The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Bert Laden was buried at sea within 24 hours of being gunned down in what was probably a CIA safehouse set up with help from Blackwater. Claims by the White House and CIA that DNA confirmation of his identity are bogus.
DNA tests take 3-10 days to run and are not something that can be done in flight or at sea.
Captain Wayne Porter discusses “A National Strategic Narrative”
Posted: Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Institute of World Politics
Captain Porter explained that US policy could benefit from adhering to a coherent strategic context. He was concerned that our leaders increasingly are becoming captive to temporal urgency without being able to consider a wider strategic perspective. We need to appreciate the interconnectedness and complexity of our strategic environment – better described as a strategic ecology. He said that this argues for a whole-of-nation, functional approach to development, diplomacy and defense, versus simply treating these as organizational stovepipes. He pointed out that such a functional approach has now been recognized in the National Security Strategy, the Quadrennial Defense Review, and the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review.
Reference: National Strategic Narrative
Continue reading “Integrity Emergent: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs”
The Pentagon Labyrinth
It is my pleasure to announce the publication of The Pentagon Labyrinth: 10 Short Essays to Help You Through It. This is a short pamphlet of less than 150 pages and is available at no cost in E-Book PDF format, as well as in hard copy from links on this page as well as here and here. Included in the menu below are download links for a wide variety of supplemental/supporting information (much previously unavailable on the web) describing how notions of combat effectiveness relate to the basic building blocks of people, ideas, and hardware/technology; the nature of strategy; and the dysfunctional character of the Pentagon’s decision making procedures and the supporting role of its accounting shambles.
Chuck Spinney
The Blaster
This pamphlet aims to help both newcomers and seasoned observers learn how to grapple with the problems of national defense. Intended for readers who are frustrated with the superficial nature of the debate on national security, this handbook takes advantage of the insights of ten unique professionals, each with decades of experience in the armed services, the Pentagon bureaucracy, Congress, the intelligence community, military history, journalism and other disciplines. The short but provocative essays will help you to:
The handbook ends with lists of contacts, readings and Web sites carefully selected to facilitate further understanding of the above, and more.
Extraordinary for its candid focus on what is wrong with the US Army:
“And on top of the repeat deployments, there is the garrison mindset and personnel bureaucracy that awaits them back home – often cited as primary factors causing promising officers to leave the Army just as they are best positioned to have a positive impact on the institution.”
“Men and women in the prime of their professional lives, who may have been responsible for the lives of scores or hundreds of troops, or millions of dollars in assistance, or engaging in reconciling warring tribes, they may find themselves in a cube all day re-formatting power point slides, preparing quarterly training briefs, or assigned an ever expanding array of clerical duties. The consequences of this terrify me.”
This is certainly rampant in the Pentagon. Not long ago — just a very few months — there was a office I passed through frequently where a significant number, say 30 (I didn't count the cubes) of principally field grade officers sat updating PowerPoint slides for the next day's brief. Not far away was an other office of about 20 or so doing very similar stuff.
United States Military Academy (West Point, NY)
As Delivered by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, West Point, NY, Friday, February 25, 2011
Tip of the Hat to Contributing Editor Marcus Aurelius.
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Continue reading “USA National Military Strategy 2011 + RECAP”
The below was inspired by a close look at the evolving concept of cyber-commands. In our judgment, LtGen Keith Alexander, USA and those in charge of the various service cyber-commands are headed for spectacularly expensive failure, minor operational successes not-with-standing. The officers concerned are well-intentioned, precisely like their predecessors who chose to ignore precisely the same insights published in 1994–they simply lack the intestinal fortitude to break with the past and get it right for a change. What they plan is the cyber equivalent of “clear, hold, build,” and just as mis-guided. They are out of touch with reality and will remain so. They will all be happily retired long before the predictable recognition of their failure occurs, and the next generation of young flags will make the same mistakes again…and again…until we get an honest President with an honest Office of Management and Budget (OMB) able to demand and enforce integrity across the board.
Draft Monograph on Cyber-Command
See Also:
Phi Beta Iota: 78 pages representing the “state of the art” in DoD OSINT, remarkably pedestrian, not at all what one would expect after years of multi-million dollar expenditures by STRATCOM. The “priorities” on the very last page are particularly relevatory with respect to what is and is not being done by STRATCOM, pupportedly on behalf of DoD world-wide.
