraph, it works and has been hugely successful within the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) and within the Government of Guatemala itself, with two major caveats: 1) polygraph results must be reported directly to the leadership by the polygraphers, we have seen polygraphs manipulated or fabricated by security managers intent on achieving specific personnel or political or budget goals; and 2) out of area polygraphers are essential–in Central America, and we suspect in the Southwest border region as well, most local polygraphers have been employed by and well compensated by and are deathly afraid of, the narco-traffickers who know how to use the polygraph to keep their own ranks free of penetrations and betrayal from within. A global cadre of polygraphers under deep cover is needed.
Venezuela- US: For the record. The Caracas government seized two factories owned by U.S.-based glass maker Owens Illinois, because it caused “environmental damage and exploited workers,” Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on 25 October. Today Venezuelan soldiers took possession of the factories.
Venezuela-Middle East: President Chavez said his government and Libya are creating a $1 billion joint investment fund to pay for projects the two countries will pursue together, according to a report by The Associated Press. Chavez also announced a $100 million joint fund with Syria, which will be used on projects such as aid in the construction of an oil refinery and to establish an olive oil processing plant.
NIGHTWATCH Comment: Chavez invariably goes out of his way to make questionable deals with countries that tend to have strained relations with the US. None of his new allies are in a position to help Venezuela in the event of trouble, which calls into question the wisdom of the investments, the utility of the associations and the soundness of Chavez' judgment.
Phi Beta Iota: We beg to differ with our esteemed colleague. The US is so over-extended in its elective wars and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq as to call into question its ability to be effective anywhere else, including against Somali pirates. Furthermore, the passing of time and the accumulation of public knowledge has a “truth” effect that may not lead to reconciliation but will lead to more and more expropriation of ill-gotten gains by predatory capitalists who in the past were able to call in the US Marines to enforce unethical, illegal, and unjust seizures of property. Just as Australia is now getting serious about Native Title, so also is the rest of the Southern Hemisphere going to get serious about expropriating back into indigenous possession those lands acquired through illicit or unethical means.
The next President, and the next Director of National Intelligence (DNI), are going to have to lead a 180 degree change in how the US “does” intelligence. Instead of producing 4% “at best,” the DNI is going to have to lead the integration of education, intelligence, and research so as to meet 96% “at worst” of the needs of the Nation in both restoring domestic prosperity and in achieving truth & reconciliation abroad. Absent such a redirection, the US will not survive in its present form to 2025…in our always humble opinion. This will require leaders with integrity who place the public interest foremost.
