Pakistan: Army Kills 50 Afghan Forces in Border Fight

By Associated Press

May 07, 2017

QUETTA, Pakistan – The Pakistani army says it has destroyed at least five Afghan checkpoints near the border between the two countries, killing about 50 security forces.

Maj. Gen. Nadeem Ahmad told reporters Sunday at the Chaman border crossing that two of his soldiers were also killed and another nine were wounded.

The Pakistani and Afghan armies have been clashing at the border crossing in southwestern Baluchistan province since Friday.

Officials in Islamabad say the fighting began after Afghan security forces fired on Pakistani census workers and the troops escorting them, killing nine civilians and wounding 42, including women and children.

Pakistan and Afghanistan routinely accuse each other of providing sanctuaries to their enemy insurgents — which both sides deny.

*** Why Russia Can't Quit Syria

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It can be difficult to separate the important from unimportant on any given day. Reflections mean to do exactly that — by thinking about what happened today, we can consider what might happen tomorrow.

In the resort town of Sochi, on the Black Sea coast, Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed a possible exit strategy from Syria with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Today's meeting reinforces the urgency with which Russia is trying to extricate itself from the situation it has become mired in. One of the topics up for discussion was the implementation of de-escalation zones — or so-called safe zones — in Syria, part of a proposal to advance the political negotiations on ending the ongoing conflict. Elsewhere in the region, however, Syrian rebels walked out of peace talks in the Kazakh capital of Astana on May 3, spoiling efforts to get Syrian belligerents to discuss a potential solution to the conflict. The move highlights the difficulties Russia is facing — and just how unlikely the Kremlin is to succeed in its plan of making a smooth departure.

Russia's intervention in Syria, operating alongside Iran in support of Syrian loyalist forces, has succeeded in several ways. For one, Russia's involvement stabilized the battlefield and restored the advantage to Syrian troops. Furthermore, its entry into the conflict not only secured basing in the country but also provided a proving ground in which to season personnel and showcase Russian military hardware. Finally, the intervention has elevated Moscow's geopolitical heft, marking the Kremlin as a key player in the region.

*** China's Navy Takes a Bow

By Stratfor

Forecast Highlights 

Even as China continues to prioritize its near-seas defense, it will accelerate the development of its navy's ability to project considerable force far from the Chinese mainland. 

While China already has made considerable strides in developing the necessary components for a globally operating navy, a number of obstacles will limit its global maritime ambitions. 

Beijing will continue to build up its naval strength in the years to come, but it will continue to lag the U.S. Navy's force projection capabilities for decades to come. 

** Time to stop letting Pakistan call the shots

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In yet another display of sickening behaviour, a Pakistani Border Action Team (BAT) chose to kill two Indian soldiers and mutilate their bodies in the Krishna Ghati sector of Jammu and Kashmir on Monday. The Indian Army has asserted that this “unsoldierly act” of the Pakistani army will be appropriately responded to, at a time and place of the former’s choosing. The barbarity of the incident has evoked widespread condemnation and demands are being made of the government to respond strongly. Predictably, the Pakistan army has denied the charges.

This newspaper has repeatedly argued that the Pakistan problem cannot be solved by shunning the hard force option. However, this is not the time to demand mindless reprisals. Nor should immediacy of response be a concern right now. The Indian Army is responsible and mature enough to take care of these aspects. This, instead, is a moment to assess why Pakistan feels tempted to engage in such outrageous activities—and to consider if New Delhi can afford to be a perpetual hostage to cycles of conflict dictated by Rawalpindi.

** Project on Nuclear Issues A Collection of Papers from the 2016 Nuclear Scholars Initiative and PONI Conference Series

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Mark F. Cancian

The role that nuclear weapons play in international security has changed since the end of the Cold War, but the need to maintain and replenish the human infrastructure for supporting nuclear capabilities and dealing with the multitude of nuclear challenges remains essential. Recognizing this challenge, CSIS launched the Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI) in 2003 to develop the next generation of policy, technical, and operational nuclear professionals through outreach, mentorship, research, and debate. PONI runs two signature programs—the Nuclear Scholars Initiative and the Annual Conference Series—to engage emerging nuclear experts in thoughtful and informed debate and research over how best to address the nuclear community’s most pressing problems. The papers included in this volume comprise research from participants in the 2016 Nuclear Scholars Initiative and the PONI Conference Series. PONI sponsors this research to provide a forum for facilitating new and innovative thinking and to provide a platform for emerging thought leaders across the nuclear enterprise. Spanning a wide range of technical and policy issues, these selected papers further serious discussion in their respective areas.

A NITI Aayog Model For Education: Why Campuses Should Welcome Research With Open Arms

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Gautam Desiraju

NITI Aayog’s recommendations must be implemented honestly, and without fear or favour, to generate leadership in science.

The three-year action agenda of government think tank NITI Aayog was released on 23 April 2017, and the sections on science and technology (pp 100-103) and education and skill development (pp 131- 140) need to be read together. One presumes that this document is not merely a wish list of things that need to be implemented, but is actually what it says it is, namely an action plan of things that will executed through the Science and Technology and Human Resources and Development ministries.

It is heartening to see that the action agenda links research with education in an emphatic manner. For far too long we have been used to a system where these components were treated independently with research being carried out in institutes, government labs and elite organisations, and education being left to the universities and colleges. Research without teaching is a mirage. Teaching without research is drudgery for a person who is qualified to do research.

India Needs More Aircraft Carriers But Not At The Cost Of Key Strike Elements

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Rakesh Krishnan Simha

There is no doubt that India, which is poised to become a great power, requires more aircraft carriers.

But if the Navy spends the big bucks on a second carrier, where does it propose to get money for the crucial support vessels?

First the good news: the Indian Navy may soon tap the government for funds to build a second aircraft carrier. This would either be a 65,000-tonne nuclear-powered flattop or a 100,000-tonne supercarrier. The Navy’s move is significant because India is currently down to one carrier even as China has publicised its plan to develop six such vessels.

Now the bad news: According to Vice Admiral D M Deshpande, Controller of Warship Production and Acquisition, the new carrier could come at the expense of other projects and weapons as it is a “very big-ticket item”.

Before we analyse whether India needs more aircraft carriers, let’s take a look at the consequences of spending on carriers while ignoring other critical areas of defence.

In 1963, T N Kaul, India’s ambassador in Moscow, asked Russian defence minister Marshal Rodion Malinovsky what sort of defence preparedness India needed against the Chinese threat. The Indian Navy’s official history ‘Transition to Triumph’ records Malinovsky’s response.

Contested Waters: Subnational Scale Water Conflict in Pakistan

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This report analyzes water-related conflicts in Pakistan, primarily by exploring five case studies at the provincial, municipal, and village levels. The text’s authors specifically use the studies to 1) understand the drivers behind local conflicts over water; 2) demonstrate how this precious resource is already being used as a weapon in communal struggles; and 3) suggest technical, institutional and political changes that could help Pakistanis negotiate their access to water sources.

Afghanistan: The Future of the National Unity Government

English (PDF, 33 pages, 1.2 MB)

This report investigates the troubled efforts by the National Unity Government (NUG) to secure political stability in Afghanistan. The country’s problems include 1) the NUG itself, which is beset with internal disagreements and discord; 2) a host of stubborn political and constitutional tensions; and 3) knife-edged political partisanship.

Think the RCEP is about free trade? Think again

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SINGAPORE -- Delegates from Pakistan's remote Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province were all smiles as they signed an economic cooperation agreement with China on April 17.

"We have set the stage to begin [a] journey of industrialization," the province's chief minister, Pervez Khattak, said proudly at a signing ceremony in Beijing attended by 400 Chinese businesses. "We need the support of our iron brothers to put the province on the path of development and economic growth."

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is a mountainous region in northwestern Pakistan near the border between the disputed Kashmir region and Afghanistan. A look at a map makes it clear why China is eager to boost ties with the remote province. It is situated at a strategic point in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a Beijing-led infrastructure project aimed at linking China with the Indian Ocean via roads, railways and pipelines that will extend 3,000km through Pakistan.

Chinese companies involved in the project include those from the information technology, electricity, oil refining, construction and e-commerce sectors, such as China Road and Bridge Corp., China Railway Group and Sinohydro. China plans to invest $62 billion in the project, of which about $35 billion will be earmarked for the energy sector, including coal-fired power plants and hydroelectric, solar and wind power generation. For Pakistan, the deal represents welcome economic aid. For China, it is a calculated move to boost exports of steel, cement and other construction materials, as well as of electrical products and machinery.

Monks with guns

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The recent violence in southern Thailand began on 4 January 2004, when Malay Muslim insurgents invaded a Thai Army depot in the southernmost province of Narathiwat. The next day, after the burning of 20 schools and several bomb attacks in a neighbouring province, the Thai government declared martial law over the three southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat. Shortly after, two Buddhist monks were killed during their morning alms, and a third injured. In these provinces, the majority population is Muslim, and Buddhists are a minority. By the summer, journalists and scholars had written articles about the insurgents and the role of Islam in the violence. But since Buddhism was associated with peace, no one thought to investigate the role of Buddhism. How could a Buddhist monk participate in the violence? Yet clearly, Buddhism was involved in the conflict. 

In Pattani’s capital district, the My Gardens Hotel is popular with tourists. I had gone there to collect people’s opinions on the killing of Buddhist monks. On this day, the hotel was nearly vacant, the lobby empty, save for two police officers, who were devout Thai Buddhists. As I wanted to get their perspective on the ongoing violence, the three of us sat down together. They explained that they were periodically stationed at the My Gardens Hotel because insurgents had begun to bomb local businesses. Economics, they said, was an important factor behind the current violence. Poverty was creating a desperation that deepened the crisis. 

China’s military tech is becoming less of a joke and more of a threat

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Steve Mollman

China’s first nuclear submarine was a joke. Launched in the 1970s and now an exhibit in a museum, it was loud, couldn’t fire missiles while submerged, and exposed its crew to high levels of radiation.

But it got the ball rolling. The nation’s modern subs make the US nervous with their technical advances, and China is now constructing the world’s largest submarine factory.

It isn’t just the subs. While China still lags the US badly in some areas, and its exported weapons have had reliability issues, signs abound that its military hardware is either catching up or becoming good enough to pose a real challenge in a potential conflict. A military modernization program pushed by Chinese president Xi Jinping is spurring things along.

“A ship that can fly”

Last week the world’s largest amphibious aircraft made its first taxiing test. The AG600, made by the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China, is about the size of the Boeing 737 and is designed for marine takeoff and landing (or it can use conventional airstrips). One of its designers describes it as a “ship that can fly.”

Can China Replace the West?

by Gideon Rachman

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Gideon Rachman’s Easternization, his new survey of a transformed Asia, admirably does what so little writing on foreign affairs attempts. It treats with equal facility economics, geopolitics, security, enough history for needed background, official thinking, and public attitudes. Rachman, chief foreign affairs columnist for the Financial Times, has an eye for the telling statistic and for the memorable detail that makes it stick. He packs an enormous amount of information into a short book and opens windows of understanding for nonexperts onto this immensely important three fifths of humanity. And while not directly concerned with the new American administration, the story he tells shows well why Donald Trump’s foreign policies could end so badly for the United States and for the world. 

But Rachman does not, in the end, make a convincing case for the book’s thesis—embodied in its one-word title. The central issue, he writes, is “how the rise in Asian economic power is changing world politics.” His momentous answer is that “the West’s centuries-long domination of world affairs,” stretching back to 1500, “is now coming to a close.” Without doubt, Asia’s economic ascent has been extraordinary, but Westernization—the spread of the West’s influence and values—has rested on much more than its wealth and the military power derived from it. Those other elements—including open governments, readiness to build institutions, and contributions to others’ security and growth—are weak or absent in Asia today. Easternization is neither here nor coming soon. 

North Korea’s failed missile launch on Saturday

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North Korea’s failed missile launch on Saturday marks its fourth straight test that has ended in failure, prompting some to question whether the U.S. is secretly behind these recent flops. The frequency of these failed attempts — this is the second in two consecutive weeks — along with other accompanying circumstances, lends weight to the possibility that the U.S. is covertly interfering with North Korea’s missile program through cyber attacks.

“There is a very strong belief that the U.S. — through cyber methods — has been successful on several occasions in interrupting these sorts of tests and making them fail.”

But determining what role the U.S. has played in influencing these launches is almost impossible, given the general difficulty in finding out the root cause of a failure. What may have been high-tech sabotage, could just as easily have been poor engineering, defective parts, or even bad luck.

 

Yet North Korea’s repeated blunders don’t quite add up, especially when you take the poor success rate of their missile launches and compare that to expectations.

Does China Now Regret Having Defended, Nourished North Korea?

By Xuan Loc Doan

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In 2010, when the People’s Republic of China marked the 60thanniversary of its participation in the Korean War — between the Soviet- and Chinese-backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to the north and the UN- and the US-backed Republic of Korea to the south — Xi Jinping described the conflict as “a great and just war for safeguarding peace and resisting aggression.”

In the view of China’s then vice-president and now President Xi, the military conflict, which ended in an armistice on July 27, 1953, “was also a great victory gained by the united combat forces of China’s and the DPRK’s civilians and soldiers, and a great victory in the pursuit of world peace and human progress.”

Whether it was “a great and just war resisting aggression” and whether China and the DPRK won the war remains debatable. Yet, it is safe to say that China paid a heavy price in defending its communist ally and that without its huge sacrifices, North Korea — then led by Kim Il-sung — could be defeated and probably would have collapsed.

The China–North Korea Relationship,

Author: Eleanor Albert

Introduction 

China is North Korea’s most important ally, biggest trading partner, and main source of food and energy. It has helped sustain Kim Jong-un’s regime, and has historically opposed harsh international sanctions on North Korea in the hope of avoiding regime collapse and a refugee influx across their 870-mile border. Pyongyang’s fifth nuclear test and ongoing missile launches have complicated its relationship with Beijing, which has continued to advocate for the resumption of the Six Party Talks, the multilateral framework aimed at denuclearizing North Korea. A purge of top North Korean officials since its young leader came to power and the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, Kim Jong-un’s exiled half brother, in Malaysia also spurred renewed concern from China about the stability and direction of North Korean leadership. Yet China’s policies have done little to deter its neighbor’s nuclear ambitions.

RUSSIAN INTELLIGENCE CHIEF SAYS EASING OF INFO WAR WITH WEST NOT IN SIGHT, BATTLE FOR MINDS TO INTENSIFY

www.rt.com

Russian Intelligence Chief Says Easing Of Info War With West Not In Sight, Battle For Minds To Intensify

Strengthening information security is as important as increasing military capabilities, Sergey Naryshkin, Russia’s foreign intelligence chief, said, adding that tensions in the ideological war with the West sometimes exceed Cold War levels.

“Conflicts in the ideological information field are, especially, strained. The current phase of ideological confrontation is approaching the fever pitch of the Cold War in its severity and sometimes even exceeds it,” Naryshkin said at the VI Moscow Conference on International Security on Thursday.

“The difference is that ideology is now promoted not by the Eastern bloc, but by the Western elites, at least, a part of them that doesn’t want to give up on the neoliberal, globalist approach,” he added.

According to the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the ideas of “globalization, multiculturalism” pushed forward by the Western elites reach the “point when the very notion of majority in social processes becomes marginal. The majority is unable to protect its rights in the face of aggressive minorities, they are constantly forced to apologize and justify themselves for the fact of their very existence.”

Russian Military Braces for Possible Follow-Up Attacks by US in Syria and Beyond

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Russian state propaganda has definitively changed its portrayal of United States President Donald Trump after the April 7 Tomahawk cruise missile strike on the Syrian airbase of Shayrat (Homs province). The forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (the Syrian Arab Army—SAA) had allegedly used this base to launch chemical weapons attacks, on April 4, against a rebel-held area of Khan Sheikhoun (Idlib province). According to a poll published this week by the Kremlin-controlled pollster VtSIOM, 82 percent of Russians believe Washington’s attack on the Shayrat airbase was “unjust” and a “US provocation designed to destabilize the situation.” According to VtSIOM general director Valery Fedorov, only 6 percent of Russians believe the US attacked Shayrat to punish the al-Assad regime for allegedly using chemical weapons. The rest believe it was an act of illegal aggression and a provocation designed to harm Russia and its allies. The Russian public supports its country’s continued military involvement in Syria (53 percent), though this support is not overly high despite a continuous pro-war message broadcast by state TV propaganda. VtSIOM data reveals that 34 percent want Russian forces to withdraw from Syria. According to Fedorov, the Tomahawk attack has dramatically diminished the previously positive image of President Trump in Russia (Wciom.ru, April 20). The latest VtSIOM poll concludes that Trump’s popularity among Russians has decreased from 38 to 13 percent; 39 percent of Russians see him today in a negative light, compared to 7 percent a month ago (RIA Novosti, April 17).

RBI’s Viral Acharya Proposes Five Ways To Resolve India’s Bad Loan Problem

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The problem of bad loans (also known as NPAs, or non-performing assets) continues to be a drag on the Indian economy. Private investment is not taking off and both the Reserve Bank Of India (RBI) and the government need to move fast in resolving the mess created by Indian banks’ stressed assets sooner rather than later.

RBI Deputy Governor Dr Viral V Acharya, speaking recently at the FICCI FLO Mumbai Chapter, offered some practical solutions to bad loans.

Dr Acharya was in favour of recapitalisation of public sector banks; however, he abhors the earlier habit of throwing good money after bad, as was the case with the bank recapitalisation plan of 2008-09, wherein banks that experienced the worst outcomes received the most capital, sowing the seeds of another lending excess. “We must not allocate capital so poorly,” he said. Instead, he proposed five alternative ways in his speech:

1) Private Capital Raising: Dr Acharya proposes that healthier public sector banks raise private capital by issuing deep discount rights. This will help take some load off the government’s shoulders in recapitalising banks. He also feels that this will help restore some discipline in making lending decisions.

1 Minute of All-Out Exercise May Have Benefits of 45 Minutes of Moderate Exertion

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By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS 

For many of us, the most pressing question about exercise is: How little can I get away with? The answer, according to a sophisticated new study of interval training, may be very, very little. In this new experiment, in fact, 60 seconds of strenuous exertion proved to be as successful at improving health and fitness as three-quarters of an hour of moderate exercise.

Let me repeat that finding: One minute of arduous exercise was comparable in its physiological effects to 45 minutes of gentler sweating.

I have been writing for some time about the potential benefits of high-intensity interval training, a type of workout that consists of an extremely draining but brief burst of exercise — essentially, a sprint — followed by light exercise such as jogging or resting, then another sprint, more rest, and so on.

Athletes rely on intervals to improve their speed and power, but generally as part of a broader, weekly training program that also includes prolonged, less-intense workouts, such as long runs.

But in the past few years, exercise scientists and many of the rest of us have become intrigued by the idea of exercising exclusively with intervals, ditching long workouts altogether.

HOW THE IED WON: DISPELLING THE MYTH OF TACTICAL SUCCESS AND INNOVATION

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JASON SHELL

The U.S. military seems to have settled on the narrative that it won every tactical engagement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In this view, failures of strategy and the challenges of nation-building proved the undoing of coalition counter-insurgency efforts in each conflict. Even the most critical accounts of U.S. military performance in the wars, like Lt Gen. (ret.) Bolger’s Why We Lost, emphasize American “tactical excellence” in the campaigns. Such a conclusion, however, seems to equate tactics with firefights and ignores the U.S. military’s failure to meet its objectives to counter the enemy’s weapon of choice — the improvised explosive device (IED).

As roadside bombs began to cause a majority of U.S. casualties, counter-IED efforts sought to defeat the IED’s strategic influence. Significant U.S. military investment and innovation to counter IEDs succeeded in improving the odds for American forces in any single engagement with the devices. At scale, however, these innovations imposed higher costs on U.S. forces even as the bombs got cheaper. And while these innovations reduced risk to U.S. forces, they did not change the way in which the devices challenged military objectives in the conflicts. In a protracted fight in IED-laden ground, the initiative remains with the bomb builder.

88 Lt. Gen. John Kelly, who lost son to war, says U.S. largely unaware of sacrifice

By Greg Jaffe

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WASHINGTON — Before he addressed the crowd that had assembled in the St. Louis Hyatt Regency ballroom last November, Lt. Gen. John F. Kelly had one request. “Please don’t mention my son,” he asked the Marine Corps officer introducing him. 

Four days earlier, 2nd Lt. Robert M. Kelly, 29, had stepped on a land mine while leading a platoon of Marines in southern Afghanistan. He was killed instantly. 

Without once referring to his son’s death, the general delivered a passionate and at times angry speech about the military’s sacrifices and its troops’ growing sense of isolation from society. 

“Their struggle is your struggle,” he told the ballroom crowd of former Marines and local business people. “If anyone thinks you can somehow thank them for their service and not support the cause for which they fight — our country — these people are lying to themselves. . . . More important, they are slighting our warriors and mocking their commitment to this nation.” 

‘Algorithmic Warfare:’ DSD Work Unleashes AI On Intel Data

By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR

WASHINGTON: The technophilic Deputy Defense Secretary, Bob Work, just stood up a task force to advance the use of artificial intelligence in military intelligence. This is not SkyNet, an AI with its finger on the launch button.

Instead, the first project for this Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team will be developing AI to sort through vast amounts of video collected by surveillance drones, a flood of data that’s overwhelming human analysts.

The AWCFT will ” consolidate existing algorithm-based technology initiatives” related to intelligence under the oversight of the undersecretary of intelligence, the memo says. The task force will be run by the Director for Defense Intelligence – Warfighter Support, with a steering committee and support staff drawn from across the Defense Department.

The memo’s timeline is tight. “Although we have taken tentative steps to explore the potential of artificial intelligence, big data, and deep learning, I remain convinced that we need to do much more, and move much faster,” Work writes in the memo.

Cybersecurity Challenges in the Middle East

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This text examines the cyber stability challenges now facing the Middle East, specifically in four areas – economics; cybercrime; education and the internet gender gap; and cyber terrorism and nuclear security threats. In light of the deficiencies that exist in each of these areas, the paper’s author ultimately calls for additional cyber-legislation, better ICT education, and strengthened defenses against cyber-based threats.

Facebook Data ‘Does Not Contradict’ Intelligence on Russia Meddling

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By Adrienne LaFrance

Less than six months ago, Mark Zuckerberg dismissed the idea that the social publishing platform he founded was being used to manipulate voters as “pretty crazy.” 

But in a new report, Facebook now says it has data that “does not contradict” a key U.S. intelligence report that describes “information warfare” ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin and carried out on Facebook and across the web. 

“Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency,” officials wrote in a declassified version of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence report in January. Guided by the Russian government’s “clear preference” for Donald Trump, the DNI report said, Moscow followed a strategy “that blends covert intelligence operations—such as cyber activity—with overt efforts by Russian Government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid social media users or ‘trolls.’” Scholars have long theorized about the possibility of people manipulating public opinion on Facebook—Facebook itself carried out a mood experiment on its users—but U.S. intelligence officials call Moscow’s latest meddling “unprecedented.” 

The Global Top 10 Android Apps

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-- this post authored by Martin Armstrong

According to Priori Data, at the top of the list was the ever popular WhatsApp with almost 84 million. In fact, apps developed by Facebook account for the lion's share of the list, with WhatsApp, Messenger, Facebook and Facebook Lite hauling in a combined 209 million downloads in February.

This infographic shows the apps most often downloaded from the Play Store in February 2017.

It took Toshiba 70 years to reach its peak—and just a decade to fall into an abyss

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Josh Horwitz

One of Japan’s former tech giants is in the emergency room and struggling to stay alive, saying earlier this month that it doubted its “ability to continue as a going concern.” Its most recent hospital visit was caused by a disastrous acquisition. But its overall health has deteriorated over the past two decades, as it failed to age gracefully into a new global economy.

Sitting beside it are Sony, Olympus, Hitachi, and other Japanese tech conglomerates, sharing memories of glory days long past, when Japan was a global technology leader, as they reckon with the possibility they might be the next one on life support. Japanese government officials stand by, contemplating plans to extend its life. Friends from overseas have flown in too, mainly to make sure they’re on the will and inherit something valuable.

On Monday Toshiba announced it would spin off four business units. All might be for the taking from a company that, in just 10 years, went from being a storied manufacturer of cutting-edge gadgets to a maker of, well, just stuff.

From light bulbs to laptops, a pioneer

America Is Losing the Cyber Information War

BY: Bill Gertz

The United States faces a growing threat of information warfare attacks and needs new strategies and organizations to counter it, national security experts told Congress this week.

John C. Inglis, former deputy director of the National Security Agency, said cyber attacks are only one form of influence, propaganda, and disinformation attacks being waged in the cyber war of ideas.

"Cyber warfare, in my view, is not a standalone entity," Inglis told a Senate subcommittee hearing Thursday. "When you're talking about information warfare, it's at that top-most stack, and it does not necessarily comprise of an exchange of tools or an exchange of literal warfare. It is, in fact, a conflict of ideas."

Inglis called for a new approach to information threats.

"We need to stop reacting well and thinking that we've therefore done good and start to drive and perhaps lead in this space and at least anticipate well or track well," he said during a hearing of the Senate Armed Services subcommittee on cyber security.