Category: DoD

Posted on

Reference: Contours of 21st Century Conflict

02 China, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 06 Russia, 10 Security, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Cultural Intelligence, DoD, Government, InfoOps (IO), Military, Officers Call, Strategy, White Papers
Berto Jongman Recommends...

Worth a read. Interesting report based on innovative research method.  From the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies.

Report: Contours of Conflict in the 21st Century

EXTRACT from Overview:

In gaining a better understanding of the future nature of conflict, it is therefore of the utmost importance to go beyond the traditional Western (English) language domain experts, and include views from regions across the world. The main purpose of the Future Nature of Conflict project is therefore to map and analyze global perspectives about the future nature of conflict published over the last two decades across four language domains – Arabic, Chinese, English and Slavic.

Click on Image to Enlarge

Phi Beta Iota:  Finally!  For years we have talked about the need to do multi-lingual perspectives and statements (e.g. charting Chinese, Vietnamese, Philippine, and Australian statements on the Spratley Islands going back 200 years).  The protocol developed by this team must be –along with M4IS2–the future of strategic dialog, policy, acquisition, and operations.  Any intelligence community that is unable to do this for any issue, any question, may as well go out of business.

Reading through the report is a real pleasure, with all sources being spelled out in footnotes that are actively linked to the original sources.  This is a marvelous gift to scholars and practitioners at multiple levels.

A few highlights:

Continue reading “Reference: Contours of 21st Century Conflict”

Posted on

Winslow Wheeler: Leon Panetta Misleads Public

10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence
Winslow Wheeler
Secretary of Defense Panetta used an invitation to the National War College as an opportunity to lobby against cutting the defense budget more than the $350 billion he has already agreed to.  In the absence of any informed or probing questions, Panetta's extreme rhetoric has also oozed into new Washington DC hysteria resulting from reports about a new round of Pentagon budget cuts.  Even the most severe version of the cuts being bandied about would leave DOD quite flush with money in historic terms.
These are the themes in a new piece, “Elitist Tripe on Defense Spending,” at AOL Defense.

The invitation came to me from Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta's public affairs office to attend a “conversation” with Panetta and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton at the prestigious National Defense University in Washington. Although I knew it wasn't me they wanted to talk to, I sat in the audience to hear Panetta and Clinton in action, especially on the subject of my prime interest: the defense budget.

Continue reading “Winslow Wheeler: Leon Panetta Misleads Public”

Posted on

Penguin: Air Force to Spy on Commercial Aircraft

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, DoD, Intelligence (government), IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency, Military
Who, Me?

This is the most absurd intelligence item so far this week.

Air Force Tackles New Intel Mission

Carlo Munoz

AOL Defense, 9 August 2011

Washington: The Pentagon's top intelligence official has ordered the Air Force to set up a new intelligence unit to analyze the behavior of foreign-based commercial aircraft and integrate intelligence from the combatant commanders as the planes move through American airspace.

Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Mike Vickers has tasked Air Force Secretary Michael Donley to hand pick a chief for the new intelligence cell.

While USD(I) will be the “focal point in DoD for intelligence on foreign civil aviation-related entities associated with illicit activities or posing a threat to the United States, its allies or its interests,” the Air Force will handle day-to-day operations through the Civil Aviation Intelligence Analysis Center, according to a July 29 memo from Vickers.

Read full article….

Posted on

David Isenberg: Military Sub-Contractors Managing Kitchens a Major Health Threat to Entire Battalions

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, Budgets & Funding, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Corruption, DoD, Military, Officers Call
David Isenberg

You Want Chicken Pox with That?

EXTRACT

The story of what might be called the ghost of chicken pox future starts with Najlaa International Catering Services (NICS), a KBR contractor, headquartered in Kuwait. NICS was solicited by KBR in the spring of 2008 to provide a Request for Proposal (RFP) for approximately 32 Dining Facilities (DFAC) at various military camps in Iraq under the Army's LOGCAP (Logistics Civil Augmentation Program) III program. NICS subsequently won the contract.

Around the end of the first week of November 2008 it was discovered that NICS's temporary tent city housing camp at Victory Base Camp had a confirmed chicken pox case and 37 employees were supposed to be quarantined. NICS disputed with GlobalMed, its KBR-approved medical service provider, that it was a chicken pox case. NICS began to release the employees from the quarantine tent and put them back to work at the DFAC's.

Read original story in full….

Phi Beta Iota:  This little-noticed story is actually–in our view–a major investigative expose.  At multiple levels, from irresponsible acquisition to potentially catastrophic infections of entire divisions by “friendly contractors,” this is a story that merits much more attention.  It is also a story that reinforces our view that contractors have no business being employed or engaged in a combat zone.

Posted on

Richard Wright: Jail Time for Over-Classification?

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Articles & Chapters, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government
Richard Wright

Is it possible the good guys are going to win the issue of over-classifcation? Can a real Open Source Agency (OSA) become the new face of strateic intelligence?

Complaint Seeks Punishment for Classification of Documents

By

New York Times, August 1, 2011

EXTRACT

Under the executive order governing classification, the punishment could include dismissal, suspension without pay, reprimand or loss of a security clearance.

. . . . . .

“I’ve never seen a more deliberate and willful example of government officials improperly classifying a document,” he said.

Phi Beta Iota:  Since the early 1990's the general practice has been to classify everything, and agency heads and the limited number of classifying authorities have been severely derelict in their duty, allowing anyone down to the GS-1 night sweeper to classify documents “in their name.”  In this specific instance, the Drake case, it would be quite nice to see someone go to jail.  It won't happen, but both the Courts and the public are growing very intolerant of Executive malfeasance that would make Dick Cheney proud.  In the purest sense of the world, the US Intelligence Community agency heads are corrupt.  They lack integrity.

See Also:

Reference: No More Secrets – Open Source Intelligence/Intelligence Reform Fight Round II

Reference: 1996 Hill Testimony on Secrecy

Reference: 1996 Testimony to Moynihan Commisson

1993 TESTIMONY on National Security Information

Posted on

Winslow Wheeler: Defense Cuts, Defense Flim-Flam

07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Blog Wisdom, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, DoD, Government, IO Impotency, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Officers Call, Open Government, Peace Intelligence, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy, Technologies
Winslow Wheeler

There are numerous misleading and misinformed assertions being made about the defense spending parts of the debt deal.

The White House's “fact sheet” asserts a $350 billion savings in the “base defense budget.” The $350 billion in defense savings that the White House declares apparently uses a different “baseline” (basis of comparison) and pretends that a two year cap the bill establishes on “security” spending will extend to ten years.  Most misleading of all, it assumes that all savings in the “security” category (which includes DOD, DOE/nuclear weapons, all State Department related spending, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security) will occur only in DOD spending.  In fact, the “security” category was designed to broaden the base for “defense” cuts and to lessen the impact on DOD.  The undocumented $350 billion in “security” savings will actually translate into lesser reductions in DOD spending, but the amount is unknown.  The actual amount will be decided by Congress in the future.
Posted on

Reference: Which Army? Minutemen or Legionnaires?

10 Security, 11 Society, Cultural Intelligence, DoD, Military, Officers Call
Marcus Aurelius
Attached 17-page (12 plus footnotes) paper is worth reading.  Much to agree with, little to dispute.  Major thesis is that Army has, since about 1989, transformed from a citizen force that may go nowhere for decades to a professional legion that deploys operationally on a routine basis.
The single part that most seized me is that portion of the abstract that reads, “… In the midst of a civilian society that is increasingly pacifistic, easygoing, and well adjusted, the Army (career and non-career soldiers alike) remains flinty, harshly results-oriented, and emotionally extreme.  The inevitable civil-military gap has become a chasm.”