Journal: Strong Signals–Las Vegas as Next 9/11

Monday, December 28, 2009 SPOOK’S JOURNAL Nine of the ten largest hotels in the world are in Las Vegas. Four of them share one intersection: Las Vegas Boulevard (The Strip) and Tropicana Avenue. Together, these four corners comprise 12,953 rooms, most of which enjoy high occupancy year-round and are often full. Figure 25,000 people huddled …

Journal: US Intervention Outcomes for Women Et Al

One of the main arguments made by self-proclaimed “liberal humanitarian interventionists” in support of President Obama’s escalation of the Afghan War is that a return of the Taliban to power will condemn women to conditions approaching slavery.  It is true that women’s rights in Afghanistan are almost medieval in character, but the central question of …

Journal: Cyber-Security Etc. & Multinational Engagement

As attacks increase, U.S. struggles to recruit computer security experts Hackers break Amazon’s Kindle DRM–The great ebook ‘unswindle’ Peace, Justice and the Lord’s Resistance Army Weapons-carrying plane headed for Sri Lanka Phi Beta Iota: It has finally come to pass.  Cyber-security–like the Black Plague before it–and of course the ten high-level threats to humanity so …

Reference: Walter Dorn on UN Intelligence in Haiti

UPDATE:  Superceeded by final published version a tReference: Intelligence-Led Peacekeeping Phi Beta Iota: Dr. Walter Dorn is one of a tiny handful of truly authoritative academic observers of UN intelligence, a pioneer in his own right, and perhaps the only person who has followed UN intelligence from the Congo in the 1960’s to the creation …

Review: A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq (Yale Library of Military History) (Hardcover)

Brilliant but Narrow, Simplifies A Bridge Too Far December 19, 2009 Mark Moyar EDIT of 21 Feb 2010:  A colleague in COINSOC has pointed out that I missed one key aspect of this book and I hasten to add it: “Moyar’s point that we are applying peacetime personnel policies by putting people in place based …

Review: Guiding Principles for Stabilization and Reconstruction (Paperback)

Utterly Brilliant Synthesis, Vital First Step–US Violates Every Single Principle December 18, 2009 United States Institute of Peace This book is a six-star special and will be so rated at Phi Beta Iota, the Public Intelligence Blog, where I cluster like non-fictions books in 98 categories, one of which is Stabilization & Reconstruction. At its …