Fight Between China and Vietnam Over Offshore Oil Rig Escalating

May 26, 2014

China-Vietnam Sea Spat Heats Up

Wendell Minnick

Defense News

This picture taken from a Vietnam Coast Guard ship on May 14 shows a Vietnamese Coast Guard ship, left, is challenged by a Chinese Coast Guard ship near to the site of a Chinese drilling oil rig in the background being installed in disputed waters in the South China Sea off Vietnam’s central coast. (Hoang Dinh Nam / Getty Images)

TAIPEI — Thucydides, the Greek historian who penned the story of the Peloponnesian War, wrote that “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

The quote might be an appropriate description of what Vietnam is suffering after the placement of a Chinese mega oil rig off its coast this month.

On May 3, China announced that the China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) would conduct exploratory drilling operations from May 2 to Aug. 15, and denied allegations by Hanoi that the rig was within its exclusive economic zone.

The placement of a Chinese oil rig off the coast of Vietnam is part of China’s strategy of “slow intensity conflict,” said Andrew Scobell of the RAND Corp. China has gradually ratcheted up efforts since the 1970s to assert control of the South China Sea. The reasons include fishery resources, oil and gas deposits, and control of the sea lanes of communication.

Scobell, who coined the term, said slow intensity conflict differs from low intensity conflict in that conventional warfare between regular military units is possible, but these tend to be between small units involved in minor and infrequent fighting.

Rioting and looting of Chinese and Taiwanese factories in response appears to have caught Beijing unprepared. Vietnamese and Chinese ships swiped water cannon blasts, and Vietnamese and Philippine leaders openly discussed military cooperation.

A Saudi Arabian Defense Doctrine

Mapping the expanded force structure the Kingdom needs to lead the Arab world, stabilize the region, and meet its global responsibilities

Paper, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

May 27, 2014

Author: Nawaf Obaid, Visiting Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

Belfer Center Programs or Projects: Defense and Intelligence

Far from being a fragile state, Saudi Arabia has in recent years consolidated its place as Arab leader, regional stabilizer, and critical bulwark against terrorism and a nuclear Iran. The Kingdom’s growing security responsibilities require rapid and substantial military investments. Nawaf Obaid, visiting fellow at the Belfer Center, outlines a comprehensive Saudi Arabian Defense Doctrine and explains why the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is likely to double down on defense and national security capabilities in the next five years.

Which threats worry the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia most?

Three main threats concern the Kingdom: regional instability, a revanchist and/or nuclear Iran, and terrorism. In terms of regional stability, KSA can and should take a leadership role in helping all so-called Arab Spring nations chart a path to civil order. In terms of Iran, KSA is greatly concerned with its disruptive and intrusive activities in other states as well as its nuclear ambitions. In terms of terrorism, KSA is committed to collaborating on the prevention of terrorist attacks anywhere in the world.

What’s the biggest misconception about KSA’s role in the Middle East?

The biggest misconception about KSA is that it is a passive, U.S.-dependent state that is not ready to expand upon and deploy its resources to assume an independent leadership role in bringing about peace and security among its neighbors. In fact, due to gradual Western disengagement from the Middle East, the Saudis realize they must – and fully intend to – take on various diplomatic and security initiatives of their own accord in order to serve as the primary stabilizing force in the region.

How big is the gap between KSA’s strategic objectives and its strategic capabilities?

KSA’s objectives and capabilities are still not well aligned. As it expands it regional and global role, the need for military investments will accelerate. This can be seen in themore than $150 billion currently dedicated to a revitalized Saudi defense system over the next five years, of which $100 billion is already engaged in partnerships with U.S. defense companies. This Defense Doctrine makes the case for major increases in military resources, including personnel growth of about 30% for the army, 35% for the national guard, 30% for the air defense and strategic missile forces, and 50% for the navy and the air force.

What implications does the defense doctrine have for KSA’s relations with Western allies?

While it can certainly be said that KSA is going its own way more than perhaps any time in its history – a fact accentuated by its recent choice to reject a UN Security Council Seat – this does not mean that its relations with Western allies are worsening. Saudi independence is good for KSA and for the West. Saudis are gradually taking on security responsibilities in the region previously assumed by the West, but the principles remain the same: stability, order, and peace. With its indigenous knowledge of the region, and role as the cradle of Islam, KSA is arguably better suited than the West to succeed in this mission.

To read the full report, see below:

A Saudi Arabian Defense Doctrine (1.9 MB PDF)

RUSSIA-CHINA GAS DEAL – ANALYSIS

China - Russia relations 

MAY 24, 2014 

GATEWAY HOUSE

By Gateway House

Russia’s gas supply agreement with China represents a shift away from its traditional European markets, towards Asia. The deal also presents a blue print that India can follow to secure its own energy supplies. By drawing Russia into the LNG business, India can also help bring down natural gas prices

By Amit Bhandari

Russia and China have just concluded a major gas deal. China will purchase 38 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia for 30 years, potentially worth $400 billion. [1] The sales won’t start immediately – new gas-fields in Eastern Russia need to be developed and pipelines have to be laid down first. But four year from now, in 2018, the gas will begin to flow.

Natural gas is a major export for Russia. Exports to Europe in 2012 were an estimated $66 billion – more than 10% of Russia’s entire exports. [2] Russia (and USSR earlier) has been supplying gas to Western Europe since the 1980s. However, given the events in Ukraine, there is now talk of Europe reducing its dependence on Russian gas. Imports of shale gas from the U.S. and developing shale gas reserves within Europe are being discussed. Unlike petroleum, natural gas cannot be freely bought or sold without costly infrastructure such as pipelines and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminals. Therefore, any meaningful shift by Europe will hit Russia’s exports.

Clearly, Russia needs to reduce its dependence on a single market and tap additional markets. The deal is a big step in that direction.

China gains by getting a large, dedicated supply of a clean fuel. China’s premier Li Keqiang has spoken of a ‘war on pollution’ – using more natural gas instead of oil or coal will help.

This deal has implications for Russia’s energy trade, Asia’s energy supplies and the global gas market at large.

1. This is the first time Russia will look for new markets for a key resource.

2. After China, it will be natural for Russia to look further east to the other energy hungry Asian economies for similar deals – Japan and South Korea in the immediate neighborhood and a bit further off, India. Such cooperation will also require large infrastructure investments from the Russian side – particularly LNG terminals. That will provide business for all sides, Russian as also the energy importers who will need to invest also to ensure the financial and operational viability for these projects.

3. This is an opportunity to bring down natural gas prices. Iran and Russia have the world’s largest and second largest reserves of natural gas: Russia has less than 5% of the global LNG trade while Iran is absent thanks to the many sanctions imposed on it since 1979. Qatar, third in reserves, is the biggest player in the LNG business with one third of the global market. It sells to top importers such as Japan, India, South Korea, UK, Taiwan, China, Italy and Spain. If Russia can be brought into the world LNG market, currently dominated by countries with smaller gas reserves, it will be good for importers such as India (Tables 1 & 2). [3]

4. In the long term, this deal could perhaps see Russia and China shift away from the dollar – even though nothing has been mentioned about that. Russia and China already have extensive trade (approximately $90 billion) in China’s favor and can potentially use the yuan for this trade. [4]

Special Briefing - The Internationalisation of Nigeria’s Boko Haram Campaign

Richard Reeve 

14 May 2014 

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan with French President François Hollande, February 2014.

Summary

One year since it escalated its counter-insurgency campaign under a localised state of emergency, Nigeria has lost control of its war against Boko Haram. Up to 3,000 Nigerians have been killed in violence linked to the group so far this year and clashes have spread to neighbouring Niger and Cameroon. Humanitarian outcry over the abduction of some 276 girls from a boarding school on 14 April has radically increased the chances of foreign military intervention, with Nigerian consent, against Boko Haram. Despite the humanitarian compulsion to act urgently, this could change the character of the rebellion and its links to jihadist groups in the Sahel. Any international military assistance to Nigeria must be backed by commitments – primarily from Nigeria itself – for greater investment in the north, and national governance, anti-corruption and security sector reforms.

Background

Boko Haram was founded by Salafist preacher Mohammed Yusuf in Maiduguri, northeast Nigeria, in the years after Nigeria’s 1999 transition from military to multiparty rule. Known officially as Jama‘atu ahl al-Sunna li’l-Da‘wa wa’l-jihad (roughly meaning Sunni Group for Preaching and Jihad), it advocated the Islamicisation of law and society. This was a populist stance for many northern politicians at this time and Boko Haram’s activists appear to have been allied with some. Co-opting, and sometimes arming, violent youth and student groups (known as ‘cults’) is common practice among politicians across Nigeria.

While a radical dissident faction led by Abubakar Shekau launched several attacks around Borno and Yobe states in 2003-04, Boko Haram did not switch from proselytization to combat until 2009. An uprising in Borno state in July was put down with maximum force and Yusuf was arrested and killed in custody. Boko Haram then went underground, re-emerging under Shekau’s leadership in mid-2010. Attacks have subsequently been staged in at least 12 of Nigeria’s 36 states, as well as Abuja, the federal capital. Targets have included security forces, administration buildings, politicians, informants, foreign workers, moderate Imams, churches, bars and increasingly schools. Most casualties have been Muslim civilians. After Shekau rejected a possible amnesty the federal government declared a state of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states on 14 May 2013.

Borderlands: First Moves in Romania Geopolitical Weekly

Tuesday, May 27, 2014 

I arrived in Bucharest, Romania, the day after U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel will be here in a few weeks. The talk in Bucharest, not only among the leadership but also among the public, is about Ukraine. Concerns are palpable, and they are not only about the Russians. They are also about NATO, the European Union, the United States and whether they will all support Romania if it resists Russia. The other side of the equation, of course, is whether Romania will do the things it must do in order to make outside support effective. Biden left Romania with a sense that the United States is in the game. But this is not a region that trusts easily. The first step was easy. The rest become harder.

If this little Cold War becomes significant, there are two European countries that matter the most: Poland and Romania. Poland, which I visit next, stands between Germany and Russia on the long, flat North European plain. Its population is about 38 million people. Romania, to the south, standing behind the Prut River and bisected by the Carpathian Mountains, has a population of about 20 million. Of the roughly 82 million people along the eastern frontier (Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria), approximately 58 million live in Poland and Romania. Biden's visit to Romania and U.S. President Barack Obama's planned visit to Poland provide a sense of how Washington looks at the region and, for the moment at least, the world. How all of this plays out is, of course, dependent on the Russians and the course of the Ukrainian crisis.

All Soviet satellites emerged damaged after the collapse of the old order in 1989. Few were as damaged as Romania. In many ways, the damage was self-inflicted: The villain of the piece was a Romanian, Nicolae Ceausescu. Ceausescu followed an anti-Soviet line, staying in the Warsaw Pact but displaying singular hostility to the Soviet Union. I recall Americans being excited about Ceausescu's Romania since, being anti-Soviet, it was assumed that by definition he had to be pro-American. To America's amazement, he wasn't. He wasn't even pro-Romanian given that he concocted a scheme to pay off all of Romania's foreign debts by destroying the lives of a generation of Romanians by consigning the vast majority of the country's agricultural and industrial production to hard currency exports. Beyond that, he created a nightmarish security system that was both corrupt and vicious. The world barely noticed. When the end came, it also came for Ceausescu and his wife, the only Eastern European leaders to be executed (amid intense fighting between factions).

For all that, Romania has done remarkably well. Romania's unemployment rate is only about 7 percent, which by European standards is remarkably low. Its annual growth rate stands at more than 3 percent, which is conversely high. In talking to Romanians, it is hard to see into their hearts. They seem a gracious and friendly people, with a measure of distrust and a taste for conspiracy no greater than the norm for this region. What is remarkable about the Romanians is that they are unremarkable. They have emerged from a nightmare inflicted by one of their own and have regained their balance.

Kofi Annan: Syrians pay with their lives while regional powers wage proxy wars

In an exclusive interview, the former UN secretary general says the world's reluctance to intervene in multiple emergencies is scuppering the search for peace

Sam Jones

theguardian.com, Friday 23 May 2014 

Kofi Annan, who says the UN's inability to prevent the conflict in Iraq remains one of his biggest regrets. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian

The world has let down the people of Syria, leaving tens of thousands to die as neighbouring nations wage proxy wars instead of working to prevent the bloodshed that has engulfed the country for the past three years, according to the former UN secretary general, Kofi Annan.

In a bleak assessment of the global response to the crisis in Syria, but also those in South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Ukraine andNigeria, Annan said the international community seemed unable to focus on more than one emergency at a time and had become increasingly loath to stage military interventions.

Annan resigned as UN envoy to Syria in August 2012, describing his role as a "mission impossible" because of growing militarisation and a lack of unity among world powers.

The 76-year-old Ghanaian diplomat, who led the UN between 1997 and 2006, said the unwillingness or inability of the regional powers – Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey – to co-operate with the UN security council, and the "almost proxy war" being conducted between Riyadh and Tehran, were jeopardising the search for peace.

"The UN can be as strong as the international community wants it to be and it means if they want it to be strong, they need to make the resources available, take the decisions and follow through," he said.

"We used to complain about proxy wars, funded and encouraged by the US and Russia, now we are seeing proxy wars being undertaken by regional powers; as I look around, you have countries that are more afraid of the regional powers than the superpowers because the superpowers are far away – they are not as closely involved – and the regional powers can play a very disruptive role in any country when they decide to."

Although Annan stressed that armed interventions were not the solution to every internal conflict – including in Syria – he said individual nations had become more reluctant to pledge troops.

Despite the long and bloody campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, many countries had come to the conclusion that UN peacekeeping operations had to be risk-free enterprises, he said.

"When you get into a situation like Syria, no country wants to go in," said Annan. "I haven't seen armies lining up, saying, 'We are volunteering'. And their own populations are telling them – the US in particular – 'No more military adventures'. And so your intervention has to be short of military."

Russia Spending $55 Billion to Modernize Its Space Defense Forces

May 26, 2014

Russia To Boost Aerospace Forces, Overhaul Structure

JAROSLAW ADAMOWSKI 

Defense News

The Russian optoelectronic space surveillance complex Okno is located in Tajikistan. (Yuriy Mukhin / Aerospace Defense Forces)

WARSAW — With a planned investment of 2 trillion rubles (US $55 billion), Russia is buying new weapons and aims to modernize its Aerospace Defense Forces (VKO) by 2020, said Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov.

The VKO, which replaced Russia’s Space Forces in 2011, will be modernized over the next six years and its structure overhauled in 2015. The VKO consists of a space command center, an air and space defense command, and the space center in Plesetsk.

Under the plan, the military branch will comprise four subdivisions, Maj. Gen. Sergei Yagolnikov, a spokesperson for the VKO, told news agency RIA Novosti. These will include a space- and ground-based intelligence-gathering and ballistic missile early warning system, an air and space defense command, a command-and-control structure, as well as a logistics support branch.

With these efforts, the ministry plans to integrate the activities of all units responsible for ensuring Russia’s aerospace defense into one branch, local analysts said.

Yagolnikov outlined the principal motives behind the planned reform in an article published Feb. 4 by local military magazine VPK.

The overhauled structure will integrate Russia’s response to potential attacks into a single system of aerospace defense, Yagolnikov wrote. Emphasis will be put on enhancing the role played by radars in detecting airbor ne threats.

According to Yagolnikov, the Defense Ministry is working on about 100 research and development projects for new VKO weapons. These will be financed by the funds announced by Borisov on Feb. 28.

Russia’s space agency Roscosmos confirmed plans announced by the country’s defense minister in a May 13 statement. Some of the projects to be carried out under the Russian space program to 2020 include developing advanced rocket technology, modernizing the Plesetsk space center and developing new space launch vehicles, according to Roscosmos.

Moscow is also aiming to secure its national satellite navigation system, Glonass, against signal disruptions.

In November, the Defense Ministry handed a 350 million ruble contract to two local defense contractors, the Russian Scientific-Research Institute of Physical-technical and Radiotechnical Measurements and NAVIS navigation systems. Under the deal, the two entities will subject Glonass receivers to signal-jamming attacks at a special facility to teach the system to distinguish noise from signal and bypass it.

The system was developed by the then-Soviet Ministry of Defense in 1976 as an alternative to the US-controlled Global Positioning System (GPS). To compete with GPS, the Russian government has been trying to involve other countries in joint strategic cooperation on Glonass.

There is increased evidence that Russia wants to challenge the global domination of GPS with its own system. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said May 13 that Moscow may halt the operations of GPS stations located on Russian territory by June 1 if the US refuses to decide whether it will similarly host Glonass stations on its soil before May 31.

Furthermore, as Russia plans to bolster its unilateral space projects, the country will not extend the joint use of the International Space Station (ISS), Rogozin said. US astronauts are transported to the station only onboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

The Russian government plans to use the station for national space projects.

“We are going to need the ISS before 2020,” Rogozin said.

‘WE KILL PEOPLE BASED ON META-DATA;’ DAVID COLE, NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

May 13, 2014 · 

THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

Blog

‘We Kill People Based on Metadata’

David Cole

Supporters of the National Security Agency inevitably defend its sweeping collection of phone and Internet records on the ground that it is only collecting so-called “metadata”—who you call, when you call, how long you talk. Since this does not include the actual content of the communications, the threat to privacy is said to be negligible. That argument is profoundly misleading.

Of course knowing the content of a call can be crucial to establishing a particular threat. But metadata alone can provide an extremely detailed picture of a person’s most intimate associations and interests, and it’s actually much easier as a technological matter to search huge amounts of metadata than to listen to millions of phone calls. As NSA General Counsel Stewart Baker has said, “metadata absolutely tells you everything about somebody’s life. If you have enough metadata, you don’t really need content.” When I quoted Baker at a recent debate at Johns Hopkins University, my opponent, General Michael Hayden, former director of the NSA and the CIA, called Baker’s comment “absolutely correct,” and raised him one, asserting, “We kill people based on metadata.”

It is precisely this power to collect our metadata that has prompted one of Congress’s most bipartisan initiatives in recent years. On May 7, the House Judiciary Committee voted 32-0 to adopt an amended form of the USA Freedom Act, a bill to rein in NSA spying on Americans, initially proposed by Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy and Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner. On May 8, the House Intelligence Committee, which has until now opposed any real reform of the NSA, also unanimously approved the same bill. And the Obama administration has welcomed the development.

For some, no doubt, the very fact that this bill has attracted such broad bipartisan approval will be grounds for suspicion. After all, this is the same Congress that repeatedly reauthorized the 2001 USA Patriot Act, a law that was also proposed by Sensenbrenner and on which the bulk collection of metadata was said to rest—even if many members of Congress were not aware of how the NSA was using (or abusing) it. And this is the same administration that retained the NSA’s data collection program, inherited from its predecessor, as long as it was a secret, and only called for reform when the American people learned from the disclosures of NSA contractor Edward Snowden that the government was routinely collecting phone and Internet records on all of us. So, one might well ask, if Congress and the White House, Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, all now agree on reform, how meaningful can the reform be?

This is a reasonable question. This compromise bill addresses only one part of the NSA’s surveillance activities, and does not do nearly enough to address the many other privacy-invasive practices that we now know the NSA has undertaken. But it’s nonetheless an important first step, and would introduce several crucial reforms affecting all Americans.

SAFEGUARDING CYBER SPACE: BY JOSEPH NYE

May 13, 2014 · by Fortuna's Corner

Joseph S. Nye

Joseph S. Nye, a former US assistant secretary of defense and chairman of the US National Intelligence Council, is University Professor at Harvard University. He is the author, most recently, of Presidential Leadership and the Creation of the American Era. read more

MAY 9, 2014 0

Safeguarding Cyberspace

http://www.project-syndicate. org/commentary/joseph-s–nye- contrasts-multilateral-and– multi-stakeholder–approaches- to-governing-cyberspace

CAMBRIDGE – Brazil recently hosted NETmundial, the first global conference on Internet governance, attended by 800 representatives of governments, corporations, civil-society organizations, and technologists. Based on the notion of “multi-stakeholderism,” the meeting produced a 12-page “outcomes” document.

Nonetheless, at the end of the conference, there was still no consensus on global cyber governance. Many governments continued to advocate traditional United Nations voting procedures for making global decisions, and defend their right to control domestic cyber activities.

In a sense, this is not surprising. After all, though the Internet is a complex, fast-evolving, and all-encompassing global resource, it has not been around for very long. While the World Wide Web was conceived in 1989, it was only in the last 15 years that the number of Web sites burgeoned, and Internet technology began to transform global supply chains. Since 1992, the number of Internet users has exploded from one million to nearly three billion. Just like that, the Internet became a substrate of economic, social, and political life.

In its early days, the Internet was often characterized as the ultimate egalitarian conduit of free-flowing information – a harbinger of the end of government controls. But the reality is that governments and geographical jurisdictions have always played a central role in regulating the Internet – or at least have tried. Ultimately, however, the Internet poses a major governance challenge, exemplified in ongoing efforts to understand the implications of ubiquitous mobility and the collection and storage of “big data.”

The governance challenge stems from the fact that cyberspace is a combination of virtual properties, which defy geographical boundaries, and physical infrastructure, which fall under sovereign jurisdictions. Control of the physical layer can have both territorial and extraterritorial effects on the virtual layers. At the same time, attacks can be launched from the low-cost virtual realm against the physical domain, where resources are scarce and expensive.

The Internet began as a small village of known users, where an authentication layer of code was unnecessary and the development of norms was simple. But then it grew, and everything changed. Though cyberspace offered the advantages of access to information and easy communication to a growing number of people, it became a breeding ground for crime, hacker attacks, and threats to governments.

TERRORISTS EXPLOIT SOCIAL NETWORKS

MAY 26, 2014 MAGHAREBIA LEAVE A COMMENT

By Magharebia

By Imrane Binoual

Cyber-jihadism may spread in North Africa if parents and politicians ignore the threat, security analysts caution.

Videos, audio recordings, messages and speeches from terrorist organisations blanket YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and blogs. Maghreb extremists have embraced the virtual arena, using online networks to attract recruits and spread propaganda.

The phenomenon is also raising questions about how to protect both public safety and freedom of expression.

“Radical Islamists have recruitment methods that are very dangerous on the internet,” says Idriss Raouah, a cybercrime expert at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

“Islamist network members were among the first people in the world to use new information technologies,” he notes.

And once it is put online, he warns, content spreads without oversight. Even parents can be kept in the dark.

“You find six-year-old children who have profiles on Facebook and other sites who chat freely with Internet users,” he underlines. “In Morocco’s case” he adds, this is why “the number of victims of paedophilia and terrorism is high”.

Mountacir Zian is the director-general of CMAIS (Mediterranean Company for Analysis and Strategic Intelligence), which just issued a report on the Al-Andalus Foundation, the media wing of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

Terrorists see social networks and the internet as the ideal resource for communication, he tells Magharebia. “They post statements, videos and theories on them, making them a sounding board for their propaganda,” he says.

“The Al-Andalus Foundation is in charge of creating content in several languages to spread the ideas of AQIM, with the aim of recruiting new people and inciting them to carry out attacks,” Zian argues.

The virtual world is particularly dangerous for youth, Zian says.

“In France, two young adolescents (aged 15 and 16) left their families to wage holy war in Syria. Their only point of contact with terrorist networks was the Internet,” he adds.

Another issue is cyber-warfare. Terrorists now have the capacity to wage cyber-attacks against internet users and institutions.

“They even created a software programme that encrypts data sent by terrorists,” he notes.

Wahid Moubarak, chairman of the first International Congress for Co-existence and Counter-terrorism, says that social networks have become productive and profitable for jihadists.

“They use the web to instruct, lead and attract followers, because it gives them ample room to manoeuvre, far from the eyes of censors,” says Moubarak, who is also the national secretary for the Modernist Space for Development and Co-operation (EMDC) in Casablanca.

“They target chat room users using false names, in order to spread ideas which are far removed from moderate Islam. In this way, they engage their target groups and prepare them as individuals or groups to carry out suicide attacks,” he says.

Pentagon report: scope of intelligence compromised by Snowden 'staggering'

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/22/pentagon-report-snowden-leaks-national-security?view=desktop

• Classified assessment describes impact of leaks as 'grave' 

• Report does not include specific detail to support conclusions

• 12 of 39 heavily redacted pages released after Foia request

• Read the full Defense Intelligence Agency report

Jason Leopold

The Guardian, Thursday 22 May 2014

The DIA report has been cited numerous times by politicians who claimed Snowden’s leaks have put US personnel at risk. 

A top-secret Pentagon report to assess the damage to national security from the leak of classified National Security Agency documents by Edward Snowden concluded that “the scope of the compromised knowledge related to US intelligence capabilities is staggering”.

The Guardian has obtained a copy of the Defense Intelligence Agency's classified damage assessment in response to a Freedom of Information Act (Foia) lawsuit filed against the Defense Department earlier this year. The heavily redacted 39-page report was prepared in December and is titled “DoD Information Review Task Force-2: Initial Assessment, Impacts Resulting from the Compromise of Classified Material by a Former NSA Contractor.”

But while the DIA report describes the damage to US intelligence capabilities as “grave”, the government still refuses to release any specific details to support this conclusion. The entire impact assessment was redacted from the material released to the Guardian under a presidential order that protects classified information and several other Foia exemptions.

Only 12 pages of the report were declassified by DIA and released. A Justice Department attorney said DIA would continue to process other internal documents that refer to the DIA report for possible release later this year.

Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, questioned the decision to withhold specific details.

"The essence of the report is contained in the statement that 'the scope of the compromised knowledge related to US intelligence capabilities is staggering'. But all elaboration of what this striking statement means has been withheld," he said.

The assessment excluded NSA-related information and dealt exclusively with non-NSA defense materials. The report was distributed to multiple US military commands around the world and all four military branches.

“This report presents the Information Review Task Force-2’s (IRTF-2s’) initial assessment of impact to the Department of Defense (DoD) from the compromise of [redacted] classified files by a former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor,” the report’s executive summary states.

“The IRTF-2 and Defense component partners continue triaging and reviewing compromised information for Defense equities and will update this report as additional assessments are completed. Combatant Commands (CCMDs) and Services have produced separate reports that provide greater details concerning the potential impact of the compromise on their respective equities … It should be noted that SIGINT [Signals Intelligence]-specific equities are not addressed in this report; NSA is reviewing those separately.”

Jam. Bomb. Hack? New U.S. Cyber Capabilities and the Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses

Apr 07, 2014 georgeu3 GSSR Forum, Military & Defense

Photo by Naval Air Systems Command

By Shane Quinlan

U.S. plans to bring cyber capabilities into the cockpit with systems like the Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) represent expanded options for military planners, but the question many are still left with is: what can these new cyber capabilities do? And perhaps more important, what can they not do? While many of these airborne cyber capabilities are classified, there are clear indicators that the U.S. military wants to use cyber for the Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD), protecting aircraft threatened by increasingly high-tech anti-air defenses.

The Israeli Air Force (IAF) may have already shown how this could work. In 2007, a small flight of IAF fighter aircraft entered Syrian airspace undetected, dropped 17-tons of munitions on a military facility that reportedly housed fissile nuclear materials, and escaped unscathed.[1] The IAF strike, titled Operation Orchard, quickly led to rumors that the IAF was able to execute this strike despite the existence of Syria’s formidable air defense network – the same defenses that worried US policymakers in 2011 – by using a U.S.-developed cyber capability.[2] Aviation Week’s David Fulghum suggested the IAF made use of “a technology like the U.S.-developed ‘Suter’ airborne network attack system.” Suter, though highly classified and officially unacknowledged, is thought to be a combination of airborne electronic warfare and computer network hacking that accesses the communications between the networked sensors and weapon systems that compose an Integrated Air Defense System (IADS).[3] Suter penetrates the information flows between networked systems and allows its user to both see the communications of enemy systems and insert false information.[4]

The US Navy’s NGJ system and EA-18G Growler airborne platform – long overdue replacements for America’s aging arsenal of EA-6B tactical electronic warfare aircraft and the AN/ALQ-99 jammer – are expressly intended to combine traditional SEAD capabilities with the sort of “electronic warfare-delivered computer network attack” witnessed in Operation Orchard.[5] The NGJ, in concert with its jamming and electronic intelligence capabilities, would act as a delivery mechanism for electronic information designed to suppress enemy air defenses. This Suter-esque cyber attack capability would complement the enhanced EW capabilities and kinetic weapon systems of the EA-18G and NGJ, ideally giving U.S military planners a choice between and among three SEAD options: jamming, bombing, and hacking.

The reality of that decision is radically more complicated, and the addition of a third cyber capability to SEAD requires a careful examination of its uses and effects, particularly its costs and limitations. Cyber attacks are innately unique and discrete; they are only capable of being used against particular systems, programs, or networks and exist as compilations of computed logic-based code and programs designed to access specific computer networks and the information within them.[6] There is no universally-applicable cyber weapon; each is tailored to the composition of the particular program, system, platform, or network it is targeted against. While systems like the NGJ act as universal delivery platforms, each attack must be carefully constructed in advance.

AMERICA IS A SITTING DUCK FOR CYBER ATTACKS

May 22, 2014 

Maybe, but so are most of our adversaries. RCP

America Is a Sitting Duck For Cyber Attacks

The private sector’s Internet infrastructure is very vulnerable.

FE_PR_120530cyber.jpg

Vulnerable to attacks.

By Daniel J. Gallington April 14, 2014 2 Comments SHARE

Here we go, beating ourselves up over the Edward Snowden-leaked National Security Agency programs designed to sort through trillions of telecommunications to find the few related to terrorism. Yet we don’t seem at all concerned about how fragile and vulnerable our huge private sector critical cyber infrastructure, such as our electrical grid, Internet, banking and financial sectors, is to cyber attack.

Not only that, the main reason we haven’t been shut down by an external cyber attack by the Russians or the Chinese isn’t because they can’t do it, but because we are such a fat intelligence target for them. They prefer to be able to steal valuable information from us over the Internet rather than turn it off.

However, assuming things got really ugly, could they shut us down if and when they wanted to? Yes, and it’s particularly important that we understand exactly how they could do it and also how we could probably prevent it if we were just a little smarter than we seem to be.

[See a collection of editorial cartoons on the NSA.]

First of all, most think that the Defense Department’s NSA and Cyber Command are responsible for protecting us from cyber attack. True. However, the “us” part for the NSA is limited to the “dot mil” part of the Internet – at most they protect just the “dot gov” part of our cyber turf.

This leaves the rest of our Internet – i.e., most of it – at a very high degree of risk from cyber attack. Not only that, and surprising as it might be, most of the “dot gov” part doesn’t even want the NSA’s help in defending its networks, because the NSA typically discovers lots of embarrassing leaks in the communication security of government networks.

The origins of this anomaly go back to when NSA had two basic missions: Collecting signals intelligence, known as “SIGINT,” and “communications security,” called “COMSEC.” In the old days, the second part was very aggressive and put most government telephone users on notice that if they “talked classified” over the unsecured government telephone network, they risked administrative or disciplinary action.

This, as you might imagine, was not at all popular, so over the years the mission was reduced or eliminated throughout the government.

Objecting to my unfavorable characterization of our private sector cyber vulnerabilities, official government spinners will probably say that today we have the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the Federal Communications Commission and private contractors working aggressively with the private sector to address and improve the cyber security for our private sector infrastructure. However, ask yourself: Do you really believe that, short of a catastrophic shutdown, our private cyber sector could be trusted to come forward on its own with, for example, information that security had been compromised, and that, for example, our financial accounts were accessed or our power grid compromised because of an external cyber attack?

[See a collection of political cartoons on defense spending.]

What would this do for investor confidence? Realistically, the odds of the private sector dealing responsibly with these kinds of threats are about as great as General Motors fixing a 57 cent defect in its cars’ ignition systems on its own. In short, we can’t expect them to be honest or objective about it.

So how do we insure our private sector cyber networks are capable of withstanding or defending themselves against an aggressive external cyber attack like one launched against us because of a rapidly escalating international dispute with China or Russia? Easy. We should be continually testing our critical private infrastructures by simulating external cyber attack. This would be done using the older NSA communications security models as an operational analogy, supplemented with newer and more aggressive oversight and privacy requirements.

As a starter, I have suggested that this be an ongoing joint operation of the FBI, Homeland Security, NSA and the Cyber Command, and be conducted consistent with detailed attorney general privacy guidelines and aggressive oversight by the intelligence, judiciary and homeland security committees of Congress.

[See a collection of political cartoons on Chinese hacking.]

In addition, it should be carried out with advance notice to a specific private cyber sector or, when centrally managed as part of a carefully coordinated national exercise, our critical private cyber infrastructure could be “no notice” tested.

This proactive approach may be the only objective way we can be sure our critical private sector cyber infrastructure can withstand a dedicated external cyber attack and we should be getting busy with it.

This isn’t a lesson we need to learn the hard way.

Daniel Gallington is the senior policy and program adviser at the George C. Marshall Institute in Arlington, Va. He served in senior national security policy positions in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Department of Justice and as bipartisan general counsel for the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

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CIMSEC’S LONGREADS

MAY 20, 2014 

AUSTIN PRICE 

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CIMSEC’s Longreads is back! Bringing you a list of the last week’s best pieces for your Tuesday morning enjoyment.

China’s Cruise Missiles: Flying Fast Under the Public’s Radar

The National Interest – May 12th – Dennis Gormley, Andrew S. Erickson, and Jingdong Yuan (Link)

An extensive look into the pitfalls and promises regarding China’s increasing reliance on cruise missiles for sea and surface strike drawing on the authors’ upcoming book A Low Visibility Force Multiplier: China’s Cruise Missile Ambitions.

How the F.B.I. Cracked a Chinese Spy Ring

The New Yorker – May 16th- Yudhijit Bhattacharjee (Link)

Espionage, intrigue, and free coffee at the local hardware store. The New Yorker relays the down fall of a Chinese technical intelligence collection ring, while staying true to the details.

United States of Secrets (Part One)

PBS – May 13th – Frontline (Link)

The first of a two part series examining the personal clashes and ethical debates that surrounded the growth of US Intelligence Collection programs in the wake of September 11th, and their continuing legacy.

CIMSEC Member Publications

U.S., India’s Goals Diverge in New Delhi’s Near AbroadWorld Politics Review - May 13th - Nilanthi Samaranayake

“China’s Relations with the Smaller Countries of South Asia”China and International Security - May 13th - Nilanthi Samaranayake

Sverdlov Class Cruisers, and the Royal Navy’s ResponseBritish Naval History – Alex Clarke – May 12th

The Great Green Sea Control FleetWar on the Rocks – David Wise – May 12th

The Worlds Most Dangerous Pirates USNI News – James Bridger – May 12th

Putin in America’s Jurassic Park War on the Rocks – May 8th – Matthew Hipple

The Most Realistic Fish-bot You’ve Ever Seen – and What it Could Mean for Naval Warfare Naval Drones – May 7th - Chris Rawley

Surge Support in Tragedy’s WakeThe Navy Reservist – Scott Cheney-Peters - May 1st

The US, Japan, to Boost ASEAN Maritime SecurityThe Diplomat – Scott Cheney-Peters – April 30th

The Asian Century in an April WeekWar on the Rocks – Scott Cheney-Peters – April 29th

INEVITABLE CONFLICT IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA?War on the Rocks – Claude Berube – April 21st 

Anatomy of a crime: Some reflections on the latest killings at Fort HoodBest Defense - John T. Kuehn, Ph.D. – April 15th 

If you have any tips, suggestions, or input for next week’s long reads, feel free to drop me a line at cimsec.longreads@gmail.com

EMBRACING PANDORA’S BOX – UNLEASH THE DRONE EXPORTS

MAY 21, 2014 

MATTHEW MERIGHI 

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Drones are a rapidly expanding market in the international arms trade. Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) is crucial for operating in the modern battlespace and drones are the best way to get that information by maximizing loiter and removing risk to a pilot. Demand is high and supply is low; only a few countries produce the class of drones that are most in demand. This would seem a perfect market for the United States to sell its wares and dominate the exchange but it is currently hamstrung by policies which discourage their export. The hesitation to export the technology, while done for good reasons like maintaining United States’ technological advantage and protecting a powerful capability from exploitation by foreign agents, is misguided; without the powerful network of communications satellites and Global Information Grid (GIG), the drones themselves are little more than complex model airplanes with good cameras. The United States’ efforts are akin to closing Pandora’s Box because of imagined evils without recognizing the good that remains left trapped inside.

Exporting drones is a good thing for the United States. First, it promulgates a capability we want our allies and partners to possess. For years, British and Italian MQ-9 Reapers have patrolled the skies over Afghanistan, bringing the twin benefit of additional ISR to the battlefield and eliminating the need for American assets to cover those units. In addition, the British have armed MQ-9s that provide additional strike assets to coalition operations. The United States only stands to gain by exporting more of these assets.

Dominating the supply of drones brings the United States leverage it would not otherwise have. Just as with other aviation assets, drones need a steady stream of supplies to be viable. If the country that operates those assets uses them for purposes that are against the United States’ interests, the United States can then press forward with sanctions and cut off supply of crucial parts needed to keep the assets operational. In a world fraught with fault lines and shifting loyalties, leverage matters.

There are a couple arguments in favor of restricting drone exports. The first is wishful thinking. The argument holds that by restricting the sale of to foreign clients, we will deny them drone capabilities, particularly their ability to conduct strike missions. The problem is that Pandora’s Box is already open. Even though there are few suppliers of in the field right now, there are many others that are about to enter the market. A joint European consortium, led by France, is developing the nEUROn. Britain is developing the Taranis. China is aggressively marketing the ASN-209 at international airshows. Chris Rawley highlighted Singapore’s entry into the market in his recent article (http://cimsec.org/unmanned-systems-distributed-operations-one-many/). Even Turkey is developing the Anka. If there are lots of suppliers, the United States will no longer have its privileged negotiating position and will need to make more available to encourage use of its platforms. This means expanding the list of what is exportable and seriously considering exporting armed assets.

WHY IT’S TIME TO STOP BLAMING WILLIAM WESTMORELAND FOR OUR FAILURE IN VIETNAM

May 21, 2014 · 

Excerpt:

In fact, finding the “right” strategy may not have been the key to victory for Americans, either in Vietnam or Afghanistan. Thus, in reconsidering lost wars, perhaps it is best to resist beginning with the narrow aim of finding fault. Without question, studying war involves an assessment of difficult decisions made by civilian policymakers and their military subordinates. Explaining a negative outcome, with the benefits of hindsight, and discerning choices that led to such an outcome are legitimate pursuits. Yet assigning blame for a lost conflict ultimately is of lesser value when compared to the realization that not all problems in war can be solved by armed might.

5-18-14

Why It’s Time to Stop Blaming William Westmoreland for Our Failure in Vietnam

http://hnn.us/article/155520

by Gregory A. Daddis

Gregory A. Daddis is an Academy Professor in the Department of History at West Point. His latest book is Westmoreland’s War: Reassessing American Strategy in Vietnam (Oxford University Press). The views expressed here are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the US Government.

“History does not repeat itself,” Mark Twain once quipped, “but it does rhyme.” Listening to how Americans have discussed their recent military endeavors in Iraq and Afghanistan, a similar cadence already is emerging in relation to the United States’ lost war in Vietnam. Even as our nation continues sending soldiers to Afghanistan for nine-month long deployments, scholars and defense analysts have begun enumerating the reasons why we failed there despite a decade’s worth of effort. Harvard professor Stephen M. Walt, for instance, recently itemized the “top ten mistakes made in the Afghan War,” offering a neat checklist for those hoping to attach blame for a botched war.

As Iraq continues its spiral into an increasingly violent civil war, former American officers are no less energetic in their own fault-finding ventures. David Petraeus acolyte Peter Mansoor has argued the highly touted “surge” in 2007-2008 brought victory within grasp, only since to have been squandered by political demands for a premature departure and Iraqi officials incapable of resolving their longtime differences.

Perhaps just as notably, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s new memoir has handily been used by both sides of the political aisle as evidence of culpability. Indeed, one United States senator used Duty to place blame on the Obama White House for rejecting the military’s “sound advice.”

These accusations, when compared to charges in the aftermath of Vietnam, strike a similar tone. As early as the mid-1970s, even before North Vietnamese tanks stormed Saigon, critics lambasted the American effort, arguing that search-and-destroy tactics, body counts, and a strategy of attrition caused the United States to lose a war it should have won. How was it, they asked, that the nation that won World War II lost to the military forces of a third world country?

“If only” arguments soon proliferated-if only the military had been allowed to widen the scope of the war into North Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos; if only public support had remained strong; if only civilian leaders had been more resolute; if only uniformed officers had better understood the complexities of a revolutionary, political-military war in Southeast Asia.