9/11 Is at the Root of Today's Foreign-Policy Failures

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Daniel L. Davis

It’s hard to even imagine now, but there was a time when friends and families could wait for their loved ones right at the airport gate, hassle-free. You could enter a major sporting event without worrying about first being subjected to a veritable strip search. And the U.S. military was neither occupying nor attacking any nation, instead focusing its efforts on defending the nation against any existential threats. That’s the world that existed on September 10, 2001. What we have done to ourselves since that day is orders of magnitude worse than the harm nineteen terrorists ever thought about inflicting. A few stark examples:

• There was near-universal approval of the government response to the 9/11 attacks when the U.S. military joined with local forces in Afghanistan and routed the Taliban. Unfortunately, the unanimity of the support for military force continued without pause through the attack on Iraq in 2003. Since that time, the U.S. military has been deployed in scores of nations around the world, in nonstop deployments that have weakened their ability to respond to major threats. Nearly seven thousand service members have been killed andanother fifty thousand wounded in the never-ending operations; 327,000 suffered traumatic brain disorders and three hundred thousand more suffered post-traumatic stress disorder.

Raheel Sharif A Disaster For Pakistan

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By RSN Singh

General Raheel Sharif

The people of Pakistan owing loyalty to the State hail General Raheel Sharif as some kind of a Messiah. Such messianic inflection moments are endemic phenomenon, given the construct of the country. Pro-Pakistan citizens in Pakistan are a rapidly dwindling commodity. They are confined mainly to Punjab, partly Khyber-Pakhtunkhawa and to even lesser proportion in Sindh. Having completed his tenure, General Sharif is to demit office, if at all he does. It is nevertheless an appropriate juncture for appraisal of his impact on Pakistan internally and externally. It is particularly critical for the people of Pakistan to realize as to what sort of Pakistan, the very powerful army chief Raheel Sharif is leaving behind.

The Army under General Sharif has descended professionally to a new low.

Soon after General Sharif took over, there was a terrorist attack in an Army School in Peshawar in mid-December 2014. 132 school children were killed. The incident shook the nation including the Military. Consequently, a comprehensive National Action Plan (NAP) was initiated. The objective was to purge Pakistan from all facets of terror. Another important objective was to supplement the ongoing military operations Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan, an operation which as per Pakistan sources has claimed lives of more than 500 soldiers and 4000 civilian casualties. No weapon system sans nuclear in the armoury of Pakistan has been spared and yet for last one year General Raheel Sharif has been claiming that the Operation is in its final phase. If nothing else, it exposes the inability of the military to fight insurgencies within, notwithstanding Pakistan’s ability to use terror against its neighbours as an instrument of State Policy.

China’s Obsolete Economic Strategy

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By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

 

It was inevitable that China’s economy would slow from its once turbocharged growth rates. But its leaders have made so many mistakes in recent months that they have turned what should have been a benign, natural slowdown into a chaotic descent.

China’s main stock index fell nearly 10 percent for the week, depressing stock and commodity prices elsewhere. These drops are not in themselves a big economic problem. The larger question is whether China’s leaders, their credibility already damaged, will see this moment for what it is: a dramatic warning that it’s time to make fundamental changes in the way they manage the economy.

The Chinese economy, the world’s second largest, is growing at nearly 7 percent a year — down from 10.6 percent in 2010 but still a healthy pace for a country at its stage of development. The problem is that the boom was fueled by lavish investment and spending as well as profligate borrowing, a lot of which will probably not be paid back. China’s central government orchestrated that binge by pumping billions of dollars into the economy in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis and by failing to enact needed reforms that would make it easier for private and foreign companies to compete with inefficient state-owned enterprises.

China’s Quest for a Moral Compass

By Leland M. Lazarus

September 09, 2016

http://thediplomat.com/2016/09/chinas-quest-for-a-moral-compass/

If you’re a foreigner like me who has practically devoted his life to China, you are constantly enraptured in its rich history, culture, and language. But inevitably there are the Chinese idiosyncrasies that so often frustrate foreigners living in the country. People constantly hock loogies in the street. Middle aged men show off their beer bellies by rolling up their shirts all the way to their chest, the infamous “Beijing bikini.” Public spaces are constantly filled with a cacophony of loud voices, completely inconsiderate of anyone who wants peace and quiet. Traffic sometimes feel like a death race, with drivers disregarding the rules of the road, coming dangerously close to pedestrians. And the idea of waiting on line is completely nonexistent. Getting on the subway is a constant clash of bodies as people attempting to leave the train car go head to head with people rushing to get in. At the Beijing South train station, a mob of people pushed, shoved, and elbowed its way up to the ticket counter. One time I even witnessed an all-out fist fight over one guy who brazenly cut the line. It took a policeman to end the bloodletting.

I might sound like just another disgruntled foreigner. But this goes even deeper. In the 2011, a two-year old girlwas run over twice, while 18 passersby simply ignored her as she writhed in pain. Chinese author Lijia Zhangwrote that China was a nation of “1.4 billion cold hearts.” “In our culture,” she explains, “there’s a lack of willingness to show compassion to strangers. We are brought up to show kindness to people in our network of guanxi, family and friends and business associates, but not particularly to strangers, especially if such kindness may potentially damage your interest.”

The G20: Another Step Down China's Road to Global Leadership

By Antoine Duquennoy
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The G20 summit is not enough to prove China as a global leader, but it’s a step in the right direction.
“Up in heaven, there is paradise; down on earth, there are Suzhou and Hangzhou.” So Chinese President Xi Jinping set the tone last weekend, opening the 11th edition of the G20 Summit as the head of states and ministers of the 20 leading global economies gathered in Hangzhou.

For its first time hosting the G20, China spared no efforts to present to guests the attractiveness of the city, Xi’s own fiefdom. A quarter of its inhabitants were incentivized to leave the city to avoid traffic, while the surrounding factories were shut to ensure blue skies for the duration of the meeting. Maximal security measures were put in place, with blocked streets, endless security checks, and one to two policemen every ten meters around popular attractions.

Beijing went out of its way to impress guests, who were assisted by 1.5 million volunteers: from the Ming Dynasty style tai-shi conference chairs – “the seats for imperial grand masters”– to the stunning dance performance managed by famous director Zhang Yimou on the shores of the West Lake, Beijing fully played the soft power card.

A US Company Just Put Taipei 101 Into a G20 Promo for China

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By Justin D. Guiterman

Sitting in one of my Manhattan client’s office today, you cannot help but sometimes glance at the televisions. Since this is a financial institution, CNBC is naturally the station of choice. Normally the live shows discuss equities, options, or how the iPhone 7’s roll-out will impact Apple’s share price. The last several days also included discussions around the G20 summit hosted in Hangzhou, China, and its economic impact.

The commentary, however, is not what caught my attention, but rather a Chinese State Council Information Office (SCIO) commercial, developed by CNBC Catalyst. There is nothing unusual about the ad, until 56 seconds in. Suddenly, Taipei 101 makes an appearance, while the voiceover promotes the 13th Five Year Plan’s commitment to “maintain a medium-high rate of economic growth.”

Was including a Taiwanese landmark in a commercial showcasing China a simple editing mistake on CNBC’s part, or intentionally approved by the SCIO? Given the office’s history and target audiences, it is hard to believe Taipei 101’s appearance was not specifically by design, a subtle message to Taiwan’s new government, the United States, and the region, about the People’s Republic of China (PRC) view on the island.Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month.

VPN and VOIP Exploitation With HAMMERCHANT and HAMMERSTEIN

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North Korea's Big Nuclear Test: What Do We Do Now?

Eric Gomez

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Improvements in the DPRK's nuclear arsenal create new risks that the United States must address, but deterrence is not dead. 

Today’s nuclear weapon test by North Korea represents another grim milestone in a bleak year for Northeast Asian security. This is North Korea’ssecond nuclear test in 2016, and it could be the regime’s most destructive test with an estimated yield between 10 and 20 kilotons. A statement by the state-run Korean Central News Agency said that the test “examined and confirmed the structure and specific features of movement” for nuclear warheads that can be mounted on “Hwasong artillery units,” referring to a family of ballistic missiles with ranges from 300-1000km. The statement went on to say, “The standardization of the nuclear warhead will enable the DPRK to produce…a variety of smaller, lighter, and diversified nuclear warheads.”

North Korea's Nuclear Weapons Test: 12 Lessons from Kim Jong-un's Latest Challenge

Doug Bandow

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It’s been at least a few days since North Korea did anything terribly provocative. So another disruptive event was long overdue. Pyongyang just announced its fifth nuclear test. And, as always, the “international community” was shocked and appalled.

Watching the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea offers a sense of endless déjà vu. The leaders occasionally change, but the family remains the same. So does the confrontational approach to the world. And the suffering of the North Korean people.

Yet policymakers in America are notoriously blind to the implications of their many failures. “To be clear, the United States does not, and never will, accept North Korea as a nuclear state,” intoned President Barack Obama. But accept it or not, the North is a nuclear state. Some lessons should be learned from Pyongyang’s latest challenge.

1. North Korea isn’t going away. In today’s globalized, interconnected world, the North’s system of totalitarian, monarchical communism shouldn’t exist. Yet the regime persists, despite its failure to assure its people even sufficient food, let alone the many other products taken for granted almost universally by people around the globe. This most anachronistic and malignant of governments is busy developing nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, threatening to create a far more fearsome arsenal than deployed by many countries far larger and more prosperous.

General Raziq: Kabul’s Man in Southern Afghanistan

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By Shawn Snow

The Afghan government’s reliance on Abdul Raziq highlights Kabul’s reliance on warlords for its war strategy.

Threatening to capture the provincial capital of Urzugan, Tarin Kot, Taliban militants stormed the city Wednesday and Thursday morning. Fighting wasreported near the prison and governor’s house, with reports that local Afghan security forces and police had fled their posts.

Early Thursday morning, Taliban militants had captured the prison complex, but Afghan officials had already relocated the prisoners—highlighting a lesson learned from previous Taliban jail breaks.

By Thursday night, much of the fighting had subsided with heavy casualties on both sides. Bolstered by NATO airstrikes, reinforcements commanded by Kandahar’s feared police chief General Abdul Raziq, and accompanied by the 205th Maiwand Corps arrived at the city, pushing the Taliban back.Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month.

Reports estimate 180 Taliban dead and 75 wounded, while 11 Afghan police lost their lives.

A local resident of Tarin Kot reported that the situation was starting to calm, “This morning was very bad, but the security situation is better now,” he said. “This morning the circle of fighting was a kilometer or so from the main bazaar. The government and (officials) were all escaping to the airport and trying to get out to Kandahar.”

The Taliban and the Divided Afghan State

By Kamran Bokhari

Those who would fight the Taliban cannot present a united front.

Media reports treat the story of the Taliban taking over districts all across Afghanistan as something that should not be happening. The underlying assumption is that the Taliban would not be resurging if mainstream forces were not corrupt and if they behaved democratically. There is a general tendency to overlook the reality that Afghanistan is afflicted by a much deeper problem – there is no mainstream to begin with, at least not one that is coherent. Indeed, the Taliban are fractious, but they are still the single largest coherent force in the country.

For the past several months, there has been no shortage of reports about Taliban fighters going on the offensive in various parts of the country. In the past few weeks, the situation has gotten grim. After surging forces in several districts of southern Helmand province, the Afghan jihadist movement is threatening the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah. But the province is in the Taliban’s core turf in the country’s south.

The Russian Army's 5 Most Lethal Weapons of War in 2030

Kyle Mizokami

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The Russian Ground Forces are at a crucial point in their history, and there’s not even in a major war. The Russian Army needs new equipment, and needs it fast.

A lagging Russian economy throughout the 1990s and 2000s kept defense spending low. As a result, Moscow has long relied on inherited equipment from the old Soviet Union. Unfortunately, like many inheritances, that of the Russian Armed Forces is rapidly running out. The newest equipment is now nearly thirty years old, and despite upgrades such as the T-72B3, fresh equipment is urgently needed.

A new generation of tanks, armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles has been promised, but given Russia’s economic downturn and Western sanctions, will they ever enter service? Here’s an optimistic picture of what might equip the Russian Army in 2030.

Russia's 57-Megaton Tsar Bomb: The Biggest Nuclear Weapon Ever

Steve Weintz

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On July 10, 1961 Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev summoned the USSR's top nuclear weaponeers and told them to promptly resume nuclear testing. After roughing up America's young new President Kennedy at a Vienna summit in June, Khrushchev was in a mood, according to Andrei Sakharov, to “show the imperialists what we can do.”

For two years while their country joined the United States and the United Kingdom in a voluntary moratorium on nuclear tests, Soviet nuclear scientists, including Andrei Sakharov, the “father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb,” developed and refined new weapon concepts and designs. Now they had to deliver big results in very short order. Khrushchev wanted a political spectacle to shock and awe the West, and it had better go right.

The Communist Party's 22nd Congress in October 1961 required something special. It isn't clear who proposed a 100-megaton bomb—Khrushchev or the weaponeers—but at the premier's command the most powerful nuclear weapon ever built had to be ready in only four months.

9/11 Is at the Root of Today's Foreign-Policy Failures

Daniel L. Davis

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It’s hard to even imagine now, but there was a time when friends and families could wait for their loved ones right at the airport gate, hassle-free. You could enter a major sporting event without worrying about first being subjected to a veritable strip search. And the U.S. military was neither occupying nor attacking any nation, instead focusing its efforts on defending the nation against any existential threats. That’s the world that existed on September 10, 2001. What we have done to ourselves since that day is orders of magnitude worse than the harm nineteen terrorists ever thought about inflicting. A few stark examples:

• There was near-universal approval of the government response to the 9/11 attacks when the U.S. military joined with local forces in Afghanistan and routed the Taliban. Unfortunately, the unanimity of the support for military force continued without pause through the attack on Iraq in 2003. Since that time, the U.S. military has been deployed in scores of nations around the world, in nonstop deployments that have weakened their ability to respond to major threats. Nearly seven thousand service members have been killed andanother fifty thousand wounded in the never-ending operations; 327,000 suffered traumatic brain disorders and three hundred thousand more suffered post-traumatic stress disorder.

An anthropologist looks at Obama in Laos and sees the harsh truth

By Maximilian C. Forte.

“Obama, the cerebral son of an anthropologist” — this is how the Associated Press touted soon to be ex-president Barack Obama on his visit to Laos this week. The AP went even further, declaring Obama’s approach “soft diplomacy”. One has to wonder where all of the “soft diplomacy” was in the seven brutal wars simultaneously fought by Obama (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Syria), a number of them pursued illegally (either in violation of international law, or domestically in violation of the War Powers Act), and all with disastrous consequences.

However, it’s good that the AP declared — because this was the real point of their boosterism: “If there was a single day that demonstrated just how different Obama is from Donald Trump this might have been it”. I agree, but it’s not Obama that will survive the comparison. Unfortunately, anthropology also gets a bad name thanks to Obama and the AP.

At a town hall meeting in Laos, Obama took another opportunity to air American laundry in front of a foreign audience. Apparently, Obama feels that the best way he can find sympathetic anti-Trump audiences is by going to the other side of the planet.

Obama praised “multiculturalism,” which as a cerebral former teacher of constitutional law, he would know has no support in the US Constitution. He was asked about “e pluribus unum,” from an Indonesian woman, and he garbled his answer with evasive and anodyne platitudes. According to another AP report…

“Obama seized the chance to explain that when times are tough and people feel stressed ‘they turn on others who don’t look like them.’ He said that’s why it’s critical for the U.S. to promote principles that rise above any individual religion, nationality or race”.

However, the point of e pluribus unum is that you do not rise above US nationality, which is singular; you rise to it, if you are an American citizen.

Not Cleared for Takeoff: Lessons Learned from the AWG’s Efforts to Counter the Use of Commercially Available UAS

by Ryan Harmon, Mark Holden and Brandon Sasnett

September 1, 2016

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Not Cleared for Takeoff: Lessons Learned from the AWG’s Efforts to Counter the Use of Commercially Available UAS

At first glance, the photograph below appears to have all the trademarks of a western nation’s Special Operations Forces (SOF) command post: bearded men in an austere room, equipped with hard line phones and handheld radios, monitoring a battle in real time from what appears to be feeds provided by a military grade unmanned aircraft system (UAS).1 Except the picture is not of a friendly SOF unit. It is a picture of an ISIS headquarters element controlling its personnel during a siege on the Baiji Oil Refinery in Iraq.

ISIS Members During the 2014 Siege on the Baiji Refinery2

The camera and the airframe used to feed those images into the command post are not expensive military-grade equipment. They are the type of products that Amazon ships to the front doors of millions of customers across the globe. For decades, U.S. forces have not had to worry about scanning the skies above them. The use of commercial UAS by ISIS and a slew of other state and non-state actors has abruptly changed that dynamic.

For military professionals and senior Department of Defense (DoD) officials, the magnitude of the threat posed by UAS platforms employed by malicious terrorist, non-state, or state-sponsored actors against U.S. forces is clear. As Col. Matthew Tedesco, TRADOC Capability Manager on Global Ballistic Missile Defense, stated in his recent article in Military Review magazine, “Militaries that are not examining ways to defend against the use of unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) are not preparing adequately for the next war.” AWG has been at the forefront of this “examination” since the fall of 2014 when it initiated a project to assist DoD efforts to counter the emerging threat posed by the proliferation of commercially available UAS such as the ones used by ISIS. The goal of the project was twofold: (1) increase awareness of and enable training on this emerging threat and (2) assist in the development and selection of technologies to counter it. In pursuit of those objectives, the AWG Counter-UAS (C-UAS) Team has encountered several obstacles the Army will face as it tries to confront emerging threats that emanate from the increased availability of sophisticated technology. Those obstacles range from the challenge of equipping the force fast enough to counter a threat evolving at the pace of commercial innovation to the administrative and policy hurdles that stymie the Army’s ability to respond to rapidly evolving technologies in the hands of our enemies. This article uses the C-UAS problem set as a case study to highlight some of the challenges the Army faces responding to the increased use of innovative technologies by our adversaries. 

The UAS Boom

We Need a Stakeholder-Centric Counterinsurgency Doctrine

by Octavian Manea

September 2, 2016

We Need a Stakeholder-Centric Counterinsurgency Doctrine

Octavian Manea

Small Wars Journal interview with Karsten Friis, Senior Adviser and Head of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs’ Research Group on Security and Defense. He previously worked for the OSCE in Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo, as well as for the Norwegian Armed Forces in Oslo and in Kosovo. His main area of expertise is security and defense policies, international military operations, civilian-military relations, cyber security, as well as the political developments in the Western Balkans. More on stakeholder-centric counterinsurgency can be found here.

Everyone is running or pivoting away from counterinsurgency (COIN). The never again school is highly influential these days. On the other side major trends in the security environment – urbanization, the proliferation of ISIS and AQ inspired insurgencies – indicate that the death of COIN is premature. How do you see the future and the relevance of COIN for the West?

It depends what you mean by COIN. Of course we will be countering insurgencies in the future. The question is about the means and ways to do so. We often talk about a population-centric vs. an enemy-centric approach in the COIN debates, where the former, simply put, seek to win hearts and minds of the civilian population, whereas the other seek to incapacitate the enemy in a more conventional way. Both have the same goal, to establish a viable government, although they differ in the means and ways of getting there. The former was probably naïve and simplistic, but the latter doesn’t seem to secure a stable victory either. We therefore need to look beyond this dichotomy, and retain the insights and lessons learned from the last decade of warfare. Overall, in these kinds of conflicts the military cannot win in a traditional sense. It can control the situation by weakening the insurgents to such an extent that others (civilians) can build a positive peace process.

What are some of the specific lessons and insights of the last decade of warfare that should be preserved and built on?

Venezuela at a Tipping Point

By Allison Fedirka

As Maduro loses support and the opposition stares down a deadline, political turmoil in Venezuela could come to a head.

Today Venezuelans are expected to hold marches nationwide in response to calls from opposition coalition Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD). On Sept. 5, MUD Executive Secretary Jesús Torrealba called on municipalities to gather in front of the regional headquarters of the National Electoral Court located in state capital cities. Similar to the Sept. 1 marches in Caracas, the protesters will demand that a date be set for the next step of the revocation referendum aimed to oust President Nicolás Maduro from office.

Opposition activists march in Caracas on Sept. 1. Venezuela's opposition and government head into a crucial test of strength Thursday with massive marches for and against a referendum to recall President Nicolás Maduro that have raised fears of a violent confrontation. STR/AFP/Getty Images

Merkel Doesn’t Blame the Voter

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By George Friedman

The establishment’s view that there is no crisis in the system is leading to surprising election results for mainstream parties.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said something interesting yesterday. She said that the voters should not be blamed for her party’s defeat on Sunday in her home district. In the chancellor's words, “scolding the voters achieves nothing.” The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) came in third in local legislative elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, behind the anti-immigration nationalist party Alternative for Germany. The elections decided nothing major, but were a measure of how unpopular the CDU and Merkel have become. 

In normal election years, the idea of blaming the voters for the outcome of a vote would have been absurd. Under the doctrine of “Vox Populi, Vox Dei” (the voice of the people is the voice of God), which is the foundation of democracy, the people are the judge of politicians, not the other way around. The assertion that the people are the voice of God was a challenge to the idea of the divine right of kings. It was not kings that spoke for God, but the people. 

Merkel’s statement makes no sense until you realize that we are now in the age of the “stupid voter.” Mainstream parties have dominated the European and the American political systems for a very long time, and within these parties, certain ideologies, factions and personalities have prevailed, while others have been marginalized.

How Will Terrorists Use the Internet of Things? The Justice Department Is Trying to Figure That Out

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BY PATRICK TUCKER

As the business of connected devices explodes, DOJ joins other agencies in evaluating the national-security risks.

By 2020, there will be anywhere from 20 billion to 50 billioninternet-connected devices, including about one in five cars and or trucks, according to industry forecasts. That’s big business for outfits that sell data or streaming services. For the Justice Department, it’s 50 billion potential problems.

“In our division, we’ve just started a group looking at nothing but the Internet of Things.” John P. Carlin, the U.S. Assistant Attorney General for National Security, told the Intelligence and National Security Alliance on Thursday at the group’s annual Summit.

“There isn’t a set number of participants for the team and we are going to pursue this initiative within our existing appropriation and budget,” Justice Department spokesperson Marc Raimondi toldDefense One.

Carlin framed the issue as directly related to next-generation terrorism. “Look at the terrorist attack in Nice,” he said. “If our trucks are running in an automated fashion — great efficiencies, great safety, on the one hand — but if we don’t think about how terrorists could exploit that on the front end, and not after they take a truck and run it through a crowd of civilians, we’ll regret it.”

Foreign Funding of Think Tanks Is Corrupting Our Democracy

By John B. Judis

The New York Times has published over the weekend an excellentstudy of how foreign governments are buying influence at Washington’s think tanks. According to the story, foreign governments are not only getting prominent think tanks to embrace their views of what is in America’s interest, but to lobby for these views with politicians and high officials. 

I’ve seen the New York Times story greeted with a shrug and a “so what,” but it is a big deal, maybe even a bigger deal than the New York Timessuggests. Washington think tanks, which were originally intended as a source of impartial, objective, and disinterested information, have become arms of foreign as well as domestic influence peddlers.

Some history is in order for those who think it has always been that way. The first policy groups, which originated early in the last century and only later became called “think tanks,” included the Brookings Institution (which was formed out of three other policy groups), the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Twentieth Century Fund (now the Century Foundation). They were products of the Progressive Era idea of using social science to produce policy research that, in the words of Robert Brookings, would be “free from any political or pecuniary interest.” 

NSA Catalog

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Cell Phone Networks 

firewalls nsa

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JETPLOW is a firmware persistence implant for Cisco PIX Series and ASA (Adaptive Security Appliance) firewalls. It persists DNT's BANANAGLEE software implant. JETPLOW also has a persistent back-door capability 

Juniper Networks will drop code tied to National Security Agency

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By Joseph Menn

A National Security Agency (NSA) data gathering facility is seen in Bluffdale, about 25 miles (40 km) south of Salt Lake City, Utah, December 16, 2013. Jim Urquhart/

Juniper Networks Inc said late on Friday it would stop using a piece of security code that analysts believe was developed by the National Security Agency in order to eavesdrop through technology products.The Silicon Valley maker of networking gear said it would ship new versions of security software in the first half of this year to replace those that rely on numbers generated by Dual Elliptic Curve technology.

The statement on a blog post came a day after the presentation at a Stanford University conference of research by a team of cryptographers who found that Juniper's code had been changed in multiple ways during 2008 to enable eavesdropping on virtual private network sessions by customers. 

In the Sculptor’s Studio

An exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, September 14, 2015–February 7, 2016; and the Musée Picasso, Paris, March 8–September 18, 2016

Catalog of the exhibition by Ann Temkin and Anne Umland

Museum of Modern Art, 320 pp., $85.00 Christian Liewig/Liewig Media Sports/Corbis

The renovated Rodin Museum in Paris, which reopened to the public on November 12, 2015, on the 175th anniversary of Rodin’s birth. At right is Rodin’s sculpture The Three Shades (before 1886).

About the origins of modern sculpture there is a general consensus. The story begins with Auguste Rodin, who died in 1917 at the age of seventy-seven. Rodin was a mythomaniac in the perfervid Romantic style of Victor Hugo and Richard Wagner. He was also a connoisseur of particularities and eccentricities, who sometimes preferred the fragment to the finished work. He struggled to imagine and on a couple of occasions succeeded in creating the monuments that nineteenth-century statesmen, industrialists, and intellectuals demanded for their official buildings and public squares. All the while, he could see that the Apollonian order embodied by those monuments was giving way to increasingly Dionysian forces, which he celebrated near the end of his life with a small study of Nijinsky, the mesmerizing dancer many embraced as the avatar of a new age. 

Can Countries Control the Use of Drones by Ordinary People?

NEW DELHI – In India, it’s illegal for a civilian to use a drone, though you wouldn’t know it if you went to a Bollywood-style wedding.

A remote-control flying camera is the latest must-have addition at the country’s opulent three-day ceremonies, according to photographer Vijay Tonk, whose drone recently buzzed above a colorful throng of 300 guests at a wedding in the 18th century walled city of Jaipur.

“They want that whizzing camera flying over the venue at a height capturing shots that would otherwise be difficult to capture,” said Tonk, founder of Delhi-based photography company Think Tonk, which charges 40,000 rupees ($592) for the service. “Drones definitely do add to the wedding fun.”

They also add to the growing concern among governments worldwide about how to deal with the millions of new, tiny aircraft that are taking to the skies every year as the cost of owning one plummets.

SZ DJI Technology Co., the world’s biggest consumer drone maker, has seen revenue rise from nothing to an estimated $1 billion in 10 years. U.S.-based WinterGreen Research expects the drone market will be worth more than $16 billion by 2021.

Air Force launches first cyberspace weapons system

Amber Corrin

The Air Force earlier this month reached full operational capability in its Air Force Intranet Control (AFINC) Weapon System, which service officials say is the first cyberspace weapons system to reach FOC status.

AFINC reaching FOC means that the system “is fully capable to serve as the top-level defensive boundary and entry point for all network traffic into AFINC,” according to an Air Force release. The system comprises 16 gateway suites whittled down from more than 100 regionally managed network entry points that were consolidated or replaced.

The system also consists of 15 nodes for the Defense Department’s classified SIPRNet network, more than 200 service delivery points and two integrated management suites. It’s all centrally operated by the 26th Network Operations Squadron (NOS), based at Gunter Annex in Montgomery, Alabama.

Understanding the military buildup of offensive cyberweapons

By Conner Forrest

September 1, 2016 

http://www.zdnet.com/article/understanding-the-military-buildup-of-offensive-cyberweapons/

"Shall we play a game?"

"Love to. How about Global Thermonuclear War?"

True geeks will recognize the above exchange as one of the seminal pieces of dialogue from the 1983 film WarGames, where a young hacker named David Lightman nearly starts World War III after gaining access to a powerful military supercomputer. The film was a critical success, and set the stage for a variety of films that explored the relationship between cybersecurity and the military.

WarGames, and films like it, were meant to be perceived as fictional. As time has gone on, though, the line between what kinds of cyberwarfare are possible, and what are science fiction has begun to blur. Computer programs like the Stuxnet worm, for example, have taken down large portions of government infrastructure, including centrifuges used in Iran's nuclear programme.

But, when and how did this happen? The rise of offensive cyberweapons has changed the landscape of cyberwar, from protecting against data theft to defending against physical destruction. To understand this rise, it's helpful to look at the history of such weapons.

The birth of offensive cyber

Falling Short in Measures of Effectiveness

by Ashley Holzmann and Whitney O’Connell

Journal Article | August 30, 2016 - 11:57am

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/falling-short-in-measures-of-effectiveness

Falling Short in Measures of Effectiveness

Psychological Operations (PSYOP) is one of the United States Army Special Operations Command’s (USASOC) critical capabilities.[i] It is also an invaluable asset to conventional operations, and is incredibly effective when aligned with kinetic operations during planning phases.[ii][iii] Psychological Operators (PSYOPers) disseminate selected information in order to persuade, change, and influence the cognitions, emotions, and behaviors of a target audience (TA) in line with United States objectives.[iv]

PSYOP has been an integral part of military operations since the world’s earliest documented battles, with the first cases being cited as occurring over 3,000 years ago.[v][vi] The idea of understanding, and ultimately exploiting, the motivations and vulnerabilities of an enemy in order to merge victorious in battle has been utilized by some of history’s most recognizable leaders, such as Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great and Tamerlane; some of history’s most infamous dictators, such as Kim Il Sung, Mao Zedong and Adolf Hitler; and has been documented in some of military history’s greatest written works, such as The Arthashastra and Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.[vii][viii][ix][x][xi][xii]

Despite the widespread use of PSYOP amongst United States military commanders dating as far back as The Battle of Bunker Hill, it was not until the 20th century that this method of warfare was officially instituted as a United States Army military operation specialty.[xiii] The efforts of the Psychological Warfare (also known as PSYWAR) units in WWI greatly contributed to the successes of Allied Forces, and subsequently influenced the basis of modern advertising.[xiv][xv] On the 16th of October, 2006, the PSYOP Branch was formed. Since the beginning of warfare, PSYOP has been instrumental in persuading enemy, friendly and neutral populations to take actions favorable to allied objectives in order to preserve diplomacy and avoid or optimize kinetic conflicts.[xvi]

Evaluation of the PSYOP, or Military Information Support Operations (MISO), series is Phase VII of the seven-phase MISO process.[xvii][xviii] Teams on the ground often overlook or discard the evaluation phase because its importance is either not fully understood, or it is considered insignificant; coupled with the pressure from kinetic minded commanders who want immediate results, this step is often placed solely on the shoulders of the PSYOPers on the ground—who have little incentive to consider such complex scenarios.

Big Data, Local Advantage: Why ‘Economic Media’ Networks Matter

by Chris Telley

September 4, 2016 

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Big Data, Local Advantage: Why ‘Economic Media’ Networks Matter

A mobile device, like your smartphone or tablet, is 10,000 times more powerful than the computers that took man to the moon[i]. The application software (apps) on the device accesses more information than was created in the first 5,000 years of recorded human history[ii]. Seventy percent of humanity will own one by 2020[iii], which will connect around three Billion new users[iv]. The availability of this information conduit on the battlefield presents remarkable challenges and opportunities[v] for deploying commands.

Commanders must collect information through and participate on locally relevant app networks in order to mitigate the intrinsic parity of a fundamentally mobile information environment (IE). Connected populations are empowered by the capabilities of local app networks; they also attain physical and informational advantages against conventional formations. United States joint forces enable novel gains in the IE by collecting on, operating in, and collaborating through indigenously produced economic media. Failing to prepare for mobile, that is the wireless ecosystem, with a responsive engagement strategy adapted to local platforms and conditions, relinquishes the environment to U.S. adversaries.

In the past, U.S. forces targeted the cellphones of individual insurgents[vi]. Mobile, as a platform, has become more than just a telephone. Basic smartphone functions include a web browser, camera, and GPS navigation. The devices’ apps utilize such tools to form a cognitive, informational, and physical control plane, with the emergent qualities of an ecosystem.

The size and density of urban populations hosting such digital habitats continues to grow[vii] while average soldier density on the battlefield has decreased since at least the 19th century[viii]. Future combatants will need to influence local populations more effectively than any before them. Fortunately, urbanizing audiences are more connected than those encountered in contemporary experiences. Iraq[ix]and Afghanistan[x] average only 4.6 Internet users per square kilometer. Iran[xi] and Libya[xii], both identified as primary regional concerns by the assigned Combatant Commanders, respectively have 14.9[xiii] and 21.8[xiv] Internet users per square kilometer. In Nigeria, where Boko Haram remains a threat to the functioning government and neighboring states[xv], there are 73 Internet users per square kilometer[xvi]. Handheld devices will provide an increasing portion of Internet connectivity. Global mobile access will exceed fixed line subscriptions in 2017[xvii]. As of October 22, 2015, Google experienced more mobile searches than desktop searches worldwide.[xviii] Mobile connectivity will be the new normal of future operational environments (OEs).