Allen Roland: Honoring Chalmers Johnson, Prophet of Truth + Empire Meta-RECAP

Prophet for a Dying Empire Every dying Empire has its truth telling prophet and America had its own with Chalmers Johnson. Johnson correctly compared the decay of the American empire, with its well over 600 overseas military bases, with the fall of the Roman Empire whereas the Senate becomes a wealthy corporate club and irrelevant …

Berto Jongman: Admrial James Stavrides Expands on “Open Source Security”

Globalization Creates a New Worry: Enemy Convergence By THOM SHANKER New York Times, 30 May 2013 WASHINGTON — Adm. James G. Stavridis, who stepped down this month as NATO’s supreme commander, has been at war in two wars — overseeing the alliance’s role in the enduring mission in Afghanistan as well as the shorter combat …

Review (Guest): The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn’t What It Used to Be

Moises Naim 4.0 out of 5 stars What kind of power, for whom, and for what?, May 31, 2013 By Tom Atlee (Eugene, OR USA) – See all my reviews Moises Naim’s new book THE END OF POWER should properly be called “The Decay of Power”. His thesis is that while it is becoming easier …

Search: Development at Gunpoint – Why Civilians Must Reclaim Stabilization Aid

Development at Gunpoint – Why Civilians Must Reclaim Stabilization Aid Michael Young Foreign Affairs, December 19, 2010 The current multibillion-dollar campaign to counter transnational terrorism, defeat insurgencies, and stabilize fragile states blends diplomacy, defense, and development. A principal tool in this vast effort is humanitarian and development assistance — what has come to be known …

Patrick Meier: Crowdsourcing Syrian Crisis via Twitter API

Crowdsourcing Crisis Information from Syria: Twitter API vs Firehose Over 400 million tweets are posted every day. But accessing 100% of these tweets (say for disaster response purposes) requires access to Twitter’s “Firehose”. The latter, however, can be prohibitively expensive and also requires serious infrastructure to manage. This explains why many (all?) of us in the …

Winslow Wheeler: US Navy Status Quo Culture — Lessons Not Learned, Substituting Pork and Lies for Effective Weapons Systems + US Flag Officer Lack of Integrity RECAP

I recently finished reading Roger Thompson’s Lessons Not Learned: The U.S. Navy’s Status Quo Culture (Naval Institute Press, 2007).  I urge those who think we enjoy now and will enjoy in the future some sort of superiority on the seas to read this book.  You will find tidbits that you contest, but you will also …