Strategy – Page 31 – Public Intelligence Blog

2010/11/112010/11/11

Journal: Intelligence Out of Control

02 China, Analysis, Augmented Reality, Budgets & Funding, Collective Intelligence, Commerce, Government, info-graphics/data-visualization, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), International Aid, Methods & Process, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy, Threats

Marcus-Aurelius-150x150 — Marcus Aurelius Recommends

IMHO, ill-advised.

Washington Times
November 11, 2010
Pg. 10

Inside The Ring

By Bill Gertz

Financial intel killed

The Pentagon's intelligence directorate is killing off one of its most strategically important mission areas: monitoring efforts by foreign governments to buy U.S. firms and technology, such as the multiple efforts by China's military-linked equipment company Huawei Technologies to buy into the U.S. high-technology sector.

Defense officials tell Inside the Ring that Thomas A. Ferguson, acting undersecretary of defense for intelligence (USDI) and a former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) space analyst, initiated the dismantling of the financial-threat intelligence monitoring.

Read rest of the article….

Phi Beta Iota: US Intelligence is out of control–as good as some of the leaders are in terms of diversity of experience within the OLD system, they simply do not have the mind-set nor the authorities to restructure intelligence to the point that it can meet all appropriate needs. The person ostensibly responsible for strategy, a CIA body, has just been made deputy director of DIA, and we have no doubt that a “strategy” exists that might ultimately turn DIA into the analysis center and CIA into a collection management center (while NSA becomes the all-source processing center, all as outlined in Chapter 13 of ON INTELLIGENCE: Spies and Secrecy in an Open World) as well as all subsequent books such as INFORMATION OPERATIONS: All Information, All Languages, All the Time, this is all too little, too slow, too incoherent, and too expensive. An Open Source Agency (OSA) under diplomatic auspices, and a voluntary shift of $200 billion from Program 50 to Program 150 as a lure for Newt Gingrinch coming into the 2012 coalition cabinet under Obama running as an Independent (miracles do happen), are both essential.

2010/11/11

Community Collaboration Soot-Busting Dirty Diesel for “Freight Transport Justice”

03 Environmental Degradation, 05 Energy, 07 Health, Strategy

Pacific Institute's Community Strategies for Sustainability and Justice (CSSJ) Program has produced Gearing Up for Action: A Curriculum Guide for Freight Transport Justice (pdf), an important advocacy tool to build the power and capacity of communities to participate in decision making around freight transport issues. The guide contains popular-education-style activities that CSSJ developed and piloted in partnership with community groups and coalitions including the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project and the “Ditching Dirty Diesel” Collaborative.This user-friendly curriculum guide is designed to help communities grappling with freight transport issues share their experiences, explore the root causes of freight transport impacts, identify those responsible for dealing with these causes, and develop a plan for advocacy to advance their solutions.

2010/11/092010/11/09

Journal: Obama’s Choice

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Analysis, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Officers Call, Policy, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy, True Cost, Waste (materials, food, etc)

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Sounds Off...

New options from the nomenklatura listed below is a silly oxymoron.

Chuck

Pentagon Openings Give Obama New Options

By THOM SHANKER

7 November

WASHINGTON — With critical decisions ahead on the war in Afghanistan, President Obama is about to receive an unusual opportunity to reshape the Pentagon’s leadership, naming a new defense secretary as well as several top generals and admirals in the next several months.

It is a rare confluence of tenure calendars and personal calculations, coming midway through Mr. Obama’s first term and on the heels of an election that challenged his domestic policies. His choices could have lasting consequences for his national security agenda, perhaps strengthening his hand over a military with which he has often clashed, and are likely to have an effect beyond the next election, whether he wins or loses.

That is all the more reason that Mr. Obama’s choices are certain to face scrutiny in a narrowly divided Senate, whose Republican leadership has declared itself intent on defeating him.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has said he plans to retire next year, while the terms of four members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are scheduled to end: Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman; Gen. James E. Cartwright, the vice chairman; Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army chief; and Adm. Gary Roughead, the chief of naval operations.

Read rest of this seriously deficient article….

Phi Beta Iota: The current and prospective leaders being discussed and considered are all inter-changeable. They share the same paradigmatic views, the same commitment to the military-industrial-congressional complex (MICC), and therefore, to suggest that changing out the guard is in any way an option, is to demonstrate profound naivete or a gift for deception. President Obama is truly at a historic fork in the road: he can go on with business as usual, bailing out Wall Street and carrying on with a global military cmapaign that is both ineffective and unaffordable–or he can reach deep down and come up with one startling insight and two serious options.

Startling insight: integrity matters. Doing the right thing is more important than continuing to do the wrong thing righter.

Option A: Make Electoral Reform (1 Page, 9 Points) the issue. That will burn down the two-party tyranny and restore the Republic WHILE EARNING HIM A SECOND TERM.

Option B: Hold an Open Space Technology event on the future of the USA in all its forms, in the Washington Convention Center, a no-notice open public event, with Harrison Owen as the facilitator.

Sadly, we are quite certain neither the startling insight nor either of the two options will be considered. The Titanic is sinking and the President is being asked to re-arrange the name cards…..thus does the Republic flail in the tar pit of history.

We predict, with a depth of despair, that Obama will choose to go along and eventually be as wealthy as Bill Bradley and Al Gore. He is one phone call away from greatness, and won't do it. He lives, we die.

Worth a Look: Book Review Lists (Negative)

Worth a Look: Book Review Lists (Positive)

2010/11/09

Journal: Microsoft & Nokia in the Mobile Space

InfoOps (IO), IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, IO Technologies, Methods & Process, Mobile, Strategy, Technologies, Tools

November 09, 2010

Microsoft and Nokia: A tale of two elephants

Nokia reabsorbs Symbian, and Microsoft ships Windows Phone 7 — to big yawns. How they became mobile's elephants in the room

By Galen Gruman | InfoWorld

When Microsoft released Windows Phone 7 in the United States yesterday, very few people lined up at the AT&T and T-Mobile stores to get the HTC and Samsung debut models — despite all the extensive Windows Phone 7 advertising by Microsoft to goose up demand. (Maybe they read the unenthusiasic reviews from publications that got early versions.)

When Nokia announced yesterday that it was reabsorbing the Symbian operating system it had spun out as an open source effort 18 months ago, I thought, “Why bother? I thought MeeGo was your mobile OS future anyhow?” — especially given the lack of attention to the last major release of Symbian (Symbian 3) in September.

Read rest of review…

Phi Beta Iota: Both Microsoft and Nokia are at a fork in the road. The above review, vastly more critical than the fluff found elsewhere, is bleeding edge truth. Absent new management and a compelling vision–ideally one that united both companies to favor a very simple low cost cellular “key” combined with a vast global grid meshing humans with call centers and back office cloud processing, both companies appear destined for further decline.

2010/11/062010/11/06

Reference: The Open Internet Alive and Growing

11 Society, Augmented Reality, Collective Intelligence, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, info-graphics/data-visualization, InfoOps (IO), Journalism/Free-Press/Censorship, Methods & Process, Open Government, Policy, Reform, Research resources, Standards, Strategy

Jon Lebkowsky Home

Advocating for the Open Internet

“Net neutrality” and “freedom to connect” might be loaded or vague terminologies; the label “Open Internet” is clearer, more effective, no way misleading. A group of Internet experts and pioneers submitted a paper to the FCC that defines the Open Internet and explains how it differs from networks that are dedicated to specialized services, and why that distinction is imortant. It’s a general purpose network for all, and can’t be appreciated (or properly regulated) unless this point and its implications are well understood. I signed on (late) to the paper, which is freely available at Scribd, and which is worth reading and disseminating even among people who don’t completely get it. I think the meaning and relevance of the distinction will sink in, even with those who don’t have deep knowledge of the Internet and, more generally, computer networking. The key point is that “the Internet should be delineated from specialized services specifically based on whether network providers treat the transmission of packets in special ways according to the applications those packets support. Transmitting packets without regard for application, in a best efforts manner, is at the very core of how the Internet provides a general purpose platform that is open and conducive to innovation by all end users.”

Press release:

Numerous Internet and technology leaders issued a joint statement last night encouraging the FCC to expand its recent analysis of open Internet policy in a newly fruitful direction.

In the statement, they commend the agency’s recent request for input on “Two Underdeveloped Issues in the Open Internet Proceeding” for its making possible greater recognition of the nature and benefits of the open Internet — in particular, as compared to “specialized services.” In response to the FCC’s request, their submission illustrates how this distinction dispels misconceptions and helps bring about more constructive insight and understanding in the “net neutrality” policy debate.

Longtime network and computer architecture expert David Reed comments in a special blog posting: “It is historic and critical [to] finally recognize the existence of ‘the Open Internet’ as a living entity that is distinct from all of the services and the Bureaus, all of the underlying technologies, and all of the services into which the FCC historically has partitioned little fiefdoms of control.”

Another signer, John Furrier of SiliconANGLE, has publicized the statement, stating “the future Internet needs to remain open in order to preserve entrepreneurship and innovation.”

The statement’s signers are listed below. Please reply to me, Seth Johnson (seth.p.johnson@gmail.com), to request contact information for those available for comment.

Seth Johnson
Outreach Coordinator

Journal: Putin to Obama–Stay in Afghanistan + RECAP

02 China, 03 India, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Russia, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Corporations, Government, History, Intelligence (government), Methods & Process, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace Intelligence, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy

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.

Russia's Afghan agenda | Jonathan Steele

guardian.co.uk 10/27/10 10:00 PM Jonathan Steele

Gorbachev has valuable advice for the US on the war in Afghanistan that Putin would rather he keep to himself

The surprise in this week's reports that Russia is planning to help Nato in Afghanistan by training Afghan helicopter pilots is that people are surprised. Memories are short, it seems, for the shift in Moscow's line came as early as July last year during Barack Obama's first summit in the Kremlin.

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.

Read rest of Jonathan Steele's article….

See Also (RECAP)

Continue reading “Journal: Putin to Obama–Stay in Afghanistan + RECAP”

2010/10/28

Journal: Building Information Modeling as the Core of Sustainable Design Impacts on 40% of Global Energy Consumption

Analysis, Augmented Reality, Budgets & Funding, Commercial Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Computer/online security, Geospatial, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), IO Mapping, IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, Methods & Process, Policies, Reform, Strategy, Threats

By GreenerBuildings Staff

Published October 27, 2010

OAKLAND, CA — Building information modeling can be a valuable tool for architects, engineers and contractors that allows them to explore different design options, see what projects will look like and understand how a structure will perform long before it's built.

BIM, as it's known in the industry, also can help building owners and operators throughout a structure's lifecycle by providing visual context to performance-related data, retrofit plans and other projects intended increase energy efficiency.

In a webcast on Tuesday moderated by GreenBiz.com Executive Editor Joel Makower, representatives for design software giant Autodesk, DPR Construction and the consulting engineering firm Glumac talked about “How Building Information Modeling Solutions Transform Sustainable Design.”

– – – – – – –

Increased costs of energy, ongoing challenges posed by the economy and concerns about sustainability, market demands, occupany and eventual regulation of carbon output combine to make building owners, operators and managers increasingly aware of how their properties perform — and compare with others.

Those issues and the availability of state and federal incentives are powerful drivers to improve portfolios. “Not surprisingly, large multinational companies are getting their buildings in order,” Deodhar said.

Examples include Walmart, which will retrofit 500 buildings this year, Marriott, whose hotel chain includes 275 hotels that bear the Energy Star label, and Starbucks, which by the close of the year will begin to seek LEED certification for all new company-owned stores around the world.

Globally, buildings account for about 40 percent of energy consumption and more than 200 million buildings are candidates for efficiency improvements, Deodhar said. But optimizing a building's environmental performance requires incorporating interrelated factors, such as location, orientation, internal systems, how the building is used and other variables, into design.

Read full article (long and valuable)

Phi Beta Iota: This is the kind of project we had in mind for DIA/DO (Directorate of Open Sources & Methods). Apart from DoD being the biggest gorilla on the planet where any improvement can be measured in billions of dollars, this is the tip of the “true cost” iceberg and a success here could be immediately extended to every aspect of acquisition across all mobility, weapons, and other systems, over to the rest of the federal government, down to state and local, and out to the world. In the 21st Century design is intelligence, intelligence is design, and intelligent design, not weapons, is the influencer most likely to achieve the desired outcome.

Microsoft and Nokia: A tale of two elephants

Jon Lebkowsky Home Advocating for the Open Internet

Jon Lebkowsky Home

Advocating for the Open Internet