Jihadism in Jordan

By: Andrew Devereux

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On August 10, one police officer was killed and six civilians were wounded in al-Fuheis, Jordan when an IED detonated near a police vehicle (Alaraby, August 11). The attack prompted a swift response from the security forces, which identified the suspected perpetrator’s hideout in al-Salt. Five security personnel were killed during a siege of the property the following day. The building was ladened with explosive tripwires, and the terror cell engaged Jordanian state forces in a gun battle. Authorities arrested three suspected jihadists after the siege, and the bodies of five others were identified in the rubble of the building (Asharq al-Awsat, August 13).

Despite its proximity to Syria and the Islamic State’s proto-state, Jordan has been spared the frequent jihadist attacks which have punctuated the Middle East since the Islamic State (IS) began seizing population centers in 2014. The most notable incident was the armed raid of Karak Castle in December 2016, in which 14 people, including four attackers, were killed (Jordan Times, December 18, 2016). While fatal attacks have been rare, reports of the security forces arresting suspected jihadist sympathizers have been more common. In January 2018, the security forces announced they had dismantled a terrorist cell which was buying bomb parts and staking out potential targets in Amman (Jordan Times, January 8). The aggressive operations of the jihadist cell have raised concerns of a resurgence in terror attacks in the Hashemite Kingdom.

Sleeper Cells

Peace with the Taliban will not be peaceful: US desperation to broker deal gives outfit more bargaining power

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The war in Afghanistan is off the rails and the United States is desperate to negotiate a deal with the Taliban to end its involvement in the 17-year-long conflict. The Taliban is more than happy to negotiate the terms of US withdrawal — but if and only if an accord is reached on their terms. Because if a so-called peace agreement can be reached, you can be sure it will be one that will not benefit the Afghan people, the US, or the region.

Hopes for a deal with the Taliban are high after US officials began to directly engage with representatives of the organisation earlier this year. Just last week, the Taliban attended a conference in Moscow hosted by Russia. While the US and Afghan governments did not send official delegations, representatives did attend.

The Shifting Narrative of Women’s Role in Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh’s Islamic Jihad

By: Animesh Roul

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Bangladesh’s most lethal home-grown militant organization, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB)—which has multiple ideological and operational factions, including the Islamic State (IS)-inspired neo-JMB and al-Qaeda linked core Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen (JM)—has gained notoriety over the last few years for recruiting and nurturing a network of women militants. Despite robust counter-terrorism operations following the July 2016 Holey Artisan Bakery attacks in the capital Dhaka, an alarming number of women are taking up the cause of militancy. The intermittent arrests and events involving JMB’s women operatives across the country and beyond in the last couple of years have become a major headache for Bangladesh’s security establishment.

In a War With China, the US Could Lose

Dean Cheng

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Dean Cheng brings detailed knowledge of China's military and space capabilities to bear as The Heritage Foundation's research fellow on Chinese political and security affairs. Read his research.

Two separate government commissions issued reports this week, and each highlighted the growing threat stemming from the People’s Republic of China.

The National Defense Strategy Commission is a congressionally mandated panel comprised of both Republican and Democratic officials, charged with examining the new U.S. national defense strategy, which came out in 2017.

The national defense strategy marked a major revision of U.S. defense strategy, as it shifted focus from countering terrorism—a priority since 9/11—to countering major, revisionist states, namely China and Russia.

The Land That Failed to Fail

By PHILIP P. PAN 

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In the uncertain years after Mao’s death, long before China became an industrial juggernaut, before the Communist Party went on a winning streak that would reshape the world, a group of economics students gathered at a mountain retreat outside Shanghai. There, in the bamboo forests of Moganshan, the young scholars grappled with a pressing question: How could China catch up with the West?

It was the autumn of 1984, and on the other side of the world, Ronald Reagan was promising “morning again in America.” China, meanwhile, was just recovering from decades of political and economic turmoil. There had been progress in the countryside, but more than three-quarters of the population still lived in extreme poverty. The state decided where everyone worked, what every factory made and how much everything cost.

China matches Nato in information arms race with deal for ‘Ferrari of war room software’

Stephen Chen

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China matches Nato in information arms race with deal for ‘Ferrari of war room software’

Luciad, a defence contractor based in Leuven, Belgium, is selling the Chinese government high performance software used for situational awareness by the military commands of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, according to information from Chinese government contractors verified by the South China Morning Post.

The package includes LuciadLightspeed, a program that can process real-time data, including that from fast-moving objects, with speed and accuracy.

Situational awareness is the ability to know what is happening in a target environment and use that intelligence to defeat the enemy. In warfare, the situation is so fluid it can change in seconds.

China and the EU Are Growing Sick of U.S. Financial Power

BY ELIZABETH ROSENBERG, EDOARDO SARAVALLE

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This month, the United States imposed on Iran its most draconian round of sanctions yet. These measures made clear something the global community has long known: When it comes to international finance, Washington sets the rules for others to follow. Though some governments, led by the European Union, have announced initiatives to break free of this U.S. dominance, their policies will likely fail. Less publicized trends, however, are already eroding U.S. financial power and may make aggressive U.S. sanctions policies untenable.

When U.S. President Donald Trump announced in May that he would reimpose sanctions on Iran lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal, the effect was swift. Companies began to comply, independently of their governments’ stances toward Tehran. Even as the EU moved over the summer to make it illegal for its companies to comply with the new U.S. sanctions, firms were already turning away from Iran.

The Right Way to Manage a Nuclear North Korea

By Ankit Panda

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North Korea is a nuclear weapons power, and even though Kim Jong Un signed his name onto three declarations this year pledging “denuclearization”—two with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and one with U.S. President Donald Trump—there’s no indication that he will give up his nuclear capability any time soon. He sees nuclear weapons as essential to his regime’s survival and, ultimately, his security. North Korea’s de facto head of state, Kim Yong Nam, has suggested that nuclear capabilities—the country’s “treasured sword”—may be crucial to the country’s economy, as well: he describes them as enabling rather than inhibiting economic development.

Russia Has the Edge in the High-Stakes Scramble for European Energy Markets

Tim Gosling 

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U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry toured Central and Eastern Europe in mid-November, touting America’s credentials and warning countries against deepening their ties to Russia. The visit was part of a new push by the Trump administration in a region where energy is part of a wider geopolitical rivalry.

Ostensibly arriving as a salesman for the U.S. liquified natural gas and nuclear industries, Perry signaled that Washington was ready to step up in a tussle that has long pitted Russia—with its vast gas resources and nuclear ties to former Soviet bloc countries—against the European Union. It’s a tussle that China is now angling to join. ...

The End of the American Order

Kori Schake

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The Halifax Security Forum is designed to be a gathering of the world’s democratic countries, which are allied to protect each other. Hosted by the Canadian defense minister, the Forum’s signature is the brief videos that introduce the annual gathering. This year’s intro showed relay runners, mostly American, at the Olympics from Berlin in 1936 forward, ending in an uncertain baton handoff—a powerful metaphor for the free world’s worries about American leadership in the age of Trump.*

The Halifax Forum, occurring just after President Donald Trump unleashed yet another petulant tirade against Germany and France that culminated in the unseemly taunt that Parisians were speaking German until the U.S. intervened in World Wars I and II, had a funereal feel this year. Allies are grieving the loss of an America they believed in, as it sinks in that they cannot rely on us any longer.

Food Security Rests on Trade

ANGEL GURRÍA , JOSÉ GRAZIANO DA SILVA

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Food production will suffer some of the most immediate and brutal effects of climate change, with some regions of the world suffering far more than others. Only through unhindered global trade can we ensure that high-quality, nutritious food reaches those who need it most.

PARIS – From farm to fork, the international community is facing growing challenges in eradicating hunger and malnutrition. And yet while some parts of the world are obviously better endowed than others in terms of climate, soil, water, and geography, there is plenty of food to go around. So why is food insecurity a problem for so many people in so many countries?

Why Israel Doesn’t Want A War With Gaza

By Mudar Zahran

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The Israeli people are rarely as angry with their political leadership as they are today – and the reason for their anger is clear: they believe that their leadership has failed to take decisive military action against the terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.

As witnessed by the world a few days ago, Hamas began shooting rockets at southern Israeli towns and villages. In total, more than 500 rockets were launched, and in response, Israel undertook very precise, decisive and surgical military air strikes, hitting some of Hamas’s most significant facilities and military installations.

This brought about a very quick cease-fire, a cease-fire that has come as a disappointment for many Israelis – especially those who bore the brunt of the attacks. Apparently, the Israeli public wanted military actions that would either annihilate Hamas, or, at least, serve as a deterrent that would force it to stop shooting rockets into Israel.

Kissinger's Failed Balancing Act

By Joseph Bosco

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On the day before Thanksgiving forty-eight years ago, a human tragedy occurred in the waters off the coast of Massachusetts that quickly became an international incident.

The episode unfolded during the early period of détente with the Soviet Union. U.S. President Richard Nixon and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger were negotiating the timing and agenda for a summit meeting to launch talks that would lead to the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty. Kissinger, who touted the détente policy as ushering in “a generation of peace,” described the episode in his memoir as one of those “minor issues [that] seemed to arise almost spontaneously to sour things.”

On that day, Nov. 23, 1970, a Soviet fishing vessel was tied up alongside a U.S. Coast Guard cutter off Martha’s Vineyard for official talks on fishing rights.Late that morning, after furtively signaling to the Americans an intention to defect, a Lithuanian sailor jumped off his trawler and boarded the USCGC Vigilant. In his broken English, Simas Kudirka immediately begged for political asylum. 

Shattering Europe? Why Trump’s Paris Fiasco Really Matters

By Rajan Menon

You’ve probably had your fill of the media coverage, punditry, tweets, and wisecracks surrounding President Trump’s controversial trip to Paris, officially undertaken to honor the Allied soldiers, especially the Americans, who perished in France during World War I. By now, we’re used to the president’s words and deeds prompting eye-rolling and jokes. But on this occasion, as on others, Trump’s behavior reflects deeper and dangerous political trends -- ones he both exemplifies and fosters. This makes the Paris drama worth revisiting.

Getting Away From It All

Maybe it wasn’t quite a “blue wave” in the House of Representatives (though it certainly qualified as a “pink wave”). Still, the Democrats did remarkably well in this month’s congressional elections, better than in any midterms since 1974. They seem set to gain between 35 and 40 seats (a few contestsremain undecided), including in places Trump carried decisively in 2016.

47% of Jobs Will Disappear in the next 25 Years, According to Oxford University

PHILIP PERRY

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The Trump campaign ran on bringing jobs back to American shores, although mechanization has been the biggest reason for manufacturing jobs' disappearance. Similar losses have led to populist movements in several other countries. But instead of a pro-job growth future, economists across the board predict further losses as AI, robotics, and other technologies continue to be ushered in. What is up for debate is how quickly this is likely to occur.

Now, an expert at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania is ringing the alarm bells. According to Art Bilger, venture capitalist and board member at the business school, all the developed nations on earth will see job loss rates of up to 47% within the next 25 years, according to a recent Oxford study. “No government is prepared," The Economist reports. These include blue and white collar jobs. So far, the loss has been restricted to the blue collar variety, particularly in manufacturing.

Information Attacks on Democracies

By Henry Farrell, Bruce Schneier

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Democracy is an information system.

That's the starting place of our new paper: “Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy.” In it, we look at democracy through the lens of information security, trying to understand the current waves of Internet disinformation attacks. Specifically, we wanted to explain why the same disinformation campaigns that act as a stabilizing influence in Russia are destabilizing in the United States.

The answer revolves around the different ways autocracies and democracies work as information systems. We start by differentiating between two types of knowledge that societies use in their political systems. The first is common political knowledge, which is the body of information that people in a society broadly agree on. People agree on who the rulers are and what their claim to legitimacy is. People agree broadly on how their government works, even if they don't like it. In a democracy, people agree about how elections work: how districts are created and defined, how candidates are chosen, and that their votes count—even if only roughly and imperfectly.

Pentagon, DHS Spell Out How They’ll Cooperate on Cyber Defense

BY JOSEPH MARKS

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The memorandum of understanding comes after the Defense Department prepared to help the Homeland Security Department repel Election Day cyberattacks.

The Pentagon and Homeland Security Department have established a memorandum of understanding that details how the departments will work together on cybersecurity in the future, a Homeland Security official confirmed Wednesday.

That agreement “reflects the commitment of both departments in collaborating to improve the protection and defense of the U.S.homeland from strategic cyber threats,” according to written testimony from Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Jeanette Manfra.

Russian drones can jam cellphones 60 miles away

By: Kelsey D. Atherton 

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Russia’s Defense Ministry announced Nov. 6 that the nation had extended the range on its drone-carried jammers to 100 km, or over 60 miles. Drones as a platform for, and not just the target of, electronic warfare means that the sight of a flying robot overhead could signal incoming strikes as well as a sudden inability to call for help.

“Russia has been using a UAV-mounted cellphone jammer for a number of years now,” said Samuel Bendett, a research analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses. The drones operate in a two- or three-vehicle pod with a ground station, collectively grouped as a “Leer-3” system.

“When these UAVs fly in teams, one acts as a signal-and-comms relay while another acts as a jammer,” Bendett said. “These Leer-3 systems have been around for about two years at this point.”

Pentagon, DHS Spell Out How They’ll Cooperate on Cyber Defense

BY JOSEPH MARKS

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The memorandum of understanding comes after the Defense Department prepared to help the Homeland Security Department repel Election Day cyberattacks.

The Pentagon and Homeland Security Department have established a memorandum of understanding that details how the departments will work together on cybersecurity in the future, a Homeland Security official confirmed Wednesday.

That agreement “reflects the commitment of both departments in collaborating to improve the protection and defense of the U.S.homeland from strategic cyber threats,” according to written testimony from Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Jeanette Manfra.

It also “clarifies roles and responsibilities between DOD and DHSto enhance U.S. government readiness to respond to cyber threats and establish coordinated lines of efforts to secure, protect, and defend the homeland,” according to the statement delivered to a joint hearing of the cyber panels of the House Homeland Security and Armed Services committees.

4 technologies a cyber moonshot should include

By: Justin Lynch  

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As the Trump administration prepares to launch a “moonshot” proposal to boost cybersecurity in the United States, a leading industry group is urging the government to invest in four technologies that it can create a “safe and secure internet.”

While automated intelligence, quantum computing, behavioral biometrics and 5G communications can be a tool of hackers, it can also lead to improved cybersecurity, a draft report from the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee read.

“Foundational technological underpinnings exist or are in development—but they will require a concerted national research and product development strategy to bring them to bear against the national cybersecurity challenge,” the report said.

Power outages, bank runs, changed financial data: Here are the 'cyber 9/11' scenarios that really worry the experts

Kate Fazzini

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It may be impossible to hedge against the next major cyberattack, but there are some lessons from recent history and some clues from the private sector on what may be the next devastating cyberattack.

Many experts have warned for years about an impending "cyber 9/11," and despite a nearly endless list of scenarios, there are a few that are more likely than others.

Attacks that spill into the physical world, those that cause a financial sector "contagion" or attacks on data integrity -- rather than theft or destruction -- are top-of-mind, frightening scenarios for experts.

For years, government security specialists have predicted the inevitable "cyber 9/11," an event originating as a digital attack that spills over into other aspects of society, causing widespread harm to people and the global financial sector.

Army Innovation in a World of Things

By Clarence J. Henderson

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It is not the changing character of war but the changing character of work that will most profoundly affect the Army as an institution and society as a whole. The individual worker is no longer regulated to bureaucratic tasks and has been empowered by technology to cultivate information into useful knowledge and increase productivity. Useful knowledge can be combined with today’s lower capital investment requirements to further empower individuals to conceive and create innovative technologies within their entrepreneurial organizations. What has emerged are regional and global knowledge economies driven by the exchange of useful information. And it’s within these knowledge economies that the Army is attempting to capitalize with entrepreneurs to maintain technological overmatch against global peer threats. With the creation of Army Futures Command in Austin, Texas the Army has placed its modernization enterprise into one of the country’s most burgeoning knowledge economy’s.

"Great Power Competition" and the Harsh Lessons of World War I

by Lyle J. Goldstein
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"Having mobilized against Austria in August 1914, Czar Nicholas II helped to set in motion the world war that would thoroughly destroy the Russian Empire, of course—an unintended consequence if ever there was one. While the other erstwhile members of the Entente can celebrate this hard-won victory, Russia obviously has a different perspective."

In all the vast and rather justified coverage of the centenary of the Great War, there has been little attention (with a few excellent exceptions) to one somewhat awkward question from the catastrophic bloodletting. If France and Britain can play the part of the stalwart and righteous victims, America that of the crusading hero, and Germany that of the sincerely repentant aggressor, what role for Russia? President Vladimir Putin attended the ceremonies in Paris, but what could have been going through his mind? Having mobilized against Austria in August 1914, Czar Nicholas II helped to set in motion the world war that would thoroughly destroy the Russian Empire, of course—an unintended consequence if ever there was one. While the other erstwhile members of the Entente can celebrate this hard-won victory, Russia obviously has a different perspective.

Saving America’s military edge will take money — and new ideas, Dunford says

By: Joe Gould 

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HALIFAX, Canada — The U.S. military needs Congress to provide sustained defense spending to maintain its eroding military edge against Russia and China — but also needs to start innovating, its top uniformed officer said Saturday.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford’s remarks at the Halifax International Security Forum came days after a National Defense Strategy Commission report concluded the U.S. would, “struggle to win, or perhaps lose, a war against China or Russia.”

Citing that report, Dunford said whoever is in his job in 2023 and beyond will be at a disadvantage — “if we don’t change the trajectory we have been on, if we don’t have sustained, predictable, accurate levels of funding, if we don’t look carefully at the areas where we are challenged — in space, in cyberspace, in the maritime domain.”

Army Innovation in a World of Things

By Clarence J. Henderson

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Operating in a Knowledge Economy

It is not the changing character of war but the changing character of work that will most profoundly affect the Army as an institution and society as a whole. The individual worker is no longer regulated to bureaucratic tasks and has been empowered by technology to cultivate information into useful knowledge and increase productivity. Useful knowledge can be combined with today’s lower capital investment requirements to further empower individuals to conceive and create innovative technologies within their entrepreneurial organizations. What has emerged are regional and global knowledge economies driven by the exchange of useful information. And it’s within these knowledge economies that the Army is attempting to capitalize with entrepreneurs to maintain technological overmatch against global peer threats. With the creation of Army Futures Command in Austin, Texas the Army has placed its modernization enterprise into one of the country’s most burgeoning knowledge economy’s.