Turkey's Strategic Choices

Kemal Kirisci

December 19, 2014 

Over the last few weeks, a number of prominent world leaders have called on Turkey.

Late in November, for example, Vice President Joe Biden was in Turkey to discuss cooperating against the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria. His visit was followed by that of Russian President Vladimir Putin. This month it was Frederica Mogherini’s turn, the European Union’s new foreign policy chief. Her visit coincided with ones by Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskite, British Prime Minister David Cameron, and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who also holds the presidency of the European Council.

Clearly, Turkey is in high demand, but which way will Turkey actually go: East or West. East represents a world with an emphasis on sovereign democracy, state capitalism, authoritarianism, populism and the rise of religiously driven nationalism, in contrast to a West traditionally associated with liberal democracy and markets predicated on the rule of law, transparency, and accountability. Here Putin’s Russia offers a good approximation of the East compared to the transatlantic community which represents the West. It will be important to sustain the pace of these visits from members of the transatlantic community and match them with deeds to revitalize Turkey’s relations with the West, especially economic ties.

It is no surprise that Turkey is in high demand. It sits in the midst of a neighborhood in a chronic state of upheaval. Across the Black Sea, Putin’s Russia has annexed Crimea and continues to destabilize eastern Ukraine. Furthermore, Russia continues to perpetuate frozen conflicts of the post-Soviet space from Transnistria in Moldova to Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia and Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan.

However, no challenge has been greater for Turkey than the instability in Iraq and Syria. Turkey is hosting a refugee population fast approaching two million and is far from seeing the moderate opposition gain the upper hand and replace Bashar al-Assad in Damascus. Instead, the emergence of IS has further exacerbated the situation and led to Turkey being portrayed in Western media as both a key player in efforts to “degrade and ultimately defeat” IS as well as a spoiler of these efforts. The latter portrayal is often based in part on Turkey’s reluctance to support the Kurdish resistance to IS’s onslaught on the Kurdish town of Kobani located on the Syrian-Turkish border. Some have gone so far as to accuse Turkey of directly assisting IS.

The need to improve relations with Turkey and better coordinate the fight against IS brought Biden to Turkey. The visit came on the heels of deep policy differences between the U.S. and Turkey over how to deal with IS. The U.S. emphasized the immediate threat from IS and the need for Turkey to be more forthcoming in its support to defeat IS militarily. For his part, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisted on the need to create no-fly zones along the Turkish border to increase pressure on al-Assad and bring about regime change.

Obama's Interesting Fourth Quarter

Paul R. Pillar

December 21, 2014 

“My presidency is entering the fourth quarter. Interesting stuff happens in the fourth quarter, and I'm looking forward to it.”

-- Barack Obama, December 19. 2014

One should be careful about drawing conclusions concerning the intentions and state of mind of a president based on when he takes certain major actions. The background to almost any presidential action involves a bureaucratic process within the U.S. government and, with foreign policies, negotiations or consultations with other governments. Sometimes a step is taken at a particular time because that's when the processes and the negotiations happened to be completed. Sometimes timing is largely a matter of making room on a crowded plate with other issues demanding high-level attention. Nonetheless, President Obama's actions over the past several weeks are consistent with the analysis that he has become a more politically liberated and thus more energized national leader since the mid-term elections, which were the last elections which will put anyone into national-level office while Mr. Obama remains president. If the president really has made such a transition, any American who would rather see broader pursuit of the national interest take precedence over a narrow focus on the next election ought to be pleased about that.

Mr. Obama is putting the lie to accusations that he is a timid and indecisive leader, and revealing such accusations to be merely a combination of general Obama-bashing and specific preferred policies of the accuser. Many of his opponents who call for more assertive U.S. policies overseas equate assertiveness with bombing somebody rather than, say, asserting the right for the United States to practice diplomacy with anyone it wants or getting in front of efforts to keep Earth habitable. Many who say that people and governments overseas yearn for more forceful U.S. action (whiny Gulf Arab monarchies with their sectarian objectives seem to be a favorite reference point in this regard) are merely pushing certain narrow agendas on salient topics such as the Syrian civil war, while refusing to recognize the far broader international approval that Mr. Obama's recent actions have received.

Even if the president does not have any more elections to worry about, domestic politics still will have a lot to do with what he can or cannot achieve. That there will be continued obstructionism in Congress is a safe bet, especially given that the results of those same mid-term elections did not give the obstructionists any new incentive to change their ways. One of Mr. Obama's responses to this reality is to make the fullest possible use of his executive authority where constructive legislative action is unlikely. Another thing the president has going for him is that once he takes specific action, this clarifies the choices between those actions and the alternatives in a way that drains credibility from opponents who try to argue that the president's actions are against the national interest—and also clarifies likely electoral costs for opponents who are focusing on the next election—even on subjects where obstructionists might fare better in a debate waged in more abstract terms. Timothy Egan has made a similar observation this way:

“Are Republicans really going to spend the first year of their new majority trying to undo everything the president has done—to roll back the clock? Will they defend isolation of Cuba against the wishes of most young Cuban-Americans? Will they restore a family-destroying deportation policy, when Obama’s de-emphasis on sending illegal immigrants home has already given him a 15-point boost among Latinos? Will they take away health insurance from millions who never had it before? Will they insist that nothing can be done on climate change, while an agreement is on the table for the world’s two biggest polluters, the United States and China, to do something significant?”

Marco Rubio's Unpresidential Cuba Tantrum

Robert W. Merry

December 20, 2014 

Why should the United States maintain a Cold War stance toward Cuba when there are no Cold War threats?

Senator Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican who seems to want to be president, issued a response to President Obama’s new policy toward Cuba that is so muddled and empty of internal logic that it raises questions about his capacity to play in the big arena of presidential politics.

Rubio opposes Obama’s moves to normalize relations with Cuba and to lessen trade restrictions on U.S. citizens and businesses. That may be a defensible position, but it’s a tough case to make fifty-three years after President Eisenhower cited serious strategic imperatives in cutting off diplomatic ties with the nearby island-nation. Much has happened in those fifty-three years, and any defense of those old policies must take into account the utterly changed world we have today in comparison to the dark days of the Cold War.

Rubio, in issuing his plaintive cry in the Wall Street Journalagainst what he considers an indefensible action based upon a “lie,” makes no effort to place his objection into the context of the world as it actually exists today. As a result, his commentary takes on the appearance of a tantrum—fierce and emotional, but lacking rigor.

He writes that Obama’s action has “endangered Americans,” but offers no credible argument for how this is true. Such an action would have endangered America during the Cold War, when Cuba was aligned with the Soviet Union and offered that mortal enemy of the West opportunities to thrust the United States into a defensive posture in its own hemisphere, even as it sought to protect Western Europe from 1.3 million Soviet and Soviet-client troops poised menacingly on Europe’s Western frontier.

Those days are gone, thanks to the resolve mustered by America and the West when it really mattered. But now the Soviet successor, today’s Russian Federation, possesses no global reach, no ability to overrun Europe, and no threatening ties to any nations in America’s near abroad, including Cuba. So why should the United States maintain a Cold War stance toward Cuba when there are no Cold War threats?

The Best Years to Invade America Are 2015 and 2028

That’s when the U.S. Navy will be weakest

If you’re a major world power, a megalomaniacal trillionaire with a private navy or some seagoing alien race, the best years to invade the United States will be 2015 and 2028.

Because those are the years the U.S. Navy—the main protector of America’s sovereignty—will be weakest, according to the sailing branch’s latest fleet plan.

Today the Navy has 288 combat vessels—by far the biggest and most powerful naval force in the world. But with China and Russia both improving their own navies, Washington wants to grow the fleet to an average of 306 warships through the 2040s … by building more vessels andkeeping existing ships longer.

But before the fleet grows, it’s actually going to shrink by four vessels in 2015. That’s because next year, older warships will decommission faster than new ships float out of the country’s shipyards.

With 284 vessels, the Navy will be as small as it’s going to get for a good long time, assuming today’s plan holds.

But overall ship numbers are arguably less important than the precise mixof ships. So a smart invader might want to wait until 2028 to launch an attack on American shores, because 14 years from now is when the Navy’s attack submarine fleet will probably decline to a modern low.

Swift, silent and heavily-armed, the Navy’s nuclear-powered attack subs are by far its, and America’s, most powerful weapons for high-tech warfare. A single nuclear submarine can sink several attacking ships far from shore and also pummel ground targets with cruise missiles before slipping away at great depth.

At top—USS Florida. Above—USS North Dakota. Navy photos

Obama’s Grand Reset

BY LEE SMITH

DEC 29, 2014, VOL. 20, NO. 16

Last week’s announcement that the White House intends to restore normal diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba is part of Barack Obama’s larger project to overturn what he perceives to be wrongheaded, or at least outdated, foreign policies. From Obama’s perspective, the Cold War ended nearly a quarter of a century ago, so let’s catch up to the new reality.

For President Obama, amelioriating this country’s relations with Russia, Iran, and now Cuba amounts to a Grand Reset, a reevaluation of America’s position in a post-Cold War world. However, it’s not clear that either the president or his administration really understands what the Cold War was all about.

According to the White House press release last week: “Decades of U.S. isolation of Cuba have failed to accomplish our objective of empowering Cubans to build an open and democratic country.” That is true, but of course the main obstacle to that empowerment lies not in Washington but in Havana. As many critics of the White House’s about-face on Cuba have noted, the infusion of cash from remittances and tourism alone is tantamount to a bailout of the Castro regime. In other words, normalized relations with a repressive ruling clique are no more likely to empower the Cuban people than the embargo.

However, it is important to remember that the original purpose of the embargo was not simply to empower the Cuban people. Rather, the larger purpose was to protect Americans.

In the wake of World War II, the United States became a global power largely in response to the Soviet Union’s designs in Europe and around the world. The continental United States spread from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, and thanks to the defeat of the Axis and a blue-water Navy, Washington enjoyed hegemony in both, with key trading partners in Western Europe and Asia. The U.S. role was to protect those allies and thereby ensure growth, prosperity, and peace at home.

What threatened those pillars of postwar peace and stability was the Soviet Union, an expansionist power driven by a totalitarian ideology that reduced mankind to its lowest common denominator—want. However, what transformed the Soviet Union into a global threat wasn’t communism, or even the Red Army. Rather, it was Moscow’s nuclear arsenal that compelled the United States to fight or wage proxy battles on four continents for nearly five decades. Cuba was a problem not simply because of the Castro regime and its efforts to spread revolution throughout Latin America, but because it was the satellite of a nuclear-armed superpower, one that decided to base missiles there in 1962. Cuba was the means by which the Soviets brought the threat of a nuclear attack to our doorstep, a mere 90 miles from Florida.

This is the Cold War lesson apparently lost on Obama. If you believe the embargo was a failure, then it means you do not understand its original purpose—to push back against an expansionist totalitarian regime that threatened America at home. The administration’s Middle East policy is further evidence that Obama does not understand how nuclear weapons can turn even the sickliest regime into a destabilizing threat.

The White House believes that bringing Iran in from the cold, and even partnering with Tehran in Iraq and Syria to fight the Islamic State, will help normalize the regime. Then Washington will be able to cold-bloodedly balance Iran against traditional U.S. allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia. Moreover, a “normalized” Iran will allow the White House to continue to draw down in the Middle East, a region that seems to have little love for Americans no matter how much blood we shed or money we spend—and one that from Obama’s perspective has never done him anything but political harm.

Russia’s Annual Hide-and-Seek Game As Russian Teens Try to Avoid Draft

Peter Pomerantsev 

December 21, 2014 

Dodging The Draft, Russian Style 

Every April and October the color khaki seems to suddenly sprout on the streets as bands of young soldiers appear in the cities; skinny, in uniforms either too large or small, with pinched red noses and red ears, scowling at the Maybachs and gold-leaf restaurants.

They hang around at the entrances of metro stations where the warm air gusts up from the underground, shiver while sucking on tepid beer on street corners of major thoroughfares. They come shuffling up stairs and knocking on apartment doors and stalk through parks.

It’s the time of year of Russia’s great annual hide and seek. The soldiers have been given orders to catch young men dodging the draft and force them to join the army. Military service might be mandatory for healthy males between eighteen and twenty-seven, but anyone who can avoids it.

The most common way out is a medical certificate. Some play mad, spending a month at a psychiatric clinic. Their mothers will bring them in. “My son is psychologically disturbed,” they will say. “He has been threatening me with violence, he wakes up crying.”

The doctors of course know they are pretending and the bribe to stay a month in a loony bin will set you back thousands of dollars. You will never be forced to join up again—the mad are not trusted with guns—but you will also have a certificate of mental illness hanging over you for the rest of your career.

Other medical solutions are more short term: a week in the hospital with a supposedly injured hand or back. This will have to be repeated every year and annually the hospitals fill up with pimply youths simulating illness.

But the medical route takes months of preparation: finding the right doctor, the right ailment—because the ailments that can get you off change all the time. You turn up at the military center with the little stamped registration card that your mother has spent months organizing and saving for, then find that this year flat feet or shortsightedness are no longer a legal excuse.

If you’re at a university you avoid military service (or rather you fulfill it with tame drills at the faculty) until you graduate. There is no greater stimulus for seeking a higher education and Russian males take on endless master’s degree programs until their late twenties.

And if you’re not good enough to make it into college? Then you must bribe your way into an institution. There are dozens of new universities that have opened in part to service the need to avoid the draft. And the possibility of the draft makes dropping out of college much more dangerous—the army will snap you up straightaway.

For the poorer young men, it’s hide and seek time.

When the bad marks come in, mothers start to fret and scream at their sons to work harder. And when they can see the boys might fail, it’s time to pay another bribe, to make sure they pass the year.

Putin: 230 Foreign Spies Identified in Russia This Year

December 21, 2014

Putin notes growth in foreign intelligence activity in Russia

MOSCOW, December 20. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has noted a growth in activities of foreign special services in Russia.

“Extreme composure and mobilization is demanded from the counterintelligence units,” Putin said at a gala night marking Day of Security Service Officers on Saturday. “Activity of foreign special services working on Russia is on the rise since only the counterintelligence service alone has exposed 230 employees and agents of foreign intelligence.”

The head of state underscored that protection of the state border should be in the focus of attention.

“The Foreign Intelligence Service is faced with a broad range of tasks, first of all prognosis and analysis of possible risks and threats, along with assessment of the current and probable development of key international events,” Putin said.

Also, he said words of gratitude to officers of the Federal Guard Service for their strenuous work while ensuring security for visitors and athletes at the Sochi Winter Olympics and Paralympics.

Egyptian Suez Canal Officials Gets 10 Year Prison Sentence for Spying for Israel

Al Jazeera

December 21, 2014

Egypt jails Suez Canal official for espionage

The shipping manager passed on information about movements of Egyptian and foreign warships [EPA]

An Egyptian court has jailed a Suez Canal shipping services manager for 10 years on charges of spying for Israel about naval movements through the strategic waterway, state media has reported.

The court in the canal city of Port Said also handed down life sentences in absentia to two Israelis it found guilty of being the Egyptian’s handlers, the official MENA news agency reported late on Saturday.

The court found that Mohamed Ali Abdel Baki had passed on information damaging to national security about the movements of Egyptian and foreign warships, particularly Iranian ones.

Abdel Baki had also divulged detailed information to his handlers about Port Said and its management, the court heard.

He had first made contact with the Israeli security services over the internet in 2011 and met the two Israelis convicted of being his handlers at the embassy in Bangkok the following year.

Is Hawaii a Spy’s Paradise?

December 21, 2014

Hawaii prime target of foreign governments seeking US intelligence

HONOLULU - With its strategic location in the Pacific and substantial military assets, Hawaii has been a prime target of foreign governments seeking U.S. intelligence, something FBI Director James Comey acknowledged on a recent trip to the state.

The way to stop intelligence breaches, Comey said Dec. 12, is to “know your people” and “who has access to what,” and then, when someone “goes bad,” respond aggressively and “lock some people up for a long period of time.”

Retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and civilian contractor Benjamin Pierce Bishop was sentenced on Sept. 18, 2014, to seven years in federal prison on espionage charges after he confessed to taking home top-secret government documents and sending an email to his Chinese girlfriend that included details about a classified meeting with officials from the U.S. and South Korea

Army Intelligence Officer Seivirak Inson, who worked at the U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii, was convicted in June 2013 by a military jury on charges related to illegally passing classified national defense information to the Cambodian government between 2009 and 2013.

Hawaii resident Noshir Gowadia was sentenced in Jan. 2011 to 32 years in federal prison for 14 charges related to selling B-2 bomber design secrets to China.

Edward Snowden, a government contractor in Hawaii with Booz Allen Hamilton, provided NSA documents to journalists at the Guardian and The Washington Post beginning in June 2013, exposing U.S. spy operations.

Comey said he is concerned that in the wake of Snowden’s “so called revelations,” Americans “healthy skepticism” of government powers will turn to cynicism.

“I think Americans should be skeptical of government power, our country was built by people who were,” Comey said. “What I worry about in the wake of some of the reporting about Snowden’s stuff was that would bleed over to cynicism. That worries me, because I think people should ask me hard questions about my authorities, but give me the space and time to answer, because I think there is an angel in those details,” Comey said.

Is South Africa’s First Russian-Made Spy Satellite Now in Orbit?

Stephen Clark

December 21, 2014

Russian-built spy satellite rockets out of underground silo

A Strela rocket soars from an underground missile silo Friday at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. View more launch photos below the story. Credit: Roscosmos

A Strela rocket carrying a Russian-built radar surveillance satellite built for an undisclosed foreign customer sprung out of an underground silo in Kazakhstan and fired into orbit Friday.

The Kondor E spacecraft will look down on Earth, peering through clouds to collect high-resolution imagery around the clock, according to NPO Mashinostroyenia, the satellite’s Moscow-based manufacturer.

The 115-ton Strela launcher — a modified Soviet-era SS-19 ballistic missile — blasted out of an underground launch tube at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 0443 GMT Friday (11:43 p.m. EST), the Russian Federal Space Agency said in a press statement.

Roscosmos declared the launch successful in a posting on its website.

“At the appointed time, the spacecraft cleanly separated from the booster stage and (was) transferred to the control of the customer,” Roscosmos said.

Tracking data from the U.S. Air Force’s Space Surveillance Network indicated the Strela rocket placed the Kondor E spacecraft into orbit approximately 300 miles above Earth. The orbit is inclined at an angle of 74.7 degrees to the equator, according to publicly available tracking information.

The launch was delayed one day for technical reasons, according to Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency.

Russian news reports said the satellite was built for a foreign customer, but Russian officials did not specify the end user of the spacecraft.

Artist’s concept of a Kondor E satellite in orbit. Credit: NPO Mashinostroyenia

Prelude to a Purge: Critical 1973 PFIAB Report That Led to a Purge of CIA’s Clandestine Service

December 21, 2014

Memorandum From the Chairman of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (Anderson) to President Nixon

Washington, February 20, 1973.

In accordance with your directions, your Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board conducted, and has recently completed, an exhaustive examination here and abroad of U.S. capabilities in the field of human source collection of foreign positive intelligence. An ad hoc committee consisting of Gordon Gray, Chairman; Dr. William O. Baker, and Governor Nelson Rockefeller was empaneled by the Board to coordinate the study.

The purpose of this memorandum is to inform you of our principal conclusions. A much more comprehensive and extremely sensitive report is available should you wish to review our findings in detail. Although there are some gaps, the U.S. human intelligence effort against non-Communist countries is considered to be generally effective. This is not the case with Communist targets, particularly in respect to the plans and intentions of these nations. [5 lines not declassified] As a result, [less than 1 line not declassified] human intelligence suffer from a lack of central direction, coordinated effort, defined doctrine, and clear responsibilities. We believe that attention from the Office of the President is necessary to make the best use of the several components of the government involved in human intelligence and to give their activities the cohesiveness which they sorely need.

Among the other elements which have hindered our penetrating the high level of Communist governments are an excessive bureaucratization of the CIA Clandestine Service; an overburdening of the Clandestine Service with collection and reporting of information which could be done as well overtly by the Foreign Service and other elements of the American diplomatic establishment abroad; and the general ineffectiveness of the Defense Attaché system, resulting largely from spotty personnel selection, training, and assignment procedures. A qualitatively-improved Defense Attaché system would [less than 1 line not declassified] result in better overt intelligence [2 lines not declassified]. One of the most glaring deficiencies is the almost total void in the clandestine collection of foreign positive intelligence within the highly favorable operating environment of the United States. [4 lines not declassified] However, there are more than a thousand other officials of Communist countries permanently assigned in the United States who, because they are not known or suspected to be intelligence officers, are not subject to recruitment efforts. In addition to the need for rectifying this specific situation, collaboration between the FBI and the CIA, which has been at best meager for the last several years, must be reinstituted in both the positive and counterintelligence fields as a matter of priority.

A Look At North Korea's Cyberwar Capabilities

By YOUKYUNG LEE 

19/12/2014

Source Link

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Most North Koreans have never seen the Internet.

But the country Washington suspects is behind a devastating hack on Sony Pictures Entertainment has managed to orchestrate a string of crippling cyber infiltrations of South Korean computer systems in recent years, officials in Seoul believe, despite North Korea protesting innocence.

Experts say the Sony Pictures hack may be the costliest cyberattack ever inflicted on an American business. The fallout from the hack that exposed a trove of sensitive documents, and this week escalated to threats of terrorism, forced Sony to cancel release of the North Korean spoof movie "The Interview." The studio's reputation is in tatters as embarrassing revelations spill from tens of thousands of leaked emails and other company materials.

Despite widespread poverty, malnutrition and decades of crippling U.S.-led economic sanctions, Pyongyang has poured resources into training thousands of hackers who regularly target bitter rival Seoul.

A look at the country's suspected capabilities and where experts believe the authoritarian nation is heading with its cyber program:

—NORTH KOREA'S CYBERARMY

South Korea's former spy chief and a North Korean defector put the number of professional hackers at between 1,000 and 3,000. These numbers from Seoul's intelligence agency in 2010 and a leaked North Korean government document from 2009, which contained an order from late leader Kim Jong Il, may be outdated. But they agree that North Korea trains hackers at top schools to launch attacks on cyberspace mostly targeted at South Korea.

Defector Kim Heung Kwang said he trained student hackers at a university in the industrial North Korean city of Hamhung for two decades before defecting in 2003. Hackers also are sent to study abroad in China and Russia.

HP Security Briefing, episode 16 - Profiling an enigma: North Korea’s cyber threat landscape

HPSR-FI_Team

August 27, 2014 

Source Link

In this Security Briefing, we discuss the cyber-landscape inside the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), known in the West as North Korea, and into how that nation pursues its military agenda online. You can listen to this episode of the HP Security Briefing podcast on the Web or via iTunes, and you can read or download the detailed companion report here.

North Korea has a military-focused society and an unconventional technology infrastructure. Due to North Korea’s hostility toward other nations, its pursuit of nuclear weapons, and its human rights violations against its own citizens, the United Nations and many Western entities have placed sanctions and embargoes against North Korea. That said, the nation has continued its tradition of asymmetric warfare into the age of the Internet, with a remarkable commitment to developing cyber warfare capabilities even as it copes with aging infrastructure.

While those capabilities are of particular interest from a national security perspective, available intelligence on this topic is limited due to the nature of North Korea’s Internet infrastructure and the regime’s strict control over its use. This security briefing takes a look at North Korea’s known cyber-capabilities and how the country maintains secrecy in these matters.

Due to North Korea’s global interactions, its cyber warfare capabilities are of particular interest to the U.S. According to a 2009 report, North Korean hackers have successfully penetrated U.S. defense networks more frequently than any other country that has targeted those assets. While one would expect the regime’s digital infrastructure to suffer from aging or lack of resources, these factors do not take away from its technical abilities to wage cyber warfare.

While the U.S. views North Korea’s cyber warfare program as the regime’s foray into modern asymmetrical warfare, its neighbor to the south views those cyber capabilities as a terroristic threat -- preparations for a multifaceted attack, one that will happen sooner rather than later. Over the past two years alone, South Korea estimates that the North has nearly doubled the number of personnel trained and tasked with carrying out cyberattacks. It is of particular interest that much of North Korea’s cyber activity coincides with the annual U.S. – South Korea joint military exercises. Attacks not following that pattern were typically in response to political events impacting the regime or correlated with significant dates, such as the anniversary of the start of the Korean War. Our report digs into attacks that have taken place to date and how they were carried out.

With Virtually No Connectivity to the Internet, North Korea Not Very Vulnerable to Cyber Attack

Andrea Peterson

December 19, 2014

North Korea barely has the Internet. And that could be good defense in a cyberwar

The U.S. government on Friday publicly named North Korea as the culprit in a destructive cyberattack against Sony Pictures Entertainment. But what exactly the United States can do about it is unclear, especially if the government wants to launch a counter cyberattack against the secretive nation. 

The international legal framework guiding how the United States could respond to a cyberattack is largely untested, leaving the White House a limited number of options. North Korea is already diplomatically and economically isolated, so fresh sanctions probably wouldn’t have much of an affect. And now the hackers claiming credit for the attack have told Sony executives that they won’t release more of the company’s stolen documents as long “The Interview,” a Sony-backed comedy depicting an assassination attempt against Kim Jong Un, stays out of theaters, according to CNN.

If the United States were to respond in the same domain of the original attack — in cyberspace — it may face an uphill battle. Going “online” in North Korea is more like visiting an information cul de sac than an information superhighway. While select government officials and other elite citizens have the ability to connect to the global Internet, common citizens are limited to a domestic network called the Kwangmyong, which serves as a sort of national intranet. The network is said to allow access to state media and other information vetted by the government. 

This lack of interconnectivity limits the spread of information about the rest of the world inside North Korea. It also serves as a form of defense in the event of cyberattacks. 

"North Korea’s hermit infrastructure creates a cyber-terrain that deters reconnaissance," an HP Security briefing noted earlier this year. “Today North Korea’s air-gapped networks and prioritization of resources for military use provide both a secure and structured base of operations for cyber operations and a secure means of communications.” 

And even as the secluded nation has limited its own risk to cyberattacks, it has heavily invested in the creation of an offensive cyber force — the most prominent being “Bureau 121,” a sophisticated cell of cyber warriors said to be hand-picked out of the nation’s technical university programs. A recent report from Reuters quoted a North Korean defector who pegged the size of the group at roughly 1,800 strong. 

Experts say they believe countries like North Korea often choose to pursue strong hacker forces because of the relative low cost of maintaining capabilities, the ease of denying responsibility for attacks they carry out, and the asymmetric nature of attacking online. For hackers to win, they only need to breach a system once, but defenders must deflect every thrust to stay ahead of their adversaries. 

Time for Europe to Get Strategic in Its Arms Exports to Asia

By Thomas Paulsen and Janka Oertel

December 21, 2014

‘It is high time that Germany and Europe strategically tackled the security policy challenges they face in the Far East.’ 

Asia, the world’s most dynamic economic region, is facing heightened security-related tensions. China is expressing increasing confidence in its territorial disputes and is gradually expanding its influence in the South and East China Sea. Japan is attempting to free itself from the confines of its former security policy and significantly expand the scope and geographic reach of its armed forces. Throughout Asia, nations that can afford to do so are investing heavily in their military capabilities. Over the last decade, China has tripled its military spending; Indonesia has doubled its defense budget; and India has become the world’s largest importer of arms. In short, the threat of an arms race looms large over the region. The situation is sustained by the financial capabilities the region amassed through years of continued economic growth. The risk of military conflict in Asia is rising, whether unintended or because a government in the region believes a particular red line has been crossed.

The sheer size of the Asian economies and the potential disruption to vital trade routes and supply chains means that a war in Asia would be devastating for the global economy. Although Europe would be severely affected by conflict in the region, neither the EU nor individual European countries currently play a relevant role in Asian security policy. Apparently, the skirmishes taking place over Far Eastern rocks and reefs are too distant to be of any particular bearing. Instead, the EU remains focused on the pressing problems in its immediate neighborhood. Consequently, the current climate might imply that there is no role for Europe in Asian security policy. There is a consensus within the European political class that a European military presence in Asia or intervention in the region’s security policy remains out of the question.

This stance is at odds with the fact that Asia has become one of the main markets for the European defense industry: the current trade volume with Asia is worth billions. Given the fact that defense budgets across Europe are declining, many companies view the Asian export market as a chance to maintain their manufacturing capabilities and compensate for shrinking revenues from Europe. European companies – particularly but not only from the “big three” of Germany, France and Britain – supply arms to virtually every Asian country: Indonesia and Singapore buy tanks, Singapore and Korea submarines, and India receives sophisticated fighter aircraft. European arms exports range from individual assault rifles and radar technology to complex weapon systems, self-propelled artillery, and attack helicopters. Even China receives an astonishing amount of dual-use technology from Europe, despite the current arms embargo.

European arms sales to Asia thus mean that Europe has been involved in Asia’s on-going “Great Game” for a long time. But Europe remains in denial.

It’s Time for the U.S. Military to Leave South Korea

Seoul can defend itself

Imagine you possess the 15th-largest economy in the world. You have world-class cars and consumer goods, glittering streets and a lifestyle as good as any in the industrialized world.

Now, imagine you are being threatened by a hostile country one third as wealthy as Ethiopia.

Ethiopia.

In order to protect yourself from this economic juggernaut, you require the presence of nearly 30,000 American troops, the overpowering might of the U.S. nuclear arsenal and an American general to take charge in case this mighty opponent attacks.

Laughable, right? Not at all. Welcome to South Korea.

It’s time for the United States to leave the Korean peninsula. South Korea can defend itself.

Before the Korean War, the North was a relatively prosperous place, with the majority of the peninsula’s heavy industry and enormous mineral and timber wealth. South Korea was agrarian and poor.

In the six decades since the Korean War ended, the economies of North and South Korea have changed. Dramatically.

In 2012, South Korea’s GDP was $1.7 trillion. Per capita GDP for the South’s 50 million people was $32,400 in 2013.

North Korea, by contrast, has become spectacularly poor. GDP is a paltry $40 billion—$1,800 for each of 25 million people. North Korea is the world’s182nd economy by GDP, poorer even than Ethiopia, Guatemala and Cuba.

By 2012, the South Korean economy was 41 times larger than North Korea’s.

At top—a South Korean K-1 tank. Photo via Wikipedia. Above—North Korean T-55 tanks. Photo via Business Insider

The military balance

9 Misguided Reasons To Go Through Special Operations Forces Selection

Andrew Steadman

December 19, 2014

There’s really only one reason to apply for SOF, and one that the evaluators are specifically screening for.

Editor’s Note: This article has been modified from its original version, which was published on “The Military Leader,” a blog by Andrew Steadman.

Whether you’re battling the crashing waves on Coronado Beach, slogging out mile after mile in the sugar sands of Fort Bragg, or trudging your way up and down the deceptively steep Appalachian Mountains, attending selection for one of America’s elite special operations force units is a gauntlet of physical and mental endurance.

The fitness demands exceed what you could have hoped to train for. You face each day not knowing which of your professional (and personal) talents you’ll be called upon to validate. Your career ambitions, and often your life’s goal, rest on the assessment of special operators who have forgotten more about combat than you’ll ever know.

But if you make it through, if they accept you, you’re set. You’re on the team! You can go no higher. And can brag for the rest of your life about how you were “one of them,” earning instant respect in any circle.

…Right?

Selection is full of people who think that making the roster is the hardest step, when in fact, it’s the very, very beginning. The intense specialty training that follows, then the operational tempo that today’s target-rich environment demands, makes selection look like a vacation.

Every day is a test to stay in special operations forces, to improve skills that were perfected years ago, to maintain fitness for any fight in any environment, to envision solutions for unknown tactical challenges to come. SOF units rest their success on the tenet that one must continually verify the skills required to win.

Operators have a phrase that endures their tenure: “Selection never stops.”

So, “because life will be a lot easier” is not a good reason to try out for SOF. And in an effort to stir a little introspection for those interested in taking the walk, here are a few other reasons that should not be driving factors in one’s quest to join the ranks of the elite:

1. To validate your personal or professional worth.

China Has 10 Separate and Distinct Special Forces Units

December 21, 2014

The PLA’s special forces: secrets revealed

Soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army’s special operations forces undergo training. 

China’s state media has recently confirmed that the People’s Liberation Army, the largest military force in the world, has 10 major special operations forces, each with its own unique characteristics and code names.

The 10 special force teams hail from each of the PLA’s seven military regions and commando teams from the PLA Navy, Air Force and Chinese People’s Armed Police Forces.

"Siberian Tiger" is the name of the special forces from the PLA’s Shenyang Military Region, capable of completing missions on the ground and in the air and water, as well as surviving in the wilderness alone or in small groups. The unit is said to place special focus on survival skills, often breaking protocols by increasing this training in this area by an additional two-thirds, forcing soldiers to spend three to four months in difficult environments such as forests, mountains, deserts and grasslands with no man-made shelter or food. Soldiers in the squad are trained across multiple transport vehicles for roads, railroads, waterways and in the air, and have reportedly completed completed parachute landings more than 5,000 times and logged scuba diving trainings at more than 1,000 hours.

"Arrow," formerly known as "Divine Sword," is the special forces of the Beijing Military Region. This elite unit tasked with protecting the capital contains 3,000 soldiers, each of whom is adept at a wide range of tasks ranging from battlefield reconnaisance to anti-terrorism. Every soldier from this unit must be able to run five kilometers bearing heavy equipment in under 25 minutes, complete a 400-meter obstacle course in under one minute and 45 seconds, throw several hundred grenades over at least 50 meters each time, and perform 100 push-ups in a minute.

The special forces of the Lanzhou Military Region is the “Night Tiger,” which has a long and illustrious history with its origins dating back to World War II. It is also home of China’s first counter-terrorism unit, established in 2000.

Established in 1992, the “Flying Dragon” is the special forces of the Nanjing Military Region, focusing on non-traditional safety training methods. In 1997, this unit carried out a famous simulated attack on a hidden airfield involving drones, helicopters and paratroopers.

"South Blade" is belongs to the Guangzhou Military Region. Founded in 1988, it is the earliest of the PLA’s official special operations forces. Basic training for this unit include cross-country running, climbing, swimming and shooting, though soldiers must also be familiar with operating 15 advanced technologies including GPS navigation, night vision, and photo reconnaisance.

Obama: We're not at cyberwar with North Korea

http://fortune.com/2014/12/21/why-cyber-warfare-is-so-attractive-to-small-nations/

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/12/21/obama-cnn-hack-attack-north-korea-sony/20723053/

The United States is not at cyber war with North Korea, President Obama said in an interview broadcast Sunday, and will "respond proportionately" as he accused that nation of the hack attack on Sony Pictures.

David Jackson, USA TODAY 

President Obama called the attack on Sony an "act of cyber terrorism."(Photo: J. Scott Applewhite, AP)

The United States is not at cyberwar with North Korea, President Obama said in an interview broadcast Sunday, and will "respond proportionately" as he accused that nation of the hack attack on Sony Pictures.
"I don't think it was an act of war," Obama said on CNN's State of the Union. "I think it was an act of cyber vandalism that was very costly, very expensive. We take it very seriously. We will respond proportionately, as I said."
Obama also said the United States will look at returning North Korea to the list of states that sponsor terrorism. The George W. Bush administration removed it from that list in 2008 amid nuclear negotiations.
"We've got very clear criteria as to what it means for a state to sponsor terrorism," Obama said. "And we don't make those judgments just based on the news of the day. We look systematically at what's been done and based on those facts, we'll make those determinations in the future."
CNN taped the interview on Friday (before the Saturday shooting deaths of two police officers in New York City).
Critics of the president said he is underestimating the cyber threat from North Korea and other places.
"It's more than vandalism," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., also speaking on CNN. "It's a new form of warfare that we're involved in, and we need to react and react vigorously."
As he did during a news conference on Friday, Obama criticized Sony executives for canceling the release of The Interview, the satirical film about North Korea that prompted threats and the motive for the hacking. The plot of the Seth Rogen-James Franco comedy involves an assassination of North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un.

Video Keywords President Obama movie companies theatrical release censorshipNorth Korea Korea Haiti United States

On the heels of Obama's pointed comments, Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton gave his first television interview to CNN, saying "We have not caved. We have not given in." VPC

Video Transcript

Automatically Generated Transcript (may not be 100% accurate)

North Korea has denied any involvement in the hacking.
Sony executives said they were disappointed in Obama's comments, saying they reacted to the concerns of theater owners who feared a terrorist attack if they showed the movie.
Asked about the criticism, Obama said he sympathized with Sony's business considerations. The president said he wished Sony had talked to him, and "I might have called the movie theater chains and distributors and asked them what that story was."
Pulling the film undermined the principle of free speech, Obama said.
"We believe in the right of artistic expression and things that powers that be might not like," Obama said.
The United States should not engage in self-censorship, Obama said, and the Sony incident could have ramifications for the news business. He noted that CNN itself has done critical stories on North Korea.
"What happens if, in fact, there is a breach in CNN's, you know, cyberspace?" Obama said. "Are we going to suddenly say, well, we'd better not report on North Korea?"
On other issues, Obama told CNN:
• The decision to normalize relations with Cuba gives the United States a better chance to push the communist nation toward democracy than the half-century of economic isolation has done.
"If we engage," the president said, "we have the opportunity to influence the course of events at a time when there's going to be some generational change in that country. And I think we should seize it and I intend to do so."
Some Republicans and other critics said Obama is providing benefits to Cuba without getting much in return.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said on CBS's Face The Nation that Raul Castro's government in Cuba is "going to arrest people today. They arrested people yesterday. They're going to continue to crack down on opposition in the island."
• He still hopes to close the terrorist prison at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by the end of his presidency on Jan. 20, 2017, saying Gitmo "is something that continues to inspire jihadists and extremists around the world."
• That critics of his foreign policy don't see the long view, using the suddenly struggling Russian President Vladimir Putin as an example.
Not long ago, "there was a spate of stories about how he is the chess master and outmaneuvering the West and outmaneuvering Mr. Obama and this and that and the other," Obama said. "And right now, he's presiding over the collapse of his currency, a major financial crisis and a huge economic contraction — that doesn't sound like somebody who has rolled me or the United States of America."
One of his critics, McCain, told CNN that Putin's problems are due to the fall in oil prices, and the subsequent drop in the value of the ruble, and even those have not curbed Russian aggression in neighboring Ukraine.
• His unique background — the son of a black father and white mother who lived in Indonesia when he was young — gives him unique insight into the nation's racial challenges.
"I've got a lot of cultural influences," Obama said, and "I assume the best rather than the worst in others. But it also makes me mindful of the fact that there's misunderstanding, there's mistrust and there are biases both overt and sometimes hidden that operate in ways that disadvantage minority communities."
Responding to critics who say he's been too reticent, Obama said: "I've seen change in my own life. So has this country. And those who would deny that, I think, actually foreclose the possibility of further progress rather than advancing it."

Pak plans counselling for traumatised children

Dec 22 2014 

Source Link

Pictures of victims of attack on Army Public School are displayed at the gate of the school in Peshawar on Sunday. Reuters

Pakistan authorities have planned counselling sessions on post traumatic stress management for hundreds of children who survived the school massacre here that killed 148 people, mostly students, a report said today.

According to an official statement, therapy sessions will be held with students, their families and teachers, to help them recover from the shock of the bloodbath perpetrated by the Taliban.

The ministry has set up a committee comprising members from mental health and non-communicable disease coordination cell of the health ministry, Army Medical Crops, psychiatrists from Islamabad and Peshawar, WHO collaborating centre and UNICEF.

The counselling facility will also be offered to students of other schools of the country in the second phase.

Another objective of the committee is to develop strategy to mitigate effects of the incident through media, it said. The plan would be finalised by the ministry by tomorrow in consultation with WHO and others.

“The army team which has been carrying out rehabilitation activities in Army Public School, Peshawar, contacted the NHS ministry and sought counselling facility for the traumatised children and families,” Assad Hafeez, the executive director, Health Services Academy said. — PTI

‘Coral bleaching in Pacific may become worst die-off in 20 years’

KARL MATHIESEN

December 22, 2014 

Scientists warn extreme sea temperatures could cause a “historic” coral reef die-off around the world over the coming months, following a massive coral bleaching already under way in the North Pacific. Experts said the coral die-off could be the worst in nearly two decades.

Reports of severe bleaching have been accumulating in the inbox of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Coral Reef Watch programme since July.

A huge swathe of the Pacific has already been affected, including the Northern Marianas Islands, Guam, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Hawaii, Kiribati and Florida. Some areas have recorded serious bleaching for the first time.

“On a global scale it’s a major bleaching event. What it may be is the beginning of a historic event,” said Coral Reef Watch coordinator Dr. Mark Eakin.

Thermal stress

In the Marshall Islands, bleaching of unprecedented severity is suspected to have hit most of the country’s 34 atolls and islands. The Guardian witnessed devastated expanses of coral that look like forests covered with snow. Warm water will soon begin hitting reefs in the southern Pacific and the Indian Ocean as the seasons and currents shift. Dr. Eakin said coral watch modelling predicts bleaching on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef as early as January. Bleaching is caused by persistent increases in sea surface temperature. Just 1°C of warming lasting a week or more can be enough to cause long-term breakdown of reef ecosystems.

The worst coral bleaching event on record is a mass die-off during 1998. A massive El Niño event combined with climate change to raise global sea and air temperatures to never-before-recorded levels and killed around 15 per cent of the world’s corals.

2014 has already surpassed 1998 as the hottest year recorded — with a mild El Niño still predicted in the new year.

Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a coral reef expert from the University of Queensland, said the current bleaching event was on track to be as bad or worse than 1998.