Category: Threats

Posted on

Poverty Dichotomies: USAID’s Famine Early Warning Systems Network, & “Dead Aid” (poverty reduction vs. wealth creation)

01 Poverty, 03 Environmental Degradation, International Aid

Poverty was considered the #1 threat to humanity's planetary security by the “High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change” organized by the SG of the United Nations in 2004.

Dichotomies reside within organizations. And the United Nations seems to be at odds over what is more important, poverty or “‘climate change”. And recently expressed at the “State of the Planet 2010” event in NYC, even linking the two. Who is going to say face-to-face with those in poverty not to cut trees or burn coal to cook or heat because they should lower their ‘carbon footprint' because that will “save the planet”? (Side issue: Solar LED lighting, solar battery chargers, water filters, etc have been developed for the ‘rural poor').

USAID, Wartime, & Dead Aid:

Jeffrey Sachs' had closing remarks at the “State of the Planet 2010” event on March 25, stating that those who claim that aid is not helping Africa are saying “absolute nonsense!” (in an almost angry tone) was interesting despite not going into detail. I'm curious what American organizations who are focused on foreign aid have to say about aid for Americans who are homeless/malnourished, etc. Can't domestic and foreign aid groups network, learn from each other, and developed new ideas? (one example).

Examples of opposition to Jeffrey Sachs' nonsense statement:

If seemingly great opportunities such as the March 25 “State of the Planet 2010” event fall short in generating ‘public intelligence' and ideas to resolve global challenges, then we must look elsewhere. Bono and Jeffrey Sachs are limited while ambitious. This creates a lot of attention, funding, and publicity, but is not wholly effective/is not an answer to the world's problems. It's more of a stimulant to come up with better frameworks that involve more people that desire to network empathy, intelligence, and resources. That, more than traditional ideas on “leadership” herding people towards a promise land will do more good.

Related:

Posted on

Search: nato knowledge development handbook

08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Mapping, IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, Non-Governmental, Threats, Threats/Topical

What an interesting search, thank you.  Here are some links that came up in a broader search that we import to Phi Beta Iota with a tip of the hat to the anonymous searcher.

Cross-Domain Collaboration Takes Center Stage at NATO Network-Enabled Capability (NNEC) Conference (Intelligence and Knowledge Development, March 12, 2010)

IMPLEMENTATION OF NATO EBAO DOCTRINE AND ITS EFFECTS ON OPERATIONAL STAFFS’ STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONS by Cristophe MIDAN  Strategic Impact (Impact Strategic), issue: 4 / 2009, pages: 3954, on www.ceeol.com.

MCC Northwood Effects Based Approach to the Operational Planning Process, CDR J.L. Geiger, USN    N521 (Bottom line: Knowledge Development is OSINT outside of the IC combined with rotten and thin secret intelligence from Member states).

Model NATO 2009/2010 Handbook

Cody Burke, Freeing knowledge, telling secrets: Open source intelligence and development (Centre for East-West Cultural and Economic Studies, CEWCES Research Papers, Bond University, 2007)

Posted on

Journal: Pentagon Strategy & Policy Oxymoron Squared?

02 China, 03 India, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Russia, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Government, Military
Michèle Flournoy

Phi Beta Iota: We don't make this stuff up.  The Pentagon has no strategy because the U.S. Government has no strategy.  The National Security Council is managed by a General who emphasized getting along with the Chief of Naval Operation, never-mind leaving Marines wounded on the battlefield for lack of Naval Gunfire Support (NFS).

Join us in savoring what passes for a strategist and nominal policy making savant with the below headlines.

Below item is full text to avoid inconvenience.  It is followed by several linked  headlines that make quite clear the shallowness of the Pentagon strategy-policy pool.

Executive Summary: The gentle lady has no idea what the ten high-level threats to humanity are, nor does she care.  She's a place-holder for the disappointed John Hamre, and a token female at the top who goes with the flow.  She has neither any grasp nor any conceptual framework for actually creating grand strategy, harmonizing Whole of Government policies nor even–this really did surprise us–how many failed states there are in the world.

PBS March 27, 2010

Interview With Michele Flournoy, Under Secretary Of Defense For Policy

Charlie Rose (PBS), 1:00 A.M.

CHARLIE ROSE: The United States military is engaged around the world. It is withdrawing combat troops from Iraq as it builds up troops in Afghanistan. It is partnering with Pakistan in an aggressive counterterrorism campaign including drone attacks in the tribal areas. It’s working with the Yemeni government to counter a resurgent al Qaeda there. And U.S. troops are still in Haiti for the humanitarian relief efforts.

But the military has to do more than respond to the conflicts of the day. It must prepare for future wars, adoptive enemies and a shifting security environment.

The person at the Pentagon who spends the most time working on these issues is Michèle Flournoy. She is under secretary of defense for policy and the highest ranking female official in the Defense Department. I am very pleased to have her with me in the night studio at the Newseum in Washington.

Tell me what it is that you do at the Pentagon, how do you define this responsibility?

Continue reading “Journal: Pentagon Strategy & Policy Oxymoron Squared?”

Posted on

EVENT REPORT: State of the Planet 2010, Columbia Univ, New York City

01 Poverty, 03 Environmental Degradation, 03 India, microfinancing, Mobile, Threats, United Nations-affiliated


Panels and keynotes program schedule I was told via email from someone involved in the event that a video will be posted online.I will be posting this over a the Earth Institute blog (especially since it has zero comments for the March 25 event) as a challenge to improve the overall framework of the “State of the Planet 2012”.

State of the Planet 2010 Event Report:
Intro
I attended this bi-annual event in 2008. At that time there was not a global webcast that included panelists located in other countries. At the 2010 event, there was a V.I.P. section closer to the ‘stage' that I was not notified about. The V.I.P. section had about 3 times more people than the non V.I.P. section which was odd. Despite it being a V.I.P. section, there was never enough time given to them to ask all the questions via microphone. This is a Jeffrey Sachs event, it's his show. He's the main advisor to Ban Ki-Moon, and friends with the president of Mexico (who keynoted this event), so it seems to be more from his perspective and his friends. Therefore, it was a very narrow-visioned event that should not be entitled “State of the Planet”. People involved with the publication “State of the Future” for over a decade (www.stateofthefuture.org) were never mentioned, invited, or asked to contribute. Yet, these people have worked with the United Nations for over a decade. Collective intelligence has been written and software is being developed by those involved in the “State of the Future” (Millennium Project), yet Jeffrey Sachs was attributed to the idea of “worldwide brainstorming” for “collective invention”. And unfortunately, there was an obsession at this event on ‘climate change' and carbon. “Industrialization footprint” involves a broader range of hazards and toxins that needs more air time. More ‘fluid' thinking was lacking while an excess of a kind of cloned groupthink was prevalent (or ‘carbon copying' if you will, pun intended). The forum has great potential but as of 2008 & 2010, is too insulated and will not be respected as highly intelligent and strategically effective by a broad range of people (outside of Ivy League Columbia) concerned about serious global issues. On an interesting note, Zbigniew Brzezinski was once a Columbia professor (see Obama video on his Brezinski recognition).
Continue reading “EVENT REPORT: State of the Planet 2010, Columbia Univ, New York City”

Posted on

Journal: Legality of US Drones as Killing Machines . . .

08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Government, Military

Death by Drone
Berto Jongman Recommends...

U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee Hearing:

“Rise of the Drones:

Unmanned Systems and the Future of War”

Tuesday, March 23, 2010, 2:00 pm 2154 Rayburn House Office Building Written Testimony Submitted By Kenneth Anderson March 18, 2010

Posted on

Handbook: Democide–Internal Murder by Regimes

05 Civil War, 06 Genocide, 07 Other Atrocities, Threats/Topical
Democide Home Page

This is a virtual handbook, an online compilation of a new broader concept, democide, that encompasses genocide but focuses on what be called “death by power” or “killed because they could” at the hands of authoritarian regimes.  The term does not include those killed by the USA or other countries engaged in foreign wars in which civilians are “collateral damage,” in the case of the Global War on Terror, along the lines of 10 to 1 by the USA and 100 to 1 by those who plant bombs to terrorize publics (some of the bombs appear to be planted by Blackwater and their like, sponsored by the Joint Special Operations Group (JSOC) and/or the Centeral Intelligence Agency (CIA) to justify further militarization of a given conflict.  The US secret world can no longer be trusted to act in the public interest, nor to be effective in support of legitimate campaign needs such as those of our commanders in Afghanistan.

On genocide, see Dr. Greg Stanton's Genocide Watch.

On 44 dictators, 42 of them “best pals” of the US Government, see Ambassador Mark Palmer's two contributions:

2004 Palmer (US) Achieving Universal Democracy by Eliminating All Dictators within the Decade

Review: Breaking the Real Axis of Evil–How to Oust the World’s Last Dictators by 2025

noble gold