The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Barton Whaley 5.0 out of 5 stars Pioneeding, Deep, Essential, Needs 21st Century Follow-Up September 5, 2013 I borrowed this book from another officer, and have been quite delighted to spend time with it. This is a much older book than most realize (1969) and its examples and case studies stop with the Six-Day War …
Continue reading “Review: Stratagem: Deception and Surprise in War”
Bullets, Bombs and Ice Cream: The Unintended Consequences of Google Earth’s New Cartographic World Google Earth offers unprecedented public access to satellite material that was once the exclusive preserve of the state. One obvious if unintended consequence of this service, writes Nicholas Kaempffer, is that insurgents and extremists now use satellite imagery to plot and …
How to Read Afghanistan By VANESSA M. GEZARI New York Times, August 10, 2013 ON a sunny, crisp November day in 2008, three American civilians joined a platoon of United States soldiers on a foot patrol in Maiwand District, a flat, yellow patch of earth crowned by black-rock mountains in southern Afghanistan. The civilians were …
How A ‘Deviant’ Philosopher Built Palantir, A CIA-Funded Data-Mining Juggernaut This story appears in the September 2, 2013 issue of Forbes. EXTRACT Palantir lives the realities of its customers: the NSA, the FBI and the CIA–an early investor through its In-Q-Tel venture fund–along with an alphabet soup of other U.S. counterterrorism and military agencies. In …
Huh? Yemen Steps Back From Terror-Plot Claims, Highlighting U.S.’s Challenge After Yemeni Offensive Against al Qaeda in South, Militants Keep Low Profile, Say Officials EXTRACT Some officials in San’a, however, worry that President Hadi’s credibility has been undercut by reports issued by government spokesmen earlier in the day that the country’s security forces had uncovered …
Continue reading “Mini-Me: On Al Qaeda Threat, Yemen Backtracks, USA Has No Idea….”
Talking ‘Smart Power’ With Admiral Stavridis By Oliver Barrett US News & World Report, July 25, 2013 With one-liners like, “We are excellent at launching Tomahawk missiles; we need to get better at launching ideas,” it is not hard to appreciate why The New York Times labeled recently retired Admiral James Stavridis a “Renaissance admiral.” Labels like “innovator” …
Continue reading “James Stavrides: Interview on Smart Power by Oliver Barrett”
Following is stunning, coming as it does from the left-wing newspaper we called “Pravda on the Potomac” during the Cold War.) Two op-eds from mainstream media follow; both discuss need for Legislative and Executive Branches of the USG to get their [sierra] together and serve the national interest. Washington Post, August 4, 2013, Pg. 18 …
Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: Media Common Sense on Defense — Still Lacking on Substance”
