6 Chinese Men Charged With Economic Espionage in US

By Franz-Stefan Gady

May 20, 2015

http://thediplomat.com/2015/05/6-chinese-men-charged-with-economic-espionage-in-us/

What will be Beijing’s response? 

Yesterday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Francisco, in consultation with the U.S. Justice Department’s counterespionage section, charged six Chinese citizens– including two Chinese professors – with economic espionage and theft of trade secrets, and conspiracy to commit economic espionage and theft of trade secrets.

“According to the charges in the indictment, the defendants leveraged their access to and knowledge of sensitive U.S. technologies to illegally obtain and share U.S. trade secrets with the [People’s Republic of China] for economic advantage,” Assistant Attorney General John Carlin, head of the national security division told theWashington Post.

One of the defendants, professor Hao Zhang, 36, was arrested last Saturday at Los Angeles International Airport. He had been invited to deliver a lecture at a conference. The other five co-conspirators, including professor Wei Pang, 35, are believed to be still in China.

Have China and Russia Agreed Not to Attack Each Other in Cyberspace?

By Franz-Stefan Gady

May 20, 2015

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Probably not, as one expert recently told The Diplomat. 

This month, China and Russia signed a memorandum stipulating that the two countries would not conduct cyberattacks against each other and that they also would jointly thwart technology that could potentially ”destabilize the internal political and socio-economic atmosphere,” “disturb public order” or “interfere with the internal affairs of the state,” the Wall Street Journalreported.

Additionally, Beijing and Moscow agreed on closer cooperation in combating cybercrime, and joint efforts to improve critical information infrastructure protection in both countries. According to one expert “perhaps 70 percent” of the language in the document has been directly taken from a previous agreement worked out under the auspices of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

China's Master Plan to Become a 'World Manufacturing Power'

By Shannon Tiezzi

May 20, 2015

http://thediplomat.com/2015/05/chinas-master-plan-to-become-a-world-manufacturing-power/

Made in China 2025 outlines a 10-year plan for strengthening China’s manufacturing capabilities. 

China revealed its plan to become a “world manufacturing power” by 2025 on Tuesday. According to Xinhua, the “Made in China 2025” plan, endorsed by Premier Li Keqiang, “is the country’s first action plan focusing on promoting manufacturing.”

It may sound odd that China, often called the “world’s factory” is focusing such high-level attention on strengthening its manufacturing capabilities. But China’s leaders effectively want to move up the supply chain – they want China to become known as a leader in manufacturing innovative technologies. In Li’s words, Beijing wants to go from “Made in China” to “Created in China.”

It will come as no surprise, then, that the plan includes a heavy focus on innovation and technology, two themes that have been heavily promoted by current leadership. Li emphasized the important of fostering innovation in his recent visit to China’s “Silicon Valley.” For Beijing, cutting bureaucratic red tape is one key to unlocking China’s creativity – Li has made this into a personal quest, repeatedly promising to eliminate unnecessary government approvals and streamline the remaining processes.

HOW CHINA’S LAND RECLAMATION FITS IN ITS REGIONAL STRATEGY FOR DOMINANCE

Patrick Cronin

May 20, 2015 

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Some analysts argue that China’s new artificial land formations in the South China Sea are not worth worrying about as they could be easily “taken out” if war broke out. But those who take that view are failing to see how these islands fit intoChina’s slow motion strategy to achieve regional hegemony in the Asia-Pacific.

Since the United States and others throughout the region seek to maximize cooperation with a reemerging China while minimizing conflict, we are caught between a rock and a hard place as to how to handle brash acts of forcefulness such as the creation of artificial islands. China is well on its way to doubling the preexisting land mass in the South China Sea, seeking to make its ambiguous nine-dash-line claim to most of the sea — which, in its most expansive forms, the U.S. government has stated has no basis in international law — a de facto reality. Beijing also refuses to participate in the current case lodged by the Philippines before the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea, thereby calling into question China’s interest in abiding by international law. Australian academic Alan Dupont describes what China is trying to do as terraforming its way to control over the South China Sea. China’s strategic intent may be as simple as a desire to exercise greater capability over its near seas, consistent with its growing power, capability, and confidence and infused by a sense of historical injustice, nationalism, and political exigency.

Meeting the long-term Chinese Challenge

ByBrig. Gurmeet Kanwal

20 May , 2015

http://www.indiandefencereview.com/news/meeting-the-long-term-chinese-challenge/

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President of China Xi Jinping at the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, at Shaanxi Province, in Xi'an, China

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent trip to China was eminently successful – no matter by which yardstick success is measured. It resulted in agreements to facilitate US$ 10 billion Chinese investment in India’s infrastructure, business-to-business deals worth US$ 22 billion and a host of measures to enhance educational, healthcare, cultural and people-to-people contacts, including Visa on arrival for Chinese visitors.

…Modi would have politely but firmly told the Chinese President that the PLA must be reined in and told to stop vitiating the atmosphere by repeatedly launching trans-LAC incidents.

What Did China's Top Graft-Buster Have to Say to Francis Fukuyama?

By Yang Hengjun

May 19, 2015

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Wang Qishan’s conversation with foreign experts reveals a lot about the governing strategies of China’s current leaders. 

On April 23, Wang Qishan, the head of China’s anti-corruption agency, met with three scholars in Zhongnanhai – renowned political scientist Francis Fukuyama, former Citic Securities manager Tatsuhito Tokuchi, and economist Masahiko Aoki. Wang’s remarks, given in a forceful and unconstrained style, revealed much about how the current Chinese administration views governance. Below, I excerpt some passages from Wang’s remarks and add my own comments.

Wang Qishan:

Speaking of the concepts of the nation, the rule of law, and accountability, these three elements are part of China’s historical “DNA,” meaning that Chinese culture has this DNA. First, we need to clarify our own history and civilization – this excellent DNA should play a role in China’s modernization… And the Chinese nation needs to absorb the good aspects of Western culture. China should absorb the admirable pieces of every nation in the world.

Don't Be Fooled: America's ISIS Crisis Is Just Beginning

Steven P. Bucci

May 20, 2015 

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/dont-be-fooled-americas-isis-crisis-just-beginning-12930

While this weekend's targetted killing shows some progress, U.S. forces have a much bigger problem on their hands...

Developments over this last weekend have left many Americans (and many of our allies) wondering about the progress (or lack thereof) of our fight against ISIS. First came news that U.S. Special Operations Forces had conducted a daring raid into Syria, killing a major ISIS leader. Then came word that ISIS had captured the city of Ramadi in Iraq. What does each development mean, and which is more important?

Ramadi is the capital and largest city in the mainly Sunni province of Al Anbar. It was purported to be the place where the Iraqis would turn the tide on ISIS and drive it further to the west, away from Baghdad and eventually out of the country. Instead, ISIS drove what were some of Iraq’s best troops out of the city.

Iran, Israel, and the North Korea Analogy

Paul R. Pillar

May 19, 2015 

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One of the lines of attack against the agreement to limit Iran's nuclear program is to liken it to the case of North Korea, with which the United States and other powers reached a deal in 1994—the so-called “Agreed Framework”—that did not stop North Korea from building and testing nuclear weapons. The most prominent opponent of any agreement with Iran, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been among those who have tried to make this comparison. The comparison ignores many large and important differencesbetween the two cases.

Even just a few of those differences are sufficient to show how misplaced the comparison is. Start with the nature of the regimes involved. Iran, despite its complicated institutional arrangements that constitute departures from full democracy, has a political system in which responsiveness to public demands and expectations matters. The political futures not only of President Rouhani but also of the supreme leader depend in large part on satisfying expectations for economic improvement that could come only from adherence to an agreement with the West that would bring some relief from economic sanctions. In Pyongyang, in contrast, is a family-led band of thugs posing as a government that has had no compunction about pursuing policies that have caused mass starvation among the North Korean population.

Newsflash: Iran's Revolutionary Guards Support the Nuclear Deal

Akbar Ganji

May 20, 2015 

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Contrary to claims in the West, the IRGC will not block a nuclear agreement.

A great myth in the West has always held that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is opposed to any nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1—the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany. Since the Lausanne Accord was announced, neoconservatives and their allies have continued to claim that the high command of the IRGC opposes the agreement, and may even try to scuttle it. This claim is demonstrably false.

After the Geneva interim agreement between the two sides was announced in November 2013, this author opined that the IRGC would not try to scuttle it. As it turned out, Iran kept its commitments to the interim agreement, and—according to numerous reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)—carried out its obligations under the agreement. Thus, now that the Lausanne Accord has been reached, the question again is: will the IRGC block the final agreement, to be signed by the end of June?

I argue once again that the answer to the question is a firm no.

News of the Surreal: Pentagon General Says Iraqi Army Is Winning the War Against ISIS

Bill Roggio

May 18, 2015

‘Strategy to defeat Islamic State is working,’ US Department of Defense claims

This Department of Defense news article (reproduced in full below) on the status of the fight against the Islamic State couldn’t have been more poorly timed. Published on May 15, the same day that the Islamic State overran the government center in Ramadi, the report provides a pollyannaish view from Brigadier General Thomas D. Weidley of the US military’s air campaign and the Iraqi military’s fight against the Islamic State. Weidley is the chief of staff for Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, the US-led coalition that was put together to “defeat and dismantle” the Islamic State.

Weidley described Ramadi as “contested” and claimed that Iraqi forces repelled most attacks in the city when in reality the Islamic State took control of the government center and most neighborhoods in Ramadi by May 15. By May 17, the Islamic State was in full control of Ramadi and overran the Anbar Operations Command and 8th Brigade Headquarters at Camp Ar Ramadi. Iraqi forces are said to be in complete disarray in the Fallujah-Ramadi corridor.

Still Not Ready for Primetime: ‘Elite’ Iraqi Army Units Routed at Ramadi

Mitchell Prothero

May 18, 2015

Elite Iraqi units abandon Ramadi in biggest Islamic State win since Mosul

IRBIL, IRAQ — Iraqi security forces attempting to retake control of the western city of Ramadi were routed in heavy fighting Sunday, the worst defeat for Iraq’s central government since Islamic State militants stormed across the country last June.

In a replay of last year’s military debacle, elite units abandoned their U.S.-provided equipment to Islamic State fighters and fled the area, leaving several hundred soldiers surrounded in the last government-held enclave in the city.

Multiple security sources, none of whom agreed to be identified, speaking from both within the besieged Anbar Operations Center as well as with the units fleeing the city, described the fight for control of the capital of Iraq’s largest province as essentially over after reinforcements sent on Saturday to retake the city were crushed by Islamic State fighters.

Countering ISIS, the Adaptive Enemy

May 18, 2015

The ISIS Defense in Iraq and Syria: Countering an Adaptive Enemy

Some have claimed that ISIS is on the defensive inside Iraq and Syria. A defensive strategy, however, is not a sign of organizational weakness, but rather a sign that ISIS intends to preserve its holdings in Iraq and Syria and keep its claim to a caliphate. ISIS’s defensive strategies include expanding elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa, while also maximizing combat power and future opportunities to launch offensives inside Iraq and Syria. Iraq and Syria are the physical foundation for ISIS’s expanding caliphate.

The U.S. must recognize that its policy of defeating ISIS is insufficient. The U.S. and other anti-ISIS actors are facing a new environment in 2015 in which the underlying assumptions that allowed the U.S. to promote limited wars and surgical counter-terrorism strategies are no longer valid. Policymakers must now make strategic planning decisions assuming that disorder in Syria and the fragility of Iraq’s security will continue into the future. This strategic inflection requires that the U.S. reconcile its policy of defeating ISIS with the absence of a regional policy to stabilize the Middle East region.

Russia Reveals New 'Super' Aircraft Carrier Plans

Zachary Keck

May 19, 2015 

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/russia-reveals-new-aircraft-carrier-plans-12923

Russia has revealed key details of a new supercarrier it plans to build.

In a new interview with IHS Jane’s, Valery Polyakov, the deputy director of Russia's government-owned Krylov State Research Center, the company designing the new carrier, outlined some new details about the ship, which is being billed as Project 23000E or Shtorm (Storm).

According to Polyakov,, the vessel will displace between 90,000 and 100,000 tons, roughly double the size of any carrier Russia has built to date. It will also be 330 meters in length, 40 meters wide, and have a draft of 11 meters. The carrier will have a cruising speed of 20 knots (kt), with a top speed of 30 kt. The vessel will also have an endurance of 120 days and require a crew of between 4,000-5,000 sailors.

Is U.S. Foreign Policy Making Americans Less Safe?

Micah Zenko

May 19, 2015 

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Senior U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials increasingly warn of the threat of “lone wolf” individuals attempting terror attacks within the United States. These potential perpetrators are characterized as externally motivated, but predominantly self-directed in plotting and attempting acts of politically and/or ideologically motivated violence. They need not travel to purported foreign “safe havens” to receive training or guidance, nor be in direct contact with terrorist organizations based abroad. Rather, their inspiration, in large part, appears to stem from the principles and narratives promoted by Islamist jihadist groups.

On February 12, National Counterterrorism Center Director Nicholas Rasmussen told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:

Abandoned: The Kiev Government's Isolation of Eastern Ukrainians

Olena Lennon

May 20, 2015 

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"[W]hen governments strip people of their identity, they create a vacuum that will inevitably be filled with something else, like extremism, religiosity, nationalism, etc."

Growing up in Horlivka, Ukraine, I never took to public holidays. Celebrations of religious holidays seemed too pagan and pretentious, while others lacked a sense of purpose, besides offering an excuse to eat, drink and be merry. Regardless of what many of the holidays commemorated, they did create a sense of culture and social identity—essential to any society’s existence.

The only holiday that seemed to unite everyone was Victory Day on May 9. On this day, not only Ukrainians, but people across the post-Soviet space, commemorate victory in World War II and the “Great Patriotic War,” a term used to describe the war during June 22, 1941 to May 9, 1945 along eastern fronts of World War II fought between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

The Pentagon's South China Sea Overkill

By Greg Austin

May 19, 2015

http://thediplomat.com/2015/05/the-pentagons-south-china-sea-overkill/

The littoral combat ship USS Fort Worth (LCS 3) conducts routine patrols in international waters of the South China Sea near the Spratly Islands in May 2015.

The military edginess that the DoD has been consistently displaying over the South China Sea appears to be overkill. 

Australians woke to the news last Friday that the United States would be sending long-range B-1 strike bomber aircraft to the southern hemisphere country to help deter China’s intentions in the South China Sea. As the Middle East and its people face escalating wars and civil strife, as the world stares down terrorism from Islamic State, and as the world struggles with escalating human trafficking, there was disbelief in Australia. It appeared, on the surface at least, that someone in the Pentagon had his or her priorities wrong.

The story was scotched later in the day, when the Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, said there was no plan for B-1 deployments to the country. The Pentagon recanted and said that the senior official who had made the statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the Wednesday had “misspoken.”

The Truth About Anti-China Discourse in the United States

By Van Jackson

May 19, 2015

http://thediplomat.com/2015/05/the-truth-about-anti-china-discourse-in-the-united-states/

There are some real problems with discourse analysis of this ilk. 

I’ve noticed a pattern of analysts and scholars who, being either sympathetic to Chinese government views or critical of U.S. Asia policy, point to an “anti-China” discourse in U.S. scholarly and policymaking circles. These discourse analyzers express concern that the United States is provoking China and, at the most logical extreme, threatening regional stability. Their concerns are mostly misplaced. Blaming U.S. discourse for Chinese assertiveness would be amusing were it not irresponsible; it alleviates China of any accountability for its own actions.

To the extent that there’s an “anti-China” discourse in U.S. circles, its roots are not inherently with hawkish propensities of U.S. policymakers but with regional and U.S. perceptions of Chinese word and deed.

A Net Assessment of the World

By George Friedman

MAY 19, 2015

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A pretentious title requires a modest beginning. The world has increasingly destabilized and it is necessary to try to state, as clearly as possible, what has happened and why. This is not because the world is uniquely disorderly; it is that disorder takes a different form each time, though it is always complex.

To put it simply, a vast swath of the Eurasian landmass (understood to be Europe and Asia together) is in political, military and economic disarray. Europe and China are struggling with the consequences of the 2008 crisis, which left not only economic but institutional challenges. Russia is undergoing a geopolitical crisis in Ukraine and an economic problem at home. The Arab world, from the Levant to Iran, from the Turkish border through the Arabian Peninsula, is embroiled in politically destabilizing warfare. The Western Hemisphere is relatively stable, as is the Asian Archipelago. ButEurasia is destabilizing in multiple dimensions.

America Needs an Open Source Intelligence Fusion Center

BY CAROLYN SCHAPPER

May 19, 2015

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The humanitarian world often has a healthy suspicion of the military. This is understandable. It can be very dangerous for humanitarian organizations and USAID personnel to be conflated with the military, which skeptical locals sometimes consider the same thing as the CIA overseas. However, as a former member of the military I have seen military Civil Affairs units doing good, genuine humanitarian work in dangerous areas . . . winning the hearts and minds. And I have been out in Iraq interacting daily with the local Iraqis, as have many of my fellow soldiers.

The Power and Influence of the CIA Today Inside the U.S. Government

YOCHI DREAZEN AND SEÁN D. NAYLOR 

May 18, 2015

Dennis Blair was itching for a fight. In May 2009, the retired U.S. Navy admiral was serving as the director of national intelligence (DNI). Theoretically, Blair’s title gave him oversight of the CIA and Washington’s constellation of 16 other spy agencies. Yet, in reality, the director was powerless even to designate the senior American spy in a given country—a rank that, for decades, had traditionally been given to the CIA station chief in capitals from London to Beirut. Blair felt entitled to have charge over this. So sidestepping the White House, he sent a written order codifying that the DNI would now be the one to select the most senior spies. But there was one more important change: That person could be associated with any agency within the intelligence community. Though Blair said that the designee would almost always continue to be selected from the CIA, this didn’t sit well with the agency’s then director, Leon Panetta. He responded by shooting off a cable to all of the CIA’s overseas stations effectively telling them to ignore Blair’s memo completely.

The media dubbed it a “turf war,” but it was surely an asymmetrical one: Blair’s office was rendered impotent, simply shoved aside by a CIA bent on securing its hold on power.

DOD Has Conducted Nuclear Weapons Accident Response Exercise at Naval Station Kitsap-Bangor, Washington

By Cheryl Pellerin

May 18, 2015

DoD Exercise Simulates Home-grown Terrorists, Nuclear Incident

WASHINGTON, May 18, 2015 - In a geopolitical environment with proliferating threats, a Defense Department whole-of-government exercise held May 5-8 provided a realistic way for federal, state and local experts to interact in simulated situations involving mock home-grown terrorists and a nuclear incident.

This year’s Nuclear Weapon Accident Incident Exercise, or NUWAIX 2015, took place on Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, located on the Kitsap Peninsula in the state of Washington. The Defense Department whole-of-government exercise was held May 5-8, 2015, and involved home-grown terrorists and a nuclear incident. Here, assessors evaluate elements of the exercise after its completion May 8. 

This year’s Nuclear Weapon Accident Incident Exercise, or NUWAIX 2015, took place on Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor located on the Kitsap Peninsula in the state of Washington.

Are We Exaggerating China’s Cyber Threat?

By Jack Detsch

May 20, 2015

http://thediplomat.com/2015/05/are-we-exaggerating-chinas-cyber-threat/

A new Harvard report suggests that China may not be much of a threat to U.S. cybersecurity. Is that really the case? 

On May 8, U.S. State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke complained that China had used an offensive cyber capability “to interfere with the ability of worldwide internet users to access content hosted outside of China.” Experts feared China had hijacked traffic intended for domestic servers and re-routed to conduct a malicious attack on American sites.

In March, the American coding repository, GitHub, reported intermittent outages amid a multiday cyber attack, which redirected traffic from the popular Chinese search engine Baidu to pages linked to The New York TimesMandarin-language site and GreatFire.org — a tool utilized by Chinese netizens to steer around the Great Firewall. Both sites are banned in the mainland. Researchers say an offensive Chinese cyber attack system called the “Great Cannon,” which captures traffic in China and fires it out at offending sites, perpetrated the attack.

Navy to launch new cyber strategy

Amber Corrin

Source Link

The Navy's cyber component will soon release a new cyber strategy that centers on five key goals for modernizing the service's cyber operations, according to a top Navy official.

The most significant of the five goals involves operating the Navy network as a warfighting platform, which requires "assured command and control across all networks, ashore and afloat environment [and] different technical environments," said Kevin Cooley, executive director and command information officer for Fleet Cyber Command/10thFleet.

See our complete coverage of the C4ISR & Networks Conference at our Show Reporter site.

"That's a pretty interesting problem and we're excited," Cooley said April 7 at the C4ISR & Networks Conference in Arlington, Virginia.

Transforming the network into a warfighting platform involves a number of aspects, Cooley said, including reducing the attack surface through measures such as assuring compliance and defending against a range of threats. It also means striking a balance in IT investments, weighing cost savings against defense in depth, as well as influencing the programming, budgeting and acquisition processes.

DoD sets sights on weaponizing cyber

Amber Corrin

Source Link

The Defense Department appears to be preparing to make major moves in the military's cyber domain, with several components advancing their capabilities and policies, and the Defense secretary eyeing a specialized cyber corps.

At the Defense Information Systems Agency, the sweeping Joint Regional Security Stack initiative to overhaul IT infrastructure across military bases also is serving as means for DoD to empower troops to act in cyberspace. DISA is helping to implement JRSS at dozens of sites in the U.S. and abroad, but the agency also is changing the way it trains in and conducts cyber operations, starting at Fort Meade, Maryland, where DISA, U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency all are housed.

"When you start looking at the command and control and the capabilities that we are going to put at the combatant commander's fingertips, not necessarily at the signal, communicator, cyber fingertips, we are getting ready to change the way we work," DISA Director LTG Ronnie Hawkins said April 7 at the C4ISR & Networks conference in Arlington, Virginia. "In fact within DISA, within the joint force headquarters, we are even training differently…I would tell you that we have to get it to where we treat the JRSS as a weapons system and we are operationalizing that within DISA and within the Department of Defense."

Big data tools improve GEOINT exploitation

John Edwards and Eve Keise

May 13, 2015 

Big data is enhancing geospatial intelligence for all of the military, including special operations forces, which rely on deep and accurate GEOINT to accomplish missions.

"With the proliferation of sensors and collectors, the volume of data available to the analyst is growing rapidly," said Lee Hall, director of exploitation and visualization services for Lockheed Martin. "To respond, you have the choice between hiring exponentially more analysts, which is impractical, or you've got to give the analysts you have the right tools to help them make sense of the flood of data they're faced with."

"Big data is forcing the GEOINT community to explore new ways of finding what information is needed within large data sets and in making correlations between sets of different types of data, whether it's wide-area motion imagery, full-motion video, hyperspectral imagery or electronic, signals or human intelligence," said John Marion, president of Logos Technologies.

Islamic State seizes Ramadi All latest updates Thrown back

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The Baghdad government’s hopes of driving back the caliphate in Iraq's largest province suffer a heavy blow May 16th 2015

THE DAY before Islamic State (IS) swept Ramadi, the largest city in western Iraq and the capital of Iraq’s biggest province of Anbar, the head of the province’s 13 Sunni tribes warned that its loss was a foregone conclusion. From his seat of exile across the border in Jordan, Tarik Alabdullah al-Halbusi protested that the government had broken its promises. It had reneged on earlier commitments to arm and integrate Anbar’s Sunni tribesmen into Iraq’s Shia-dominated security forces and turned to its allied Shia militias to fight IS instead. This was a huge mistake. Fearful of being overrun and expelled by the Iran-backed militias, his Sunni tribesmen have been turning in droves to IS. “They give jobs to the unemployed and pay salaries on time,” Mr Halbusi said.

Hacking onslaught tests UK banks’ defences

Martin Arnold

May 18, 2015

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3789c838-fd5f-11e4-9e96-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz3acMz65w1

A new cyber challenge confronts British banks. It comes from elite hackers, advised by the British security services, reporting to the Bank of England and being paid for by the banks themselves.

Several of the UK’s biggest lenders, payment systems providers, clearing houses and securities exchanges have endured repeated attacks from these expert hackers since the start of the year.

FirstFT is our new essential daily email briefing of the best stories from across the web

But unlike many criminals and state-sponsored actors that are bombarding such companies almost every day, this group is made up of “ethical hackers”, working in an official capacity to help institutions improve their defences.

SHORT LEGS CAN’T WIN ARMS RACES: RANGE ISSUES AND NEW THREATS TO AERIAL REFUELING PUT U.S. STRATEGY AT RISK

Greg Knepper and Peter W. Singer

May 20, 2015

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25,000 feet over the Pacific, two KC-46 tanker aircraft fought for their lives. A determined attack was under way as two regiments of MiG-35 interceptors rocketed through the sky toward them. As the MiGs came east at over a thousand miles per hour with heavy jamming support, American F-22 Raptor and Japanese F-3 Shinshin jets converged on the threat, filling the sky with missiles. It was not enough. When the MiGs got within 100 miles, the tanker aircraft stowed their booms and dove for the deck. The rest of the coalition fighters and strikers deep inside enemy territory would have to find a dry piece of ocean to ditch on during their flight back. For the first time the enemy had achieved air superiority over a major battlefield merely by eliminating a pair of logistics planes….*

Will Indonesia Double Its Military Budget in 2016?

By Prashanth Parameswaran

May 19, 2015

http://thediplomat.com/2015/05/will-indonesia-double-its-military-budget-in-2016/

Its president has vowed to do so. But can the goal be achieved? 

Last week, Indonesian president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo vowed to double the country’s defense budget in 2016 if its economy grows by 7%.

According to Antara News, on May 13, Jokowi said that if the economy grew by 7%, the budget of Indonesia’ military (TNI) will more than double to 210 trillion rupiah ($16 billion) in 2016 from the current 98 trillion rupiah.

The vow is part of Jokowi’s campaign pledge to increase Indonesia’s defense budget to 1.5% of GDP from its current 0.8% as Jakarta seeks to achieve a so-called Minimum Essential Force by 2024. That is an urgent task. As I have pointed out earlier, since Jakarta’s paltry budget has never constituted more than 1% of GDP (unlike some of its neighbors like Malaysia or Vietnam), the lack of investment has made it difficult for it to perform even basic functions like controlling its own territorial waters (See: “An Indonesian Defense Revolution Under Jokowi?”). Getting there, however, would require healthy economic growth, and Jokowi had pledged to boost GDP growth to 7% on average during his term which ends in 2019.

Simple Rules and Tools for Modern Leadership

BY CHRIS MILLER

May 14, 2015

http://www.ciceromagazine.com/features/simple-rules-and-tools-for-modern-leadership/

A quick browse of the shelves of any academic library, bookstore, or duty-free airport lounge will reveal endless stacks of books written (or ghost-written by someone else) by CEOs, investors, generals, presidents, and senators containing reflections on their actions and their own personal strategies for success in war, business, government, politics, and strategy. Anyone who has picked one up, at least while sitting in a waiting room somewhere, can attest to the fact that most of them are either better than a sleeping pill or better suited for use in an emergency shortage of toilet paper.

However, there are some which, despite valid criticisms here and there, have enduring value. Most often the reason for their durability is that they possess simplicity, flexibility, and clarity. These are important characteristics for leaders of any stripe who must make decisions in a world that is increasingly characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Here are some examples, from personal conduct and decision-making to organizational strategy and analysis.