Monday, December 10, 2007

US espionage enters the 'un-Rumsfeld' era


Since taking over from Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense in the winter of 2006, Robert Gates has greatly scaled down the Pentagon's footprint on national security policy and intelligence.

Those are significant actions. Under Rumsfeld, the Pentagon had become the dominant force in US intelligence, with vast new powers in human intelligence and counter-terrorism, both at home and abroad. By 2005, it was deploying secret commando units on clandestine missions in countries as far afield as the Philippines and Ecuador, sometimes without consulting with the local US ambassadors and CIA station chiefs.

But these efforts by Gates and McConnell to demilitarize US Intelligence will never succeed until Congress, with the support of the next administration, removes the three national collection agencies - the National Security Agency (NSA), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) - from the Pentagon's command-and-control system and places them directly, like the CIA, under the control of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).

The NSA,
monitors billions of phone calls, e-mails and Internet messages
The NGA was formally inaugurated as a combat support agency of the Pentagon in 2003, and is therefore less known to the American public. It supplies imagery and mapping products
The NRO, meanwhile, builds and maintains the spy satellites that feed the NSA and NGA and operates ground stations, both at home and abroad, where imagery and signals data is translated, analyzed, and sometimes combined.

These three agencies probably supply about 75% of the information that appears every morning in the presidential daily brief, which intelligence officials say has evolved into a multi-media presentation in which NSA phone intercepts compete with NGA imagery and live video streams for the president's attention.
By combining intercepts of cell phone calls with overhead imagery gathered by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), intelligence analysts can track suspected terrorists or insurgents in Iraq in real time. As these tools become available for use by domestic policing agencies, a possibility created by a new intelligence institution known as the National Applications Office, the power of the military to conduct both foreign and domestic intelligence will increase.

One of the only voices to press the case for civilianized intelligence is Melvin Goodman, a former CIA officer at the Center for International Policy.
"The collection of strategic intelligence is being given short shrift because of the military's emphasis on tactical intelligence and support for the warfighter," Goodman told me in an interview. While the nation can't deny intelligence support to warfighters in places like Iraq, "if you don't get the job of strategic intelligence done correctly, you will blunder in your larger national security policies," he says.

"Rumsfeld's view was that the CIA was frequently too rigid or too timid - or maybe both," Michael Isikoff and David Corn wrote in Hubris, their book about the administration's misuse of intelligence. In a 2001 meeting with Republican lobbyists described in the book, Rumsfeld "used the occasion to rail at the CIA" and declared: "I'm going to create my own intelligence agency."

Rumsfeld's first move in that direction was the creation of a new office within the Pentagon: under secretary for intelligence. Created by an act of Congress in 2002, the position was taken by Stephen Cambone, a neo-conservative who had worked closely with Rumsfeld during the 1990s as staff director of the Rumsfeld commission on ballistic missiles. The new position gave enormous powers to Cambone.

By 2005, special forces units under control of the Pentagon were routinely entering countries like Somalia and Iran to launch covert military operations. The NSA, NGA and NRO were enlisted to play key roles in Rumsfeld's "transformation" of the military through network-centric warfare: NSA signals and NGA imagery intelligence are now cornerstones of this 21st-century military doctrine.

Military power in intelligence was also concentrated at home. In 2002, deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz created the Counterintelligence Field Activity office, ostensibly to provide security at US military bases. By 2004, however, it was spending millions of dollars each year to monitor the activities of American citizens, including thousands of people who were simply exercising their rights to protest US foreign policy.

In a direct slap at Rumsfeld, Gates brought Clapper back into the Pentagon as under secretary of defense for intelligence, replacing the neo-con Cambone. Since then, Clapper has moved to dismantle some of Rumsfeld's pet programs, including the infamous TALON database created to spy on American citizens.

But bureaucratic maneuvers can only go so far in ending the Pentagon's direction of intelligence. Only a change in law, taking the NSA, NGA and NRO out of the department's hands and putting them under the direct control of the ODNI and the White House, will ensure that these agencies are under true civilian control.


Link


This is another example of the changes since Rumsfeld left the pentagon.


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Defense, Security & Tech: NREC receives $14.4 Million AGV contract

 

TARDEC plans to add to the contract, on a work directive basis, additional effort for NREC Engineers to develop an Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) end-to-end control architecture and demonstrate the viability of autonomous UGV operations in a relevant environment as part of the Robotic Vehicle Control Architecture (RVCA) program

Defense, Security & Tech: NREC receives $14.4 Million AGV contract

I am interested in what autonomous UGV operations means.  The project gates for this program could be very interesting as could the specific goals for each gate. 

Will these vehicles drive themselves?  Will they be armed?  Will they have artificial intelligence?   Finally, the all important When.. When will we see them.

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HAL(Hybrid Assistive Limb) from Cyberdine

 

This is the beginning of a new infantry capability. Armor and weapon weights and sizes change. Physical endurance does as well.

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

NREC News & Updates

tardec The Crusher was introduced last year.  This article speaks of a new generation that will allow testers to learn more about autonomous operations and when weapons of this type would fit into future combat systems.

NREC News & Updates

Sunday, December 02, 2007

The Japanese do have a sense of humor

Home - Windows Live Spaces

I am getting better with the technical items in my life all the time.  The cell phone has to be the big change this fall.  I have a blue tooth device.   Now, I walk around the house doing my tasks while I tie up my children unmercifully.  It is great.  The same thing is true for long trips in the car.  No more setting there watching the white line.  Now I can talk for hours on any subject with anyone who picks up the phone,.  I do learn lots this way. I also keep up with my children better. 

<p> Today, I had a deep desire to have a camera on the phone as I was walking around though.  Then people could see what I was looking at.  Wow, that would be great.  </p><p>cnn had an article

Home - Windows Live Spaces

Link to CNN Video

The video shows that this thing is arriving.  The uses are endless.  Apparently, the awkward movements are eliminated.

Thursday, November 01, 2007

Lazaro Cardenas and North American Trade



Port


Lázaro Cárdenas is home to a deep-water seaport that handles container, dry bulk, and liquid cargo. The port handled 160,000 TEU in 2005 but is expanding to a capacity of 2.2 million TEU annually. Cargo is moved to and from the port by road and rail equally, with rail service provided exclusively by Kansas City Southern Railway. The port is expected to become a major container facility due to congestion at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and its relative proximity to major cities such as Chicago, Kansas City, and Houston. However, if a proposed port with the backing of the Mexican president at Punta Colonet is built, goods coming to fast growing Arizona and Nevada could bypass the congested Los Angeles region.




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Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Net Centric Warfare as a Guiding Theory is Over



America's military policy is in disarray, but not for the reason most people think. For the first time since around 1950, there is no coherent theoretical framework for thinking about how to shape our armed forces for current and future threats. This fact presents both a danger and an opportunity. The danger is that we will either fail to develop one and therefore drift aimlessly at a troubled time, or that we will reach back to some of the tattered remnants of the theories that guided military policy until 2007. But we now have the opportunity for a serious discussion about the shape of the world today and its likely shape tomorrow.




Kegan writes what may be the death knell of  'Military Transformation' and Net-centric Warfare. 
Link

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Blackwater evades taxes


Blackwater, like Hitler’s Brown Shirts, is an alternate army. We should all pay attention and be aware that now more of our tax dollars are paid out to private armies (by the state department,) with tax breaks and no oversight while representing our country, than to our own soldiers.


We now have private armies that are beholden to their companies before being beholden to the good of the people. They also are experiencing being above the law. The worst thing that happens to them for murdering innocent people is that they get fired after earning six figures a year.




Link

I believe that private militaries are a great danger to this country.  They train people to operate outside of the law and enable anyone with enough money to carryout military operations and kill people. 


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Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Robert Pastors View of NAFTA's Next Step




NAFTA’s setbacks have been due partly to failures of compliance - related to sugar, softwood lumber, trucking - but mostly to what it omitted. The income gap between Mexico and its northern neighbors has not narrowed. Illegal migration has increased. Bureaucratic duplication on the border, combined with inadequate infrastructure and divergent regulatory policies, has raised transaction costs above the level of the tariffs that were eliminated. If Europe built too many institutions, NAFTA made the opposite mistake. It lacks institutions to anticipate or respond to crises or take advantage of opportunities. We also lack a vision of an inclusive identity that would inspire citizens of all three countries to think of themselves also as North Americans. Indeed, NAFTA is little more than two bilateral relationships that rely on old habits and too often an unproductive paternalism by the United States.



The US Federal government's denial of the NAU proposal is amazing after reading several of these pronouncements from people who are authorized to attend conferences held without media presence but with high rankings government officials like George Schultz.  Read more and decide for yourself what is happening.





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Friday, October 19, 2007

G.I. Joe as Anthropologist



“The military mission is not as easily defined as it used to be,” said George A. Pruitt, president of Thomas Edison State College, which, along with Burlington County College, is providing the courses at McGuire. “Today, the military is actually engaged with the civilian population where they are stationed. They need philosophy, religion, history to have a greater understanding of where they are.”


Soon after the United States toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan and invaded Iraq, military leaders began acknowledging the need for troops to become better educated in foreign cultures. The first major effort came in 2005, when a Defense Department report recommended adding a regional language component to professional military education.


The Air Force decided to take the recommendation a step further, seeing a need for troops not only to speak foreign languages but to understand foreign cultures as well. Last year, the Air University in Montgomery, Ala., which provides professional military education to the Air Force, added a new Culture and Language Center to its campus.


“Language is useful, but we want people to build relations across cultural barriers,” said Dan Henk, the director of the center. “We asked ourselves, ‘Is it possible to give people the skills to go anywhere, quickly see patterns and be able to respond?’ The answer was yes.”


To build what Dr. Henk, an anthropologist, called “cross-cultural competency,” the center has been developing courses and programs intended to help acclimate soldiers to foreign cultures.


As word of the effort spread, the Edison and Burlington college presidents collaborated with Representative H. James Saxton of New Jersey and Col. Rick Martin, the base commander at the time, on the idea of offering cultural classes to the 5,000 airmen and women at McGuire.


“It started off with language — Farsi, conversational Arabic,” said Robert C. Messina Jr., Burlington’s president, speaking of his meetings with Colonel Martin. “Then he said, ‘Could you get someone to talk about the culture of the Middle East? How you don’t go up and hug someone, and no bikini wearing?’ So we did that.”


McGuire’s program was rolled out at the end of last year; other bases around the country are also offering similar classes. At McGuire, about 60 enlisted men and women and two officers are participating.


With classes in Arabic, Islam, comparative religions and East Asian history, among others, McGuire hopes to provide active-duty troops with tools to help them during battle but also beyond, said Linda Richardson, director of education and training at the base.


“It’s been eye-opening,” said Staff Sgt. Adam Crepeau, an aircraft maintenance instructor and a student in the Eastern philosophy course who is pursuing a degree in human resources. “The more knowledge I have about different cultures, the better.”


While learning the difference between Taoism and Confucianism, the subject of a recent evening’s lecture, may seem of little practical use in war, Sergeant Crepeau said he could have used some of what he was learning in the course, which is provided by Burlington, during his four-month tour in Iraq last year.


“We had no briefings except on a need-to-know basis,” Sergeant Crepeau said, referring to cultural briefings. “You might tune in to the radio and hear prayers and wonder, ‘What is that?’ You know they have prayers and customs, but you don’t understand them.”


The classes can count toward an associate’s or bachelor’s degree; students receive “wing recognition” — bars on their uniforms — as an added incentive. Officers can also earn a pay raise, as much as $12,000 more for foreign language proficiency





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This is an intriguing idea that will have some positive effects.  The question would be how many dollars for what effect in this very expensive war.  The second question is "what can you learn about a culture in a few weeks of class"?  I keep feeling that these young people are being asked to do jobs that would be nearly impossible for a PHD in anthropology.  If they are changing the minds of the people there as well as the officials are convincing the people here that we should be in this war at all, I look for less than remarkable results.



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Sunday, October 14, 2007

PAK-FA is the answer to the F22 Raptor



New Delhi: It is expected that India and Russia will very likely sign a pact to jointly develop an advanced fifth generation fighter aircraft during defence minister AK Antony's visit to Moscow in the coming week. Antony is visiting Moscow to attend the Indo-Russia inter-governmental commission on military technical cooperation.



India and Russia both are looking for a next generation stealth fighter which would adequately match, if not exceed the capabilities of the US Air Force's F22 Raptor, which is already in service, as well as the F35 Joint Strike Fighter, Lightning, being jointly developed by the US and the UK.




The PAK-FA is expected to have advanced stealth features, an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, thrust vectoring for increased manoeuvrability and a supercruise mode to fly at supersonic speed without using afterburners.




According to Russian sources, a prototype of the PAK-FA would make its first flight in early 2009.




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Other reports on Defence




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Tuesday, October 09, 2007

RoboBugs



All told, the nation’s fleet of flying robots logged more than 160,000 flight hours last year — a more than fourfold increase since 2003. A recent report by the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College warned that if traffic rules are not clarified soon, the glut of unmanned vehicles “could render military airspace chaotic and potentially dangerous.”





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Army speeding up efforts to add more soldiers



WASHINGTON (AP) - Top Army leaders said Tuesday they plan to add 74,000 soldiers to the Army by 2010, two years sooner than originally planned, in order to relieve the strain on forces already stretched by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan


Plans are to increase the number of the active duty Army, Army Guard and Army Reserve by 74,000 overall. It would bring the total number of soldiers in the active Army to 547,000.

Originally, the growth was to take place over five years - now it would be done in three.

The increase, Gates said in his memo, will cost $2.63 billion.

Officials have been working to make the Army bigger in order to sustain a long-term commitment in Iraq and Afghanistan without wearing out the troops and alienating their families.



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Friday, October 05, 2007

Army Enlists Anthropology in War Zones



SHABAK VALLEY, Afghanistan — In this isolated Taliban stronghold in eastern Afghanistan, American paratroopers are fielding what they consider a crucial new weapon in counterinsurgency operations here: a soft-spoken civilian anthropologist named Tracy.





This is an example of the can do anything approach now being advocated for winning wars.  It seems to be a correct approach in theory.  In practice, It should be much more difficult since it requires people who have immense skills to implement it.  It also has the downside of teaching part of the military how to develop programs and plans to control a civilian population.. One could  presume that this skill would work well either for or against any group of citizens.  If I know how to control Afganistan, do it would work well in Detroit as well.  Anything or practice that has a powerful impact will be used in war.  Anthropologists who do not understand that  miss the point.


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Wednesday, October 03, 2007

IBM's BlueGene L supercomputer simulates half a mouse brain



Efforts to model the human brain (on IBM's Blue Gene, ironically) haven't reached the point of finality just yet, but it looks like the supercomputer has already tackled a smaller, albeit similar task at the University of Nevada. The research team, which collaborated with gurus from the IBM Almaden Research Lab, have ran a "cortical simulator that was as big and as complex as half of a mouse's brain on the BlueGene L," and considering that it took about 8,000 neurons and 6,3000 synapses into consideration without totally crashing, it remains a fairly impressive achievement. Notably, the process was so intensive that it was only ran for ten seconds at a speed "ten times slower than real-time," and while the team is already looking forward to speeding things up and taking the whole mind into account, it was noted that the simulation (expectedly) "lacked some structures seen in an actual brain." Now, if only these guys could figure out how to mimic the brain and offer up external storage to aid our failing memories.




The Singularity is nearer it seems. 


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Thursday, September 27, 2007

The Great Plains International Trade Corridor






The Great Plains International Trade Corridor is strategically located
to increase economic efficiency by connecting regional trade centers
through the Great Plains from Canada to Mexico.
Ports-to-Plains, Heartland Expressway and Theodore Roosevelt
Expressway, designated United States High Priority Transportation
Corridors, form the infrastructure of growing domestic and international
trade, energy and travel opportunities.
These connections are taking advantage of new opportunities created
by the expanding significance of north/south trade in relation to the
historical east/west patterns. The Great Plains International Conference
is bringing together both the business and government sectors to
increase awareness of the corridor and increase economic activity






The Ports to Plains Trade Corridor reflects the growing need for a north-south axes of communication and commerce for the North American Continent.  Planning for this conduit says a great deal about what some of the movers and shakers of the continent believe will be the future of our culture. 
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Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Security Contractors in Iraq



A PROFILE OF CONTRACTORS



Private security firms in Iraq: More than 100, including about 30 domestic companies.

Employees: From 30,000 to 48,000. About 10 per cent come from the US and other Western countries, about 30 per cent from non-Western countries and the rest from Iraq.


Serving: Diplomats, aid workers, journalists, reconstruction workers and others of the estimated 160,000 foreign civilians working in Iraq.


Origin: Most American security contractors come from the US military and are often former special operations forces with specialised skills in intelligence gathering, communications, evasive manoeuvres and small-arms combat operations.


Pay:  Iraqis with basic skills are paid several hundred US dollars a month; highly capable employees from countries such as India and Nepal earn between $US2000 ($2300) and $US3000 a month. Former special operations forces from the US, Britain, Australia and other Western countries can earn as much as $US18,000 a month.






http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/beware-of-the-protectors/2007/09/21/1189881777362.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap4

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I find private security forces such as Blackwater one of the most distasteful elements of the Iraqi War.  The fact that they operate completely outside the confines of the law makes their existance even more intolerable.  The money that these firms receive is part of the excessive cost of this war.  Ken Burns said that WWII cost the US 3 trillion dollars in current money.  At that rate, Iraq has cost 25 pct as much.  Where did all the money go? 



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Tuesday, August 28, 2007

New Energy Source Found

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Engineers perfecting hydrogen-generating technology from PhysOrg.com
Researchers at Purdue University have further developed a technology that could represent a pollution-free energy source for a range of potential applications, from golf carts to submarines and cars to emergency portable generators. [...]




    This has the potential to change a great deal in military applications.  It can generate electricity for energy based weapons and power for the various types of motors and engines used since the beginning of the age of mechanized warfare to enhance the power of the soldier. 


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Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Russian Military Developments


These include a new S-400 missile and aircraft interceptor system, similar but better than the US Patriot, and a lethal new supersonic cruise missile, the Meteorit-A. Its latest generation of jet fighters includes an upgraded Sukhoi jet, the SU-35, which has a new engines and a new radar system, and a revamped "vector thrust" MIG, the MIG 29-OVT. "They are good aircraft.




Link





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Russia Steps Up Military Expansion



Vladimir Putin announced ambitious plans to revive Russia's military power and restore its role as the world's leading producer of military aircraft yesterday.


Speaking at the opening of the largest airshow in Russia's post-Soviet history, the president said he was determined to make aircraft manufacture a national priority after decades of lagging behind the west.


The remarks follow his decision last week to resume long-range missions by strategic bomber aircraft capable of hitting the US with nuclear weapons. Patrols over the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic began last week for the first time since 1992.




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Friday, August 03, 2007

CVN 21 / CVN-X / CVX

CVN 21 / CVN-X / CVX

This article presents new aircraft carrier capabilities and plans for the future. It is one of the last mentions of the word 'transformation' which seems to be going out of vogue.
At any rate, change in military operations is not so this article is worth review and further study to see what is happening.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Iran orders 250 Russian Fighters

http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/su_30mk/index.html#su_30mk12
Iran has ordered 250 Su 30MK fighters from Russia.  This plane is roughly equal to the F-15E. 


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US Air Force B-2 Stealth bombers will soon be fitted with newly-developed 15-tonne Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs



American military sources say the gigantic new bunker-blaster is designed to hit fortified underground targets such as Iran’s uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz.


It will be capable of drilling through many meters of earth or concrete. When it falls from a high altitude, the MOP – composed of 20% explosives, 80% hardened metal - will punch a hole in the toughest protective casing before exploding in depth. It is GPS guided.





Link

It appears that the US is expressing a capability to hit hardened targets in previously unavailable ways. 


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Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Russia bans human tissue export in bioweapon alert


Russia has banned the shipment of medical specimens abroad, threatening hundreds of patients and complicating drug trials by major companies, the national Kommersant newspaper reported on Wednesday.


Kommersant attributed the ban to fears in the secret service that Russian genetic material could be used abroad to make biochemical weapons targeting Russians. The quality daily cited anonymous sources in the medical community


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This article might be more interesting because it shows what the Russians believe to be possible.



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Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Alan Lightman, 'Science and the Human Spirit'


Poet and scientist Alan Lightman joins us to talk about the intersection of art and science.
Listen



Alan Lightman is a great explainer.  He can give a common person a good idea of what a complex notion is about.  He also works at the intersection of art and science. 


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Thursday, May 10, 2007

OLS-Optical Locator System on MIG-35


OLS, as well as radar, allows to detect targets and aim weapon systems. But, unlike the radar, OLS has no emission which means - can’t be detected. OLS works like a human eye - it gets picture and analyzes it. Usually it’s been said radars are the eyes of the plane. But to be exact, it’s more locator device, like whales has. But OLS is really the eyes of the plane and they are very sharp.


OLS works not only in visible bands. Very important part of “plane vision” is IR picture. NII PP engineers has chosen more short-wave bands for the matrix, which has increased sensitivity of the complex in several times and has increased detection range greatly.


MiG-35 OLS may see USAF stealth planes very nicely as well. Today it’s impossible to hide the plane from the complex of powerful optics with IR vision.



This optical system can distinguish targets and aim weapons as well.  Since, it has no emmissions, it is very silent



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Friday, May 04, 2007

Military Transformation and the Role of the Press in War

Bill Moyers has once again given us a deep and well reasoned account of the information made available to the American Public in the ramp up to the war in Iraq.  Specific sources and examples are given along with evaluations of how the press works in this era.


Certainly, one role of the transformed military is to understand power of information systems and use them to achieve goals as well as understand what the average citizen and soldier  will believe to be true.  It certainly would help to know that even though your government is stating that WMD will likely exist, you will not encounter them. 




How did the mainstream press get it so wrong? How did the evidence disputing the existence of weapons of mass destruction and the link between Saddam Hussein to 9-11 continue to go largely unreported? "What the conservative media did was easy to fathom; they had been cheerleaders for the White House from the beginning and were simply continuing to rally the public behind the President — no questions asked. How mainstream journalists suspended skepticism and scrutiny remains an issue of significance that the media has not satisfactorily explored," says Moyers. "How the administration marketed the war to the American people has been well covered, but critical questions remain: How and why did the press buy it, and what does it say about the role of journalists in helping the public sort out fact from propaganda?"
"Buying the War" includes interviews with Dan Rather, formerly of CBS; Tim Russert of MEET THE PRESS; Bob Simon of 60 MINUTES; Walter Isaacson, former president of CNN; and John Walcott, Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel of Knight Ridder newspapers, which was acquired by The McClatchy Company in 2006.


In "Buying the War" Bill Moyers and producer Kathleen Hughes document the reporting of Walcott, Landay and Strobel, the Knight Ridder team that burrowed deep into the intelligence agencies to try and determine whether there was any evidence for the Bush Administration's case for war. "Many of the things that were said about Iraq didn't make sense," says Walcott. "And that really prompts you to ask, 'Wait a minute. Is this true? Does everyone agree that this is true? Does anyone think this is not true?'"


In the run-up to war, skepticism was a rarity among journalists inside the Beltway. Journalist Bob Simon of 60 Minutes, who was based in the Middle East, questioned the reporting he was seeing and reading. "I mean we knew things or suspected things that perhaps the Washington press corps could not suspect. For example, the absurdity of putting up a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda," he tells Moyers. "Saddam…was a total control freak. To introduce a wild card like Al Qaeda in any sense was just something he would not do. So I just didn't believe it for an instant." The program analyzes the stream of unchecked information from administration sources and Iraqi defectors to the mainstream print and broadcast press, which was then seized upon and amplified by an army of pundits. While almost all the claims would eventually prove to be false, the drumbeat of misinformation about WMDs went virtually unchallenged by the media. THE NEW YORK TIMES reported on Iraq's "worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb," but according to Landay, claims by the administration about the possibility of nuclear weapons were highly questionable. Yet, his story citing the "lack of hard evidence of Iraqi weapons" got little play. In fact, throughout the media landscape, stories challenging the official view were often pushed aside while the administration's claims were given prominence. "From August 2002 until the war was launched in March of 2003 there were about 140 front page pieces in THE WASHINGTON POST making the administration's case for war," says Howard Kurtz, the POST's media critic. "But there was only a handful of stories that ran on the front page that made the opposite case. Or, if not making the opposite case, raised questions


                                                                From Bill Moyers "Buying the War"



A military that relies on information as a key to focused and correct action is left in a strange state with the realization that a small group of  Neo-cons were able to take over the employment of that military and assign it tasks that were probably not appropriate to the mission of that force.  In fact, the inappropriate spending of over one trillion dollars on Iraq, has been a great determent to finding resourses for military transformation and possibly the defense of the United States


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Thursday, May 03, 2007

Private Military Contractors and Military Transformation



Contractors have provided the White House with political cover, allowing for a back-door near doubling of U.S. forces in Iraq through the private sector, while masking the full extent of the human costs of the occupation. Although contractor deaths are not effectively tallied, at least 770 contractors have been killed in Iraq and at least another 7,700 injured. These numbers are not included in any official (or media) toll of the war. More significantly, there is absolutely no effective system of oversight or accountability governing contractors and their operations, nor is there any effective law — military or civilian — being applied to their activities. They have not been subjected to military courts martial (despite a recent Congressional attempt to place them under the Uniform Code of Military Justice), nor have they been prosecuted in U.S. civilian courts – and, no matter what their acts in Iraq, they cannot be prosecuted in Iraqi courts. Before Paul Bremer, Bush’s viceroy in Baghdad, left Iraq in 2004 he issued an edict, known as Order 17. It immunized contractors from prosecution in Iraq which, today, is like the wild West, full of roaming Iraqi death squads and scores of unaccountable, heavily-armed mercenaries, ex-military men from around the world, working for the occupation. For the community of contractors in Iraq, immunity and impunity are welded together.




More on Private Contractors



Mercenaries have a long and dark history.  It is a history that our government should read.  These individuals are not under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.  They operate in our name and we have no knowledge of what they are doing.  They run a shadow war that is seldom discussed.  Their goal is monetary.  Their ethics are those of a pirate. 


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Halliburton, now citizen of the world, will be defended by ---Whom !



Oil services giant Halliburton Co. will soon shift its corporate headquarters from Houston to the Mideast financial powerhouse of Dubai, chief executive Dave Lesar announced


More than 38 percent of Halliburton's $13 billion oil field services revenue last year stemmed from sources in the eastern hemisphere, where the firm has 16,000 of its 45,000 employees.






Federal investigators last month alleged Halliburton was responsible for $2.7 billion of the $10 billion in contractor waste and overcharging in Iraq.



So Halliburton is off to the land of no taxes, what army, and excess luxury.  What plans do they have from this new base?  Surely, they have no necessary reason to be allied with the United States in many things.


My question for the transformation of power is: 


    "Does the movement of economic powerhouses such as Halliburton hollow out American power?"


My second question is:


    "Will American taxes pay for much of the defense of Halliburton interests while the company no longer contributes to American society in the same way?"



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Wednesday, May 02, 2007

The Problem with Modern Chemistry

Ever wonder what a thirteen-hundred pound fertilizer bomb can do?  Here is an example .  The materials for this bomb can be found in any agricultural area.  They arn't controlled and probably cannot be.  Part of the required military transformation is to learn how to deal with these weapons more effectively. 


Obvious answers include more and better intelligence, remove grounds for grievances, new and better sensors etc.  What ideas do you have about this threat?


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Friday, April 20, 2007

Link to 'The Army Hoora Guide to Transformation"

The Army Hoora Guide to Transformation gives a summary of Army plans for transformation and links for more information about those plans affecting a time frame from the present until 2031.  Many terms are defined as well as overall doctrine.


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Military Transformation and sysadmin with comments by Fred Kaplan

Fred Kaplin writes


If your guide to this future is the first 30 days of the war in Iraq, then the vision of transformation that underlies FCS might seem appropriate. However, if your guide is the subsequent two years of combat, then the vision seems out of whack.As retired Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, the president of the Army War College, testified before the House Armed Services Committee:



Technology is useful in unconventional warfare. But machines alone will never be decisive. … The tools most useful in this new war are low-tech and manpower-intensive … night raids, ambushes, roving patrols mounted and dismounted, as well as reconstruction, civic action, and medial contact teams. The enemy will be located not by satellites and [drones] but by patient intelligence work, back alley payoffs, collected information from captured documents, and threats of one-way vacations to Cuba. … Buried in an avalanche of information, commanders still confront the problem of trying to understand the enemy's intention and his will to fight.



The Army ise writing new doctrinal manuals and conducting new training exercises on how to secure and stabilize a country after the battlefield phase of war—a focus that emphasizes boots on the ground, cultural awareness, language skills, and intelligence-gathering based on eye-to-eye contact with the population.


This article brings up the huge amount development needed to understand the requirements of Barnett's sysadmin force.  We have the Laviathan portion down but sysadmin is in tatters. 


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Fred Kaplin writes


If your guide to this future is the first 30 days of the war in Iraq, then the vision of transformation that underlies FCS might seem appropriate. However, if your guide is the subsequent two years of combat, then the vision seems out of whack.As retired Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, the president of the Army War College, testified before the House Armed Services Committee:



Technology is useful in unconventional warfare. But machines alone will never be decisive. … The tools most useful in this new war are low-tech and manpower-intensive … night raids, ambushes, roving patrols mounted and dismounted, as well as reconstruction, civic action, and medial contact teams. The enemy will be located not by satellites and [drones] but by patient intelligence work, back alley payoffs, collected information from captured documents, and threats of one-way vacations to Cuba. … Buried in an avalanche of information, commanders still confront the problem of trying to understand the enemy's intention and his will to fight.



The Army ise writing new doctrinal manuals and conducting new training exercises on how to secure and stabilize a country after the battlefield phase of war—a focus that emphasizes boots on the ground, cultural awareness, language skills, and intelligence-gathering based on eye-to-eye contact with the population.



This article brings up the huge amount development needed to understand the requirements of Barnett's sysadmin force.  We have the Laviathan portion down but sysadmin is in tatters. 



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Thursday, April 12, 2007

Mekatronix makes a Robobug Kit







RobobugTM is one of the most sophisticated programmable, autonomous, six-legged walking robots available at this price. RobobugTM uses a Mekatronix MSCC11 microcontroller with 2Kbytes of EEROM for leg motion control. A proprietary leg walking algorithm allows you to develop different gaits on the robot.




This little gem is less than $600 but smart kids in any country will learn how to hack them and send them on their way.  What can this platform be used for?  Can it carry weapons? How about surveilance? Tags: ,


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Wall Climbing Robobugs

The resulting shoebox-size robot doesn't resemble a lizard or a bug, but it can easily scurry up and down a tree or concrete wall. Arrays of tiny spines on the robot's feet catch on to microscopic rough spots on the wall. Those spines combined with the carefully choreographed motion of the feet and limbs inspired by Full's animal studies enable the robot to get a good foothold without sacrificing speed.




Full and his students have been helping Stanford University professor Mark Cutkosky and University of Pennsylvania professor Daniel Koditschek build robots that can climb walls. In the future, these mobile robots might seek out survivors in buildings submerged during a flood or search for hidden explosives in the rubble of war zones.


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The resulting shoebox-size robot doesn't resemble a lizard or a bug, but it can easily scurry up and down a tree or concrete wall. Arrays of tiny spines on the robot's feet catch on to microscopic rough spots on the wall. Those spines combined with the carefully choreographed motion of the feet and limbs inspired by Full's animal studies enable the robot to get a good foothold without sacrificing speed.




Full and his students have been helping Stanford University professor Mark Cutkosky and University of Pennsylvania professor Daniel Koditschek build robots that can climb walls. In the future, these mobile robots might seek out survivors in buildings submerged during a flood or search for hidden explosives in the rubble of war zones.


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Robot Insects

The aim is for the bugs to carry tiny spy cameras. The bugs should be far more manoeuvrable than micro-sized conventional aircraft.


But mimicking an insect's figure-of-eight wing beat – to give optimum mid-air agility – is proving tough, New Scientist reports.



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http://img.metro.co.uk/i/pix/2006/09/craneflyL_175x125.jpg


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The aim is for the bugs to carry tiny spy cameras. The bugs should be far more manoeuvrable than micro-sized conventional aircraft.


But mimicking an insect's figure-of-eight wing beat – to give optimum mid-air agility – is proving tough, New Scientist reports.




http://img.metro.co.uk/i/pix/2006/09/craneflyL_175x125.jpg


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Flying Insects

The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is developing four flying "robobugs", weighing up to 10 grams each and with wingspans of up to 7.5 centimetres. One of the two companies developing the craft for DARPA - Aerovironment, based in Monrovia, California - aims to have a "rough demonstrator" flying by the middle of 2008.



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Very quickly, robots the size of ants will be gathering information for various uses including serveillance and environmental monitoring.  I have to wonder what possibilities exist for insect control, poison distribution and other creative activities.Tags: , , ,


Thursday, March 29, 2007

USC Stevens Institute for Innovation Launches; Showcases Breakthrough Innovations

USC Stevens Institute for Innovation Launches; Showcases Breakthrough Innovations: "This is the first time a major research university has created a
university-wide, centralized hub out of the Office of the Provost to
consolidate innovation transfer operations and innovator development and to
be the catalyst for educational and co-curricular programming.
Additionally, this is the first time such an undertaking has included
innovations from all disciplines -- from cinematic arts and music to
sciences, medicine and engineering -- focusing efforts on innovators as
well as the innovations."

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

George Johnson

George Johnson

The Defense Department and the National Security Agency are worried enough (about quantum computers) that they are pouring money into quantum code-breaking. They want to get there first. At the same time, they're funding some of the Alice and Bob experiments—using quantum mechanics to devise truly unbreakable codes..

In an age where information is more than half of any military problem, encryption could be the most important skill on the battlefield.

Monday, February 19, 2007

BREITBART.COM - 1999 War Games Foresaw Problems in Iraq

BREITBART.COM - 1999 War Games Foresaw Problems in Iraq: "WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. government conducted a series of secret war games in 1999 that anticipated an invasion of Iraq would require 400,000 troops, and even then chaos might ensue.
In its 'Desert Crossing' games, 70 military, diplomatic and intelligence officials assumed the high troop levels would be needed to keep order, seal borders and take care of other security needs.

The documents came to light Saturday through a Freedom of Information Act request by the George Washington University's National Security Archive, an independent research institute and library. "




It would be interesting but probably impossible for the proponents of 'Military Transformation' to do a study of all the ways the administration violated the concepts of military transformation. For example, this surge of 20,000 troops looks like it will only bring troop levels back to where they were at the beginning of 2006. How is that supposed to help? Swarming requires overwhelming force. Military Transformation assumes force that does something besides guard troops and wait for attacks.


Military Transformation relies on high amounts of information. I guess it assumes that the information will be used.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Darpa Race

Click Here For Sabastian Thrun

Cars will be driving themselves by 2030. That is probably a correct estimate and will have a profound effect. For example, is the whole truck driving profession about to be replaced. What do you say when your twelve year old asks for a car of his/her own? They won't have to drive it to use it alone. Who will have the first package pickup for driverless cars? It will be a very different world.

BREITBART.COM - Robot-driven cars on roads by 2030: scientist

BREITBART.COM - Robot-driven cars on roads by 2030: scientist:

"Thrun said he believed robot-driven vehicles would be deployed in war zones before they are seen in everyday civilian environments.
'I think they'll be on the battlefield by around 2015,' he said. 'It is going to make sense to use them in situations such as convoys, or in hostile environments where there is danger to personnel.' "



Of course, the advent of self controlling vehicles will add to the move to autonomous war machines. Imagine the difference in target choices that will be possible when human life is not at risk directly

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Cluster bombs: a war's perilous aftermath | csmonitor.com

Cluster bombs: a war's perilous aftermath csmonitor.com: "Cluster bombs: a war's perilous aftermath
UN figures estimate that 26 percent of south Lebanon's cultivatable land is affected by the ordinance."



The Christian Science Monitor reports that most of the cluster bombs used in Lebanon were dropped in the last three days of the way. Clean up costs are in the tens of millions of dollars , and human costs far higher. I have to question the management decision to use these weapons. How could they provide an advantage equal to their cost? Could someone answer?

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Death and Taxes: A Visual Guide to Where Your Federal Tax Dollars Go

Death and Taxes: A Visual Guide to Where Your Federal Tax Dollars Go

This chart is a great overview of all the activities of the federal government. Yes, you can make it bigger.. just keep clicking on it and drive around.

Top News- Pentagon Big Winner in Bush Budget Plan - AOL News

Top News- Pentagon Big Winner in Bush Budget Plan - AOL News: "The Pentagon, which also consumes one-sixth of the overall budget, would get a whopping 11 percent increase, to $481.4 billion in its core budget. And that is before accounting for an additional $235 billion in war costs over the next year and a half. "

11 Percent Increase-WOW.

That is way over 1/6 of the total federal budget. We'll have to see what this means for military transformation. Somehow, I am reminded of the Grand Armada of 1588 that wreaked Spain. What are we getting for this?

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Inspectors: Millions in Iraq Aid Wasted | World Latest | Guardian Unlimited

Inspectors: Millions in Iraq Aid Wasted | World Latest | Guardian Unlimited: "The quarterly audit by Stuart Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, is the latest to paint a grim picture of waste, fraud and frustration in an Iraq war and reconstruction effort that has cost taxpayers more than $300 billion and left the region near civil war. "

Managment skills have long been critical to military endeavors. The Sysadmin phase of operations needs these skills even more. The article referenced shows some of the failures of our current Iraqi operations.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Walrus-an 800 foot plane



Walrus is distinct from the earlier airship era
vehicles. It will operate heavier-than-air and will
seek to achieve the operating utility of modern
military transport aircraft. It will carry greater
payload, have unimproved landing site capability,
and will provide better transport efficiency. Walrus
will be largest single aircraft ever developed. As
you might imagine, there are numerous challenges
to turning this vision into reality. How will we
construct such an aircraft? What materials and
structures will we use to build it? At over 800 feet
long, how will we control this behemoth?


The writer speaks of pods of Walrus able to carry large numbers of troops and equipment from 'fort to fight' in seven days.

A Peek Inside DARPA

A Peek Inside DARPA: "Later in the program, Holland says, PAL will be able to “automatically watch a conversation between two people and, using natural-language processing, figure out what are the tasks they agreed upon.” "

DARPA is working on automating the management process itself. They seem to plan for this to be online in 2009.

Language Translation and the Military

DARPA’s speech technology has been deployed in nine locations, and it can translate with about 50% accuracy — “good enough to see if public sentiment is going a certain way,” Holland says. By 2009, that’s expected to reach 90%, which is as good as human translators.

In parallel, the program is working on “distillation” technology designed to remove irrelevant and redundant information from masses of translated text. The goal is to go from 30% to 110% of human ability in the next few years.

Translating documents automatically within two years is terribly exciting, but a program that could reduce redundant information would be even more useful.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

DailyTech - Lockeed Martin Tests Centralized UAV Controller

DailyTech - Lockeed Martin Tests Centralized UAV Controller

Lockheed Martin is proud to announce it has successfully tested a new centralized controller device for unmanned vehicles. The successful tests enable the military to further expand the deployment of unmanned vehicles with less input from personnel.

This is just an intermediate step. At some point we will obviously want to have the personnel running the laptop replaced. These machines are inevitable but they are not good for democracy. They will allow a small group with large resources to build an operation that most of humanity will find very difficult to resist. This technology is similiar to an armored knight. Most of us will be similiar to peasants but much less useful.