Tag: Scowcroft

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Review: American Interests in South Asia (Ho Ho Ho)

3 Star, Country/Regional, Diplomacy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Security (Including Immigration), Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle
Amazon Page
Amazon Page

Nicholas Burns (Editor) , Jonathon Price (Editor) , Joseph S. Nye Jr. (Foreword) , Brent Scowcroft (Foreword)

3.0 out of 5 stars Parallel Universe — Divorced from Reality, September 20, 2013

I am in Afghanistan with the opportunity to think about all of the external and internal realities impacting on 2014, and this book attracted my immediately interest, along with Afghanistan: The Perfect Failure: A War Doomed By The Coalition's Strategies, Policies and Political Correctness. If I had the time I would buy and read both books, but sadly I have to focus on the here and now with just two comments:

01 All of these big names write great stuff, but I have to ask myself, who are they writing for? Who, if anyone is listening? Among all these great ideas, there is not a single one that has been implemented, funded, sustained, or effective. So why do we have smart people and think tanks? Are they a form of public entertainment, of public self-stroking, completely removed from the reality that the White House and Congress are so lacking in moral and intellectual fortitude as to be a constant danger to both the Republic and all other nations?

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Journal: Markle Foundation Focuses on Lack of Information–We Focus on Lack of Integrity

Ethics, Government, InfoOps (IO)
Parent Web Site
Parent Web Site

Nation At Risk: Policy Makers Need Better Information to Protect the Country

For all the nation has invested in national security in the last several years, we remain vulnerable to terrorist attack and emerging national security threats because we have not adequately improved our ability to know what we know about these threats.

Phi Beta Iota: The Markle Foundation means well, but like most in the two-party tyranny and its circle of “fellow travelers” this report misses two big points:   first, Washington does not lack for information, it lacks for integrity.  Second, with integrity, there would not only be plenty of money for both Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) within government, and Public Intelligence outside of government, but we would also recognize, as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently noted with commendable integrity: it is our mis-behavior that is the threat.  We KNOW what the ten high-level threats to humanity are, LtGen Dr. Brent Scowcroft helped prioritize them.  INTEGRITY.  One word.  Without it, no amount of information or intelligence will do.  Markle, and everyone else, need a strategic analytic model as well as the proven process for doing decision-support–absent that, an appreciation for the essential role that integrity plays, they are as irrelevant or counterproductive as are all courtiers to any corrupt government.

Tip of the Hat:  Docuticker from Secrecy News.

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Journal: MILNET Flags Fighting Global Warming With CIA?

10 Security, Earth Intelligence, Government

Full Story Online
Full Story Online

Some say security fears are counterproductive

By Bryan Bender

WASHINGTON – Melting ice caps. Drought. Spreading disease. US defense planners view global climate change as a national security threat because it could create millions of new refugees and intensify conflicts over resources.

. . . . . . .

A new debate is unfolding over whether linking climate change too closely with security planning will create a self-fulfilling prophecy, running the risk that the United States will rely too heavily on its armed forces to deal with global problems.

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Graphic: Global Threats to Local Survival (1990′s)

Advanced Cyber/IO, Threats
Global Threats
Global Threats

This graphic was created after being inspired by Berto Jongman's brilliant World Conflict & Human Rights Map, a document that went out of creation in 2003 after he joined his national intelligence service.  His contribution is sorely missing and much needed again, only with an expansion to respect the profound wisdom contained in the Report of the United Nations High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenge, and Change, A more secure world: Our shared responsibility.  LtGen Dr. Brent Scowcroft, USAF (Ret), was the U.S. member of the Panel.

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Graphic: Ten High-Level Threats to Humanity

Threats
Ten High-Level Threats
Ten High-Level Threats

With a tip of the hat to the United Nations High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change,  and especially to LtGen Dr. Brent Scowcroft, USAF (Ret), the U.S. member of the panel, this is a depiction of the ten high-level threats to humanity that are NOT being addressed by the U.S. national security team, which has no strategy, no global intelligence estimate, and generally appears to have zero interest in actually protecting the USA from anything other than those threats that can be monetized with the existing military-intelligence-industrial complex.