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Chuck Spinney: Syria as a Case Study in the Failure of Democracy, Economics, Foreign Policy, Governance, and Intelligence

Attached is another excellent report by Patrick Cockburn on the disorientating nature of contemporary yellow journalism in the Syrian Civil War. Of course, disorientation is not a new problem in war: Sun Tzu said, “All war is based on deception.” But the ability to manipulate data and images with high-tech computing technology and then distribute …

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Berto Jongman: McKinsey 12 Technologies Driving the Future — With Comment from Robert Steele

These 12 technologies will drive our economic future Neil Irwin Washington Post, 24 May 2013 As the chart shows, the McKinsey folks believe that the most economically significant technologies over the next decade-plus will be those already well underway in their development — the mobile Internet, largely in place in the adv Indeed, maybe the …

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Chuck Spinney: The Mind of the Decider — Ignorance Plus Arrogance — Disconnected from Reality While All Others Buried Their Integrity

NATIONAL SECURITY Iraq Invasion Anniversary: Inside The Decider’s Head By Chuck Spinney, March 22, 2013 [note: a shorter version of this essay also appeared in Counterpunch here] In the summer of 2002, during the lead up to the Iraq War, a White House official expressed displeasure about with article written by journalist Ron Suskind in Esquire. He asserted people like Suskind were trapped “in …

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Chuck Spinney: Why we lose wars at ever increasing cost…

Don’t hold your breath: One impediment to understanding what works and what does not work in war is an out-of-control secrecy system that clogs up DoD’s own OODA loops with over-classified needlessly compartmented information.  The barriers within this system work to stretch out our own decision cycles.  But, as the American strategist Colonel John Boyd showed, one …

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Chuck Spinney: Newt Gingrich Exposed

POLITICS The `K Street Clausewitz’ Remembered By CHUCK SPINNEY | December 30, 2011 Mark Thompson’s 27 December posting, “General Newt,” alerted readers of Battleland to Karen Tumulty’s pastiche of mini portraits of Newt Gingrich’s martial prowess.  Mark highlighted one the few passages that zeroed in on the insubstantial essence of the K Street Clausewitz. Unable to contain my …

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