Journal: Obama To Name Retired General To Top Spy Post

04 Education, 10 Security, Corruption, Government, Methods & Process, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Policy, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy, Technologies, True Cost

Marcus-Aurelius-150x150 — Marcus Aurelius Recommends

Probably not an inspired choice.

New York Times June 5, 2010 Pg. 1

Obama To Name Retired General To Top Spy Post

By Peter Baker and Eric Schmitt

WASHINGTON — President Obama has picked Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper Jr. as director of national intelligence, tapping a retired officer with decades of experience to improve coordination of the nation’s sprawling spy apparatus amid increasing threats at home and escalating operations abroad.

Mr. Obama plans to announce his choice in the Rose Garden on Saturday, two weeks after forcing Adm. Dennis C. Blair out of the spymaster job, according to administration officials, who insisted on anonymity to disclose the decision before the formal ceremony.

FULL STORY ONLINE

Sheep in Wolf's Clothing

See also:

He has been nicknamed “the Godfather of HUMINT” — using human contacts for gathering intelligence in addition to high-tech methods like satellite imagery or intercepting communications.

Phi Beta Iota: This alone–a farce on top of a farce–makes him unsuited to the position. Obama and Gates know what they want: to continue Grand Theft Intel as the same time that Grand Theft Pentagon continues the looting of the public treasury. If Congress can rediscover its integrity and invite former Senators such as David Boren (D-OK), Pat Roberts (R-KS), and Bob Graham (D-FL) as well as Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA), they might discover the universal condemnation of “business as usual,” which is precisely what this nominee represents. Whatever claims are made about transformation or revolution will at best be pap and at worst a deliberate breach of trust in lying to the Congress. Dick Cheney would be proud of what passes for leadership in the Department of Defense today.

Reference: Human Intelligence (HUMINT): All Humans, All Minds, All the Time

Earlier Posts on DNI Self-Destruction:

Journal: With No Successor In Sight, Intelligence Czar Departs

AFIO Selected Headline Links with Phi Beta Iota Comments

Intelligence Headlines of Note

Reference: Strategic Asymmetry–with Comment

2010/05/302010/05/30

Reference: Strategic Asymmetry–with Comment

Analysis, Augmented Reality, Budgets & Funding, Collaboration Zones, Collective Intelligence, Computer/online security, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Ethics, Geospatial, History, info-graphics/data-visualization, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), International Aid, Key Players, Policies, Policy, Reform, Research resources, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy, Technologies, Threats, Tools, True Cost

: Full Source Online

Dr. Steve Metz was published on this topic by the Military Review in July-August 2001. A great deal of original thinking came out of the U.S. Army Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) in the aftermath of the 1998 Army Strategy Conference, and sadly, none of it has gained any traction with any Secretary of Defense (or State) since then. Should Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) actually be selected to be the new Director of National Intelligence (DNI), this is a concept he is going to have to integrate into his thinking.

Although Dr. Metz fully understands the asymmetry of will and touches on the asymmetry of morale, he does not address the core intelligence question of our century: the asymmetry of morality. Will & Ariel Durant understood this and highlighted the strategic value of being “in the right” in their capstone work, The Lessons of History. Others, including Buckminster Fuller in Critical Path and Dr. Robert Ackoff (see first link below), understood that context matters, and within context, morality and doing the right thing.

Morale is not the same as moral, and the “collateral advantage” that allows one to harness the distributed intelligence of the Whole Earth–to receive unsolicited warnings large and small, to receive unsolicited good ideas large and small–comes ONLY when one holds the moral high ground. It merits stressing that CONSENSUS is most easily achieved when those striving to achieve consensus share a common faith in integrity–in morality.

America is in the wrong today, because the US Government is imposing on both the domestic public and on humanity at large the wrong policies, the wrong programs, and the wrong acquisitions–as well as the wrong distribution of US taxpayer funds in the service of dictators, cartel leaders, and predatory immoral banks and businesses not at all interested in earning legal ethical profit fully compliant with true cost economics also known as the triple bottom line.

If the next DNI is to be successful, they must:

Continue reading “Reference: Strategic Asymmetry–with Comment”

2010/05/302010/05/30

Journal: With No Successor In Sight, Intelligence Czar Departs

Analysis, Augmented Reality, Budgets & Funding, Collective Intelligence, Computer/online security, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Geospatial, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), Key Players, Maps, Methods & Process, microfinancing, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Open Government, Policies, Policy, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Reform, Research resources, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy, Technologies, Threats, Tools, True Cost

FULL STORY: Declassified (newsweek.com/blogs)

May 28, 2010

By Mark Hosenball

On Dennis Blair’s last day in office as director of national intelligence, the Obama administration seems more stymied than ever in its efforts to replace him.

Following a torrent of criticism from Capitol Hill—apparently touched off by this Declassified interview with Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the House Intelligence Committee’s top Republican—the candidacy of James Clapper looks doubtful to say the least. On top of Hoekstra’s criticism of the retired three-star general, who currently serves as the Defense Department’s intelligence chief, the Senate Intelligence Committee’s leaders are now also publicly saying they think he’s the wrong man for the job.

. . . . . .

The latest boomlet in speculation on potential candidates is centered on Michael Vickers, a former Green Beret and CIA operative who has been the Defense Department’s top civilian in charge of counterterrorism and special-operations programs slnce late in the Bush administration. Vickers was one of 15 potential DNI candidates we identified when news of the job opening broke….

. . . . . . .

But other names keep coming up. Some, such as Homeland Security undersecretary Rand Beers, Joint Chiefs of Staff Deputy Chairman Gen. James Cartwright, and outgoing Sen. Evan Bayh, have surfaced before (one former official who worked in national security positions with Beers describes him as “indefatigable”). But others are new to this particular search, including Rep. Jane Harman, former Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, and former CIA deputy director John McLaughlin.

Phi Beta Iota: Worth a complete read. Here are the fifteen potential DNI's they identified earlier:, followed by our picks.

Political and bureaucratic heavyweights:
FBI Director Robert Mueller
CIA Director Leon Panetta
Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg
Marine Gen. James Cartwright, deputy chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Intelligence and defense technocrats:
Lt. Gen. Jim Clapper, currently Defense Department intelligence supremo;
Michael Vickers, assistant defense secretary for special operations;
John Hamre, a former deputy defense secretary;
Harvard academic Joseph Nye, also a former senior Pentagon official; and
John McHugh, a former GOP congressman whom Obama named as secretary of the Army.

High-profile intelligence politicos:
John Brennan, the White House counterterrorism and Homeland Security supremo; or
Rand Beers, a former career intelligence official who left his job as a senior counterterrorism adviser in the George W. Bush White House to become national security adviser to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, and now serves as undersecretary of Homeland Security

High-profile politicos:
former Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Republican close to Obama; former congressman and
intelligence-reform campaigner Lee Hamilton;
former Indiana senator Evan Bayh; and
former representative Tim Roemer (another intel-reform campaigner who is now U.S. ambassador in India)

Phi Beta Iota: Everyone in the above lists is a ridiculous untenable suggestion with one exception: Senator Chuck Hagel. His combination of integrity, substantive experience, standing on the Hill, and general non-partisan common sense, is ideal. What he lacks is a kick-ass deputy who actually understands all the crap that the agencies–and their den mother Jim Clapper–put forward. Leon Panetta would actually be very good as the Deputy, responsible for turning off all funds to all agencies at 20% a year (10% a year restored for new initiatives; savings to education and national research under DNI oversight as provided for in the Smart Nation-Safe Nation Act) but Hagel is going to need a kitchen cabinet of truth-tellers and we are pretty sure he is not even aware of who they might be. That is his sucking chest wound–if he solves that he will not only earn Obama a second term, he will transcend politics and impact directly on the totality of all budgets–US, state & local, other nations, corporations, NGOs. Jack Devine is in the wings in New York, the Trilateral Commission's choice for either DNI or Director of Central Intelligence, he has our vote for the latter position.

The problem President Obama has is in the White House is that no one working for him actually “gets it” with respect to 21st Century governance–between his pogomist and his pollster and his talented but oblivious others, he is running on fumes, will not get a second term, and is simply counting the days to when he can follow Bill Bradley, Al Gore, and Bill Clinton in Goldman Sachs honey-land–and screw the American public, they were never the intended beneficiaries of all this in the first place.

References for any future DNI:

Human Intelligence (HUMINT): All Humans, All Minds, All the Time (SSI, 2010)
The Smart Nation Act: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest (OSS, 2006)
Information Operations: All Information, All Languages, All the Time (OSS, 2006)
The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political (OSS, 2002)
On Intelligence: Spies and Secrecy in an Open World (AFCEA, 2000; OSS, 2001)

and for the really big picture:

Intelligence for Earth: Clarity, Diversity, Integrity, & Sustainability (EIN, 2010)
Collective Intelligence: Crating a Prosperous World at Peace (EIN, 2008)
Peacekeeping Intelligence: Emerging Concepts for the Future (OSS, 2003)

2010/05/302010/09/04

Reference: UnityNet — an M4IS2 Option

08 Wild Cards, About the Idea, Analysis, Augmented Reality, C4/JOE/Software, Collaboration Zones, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Computer/online security, DoD, Ethics, Geospatial, Handbook Elements, Historic Contributions, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, Journalism/Free-Press/Censorship, Maps, Methods & Process, Open Government, Policies, Policy, Real Time, Research resources, Strategy, Technologies, Threats, Tools, True Cost

Reference: Intelligence Reform Death Notice

10 Security, Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Commissions, DHS, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Ethics, Government, Hill Letters & Testimony, Law Enforcement, Legislation, Methods & Process, Military, Peace Intelligence, Policy, Reform, Strategy, Threats

Phi Beta Iota: With a tip of the hat to Marcus Aurelius, this document is provided for information. On balance it is rich with insights that are not available elsewhere and consequently must be very highly regarded as a baseline for where US intelligence reform (and US intelligence) are today: dead, with a $75 billion a year casket that shows no signs of atrophy. Below are summary extracts both positive and negative.

Continue reading “Reference: Intelligence Reform Death Notice”

2010/01/292010/01/29

Journal: Afghanistan, Sun Tzu, State, & “Intelligence”

Methods & Process, Policy, Strategy

This post has four parts: 1) Chuck Spinney's long commentary; 2) The original article with attachments from TruthDig; 3) a ripost making three points about Chuck's comments; 4) Chuck's answer and a short comment from Robert Steele

The Eikenberry Cables Turn Sun Tzu on His Head: Domestic Politics and the Art of Asymmetrical Bureaucratic War

In the opening line of Book 1 of Sun Tzu's classic, The Art of War (circa 400 BC), the first treatise ever written on the subject, the Chinese master said,”War is a matter of vital importance to the State; the province of life and death; the road to survival or ruin. It is mandatory that it be thoroughly studied.” [1] He then goes on to describe a systematic method for assembling the information needed to make a rational decision to go to war. Today, in Pentagonese, we would call his method a “net assessment,” that is to say Sun Tzu described a very thoughtful way to perform a comparative analysis of one's own strengths and weaknesses with those of the adversary.

Sun Tzu's strategic outlook is amazingly relevant to contemporary circumstances; indeed, it is timeless, and I submit it provides the gold standard for for evaluating our own efforts to grapple with the question of going to war or to escalate a war — basically, his advice was simple: know your enemy and know yourself before plunging into war.

Continue reading “Journal: Afghanistan, Sun Tzu, State, & “Intelligence””

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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