Diagnosis in ‘Digital India’

Divvy K. Upadhyay Dean F. Sittig Hardeep Singh

November 24, 2014

The HinduNO ROOM FOR ERROR: "The opportunity to diagnose Ebola correctly was missed in Thomas Duncan’s case in the U.S., but there are several lessons to be learnt." Picture shows wards at a hospital in New Delhi. File photo: Meeta Ahlawat

The government must recognise the role low-cost health IT innovations could play in improving diagnostic accuracy, including many that would be useful for rural India

The diagnosis of the first patient with Ebola in the U.S. was initially missed in an emergency room late night on September 25. Thomas Duncan, a Liberian national visiting Dallas, Texas, complained of flu-like symptoms and fever, but after lab work and CT scans, was given antibiotics and discharged with presumed sinusitis. The opportunity to diagnose Ebola correctly was missed. But there are several lessons to be learnt, many of which are relevant for ‘Digital India’.

Duncan informed a nurse about his travel history from West Africa. She documented this in the electronic health record (EHR). However, this did not set alarm bells ringing despite Ebola awareness preparation preceding this event. And then the hospital fumbled on its explanation, first blaming the nurse saying she did not tell the doctors about the travel history and then blaming a glitch in the EHR saying that because the nurse’s workflow (where the travel history was recorded) was not aligned with the doctor’s workflow, the doctor did not have access to the nurse’s notes. The next day it backtracked saying the EHR system worked just fine. At a U.S. Congressional hearing three weeks later, the hospital finally admitted misdiagnosis. This was from a hospital that was personally chosen by none less than former U.S. President George Bush for a cardiac stent procedure last year.

Missing critical information

Rebuilding a regional architecture

Jayant Prasad

November 24, 2014

India must lift its game for SAARC’s rescue and resuscitation. It must lead by example, building trust with its neighbours, showing solidarity, and forging with them a habit of cooperation

The much delayed South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit in Kathmandu, on November 26-27, exactly six months to the date from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s swearing-in ceremony, affords him an opportunity to reconnect with India’s neighbours, this time inventively to revive moribund regional cooperation in South Asia. When SAARC was constituted three decades ago, India was hampered by limited resources for financing partnerships and investments in the region. This now is no longer the case.

Good relations with neighbours is a priority for India. But for this, India has to commit to and accelerate its efforts towards forging closer bilateral and regional partnerships and economic integration within the subcontinent and beyond.

India accounts for well over two-thirds of SAARC’s area, three quarters of its population, and nearly four-fifths of its GDP. More than its relative size, population and resources, it is India’s ongoing social and economic transformation that makes it the natural fulcrum of cooperation in the region.A sombre outlook

India will have to underwrite the creation of regional public goods for South Asians to integrate. It can do so by facilitating optimal utilisation of the region’s natural resources, building regional infrastructure, creating connectivity within the region and with the world — with energy grids, cross-border transport networks, coastal shipping, air links, roads, railways and waterways, besides flood and other natural disaster mitigation and prevention measures. It can implement trade facilitation measures, thereby lowering transaction costs and generating greater regional investment and employment.

South Asian cooperation faces multiple challenges. With about a quarter of the world’s population spread over four per cent of the global surface, South Asia constitutes the world’s second least developed region after Sub-Saharan Africa. Its per capita GDP, in terms of purchasing power parity, is three times below the global average. It has more poor people than the rest of the world. There is a dramatic disproportion between its population and share in global output and trade.

Dining at the G-20

Written by Yoginder K Alagh 

November 24, 2014 

 

In ‘Sherpas and Coolies’ I argued that participating at such forums was only productive if India’s concerns on water, energy, nutrition and trade were being taken on board.

may burn half a billion and China more than two billion tonnes of coal. The Chinese have, of course, in a sense already decoupled and formed the G2 with the US.

India pursues three objectives at the G-20. The first is to seek stability to enable reform. The second is improvement in the global and national architecture to deepen financial markets in pursuit of inclusive growth. The third is concerned with how these two link to trade policy. India’s phased process of reform, with the ultimate goal being complete capital account convertibility, stated initially during my stint as planning minister in the Ninth Plan document, was to be protected from the wild swings of global financial markets, which were particularly evident after the East Asian meltdown. 

India wanted the rules to be clear and the paths to be flexible. At the G-20, India must constantly project the art of following its own interests and championing the growth of poor countries as two sides of the same coin. Having increasingly utilised the market in its larger economic policies, Indians tend to be appreciative of the consensus on formulating country-specific commitments for G-20 initiatives like the Mutual Assessment Process, leading to action plans for higher growth. 

At the measurement and operational levels, India correctly argues that commitments emerge from domestic policies, and the necessary global push is absent. It also has a somewhat realistic approach to the rebalancing doctrine, recognising the scales of the US and German economies but asking for creative institutional experimentation to encourage trade between the faster-growing developing economies. This is needed to avert global crises and push growth rates higher. However, uncoordinated rebalancing may make things worse.

AFSPA and internal security Army needs a legal cover to carry out counter-insurgency operations

Gen V P Malik (retd)

Army needs a legal cover to carry out counter-insurgency operations

LAST month three significant incidents took place in the election-charged state of Jammu and Kashmir, which could make policy-makers in New Delhi reflect once again on the deployment of the army on internal security duty.

On the November 3 night an army patrol deployed on a checkpoint in Budgam district fired on a Maruti 800 car in which five boys were travelling. This resulted in the unfortunate death of two boys and injuries to three others. The injured boys were evacuated to the army base hospital in Srinagar by the very patrol that had fired on the car. According to some eyewitnesses, the car when stopped skidded off the road. The army patrol version is that the car did not stop at the checkpoint and tried to escape. The police registered a case of 'criminal intent to kill'. The army, as it usually does in such incidents, ordered a court of inquiry. Somewhat unusually, however, the Defence Minister and the Northern Army Commander took responsibility for the incident, apologised and promised to take action against the patrol. 53 Rashtriya Rifles, whose patrol was deployed at the checkpoint, was moved out. It was replaced with another battalion.

On November 12 a General Court Martial brought the Machil incident to an end (pending approval of the Army Commander) by recommending life sentence to army personnel, including a Commanding Officer (Colonel) and a Captain, after finding them guilty. These army personnel were involved in the killing of three civilians in a fake encounter in Machil four years ago.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah called this decision as a ‘watershed moment’. A national daily editoralised it as 'a glimmer of justice' and went on to ask many questions, including “Is it (army) willing to accept the extent to which it has alienated the people of Kashmir and work towards redressing the sense of injury?” Implied in these statements is the accusation that (a) there is a widespread violation of human rights which till now has been overlooked by the army, and (b) the army is responsible for alienating the people of Kashmir.

No one can deny that a few incidents of human rights violation (like Pathribal) continue to rankle. But such a serious accusation does not take into account the regular investigations and justice done by the army in human rights violations. Four years ago, I was given statistics related to human rights violations between 1990 and August 2011 in 15 Corps Zone (J & K Valley) by the Army HQ. These were (a) Total cases received and investigated — 1,485 (b) Cases proved false — 1,439 (c) Personnel punished in cases proved true — 96. These included four officers cashiered and awarded rigorous imprisonment, 31 officers and other personnel dismissed from service and awarded rigorous imprisonment, 17 personnel reduced to ranks and awarded rigorous imprisonment in military custody, and the remaining (including 32 officers) awarded forfeiture of service for promotion/severe reprimand/ severe displeasure and so on. The Army HQ should make such information public from time to time. The fact is that the army cannot compromise in its discipline or human rights violations.

With US Army Gone, Taliban Reestablishing Strongholds in Areas Previously Cleared by U.S. Army

Hour’s Drive Outside Kabul, Taliban Reign

Azam Ahmed

New York Times, November 23, 2014

CHARKALAH, Afghanistan — The explosion ripped through the floor of the Humvee, tearing a hole in the armored vehicle and injuring the district governor. The crack of Taliban gunfire followed.

Seeking cover, the Afghan police convoy sped behind a mud compound and unleashed a hail of bullets. Undeterred, the Taliban fighters edged closer. As bullets smacked around his head, an Afghan soldier in a white head scarf crouched behind a waist-high wall trading shots with the insurgents, a cigarette tucked in his lips.

“This is our daily life,” said the police chief of Tagab district, a mostly Taliban-controlled patch of Kapisa Province about an hour from Kabul, as rounds struck the compound’s edges, showering his men with dirt. “Everything is like this — you can see it with your own eyes.”

In areas like this, it is the government that operates in the shadows, following the dictates of the Taliban in order to stay alive. Afghan soldiers in Tagab district will not leave their base except for one hour each day starting at 9 a.m., when the Taliban allow them to visit the bazaar as long as the soldiers remain unarmed.

Photo

Afghan National Police driving to the scene of the ambush of the Humvee, which injured the district governor of Tagab. Credit Andrew Quilty for The New York Times

The situation in southern Kapisa Province has quietly become one of the greatest challenges of the war for the new government of President Ashraf Ghani. In the absence of international troops or their air support, the Taliban have eclipsed the legitimacy of government forces there and in several other parts of the country, in what many see as a worrying portent for the coming years.

China Building Island in South China Sea Capable of Handling Military Aircraft

China building airstrip-capable island on Fiery Cross Reef

John Hardy and Sean O’Conor

IHS Jane’s Defence Weekly. November 20, 2014

Airbus Defence and Space imagery dated 14 November 2014 shows Chinese land reclamation operations under way at Fiery Cross Reef in the South China Sea. Multiple operating dredgers provide the ability to generate terrain rapidly. Operating from a harbour area, dredgers deliver sediment via a network of piping. (© CNES 2014, Distribution Airbus DS / Spot Image / IHS)

Key Points

China is reclaiming land at Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Islands, according to satellite imagery

The reclamation, which started in August, is creating a land mass large enough for a 3,000 m-long airstrip

China is building an island at least 3,000 m long on Fiery Cross Reef that could be the site for its first airstrip in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.

Satellite imagery of the island taken on 8 August and 14 November shows that in the past three months Chinese dredgers have created a land mass that is almost the entire length of the reef.

Fiery Cross Reef lies to the west of the main Spratly island archipelago and was previously under water; the only habitable area was a concrete platform built and maintained by China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).

The new island is more than 3,000 m long and between 200 and 300 m wide: large enough to construct a runway and apron. The dredgers are also creating a harbour to the east of the reef that would appear to be large enough to receive tankers and major surface combatants.

The existing structure on the reef’s southwestern edge was home to a PLAN garrison and had a pier, air-defence guns, anti-frogmen defences, communications equipment, and a greenhouse. The concrete structure is currently not attached to the new island, but if previous Chinese land reclamation projects in the Spratlys are any guide, it is only a matter of time before it is joined up.

The Spratly Islands are claimed by Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam. All but Brunei occupy islands or have built structures on reefs and shoals to assert their claims.

The land reclamation at Fiery Cross is the fourth such project undertaken by China in the Spratly Islands in the last 12-18 months and by far the largest in scope. China has built new islands at Johnson South Reef, Cuateron Reef, and Gaven Reefs, but none are large enough to house an airstrip in their current form.

Ship tracking data from IHS Maritime shows substantial activity at the reef since May 2014. Analysts drew attention to two ships in particular: Jin Hang Jun 406 , a grab dredger that is fixed on a pontoon, and 3,086-tonne cutter suction dredgerXin Hai Tun . Both have been instrumental in dredging and cutting channels into the new harbour basin.

In Conversation With National Security Advisor Ajit Doval: Highlights

NDTV.com

November 22, 2014 

Source Link

National Security Advisor Ajit Doval at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit

NEW DELHI: On Saturday, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval spoke at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.

Here are the highlights:

Security is more than tanks and aircraft. 

India is engaging with nations with conflicting interests. 

The challenge for us is to engage with countries diplomatically. 

Have to ensure that war does not remain a necessary option. 

There are 800 million people in India below the age of 35. We have problems of urbanisation and youth. 

Police modernisation is crucial for securing India. 

Good governance is fundamental to eliminating problems of labour, employment and other issues. 

Will of the nation is the will of its people. 

The country has to start now for technological upgradation. 

If India's economy rises at 8 or 9 per cent, India will be very secure. 

Cyber space is going to be the new frontier. We are aware that we have got experience and scientific capabilities. Cyber war will be fought on a different level.

In a Shift, Obama Extends U.S. Role in Afghan Combat

By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT

NOV. 21, 2014 

Source Link

WASHINGTON — President Obama decided in recent weeks to authorize a more expansive mission for the military in Afghanistan in 2015 than originally planned, a move that ensures American troops will have a direct role in fighting in the war-ravaged country for at least another year.

Mr. Obama’s order allows American forces to carry out missions against theTaliban and other militant groups threatening American troops or the Afghan government, a broader mission than the president described to the public earlier this year, according to several administration, military and congressional officials with knowledge of the decision. The new authorization also allows American jets, bombers and drones to support Afghan troops on combat missions.

In an announcement in the White House Rose Garden in May, Mr. Obama said that the American military would have no combat role in Afghanistan next year, and that the missions for the 9,800 troops remaining in the country would be limited to training Afghan forces and to hunting the “remnants of Al Qaeda.”

The decision to change that mission was the result of a lengthy and heated debate that laid bare the tension inside the Obama administration between two often-competing imperatives: the promise Mr. Obama made to end the war in Afghanistan, versus the demands of the Pentagon that American troops be able to successfully fulfill their remaining missions in the country.

The internal discussion took place against the backdrop of this year’s collapse of Iraqi security forces in the face of the advance of the Islamic State as well as the mistrust between the Pentagon and the White House that still lingers since Mr. Obama’s 2009 decision to “surge” 30,000 American troops to Afghanistan. Some of the president’s civilian advisers say that decision was made only because of excessive Pentagon pressure, and some military officials say it was half-baked and made with an eye to domestic politics.

Mr. Obama’s decision, made during a White House meeting in recent weeks with his senior national security advisers, came over the objection of some of his top civilian aides, who argued that American lives should not be put at risk next year in any operations against the Taliban — and that they should have only a narrow counterterrorism mission against Al Qaeda.

Not Fit to Print: An Insider Account of Pakistani Censorship

BY NEHA ANSARI

NOVEMBER 20, 2014 

"Imran [Khan], [Tahir ul] Qadri, and the ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence] are our best friends," our weekly editorial meeting at Pakistan's Express Tribune was (jokingly) told on Aug. 13, 2014, a day before the two political leaders began their separate long marches from Lahore to Islamabad, and plunged the country into crisis. "We know it's not easy, but that's the way it is -- at least for now. I promise to make things better soon," said the editor, who had called the meeting to inform us about the media group's editorial policy during the sit-ins and protests that would eventually, momentarily paralyze the Pakistani government.

The senior editorial staff, myself included, reluctantly agreed to the orders, which came from the CEO, because our jobs were on the line. Media groups in Pakistan are family-owned and make all decisions unilaterally -- regardless of whether they concern marketing and finance or editorial content and policy -- advancing their personal agendas through the influential mainstream outlets at their disposal. A majority of the CEOs and media house owners are businessmen, with no background (or interest) in the ethics of journalism. The owners and publishers make it very clear to their newsrooms and staff -- including the editor -- that any tilt or gloss they proscribe is non-negotiable. As a result, serious concerns persist about violence against and the intimidation of members of the media. In fact, Pakistan ranks 158 out of 180 countries in the 2014 World Press Freedom Index.

Yet there is also a more elusive problem within the country's press landscape: the collusion of Pakistan's powerful military and the nation's media outlets. I experienced this first-hand while I worked as a journalist at the Express Tribune during the recent protests led by Khan, the populist cricketer-turned-politician, and Qadri, a Pakistani-Canadian cleric and soapbox orator.

During this time, the owners of Pakistani media powerhouses -- namely ARY News, the Express Media Group, and Dunya News -- received instructions from the military establishment to support the "dissenting" leaders and their sit-ins. The military was using the media to add muscle and might to the anti-government movement in an attempt to cut Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif down to size.

What Indians Really Think About the Foreign Troop Withdrawal From Afghanistan

BY MICHAEL KUGELMAN

NOVEMBER 20, 2014 

Source Link

This article is part of a monthly series by the author that highlights possible post-2014 scenarios for Afghanistan.

India, so goes the conventional wisdom, is deeply concerned about the international troop drawdown in Afghanistan.

According to this view -- one often propounded by the government in New Delhi -- Indians across the board fear that the withdrawal will strengthen the Taliban and other entities that pose threats to India and its interests.

But, as I learned in conversations with analysts, politicians, academics, journalists, and university students during a recent two-week, six-city trip across India, popular sentiment about the withdrawal is much more complex than what the conventional wisdom might suggest.

To be sure, many Indian analysts are quite worried. They articulated concerns to me that can generally be described as follows: First, militant groups in Afghanistan will exploit security vacuums and could plunge the country into a new era of unrest. Second, Pakistan's military might encourage some of its strategic assets (such as the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani Network) to target Indians in Afghanistan while encouraging others (such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed) to wreak havoc in India. Third, India could be increasingly susceptible to terrorist attacks from an array of militant groups. The Indian media gave prominent coverage to the boast of an official of Jamaat ul-Ahrar, a Pakistani Taliban splinter group -- issued after the Nov. 2 suicide attack in the Pakistani border town of Wagah, for which Jamat ul-Ahrar claimed responsibility -- that a hit on India is very much a possibility.

The Search for a Missing Peace in Islamabad

By Ali Reza Sarwar

November 21, 2014

Afghanistan and Pakistan’s past may have to be ignored if they are to have a future. 

In his third foreign visit after trips Saudi Arabia and China, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani traveled to Pakistan on November 14 to talk about the peace that Afghanistan desperately needs. Ghani’s visit came two days after the new director general of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Lt. General Riwzwan Akhtar was in Kabul for talks on the same topic.

There is a prevailing assumption in Afghanistan that when Pakistan’s army chief and ISI director-general talk about peace in Afghanistan, they simply do not mean it. This suspicion derives from the Pakistan Army and intelligence community’s decades of destabilizing engagement in Afghanistan. Ghani seems of a similar view, because in addition to meeting with President Mamnoon Hussain and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, he rushed to Army HQ in Rawalpindi to meet the powerful Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif, who himself was in Kabul on October 6.

Ghani understands that the ultimate fate and success of his presidency rests on restoring basic peace and security to Afghanistan, and that the key to those issues certainly lies somewhere with Akhtar and his boss, Sharif.

At a press conference, both Ghani and Sharif promised to join together in the fight against terrorism, but the reality is much more difficult. As former President Hamid Karzai, who visited Pakistan 20 times during his 13 year presidency, noted during his farewell speech, “No peace will arrive unless the U.S. or Pakistan want it.”

Will Pakistan Work for Peace?

There are hard realities, serious doubts, and pressing questions surrounding the answer to this single question. No Afghan leader in modern history pushed as aggressively for a political settlement with Pakistan as Karzai did. Living in Pakistan as a refugee and political activist supporting the anti-Soviet Mujahideen forces since 1980, Karzai was uniquely informed of the real nexus of power in Pakistan and its crucial role in destabilizing or heralding a sustainable peace in his homeland. Karzai did what he could as president of a war-torn country to achieve that goal. In October 2011, he said that Afghanistan would side with Pakistan if the U.S. – Afghanistan’s principle donor and ally in the post-Taliban era – ever went to war against Pakistan. Karzai’s statement could have reflected a realistic belief that even if appeasing Pakistan cost Kabul its biggest partner, Afghanistan should still accept this in order to secure its long-term peace and survival.

The Chinese DF-21 Arsenal: The Finale

November 13, 2014

Future Uncertainties

These raid-sizing thought experiments make a convincing case that, at present, the conventionally-armed DF-21 inventory is only capable of performing specific tasks within an overall combined arms first strike. At the inventory’s mid-2013 size, any margin for maintaining a campaign-waging missile reserve dissipates quickly if the missiles are less effective or U.S. BMD more effective than our thought experiments’ assumptions.

It is less clear whether the inventory is actually solely intended for the first strike role, or whether the PLA has broader long-term ambitions for these missiles. The apparent plateaus in DF-21C deployments after 2009 and DF-21D deployments after 2011 could mean that only short productions runs were needed because the PLA only needed a few tens of these missiles to meet their first strike-centric inventory requirements for 1500+ kilometer MRBMs over the near-to-intermediate term. This interpretation would be consistent with NASIC’s January 2014 assessment that the PLA’s C2 capabilities are currently sufficient only for conducting “pre-planned joint fires against fixed targets in the Pacific Theater,” and that coordinated strikes against “pop-up targets of opportunity” in a dynamic combat environment would likely face “considerable difficulties, except in certain tactical situations.”[i] In other words, the PLA would presently gain little from reserving some sizable number of conventionally-armed MRBMs for campaign-waging instead of expending them within a coordinated combined arms first strike.

Alternatively, it might mean that the -21C and -21D are limited ‘test runs’ of conventionally-armed 1500+ kilometer MRBMs, and that technological as well as operational lessons-learned generated by the deployed brigades will be applied in either future DF-21 variants or new-design MRBMs. It might even mean that -21C and/or -21D production was prematurely ended due to critical performance issues or capability limitations discovered during operational testing, and that the roles one or both were intended to fill will either remain gapped until successor designs are fielded—or the roles are reallocated to other combat arms.

The Problems Facing ISIS

Iraq: Lions Led By Donkeys

strategypage.com

November 21, 2014

November 21, 2014: ISIL remains the largest and best financed Islamic terrorist group in the region and that is causing a lot of problems for the Islamic terrorists. ISIL has over 20,000 armed men in Syria and Iraq, but a growing portion of them are tied down occupying and trying to administer conquered territory. These new subjects tend to be obedient, but not enthusiastic about their new rulers, nor very loyal. In many ways ISIL is going through the same cycle its predecessor (the pro-Saddam Islamic terrorists of 2003-8) followed on the way to defeat. That is, resistance from Sunni Arabs, especially in Anbar (western Iraq) eventually leads to brutal repression by Islamic terrorists which in turn enrages more Sunni Arabs and turns them violently against the Islamic terrorists. That, in turn, causes more desertions in the Islamic terrorist groups as new recruits (and even some veteran fighters) desert because killing fellow Sunni Arabs, especially women, was not what they signed up for. This is a common pattern with Islamic terrorist groups as the savage reality collides with the idealistic rhetoric of the preachers and propagandists. It’s one thing to slaughter women and children who are not Sunni Moslems, but killing your own is bad for morale and cripples recruiting. Unlike 2007, there are a lot more cell phones around now and more potential recruits have Internet access. So the pictures of Holy Warriors murdering fellow Sunni Moslems, especially women, spreads fast and the impact is quickly felt by the terrorist leaders. It’s not just one incident either, but several massacres of Sunni Arab tribesmen in eastern Syria and western Iraq over the past few months. To the young Moslem men who provide most of the support (and manpower) for ISIL, such misbehavior can no longer be dismissed as a rare event or staged Western propaganda. While the air attacks have made it more difficult for large convoys of ISIL gunmen to attack and conquer new territory, an even larger problem is the need for using these gunmen to deal with rebellious Sunni Arabs. This has led to counterattacks by some tribal militias, especially in western Iraq and ISIL losing control of towns and villages. The terrorists are being terrorized.

Another reason for the growing unrest in the ISIL “Islamic State” is the incompetence of the Islamic terrorists leaders at running an economy. ISIL wants everything done in conformance of their vision of what Islamic law demands. This means no modern currency or banking practices. This makes it difficult for the economy to function and the ISIL subjects are suffering from high unemployment and growing shortages. ISIL now proposes to mint its own gold and silver coins and make that the only legal currency in their territory. Implementing this will cause more economic disruption and more unhappy residents of the Islamic State.

When jihadis come marching home

By Brian Michael Jenkins, contributor

November 19, 2014

Source Link

As many as 15,000 foreign volunteers have swelled the ranks of rebel and jihadist formations currently fighting in Syria, according to the most recent United Nations report. Most come from neighboring Arab countries, but more than 2,000 have arrived from a handful of European countries, with smaller numbers coming from Australia and North America.

Their presence in Syria and Iraq increases the available reservoir of Western passports and "clean skins" that terrorist planners could recruit to carry out terrorist missions against the West. And what happens when they return — more radicalized, more experienced, determined to continue their violent campaigns at home?

Thus far, homegrown terrorist plots in the United States have been remarkably amateurish, although at times still lethal. The existing pool of determined jihadists in America is very small and lacks training and experience, which fighting in Syria and Iraq would provide. Returning jihadi veterans would be more formidable adversaries. Still, the threat appears manageable using current U.S. laws and existing resources.

Concern that al Qaeda's affiliates in Syria and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) would inevitably employ their foreign fighters to launch terrorist operations against U.S. targets or in the United States was one of the principal reasons given for initiating American military action in Iraq and Syria. But the American bombing campaign now also gives a motive for ISIS to counterattack.

Of greatest concern is a scenario in which Western volunteers who initially went to fight in Syria or Iraq are recruited, trained and supported for terrorist operations in the West. Determined to pursue its strategy of attacking the "far enemy," al Qaeda's central command deployed the Khorasan group, a cell of seasoned jihadist veterans from Afghanistan and Pakistan, to Syria to recruit and equip suitable Westerners for terrorist attacks outside the region. The first U.S. bombings in Syria targeted the Khorasan group.

U.S. government sources report that more than 100 Americans have attempted to go or have gone to Syria to join the various rebel formations — in particular, al Qaeda's affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra or ISIS. Twenty of these volunteers have been publicly identified as a consequence of arrests and prosecutions in the United States or as a result of their deaths in Syria, some as suicide bombers.

It is too few to draw a reliable group portrait of this particular cohort of American jihadists. However, at least 124 Americans have gone or have attempted to go abroad to join jihadist fronts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and more recently, Syria.

The Problems Facing ISIS

Iraq: Lions Led By Donkeys

November 21, 2014

November 21, 2014: ISIL remains the largest and best financed Islamic terrorist group in the region and that is causing a lot of problems for the Islamic terrorists. ISIL has over 20,000 armed men in Syria and Iraq, but a growing portion of them are tied down occupying and trying to administer conquered territory. These new subjects tend to be obedient, but not enthusiastic about their new rulers, nor very loyal. In many ways ISIL is going through the same cycle its predecessor (the pro-Saddam Islamic terrorists of 2003-8) followed on the way to defeat. That is, resistance from Sunni Arabs, especially in Anbar (western Iraq) eventually leads to brutal repression by Islamic terrorists which in turn enrages more Sunni Arabs and turns them violently against the Islamic terrorists. That, in turn, causes more desertions in the Islamic terrorist groups as new recruits (and even some veteran fighters) desert because killing fellow Sunni Arabs, especially women, was not what they signed up for. 

This is a common pattern with Islamic terrorist groups as the savage reality collides with the idealistic rhetoric of the preachers and propagandists. It’s one thing to slaughter women and children who are not Sunni Moslems, but killing your own is bad for morale and cripples recruiting. Unlike 2007, there are a lot more cell phones around now and more potential recruits have Internet access. So the pictures of Holy Warriors murdering fellow Sunni Moslems, especially women, spreads fast and the impact is quickly felt by the terrorist leaders. It’s not just one incident either, but several massacres of Sunni Arab tribesmen in eastern Syria and western Iraq over the past few months. 

To the young Moslem men who provide most of the support (and manpower) for ISIL, such misbehavior can no longer be dismissed as a rare event or staged Western propaganda. While the air attacks have made it more difficult for large convoys of ISIL gunmen to attack and conquer new territory, an even larger problem is the need for using these gunmen to deal with rebellious Sunni Arabs. This has led to counterattacks by some tribal militias, especially in western Iraq and ISIL losing control of towns and villages. The terrorists are being terrorized.

Another reason for the growing unrest in the ISIL “Islamic State” is the incompetence of the Islamic terrorists leaders at running an economy. ISIL wants everything done in conformance of their vision of what Islamic law demands. This means no modern currency or banking practices. This makes it difficult for the economy to function and the ISIL subjects are suffering from high unemployment and growing shortages. ISIL now proposes to mint its own gold and silver coins and make that the only legal currency in their territory. Implementing this will cause more economic disruption and more unhappy residents of the Islamic State.

A Look at the Technical Aspects of Russian Cyber Espionage

Russian Cyber Espionage Under The Microscope 

Kelly Jackson Higgins 

darkreading.com 

November 20, 2014 

A study of published intelligence on three major malware families used in Russia’s cyber espionage operations shows a highly coordinated, targeted, and stealthy strategy. 

Researchers at Recorded Future studied Uroburous, Energetic Bear, and APT28, three main malware families out of Russia being used for cyberspying. In a report scheduled for publication today, RecordedFuture analyzed intelligence on the operations from public reports by various security vendor research teams and found, among other things, that the three attack groups don’t operate in a vacuum. For one thing, they appear to avoid hitting the same targets: “There’s very little cohabitation of the [three] malware families,” says Christopher Ahlberg, CEO and co-founder of Recorded Future. “It seems to indicate some level of tactical and organizational coordination.” 

Russia mostly has been known for its notorious cybercrime underground, but its cyber espionage activity over the past year has come into sharper focus after a wave of publicized targeted cyberspying campaigns. China, meanwhile, has been spotted operating pervasive cyber espionage to pilfer intellectual property. 

"China has economic objectives," Ahlberg says. "Russia wants to show the world they are strong politically. Energy is incredibly important to them [as well]… They also want to sell gas to Western Europe" and oil to other nations, he says. 

"There’s more of a focus on commodity markets and geopolitical" interests, he notes. 

Uroburous, Energetic Bear, and APT28 use their own attack vectors, exploits and vulnerabilities, and toolkits. Each also appears to have a different objective, according to Recorded Future’s analysis. 

Uroburous — the name used by G Data Software AG — is also known as Epic Turla by Kaspersky Lab, Snake by BAE Systems, and SnakeNet, and has been around since at least 2008. Its main targets: governments, embassies, defense industry, research and education, and the pharmaceutical industry. The initial attack vector is either spear phishing emails or watering hole attacks via phony Flash player updates. 

Breaking the Code on Russian Malware

by Jennifer Darche 

November 20, 2014

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Russia poses a serious cyber threat to industrial control systems (ICS), pharmaceutical, defense, aviation, and petroleum companies. Russian government cyber operations aim to use malware to steal information on files, persist on ICS equipment, and commit espionage. According to a 2014 GData Red Paper, Uroburos malware’s “modular structure allows extending it with new features easily, which makes it not only highly sophisticated but also highly flexible and dangerous.” Understanding these threats posed by the malware and Russia’s objectives will go a long way to securing networks.

There is nothing quick about studying Russian cyber operations. Beyond understanding the complexities of the malware itself, one must also match up the names of several families of malware, some which have evolved over time and have had different names, as well as to link together the names given to specific groups by a number of private security companies. As many as five different codewords have been given to Russian Federation sponsored cyber campaigns by companies such as Kaspersky, iSIGHT Partners, Symantec, FireEye/Mandiant.

To further complicate research and analysis, the codewords represent different facets of the malware problem, some are grouped by signatures, some by actors, others by tools. Before understanding the cyber threat posed by Russia one must make sense of the tremendous amount of documentation on the problem and connect the codewords to unlock potentially missed data and trends when conducting threat analysis.

The Russian Army's Secret Weapon: Enter the Armata Program

Dave Majumdar

November 21, 2014 

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With America's own tanks becoming quite dated and running out of upgrade options, Russia's latest efforts to modernize its armored fighting vehicles should be cause for concern. 

The Russian Army will induct a new family of armored combat vehicles collectively called the Armata next year to replace its existing armored war machines, according to Russian state media. Production of the new armored vehicles is expected to start at the beginning of 2015 in January and two dozen of the new machines are expected to participate in the Victory Day parade in Moscow next year—as America struggles with the future of its own armored combat vehicles.

“The first batch will be available next year. You will see them in Red Square on May 9,” Oleg Bochkaryov, deputy chairman of Russia’s military-industrial commission, told the state-run ITAR-TASS news agency on November 18.

Developed by the Uralvagonzavod (UVZ) Corporation in the remote city of Nizhny Tagil in the Ural Mountains, the Armata is being developed in multiple variants, including a main battle tank, infantry fighting vehicle, a heavy-armored personnel carrier, self-propelled artillery and two support vehicle variants. The Russian ground forces are expected show off two-dozen machines during the parade—half will be the main battle-tank variant, while the remainder will be the armored personnel-carrier variant.

The Armata will ultimately replace the Cold War–era T-64, T-72, T-80 and comparatively newer T-90 tanks by the 2030s—assuming the Russian government can pay for it. The Armata series will also replace the BMP-series infantry fighting vehicles and a host of other vehicles; production could go into the tens of thousands if Russia were able to replace its existing vehicles on a one-for-one basis.

Watch the U.S. Army’s Mock Battle Inside a Nuclear Reactor

Soldiers train for WMD raids 

“GAS! GAS! GAS!”

The shouts echo up a dimly lit stairwell. Soldiers hastily wrap their faces in gas masks—the only thing protecting their lungs from a deadly, weaponized poison.

American troops are raiding a nuclear facility and they’re looking for weapons of mass destruction.

The soldiers don’t know the full extent of it. But the armed occupants are using the facility as a lab to engineer chemical—and possibly nuclear and biological—weapons.

Gunfire and shouts reverberate throughout the building as the assault team moves, and as the opposition shoots back.

The Americans capture several scientists and interrogate them—as the troops try desperately to find the location of weapons and sensitive documents, all the while dodging enemy booby-traps.

At top—a soldier in a gas mask pulls security during an exercise at Satsop Nuclear Power Plant. Above—Soldiers don gas masks. Kevin Knodell photos

Luckily, this nightmare scenario isn’t real. It’s a military training program played out on Nov. 12 as part Gryphon Longsword—an exercise held at the never-completed Satsop Nuclear Power Plant in Washington state.

Verifying Nuclear Tests Helped to End the Cold War

In 1988, Soviet and American inspectors swapped places 

It may seem hard to believe today, with tensions rising between Russia and the West. But late in the Cold War, both the U.S. and the USSR directly measured nuclear experiments at each others’ test sites.

The unlikely but successful collaboration helped to end the five-decade conflict.

For many years, Nick Aquilina managed contractor integration at the Nevada Test Site. “I spent my career focused on conducting safe nuclear tests, and always thought about worst-case scenarios,” he said. “We knew the names of everyone downwind.”

His most memorable work involved the Joint Verification Experiment in 1988. That year, the NTS’s manpower peaked at more than 12,000 employees and contractors. The Soviet scientists and engineers who came to monitor an American test spiced up the mix of people Aquilina oversaw.

At right—Nick Aquilina in 2014. Photo via Pahrump Valley Times. At top—the U.S. Upshot nuclear test in 1953. Photo via Wikipedia

Aquilina began his nuke career in 1962 during the most intensive period of nuclear testing. When the USSR unilaterally broke a four-year moratorium, the U.S. responded in kind. Following the near-apocalypse of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1963, America, the Soviet Union and Great Britain signed the Partial Test Ban Treaty.

The PTBT forbids nuclear testing above ground, underwater and in space. France and China continued atmospheric and undersea tests for another 20 years before finally joining the treaty. U.S. and Soviet tests went underground—and stayed there until the end of nuclear testing in the early 1990s.

The first strategic-arms treaties in the early 1970s ran into Congressional opposition over verification. The Threshold Test Ban Treaty limited nuclear tests to yields of just 150 kilotons. Hawkish legislators wanted proof of what the Soviets were doing down there.

Signed in 1974, the TTBT wasn’t ratified by the U.S. Senate until 1991. Even if American scientists could detect large underground explosions, critics pointed out, how could we be sure the Soviets weren’t exploding bigger bombs than they were allowed to?

Despite its suspicions, the U.S. abided by the terms of the treaty until its ratification.

In January 1988, Assistant Secretary of Defense Troy Wade called Aquilina to tell him that the Russians were coming. “A delegation will visit the NTS to get familiar with the place, because we’re going to conduct joint nuclear tests with them,” Aquilina recalled Wade saying.

The 2008 Financial Crisis Nearly Bankrupted the Ukrainian Army

Kiev’s military had trouble keeping the lights on—literally 

For years, Kiev’s rotating cast of political leaders knew something was deeply wrong with the Ukrainian army. The military inherited an overweight and inefficient Soviet organization and size—geared towards a war with NATO.

A few years prior to the invasion of Crimea and the war in the east, Ukraine set out on an ambitious plan to reform the army and reorient to defend against Russia.

But the plan came at the worst possible time. The financial crisis not only wrecked the military, but the timing of the reforms further worsened the damage. It was so bad, the military couldn’t even pay its utility bills.

Russian military analysts Anton Lavrov and Alexey Nikolsky recount Ukraine’s failed attempts to reform its military in an essay for the recent book Brothers Armed: Military Aspects of the Crisis in Ukraine.

According to the authors, the reason the 2008 crisis hit the Ukrainian military especially hard is due to a quirk in how the army is funded—heavily through selling off gobs of surplus Soviet vehicles and weapons. In effect, the Ukrainian military was one of the world’s biggest junkyard businesses.

Not all of Ukraine’s military received funding this way. Kiev splits its budget into two pieces—a general fund and a special fund. The general fund comes from taxes and pays for most government services. The special fund comes from privatizing old, state-owned assets.

The military relies most on the general fund—like most Ukrainian institutions—but relies more on the special fund than most do.

This made sense considering the country’s post-Cold War history. The army had a lot of equipment it didn’t need. In 2001, Ukraine had nearly 4,000 tanks and more than 4,600 armored fighting vehicles. There were more than 3,700 artillery guns. More than 1,000 planes and helicopters and dozens of warships. Not to mention buildings, bases and all kinds of equipment.

The overwhelming majority of it was unneeded, unused and falling apart. And this is because the Ukrainian military was—and still is—a massive Soviet-era machine in a country much too poor and disorganized to use more than a fraction of itself.

This is every active satellite orbiting earth

By David Yanofsky and Tim Fernholz

There are more than 1,200 active satellites orbiting earth right now, taking pictures, relaying communications, broadcasting locations, spying on you, and even housing humans. Thanks to a database compiled by the Union of Concerned Scientists, we can show you each one, as of August 21, 2014.

The satellites are sized according to their launch mass and are colored by their 

NSA Director: Yes, China Can Shut Down Our Power Grids

KEN DILANIAN, ASSOCIATED PRESS

NOV. 20, 2014

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Elise Amendola/APA National Grid crew member works on a power line in Revere, Massachusetts.

China and "one or two" other countries are capable of mounting cyberattacks that would shut down the electric grid and other critical systems in parts of the United States, according to Adm. Michael Rogers, director of the National Security Agency and head of U.S. Cyber Command.

The possibility of such cyberattacks by U.S. adversaries has been widely known, but never confirmed publicly by the nation's top cyber official.

At a hearing of the House intelligence committee, Rogers said U.S. adversaries are performing electronic "reconnaissance" on a regular basis so that they can be in a position to disrupt the industrial control systems that run everything from chemical facilities to water treatment plants.

"All of that leads me to believe it is only a matter of when, not if, we are going to see something dramatic," he said.

Outside experts say the U.S. Cyber Command also has the capability to hack into and damage critical infrastructure, which in theory should amount to mutual deterrence. But Rogers, who did not address his offensive cyber tools, said the nuclear deterrence model did not necessarily apply to cyberattacks.

Only a handful of countries had nuclear capability during the Cold War, he said, and nuclear attacks could be detected and attributed in time to retaliate.

Cyber Wars

Government wakes up to the threat of cyber crime that lies outside the conventional paradigm of terrorism, but has the potential to do incalculable harm.

SANCHITA BHATTACHARYA

In the night of November 6, 2014, Pakistani hackers defaced websites of 22 Government departments and organisations in India. On the defaced websites, the hackers identified themselves as ‘1337 & r00x! - Team MaDLeeTs', greeted the Government of India, and levelled a range of allegations against the Indian Army in Kashmir. "We are not asking for Kashmir. We ask for peace. Nothing deleted or stolen. Just here to deliver my message to the government and the people of India," the hackers wrote, signing off with "Pakistan Zindabad" (long live Pakistan).

On November 1, 2014, Pakistan-based hackers, calling themselves 'Pakistan Cyber Mafia Hackers', hacked two websites of Gujarat Government— the official website of the Commissionerate of Higher Education (www.egyan.org.in) and the official website of the Agricultural Produce Market Committee of Ahmedabad (www.apmcahmedabad.com). The hackers put their logo and some text on the homepages of these websites, which read: 'Hacked by Pakistan Cyber Mafia Hackers', 'Feel the power of Pakistan', 'Pk_Robot was here' and 'Pakistan Zindabad'.

These incidents are the most recent in a rising trend. Indeed, on July 14, 2014, Communications and IT Minister Ravishankar Prasad, in a written reply to the Lok Sabha (Lower House of Indian Parliament) disclosed,

During the years 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 (till May), a total number of 21,699, 27,605, 28,481 and 9,174 Indian websites were respectively hacked by various hacker groups spread across worldwide. In addition, during these years, a total number of 13,301, 22,060, 71,780 and 62,189 security incidents, respectively, were reported to the CERT-In [Computer Emergency Response Team-India (CERT-In)]. These attacks have been observed to be originating from the cyber space of a number of countries including the US, Europe, Brazil, Turkey, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Algeria and the UAE. A total of 422, 601 and 1,337 cases were registered under cyber crime related sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) during the year 2011, 2012 and 2013.

The threat of cyber crime lies outside the conventional paradigm of terrorism, but has the potential to do incalculable harm. Indeed, even sustained low grade attacks impose cumulative costs that can be prohibitive. Cyber terrorism, moreover, is not only limited to paralysing computer infrastructures; it also includes the use of computers, the Internet and information gateways to support and organize traditional forms of terrorism, such as bombings and suicide attacks. The most common use of cyber space by terrorists is for secret communications, as well as designing and uploading websites on which propaganda can be pasted, at least occasionally masking secret missives. Direct cyber terrorist attacks use hacking, computer viruses, computer worms, e-mail related crime, denial of service attacks, etc.

Your outdated Internet browser is a gateway for cyber attacks

November 18, 2014 

From Home Depot to the State Department, reports of large-scale cyber attacks have come with increasing frequency. As holiday season approaches, retailers are on the lookout for security breaches. Jeffrey Brown speaks with Brian Krebs, author of “Spam Nation,” about who’s behind these attacks and how to prevent them.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Major U.S. government agencies have been the target of cyber-attacks of late. The State Department is the latest. During the past week, officials had to temporarily shut down an unclassified e-mail system after a suspected hacking. In recent months, the White House, the Postal Service and the National Weather Service all have been targeted.

Meanwhile, as the holiday season approaches, retailers and the business world are on the lookout for breaches.

A new book breaks down the pervasiveness of what’s happening.

Jeffrey Brown has our conversation.

JEFFREY BROWN: Hardly a week goes by anymore without a report of some major cyber-breach, whether it’s targeting retailers, the government, or any and all of us. The attacks are generated in a new netherworld of crime, some of it individualized, even chaotic, other parts of it extremely well-organized.

Writer and journalist Brian Krebs has uncovered some major breaches, including the one on Target that compromised the credit card data of tens of millions of people. He writes about all of this on his blog Krebs on Security and now in his new book, “Spam Nation.”

And welcome to you.

BRIAN KREBS, Author, “Spam Nation”: Thank you.

JEFFREY BROWN: You are peering a world of cyber-crime that few of us ever see. What does it look like?

BRIAN KREBS: It’s a pretty dark place.

JEFFREY BROWN: It is?

BRIAN KREBS: Yes, absolutely.

But it’s not as dark as you might imagine. If you’re somebody who doesn’t know their way around, there are plenty of people willing to show you the way. They might take a cut of the action to help you do that, but it’s not as dark…