More Details on How UK Telecom Cable & Wireless Helped GCHQ Access Undersea Fiber-Optic Cables November 26, 2014

Snowden-Leaks: How Vodafone-Subsidiary Cable & Wireless Aided GCHQ’s Spying Efforts 

Frederik Obermaier, Henrik Moltke, Laura Poitras and Jan Strozyk

Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 24, 2014

Previously unpublished documents show how the UK telecom firm Cable & Wireless, acquired by Vodafone in 2012, played a key role in establishing one of the Government Communications Headquarters’ (GCHQ) most controversial surveillance programs.

A joint investigation by NDR, WDR, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Channel 4 based on documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden, reveals that Cable & Wireless actively shaped and provided the most data to GCHQ mass surveillance programs, and received millions of pounds in compensation. The documents also suggest that Cable & Wireless assisted GCHQ in breaking into a competitor’s network.

In response to these allegations, Vodafone said that an internal investigation found no evidence of unlawful conduct, but the company would not deny it happened.

"What we have in the UK is a system based on warrants, where we receive a lawful instruction from an agency or authority to allow them to have access to communications data on our network. We have to comply with that warrant and we do and there are processes for us to do that which we’re not allowed to talk about because the law constrains us from revealing these things. We don’t go beyond what the law requires” a Vodafone spokesperson told Channel 4.

In August 2013 Süddeutsche Zeitung and NDR first named Vodafone as one of the companies assisting the GCHQ. Reports that Vodafone secretly provided customer data to intelligence agencies damaged the company’s relation to German customers. Few months later Der Spiegel reported that the NSA had spied on Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose cell phone was on a Vodafone contract.

This could be a coincidence. No evidence suggests that Vodafone was involved in the “Merkelphone” scandal. But unlike Facebook, Yahoo, or other companies forced to cooperate with the intelligence services, Vodafone has yet to challenge the GCHQ publicly. Konstantin von Notz, a German member of the Bundestag for the Green Party, urges Vodafone to take legal action: „A company such as Vodafone, which has responsibility for so many customers, has to take a clear stand against these data grabs.“

Similarly, Vodafone has provided no explanation as to why GCHQ discussed “potential new deployment risks identified by GERONTIC” in June 2008. According to the Snowden-documents “GERONTIC” was the GCHQ codename for Cable & Wireless, and after acquisition in 2012 (at least for a while) presumably for Vodafone.

The documents show regular “Joint Project Team” meetings between june 2008 until at least february 2012 and that a GCHQ employee worked full-time within Cable & Wireless.

The Search for the Plan To Destroy ISIS

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

November 24, 2014 

Source Link

The United States has promised that America will “degrade and destroy” ISIS in a “targeted, relentless counterterrorism campaign.” But two and a half months in, ISIS’s appeal shows little sign of waning. And the question is, even if the U.S. is able to kill the elusive architect of ISIS’s ascent, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, can America kill the idea propelling his organization’s appeal?

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon is a regular contributor to Defense One. Lemmon is also a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of The Dressmaker of Khair Khana. 

“You have to see ISIS as fundamentally a state-building enterprise,” says David Kilcullen, former special advisor to the Secretary of State and senior advisor to retired Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq, as well as author of a 2010 book on counterinsurgency. “These guys are trying to build a state.”

To date the U.S. has delivered a three-month campaign of air strikes in Iraq and Syria. Earlier this month the Pentagon announced that 1,500 more American troops would head to Iraq to advise and assist Iraqi and Kurdish forces now facing off against ISIS. The Obama administration has announced a plan to get $500 million in additional weapons, training and resources to more moderate Syrian fighters, the “boots on the ground” now fighting both the Islamic State, also called ISIS or ISIL, and the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. But that training and equipping has yet to begin. And that, say those close to the more moderate Syrian fighters, is part of the problem.

Several people inside and outside the administration tell Defense One that moderate Syrian rebel forces feel let down by the West, which has yet to articulate a coherent strategy or match resources to their rhetoric when it comes to supporting Syrian moderates. That lack of resources, they say, has increased ISIS’s appeal as the blood-soaked Syrian civil war grinds on into a stalemate.

“ISIS is offering salaries to young men and it is providing protection because the choice is either you fight ISIS or you join them; on top of that you are getting weapons, ammo and a piece of war booty,” said one administration official. “For Syrian fighters the immediate reason to join begins with at least the rumor of consistent salaries.”

THE ISLAMIC STATE’S STALLED OFFENSIVE IN ANBAR PROVINCE

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

November 25, 2014 

In September, the Islamic in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) launched a devastatingly effective offensive in Iraq’s Anbar province that for a time masked the losses the group was experiencing elsewhere (see two previous WOTR reports on ISIL’s Anbar campaign). Beginning in late October, ISIL garnered even more headlines through its horrific slaughter of hundreds of members of the Albu Nimr, a Sunni tribe. However, there are signs that ISIL’s attempts to crush the Albu Nimr under its boot have backfired, instead stiffening the tribe’s resolve to fight the jihadist group. ISIL’s campaign in Anbar now appears stalled.

This report, which primarily draws from Arabic-language sources, provides a granular examination of how ISIL’s ongoing campaign in Anbar has developed since mid-October, when the last installment in WOTR’s series on the Anbar offensive was published.

Mid-October: ISIL on the March

Following the killing of Anbar provincial chief of police Ahmad Siddiq al-Dulaymi on Oct. 11, ISIL managed to swiftly overrun Camp Hit after the 300 remaining members of the Iraqi security forces (ISF) at the base undertook a “tactical retreat.” Faced with the prospect of ISIL control of Hit district, about 180,000 people fled en masse for areas that remained under control of the government of Iraq. The only exception was the al-Furat suburb on the eastern side of the Euphrates River, which remained under Albu Nimr control until Oct. 22.

Shortly after ISIL completed its seizure of Hit on Oct. 13, the group moved to secure the outlying villages of Bustamiyah, Sahliyah, Kassarah, Khazraj and Dulab along the western and southern ends of Hit district. ISIL’s move into these western areas was not simply opportunistic, but rather a critical part of the group’s designs to eventually stage a large-scale attack against Baghdad.

ISF responded to these losses by bombing Fallujah with barrel bombs, rockets, and heavy artillery, which at this point was more a sign of the Iraqi government’s anger at ISIL’s advances than a legitimate strategy to counter the group’s gains. The situation had deteriorated so significantly that Ali Hatim al-Sulayman, the emir of the Sunni-dominated Dulaymi tribal confederation, called for an “Arab intervention by land” to fight ISIL (almost certainly meaning a Saudi or Jordanian intervention). Meanwhile, the Sunni-dominated Anbar Provincial Council had grown so desperate that itopenly pleaded for all available assistance, even from Iranian-backed Shia militant groups, such as Asa’ib Ahl al-Haqq, Badr Organization and the “Peace Brigades” (the most recent incarnation of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Jaysh al-Mahdi). Such calls for help from Shia militant groups would have been inconceivable just months ago. There were also calls for U.S. military intervention, to include an American troop presence in Anbar.

ISIL also attempted to take the town of Baghdadi on the Euphrates River from Oct. 15-20, only to have its attacks repelled. ISF made anotherground incursion into Fallujah on Oct. 15, likely as part of a continued effort to keep ISIL off-guard and unable to mount a ground attack into eastern Anbar.

The Tourniquet: A Strategy for Defeating the Islamic State and Saving Syria and Iraq

Marc Lynch 

OCTOBER 16, 2014 

Download the report (PDF)

"The Tourniquet, authored by Adjunct Senior Fellow Marc Lynch, lays out a strategy for internationally legitimate and regionally coordinated large-scale but conditional assistance to Iraq and to Syrians. For Syria, the report argues for a "strategic pause" to allow the building of viable alternative governance in rebel-controlled parts of Syria, while rejecting the idea of partnering with the Asad regime against ISIS as both unrealistic and undesirable and acknowledging the constraints imposed by the absence of a viable Syrian opposition with which to work. For Iraq, it argues for close support conditioned upon a commitment by Iraqi leaders to implement long-needed political reforms and by Kurdish leaders to remain within the Iraqi state. Regionally, it shows the importance of pulling back from debilitating proxy wars and warns against subordinating human rights and political reforms to the exigencies of a new war on terror.

COUNTERING HYBRID THREATS: CHALLENGES FOR THE WEST

by Fortuna's Corner 

November 23, 2014 

Conflict in Ukraine, Iraq and Syria during 2014 has put renewed focus on so-called ‘hybrid warfare’, in which combatants employ a mix of military and non-military tactics to achieve their objectives. While this is not a new concept, its appearance in the year’s two most pressing strategic crises has captured the attention of Western governments. The NATO Summit in September produced a commitment to ensure that the Alliance ‘is able to effectively address the specific challenges posed by hybrid warfare threats’.

The mix of tactics used on the one hand by Russia in Ukraine, and on the other by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria, has left Western governments uncertain as to how best to respond. While the methods used in the two theatres are by no means the same, both involve the simultaneous use of military and civil instruments, covert operations, information warfare and modern media. They might be viewed as two different models of the same phenomenon.

NATO leaders, seeing the need to act rapidly and flexibly in the face of such threats, took steps at the Wales Summit to improve military readiness. The crises have presented them with familiar questions: whether to impose sanctions, and if so upon whom; whether to engage in military action, and if so what kind; and how to support friends and allies. But the use of mixed tactics has added to the challenge by requiring greater speed and agility in decision making.

What does hybrid mean?

The fact that governments find it difficult to attach a definition to the problem that they are facing underlines why it is challenging to formulate policies to address it.

DRONES FIGHTING ISLAMIC STATE CHANGE THE MEANING OF WARFARE

by Fortuna's Corner 

November 24, 2014 

The greatest combat hazard they face is from the Red Bull and other sugary drinks they devour to stay awake; their unit has the worst rate of dental cavities in the Air Force.

“I would rather be deployed,” said Capt. Jennifer, a reservist and intelligence analyst whose full name the Air Force withheld for security reasons. “My daughter calls me because she is sick and I have to pick her up from school. When I am deployed forward I am deployed. I don’t have to worry about the day-to-day.”

With the Obama administration’s strategy of “degrading and ultimately destroying” the Islamic State without putting American combat troops – “boots on the ground” – at risk, much of the war against the group depends on remotely piloted aircraft with names such as Predator and Reaper that are guided from rooms like this one, at a base three hours south of Washington. How the administration now talks about war is changing the nature of war itself.

Drones Fighting Islamic State Change The Meaning Of Warfare

Drone images show the layout of the farming compound where wanted terrorist Abu Obaeideah was hanging out. Obaeideah was leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, which is associated with Al-Qaeda, in the Samarra area. It took a month before Special Forces was able to pin his location and conduct an assault.

COURTESY OF THE U.S. ARMY

Intel analysts sift spy plane feeds for Islamic State targets

Airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, aided by intelligence reports developed by airmen at Joint Base Langley-Eustis from spy-plane feeds, have helped stem the momentum of Islamic State fighters in the key city of Kobane, according to top military officials.

JOINT BASE LANGLEY-EUSTIS, Va. – In America’s war against the Islamic State, many of those fighting sit in a dark, cold room and stare at computer screens for 12 hours at a stretch.

There are dozens of them, men and women, each wearing camouflage, looking for suspected Iraqi and Syrian jihadists scurrying across the screen. If something changes on the screen – a group of dark figures crossing a street, a string of vehicles racing down a road – they pass the information to another pilot, who might decide to open fire with a Hellfire missile or an electronically guided bomb.

UNDERSTANDING THE ENEMY: INSIDE THE MIND OF THE ISLAMIC STATE

by Fortuna's Corner

November 23, 2014 

Political scientist Edward Luttwak once noted that strategy always involves opponents that are thinking, scheming and adjusting. Nothing stays the same forever; what works today often won’t tomorrow. Hopefully the coalition planners understand this and are working hard to get into the mind of IS strategists to understand what they might do when faced with various coalition actions. Ultimately, good red teaming of this sort might be the key to the coalition’s success, while the failure to do it might condemn the coalition to being outmaneuvered by IS. To defeat a wily enemy, one must first get inside its head.

STRATEGIC HORIZONS

Understanding The Enemy: Inside the Mind of the Islamic State

Smoke rises from the Syrian city of Kobani, following an airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition, seen from a hilltop outside Suruc, on the Turkey-Syria border, Nov. 17, 2014 (AP photo by Vadim Ghirda).

This week, military planners from more than 30 countries are gathered at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, to plot their approach against the so-called Islamic State (IS). On the other side of the world, IS is probably mulling its strategy as well. It is easy to imagine how different the two sessions must be, yet the two groups do have one thing in common: Both know that if their strategies are to work, they must first try to get inside the mind of their enemy.

Anticipating what the enemy will do-what security experts call “red teaming”-is never easy, particularly when the antagonists are as different as the two in this conflict. Yet it is vitally important and well worth the effort. While the coalition is probably deep into red teaming, it cannot know precisely what the strategists of IS are thinking. But it can at least imagine what the extremists consider their central choices.

Sound strategy starts with a balance sheet laying out strengths and weaknesses. The goal of strategists is then to exploit their strengths and capitalize on the enemy’s weaknesses. So what, then, might the Islamic State’s balance sheet look like?

Bangladesh’s Persistent Water Crisis

By ASMG Kibria

November 25, 2014

Issues with water resource management in Bangladesh have some very broad repercussions. 

In recent decades, Bangladesh has made remarkable progress in supplying safe water to its citizens, yet serious disparities in coverage persist across both rural and urban areas. Although the government has numerous water initiatives underway, it has never properly addressed the social vulnerabilities of women and children in rural villages that can be linked to water stress.

According to UNICEF, 97 percent of Bangladeshis have access to tube well water. This has dramatically reduced the incidence of water-borne diseases such as diarrhea and cholera. But instead of developing modern water supply facilities to utilize surface water across the country, the focus of water management has shifted to heavy engineering development for flood control, river erosion control, and irrigation system installation. The relative inattention to household needs has had serious consequences, especially for Bangladesh’s huge rural population.

Exacerbating the problem are the recent industrial boom, rapid urbanization, extensive agrochemical use, and inadequate sewage systems. Each day about 2 million tons of untreated waste are dumped into rivers and their distributaries. Studies shows that just one liter of waste is sufficient to pollute eight liters of fresh water.

Bangladesh gets fully 92 percent of its water from rivers originating mostly in India and China, with just 8 percent coming from local rainfall. The volume of water reaching Bangladesh is also under pressure from the enormous populations of India and China, with upstream construction heavily limiting the flow of water downstream into Bangladesh. This is not only constraining surface water availability, it is also significantly reducing the volume of groundwater in many parts of the country.

Water shortages are a problem shared by both rural and urban areas. The water supply in major cities is the responsibility of city authorities, but in rural areas that authority is missing. Some families install their own supply system but others depend on a common tube well. This haphazard management of water exposes the whole nation to serious health risks.

MIDDLE EAST: ALLIANCES IN TIMES OF TURMOIL – ANALYSIS

By Haizam Amirah-Fernández

NOVEMBER 25, 2014

The Middle East is becoming a region with multiple centres of instability and increasingly complex conflicts.

Faced with the increase in regional instability and the –relative but firm– advance of powers fighting against the status quo from very different positions, there is a real risk of implosion, which would subsequently disfigure the Middle East. The growing sense of insecurity among the different regional actors has a direct effect on their choice of alliances and foreign policy-making. A combination of factors bodes for an unstable short-term future in the Middle East, where today’s alliances can change abruptly and where one has to be prepared to expect the unexpected.

Analysis:

If anything can define the Middle East in 2014, it is its character as a region that is messy and in rapid flux. In this part of the world, as in others, insecurity leads to power struggles. Regional foreign policies are aimed at eliminating or containing threats, whether perceived or real, to ‘security’, which can be understood in different ways. National security is often confused with the security of the regime and its capacity to remain in power. It also encompasses interests of the State, such as sovereignty, territorial integrity and the capacity to exert influence. The latter may be aimed at reaching regional leadership, advancing economic interests or gaining recognition from the major powers.[2]

From a realist perspective, when faced with a serious threat, these states will often either seek balance by forming alliances or ‘bandwagon’ as opportunists. In other words, the choice is between forming alliances against common threats or aligning with the source of the threat in an attempt to remain safe from harm.[3] The ensuing security dilemmas are, therefore, how countries can defend themselves without their rivals feeling threatened and subsequently triggering an arms race. Another security dilemma facing several countries in the Middle East is the choice between developing their own defensive capabilities and ‘contracting’ their defence from the major international powers. These dilemmas often generate paradoxes and contradictions.

British Tanks Practice for War With Russia

British Tanks Practice for War With Russia

U.K. armor pairs up with Polish troops for eastern war game

During the Cold War, British tanks never went east of Berlin. But in November, soldiers from the U.K.’s 3rd Armored Division were in Poland, training for high-tech combat against a powerful foe such as Russia.

How times have changed. Or not changed at all.

More than 2,000 troops from the United Kingdom and Poland—including 20 Challenger 2 and 56 Leopard 2 tanks—linked up for the Black Eagle exercise near Żagań, in western Poland, from Nov. 3 to Nov. 21.

“The exercise will test responsiveness, interoperability enhancement, and provide demanding opportunities to conduct small to medium sized armour and mechanized infantry field training,” NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe announced as the training kicked off.

The practice sessions allowed British forces to test how fast they could rush into a major battle against a determined enemy—again, Russia comes to mind—and whether their Polish compatriots could be ready for them when they got there.

Like other NATO militaries, the British Army has spent the last decade fighting insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. Large tank battles were far from planners’ minds—and rarely factored into anyone’s training.

Above—British Army engineers get a tank ready for the exercise. Crown Copyright. At top—Poland’s deputy prime minister Tomasz Siemoniak and troops with the tanks. Polish defense ministry photo

THAT’S NO MOON! DID RUSSIA JUST DEPLOY AN EXPERIMENTAL KILLER SATELLITE?

by Fortuna's Corner 

November 24, 2014 

http://www.fortunascorner.wordpress.com

That’s No Moon! Did Russia Just Deploy An Experimental Killer Satellite?

Tyler Rogoway, writing on the blog, FoxTrot Alpha, begins by noting that “Russia launched the Kosmos 2499 rocket mission back in May as part of what seemed like just another mission to further develop its constellations of ‘Rodnik’ communications satellites.. Usually, three satellites are released during these missions,” Mr. Rogoway wrote, — but, this one had a fourth object.”

Initially, at least, “the U.S. thought that this strange radar return was just debris; but, not so much anymore,” Mr. Rogoway asserts. According to the BBC. “Russia told the U.N. that the piece of debris in question was actually a fourth satellite, which itself is nothing too odd, as the U.S. launches classified payloads all the time. Additionally, Russia has been all about surprises lately, so it was seen as just another question thrown on top of a pile of questions. But, then satellite observers saw the satellite/craft, changing its orbit in ways that are far from normal — for even spy satellites that usually do anything they can to conserve their finite fuel.”

“On November 9th, this small satellite’s odd maneuvers came to a head when it actually approached a piece of rocket that sent it into space six months earlier, maneuvering within just meters of it,’ Mr. Rogoway added.

“Could this be Russia’s answer to technologies that are clearly being developed by the U.S. on multiple levels, including one of the potential missions for the USAF’s shadowy pint-sized space plane — the X-37B?, Mr. Rogoway asks.

“Unofficially termed ‘inspector satellites,’ these are basically maneuverable space vehicles that can approach other satellites for both passive, and potentially active purposes. On the passive side of things,’ Mr. Rogoway notes, “these space drones of sorts can observe the design of a satellite — taking photos and laser measurements of it; and in some cases, they can even listen to the targeted satellite’s transmissions.”

“On the active side of things,” Mr. Rogoway writes, “this capability could be used to refuel, or even repair other satellites in orbit. Then,” he adds, “there are darker sides of the ‘active’ mission,’ with the potential of possibly blinding, jamming, or even kinetically destroying enemy satellites during a time of hostilities.”

RUSSIAN COMPANIES AT THREAT OF SOPHISTICATED REGIN MALWARE

by Fortuna's Corner 

November 24, 2014 

Russian Companies at Threat of Sophisticated Regin Malware

A highly complex backdoor Trojan, Regin, has been used to gather data and intelligence by spying on governments, businesses, researchers and individuals since 2008.

MOSCOW, November 24 (Sputnik) – Regin, a highly complex piece of advanced malware, was used to spy on governments, businesses, researchers and individuals since 2008, with Russia suffering the majority of infections, Symantec, a US technology giant, said in a post on its official blog.

Symantec, a cyber security firm that develops antivirus software, has defined the software, also referred to as Backdoor.Regin, as a backdoor Trojan, “customized with a wide range of different capabilities, which can be deployed depending on the target. It is a multi-staged, modular threat, meaning that it has a number of components, each depending on each other to perform attack operations.”

The malware was used from 2008 until 2011, and reintroduced in 2013. It mainly targeted internet providers and telecom companies. It has been discovered in at least 10 countries, with Russia suffering from 28 percent of infections. The bug has also been very active in Saudi Arabia, accounting for 24 percent of all infections. Other nations mentioned by Symantec include Mexico, Ireland, India, Afghanistan, Iran, Belgium, Austria and Pakistan.

It takes months and considerable technical expertise to develop a malware like Regin. The structure of the bug “displays a degree of technical competence rarely seen,” Symantec stated concluding that it was likely developed by a nation state. The company has not specified what country it believes to be responsible.

Regin “can potentially be used in espionage campaigns lasting several years,” Symantec warned, adding that “even when its presence is detected, it is very difficult to ascertain what it is doing.” Moreover, the company believes that Regin is “one of the main cyberespionage tools used by a nation state”.

Symantec warned that it only discovered a limited number of components, saying that other versions of the program with additional functionality exist.

Regin resembles the notorious Stuxnet worm, believed to have been developed by the United States to target the Iranian nuclear program.

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PUTIN WILL CONTINUE TO FIGHT DIRTY IN UKRAINE

by Fortuna's Corner

November 24, 2014 

Putin Will Continue to Fight Dirty in Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin is not looking for an easy exit from the Ukraine conflict. He is digging in for the long haul to secure his end goal: a “structural lock” over Kiev’s security and foreign policy in a re-engineered Ukrainian state.

Moscow is not interested in a frozen conflict in the Donbass. This would defeat its strategic objective of maintaining decisive political influence in Kiev and would saddle Russia with an exorbitant price tag. It would also allow Ukraine to proceed with reform, integration with Europe and building security relationships with NATO and the United States, a strategic loss for the Kremlin.

Moscow’s interest is in forcing Kiev to integrate the separatist Donetsk and Luhansk republics as “special status regions” in a “federalized” Ukraine under a new constitution. The objective is to “re-establish” the Ukrainian state as a Bosnia-style confederation of the eastern (Russia-dominated) regions and the western regions, each with the option to chose their international security and trade arrangements — a form of Russian veto over NATO and EU membership.

Moscow keeps insisting that Kiev hold an “inclusive national dialogue” with all regions and develop a new federal constitution. This underscores the scale of Russia’s ambition and chutzpah. While ignoring the political realities in Ukraine — there is no clamor for such a “national dialogue” and very little support for federalization — it allows Moscow to impose its own agenda to advance its interests.

Putin may have decided that full implementation of September’s Minsk agreements, leading to a stable cease-fire and a gradual restoration of full Ukrainian sovereignty, would ultimately diminish Russia’s leverage over Kiev’s foreign and security policies. This explains the latest military surge and sham elections in the Donbass. Now the task is to force Kiev to negotiate a new framework for the Ukrainian state directly with Russian proxies.

To get there, Putin will ramp up economic and military pressure to force Kiev and the West to accept his terms. Moscow will encourage the separatists to press along the line of control, expanding their territory, driving Ukrainian forces backward and grinding Ukraine down until it capitulates to Moscow’s demands. A parallel effort would be made to expedite Ukraine’s financial meltdown while stimulating anti-government protests in the east.

Putin looks bent on winning ugly in Ukraine, regardless of the cost, but he is about to lose the plot.

Vladimir Frolov is president of LEFF Group, a government relations and PR company.

Hagel On Way Out; Can White House Listen To Criticism?

By COLIN CLARK

November 24, 2014 

WASHINGTON: Beset by a drubbing at the polls, a wildly troubled world, doubts about his strategic abilities, and after one of the weakest and most troubling nomination hearings in post-World War II history, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is now on his way out the door.

The White House clearly shoved Hagel toward the door but President Obama did not fire him and the White House made no immediate public statement as did President Bush when he removed Donald Rumsfeld from the Pentagon after Democrats handed the White House a stark electoral defeat in 2006. In fact, Obama brought Hagel to the White House and gave the outgoing Defense Secretary a big hug after announcing the resignation.

On the other hand, Rumsfeld’s successor, the much-admired Bill Gates, was right at hand during Rumsfeld’s farewell. No successor to Hagel is yet named.

“The timing is difficult to understand,” said one well-connected retired general. Yes, the election was brutal for Democrats, but that means Hagel’s successor must face a confirmation hearing in a GOP-controlled Senate. And why would the Administration seek to switch horses at this particularly precarious point in mid-stream, amidst the rising waters of the 2016 budget process, the return of sequestration, and crises in both Europe and the Mideast?

“That has to make you wonder,” the general said. Why the White House think this had to happen now? “This goes a lot deeper” than we know.

One of the questions all this raises is, can the White House listen to criticism of its strategies in Syria and Iraq? Hagel made it open that he didn’t agree with aspects of the White House approach and now he’s gone after an election during which national security issues played a very muted role. Former Obama Defense Secretaries Leon Panetta and Robert Gates both have made very clear in books and in public comments that the White House often didn’t want to listen to outside views. Our system is set up so that, behind closed doors, senior advisors and top military leaders may present the president with tough and honest advice. That is supposed to help ensure the president can make the best policy and operational decisions.

The Fall Guy

BY DAVID ROTHKOPF

NOVEMBER 24, 2014

Getting rid of Hagel is not a cure for what ails Obama's national security team -- it's a symptom of the disease.

The knives were out for Chuck Hagel as soon as he was appointed secretary of defense. At first, however, those blades belonged to the snarky and dubious members of the press corps assigned to him. The Washington buzz was that Hagel, despite his years in the Senate and accomplishments in business and the military, was not up to the job. But today, with word of Hagel being ousted from the Obama cabinet, many of those who doubted him feel he was wronged.

With the Obama administration coming off an extremely rocky first two years of its second term on the national security front, many, including myself, urged the president to take a page out of the book of his predecessors and shake up a team that was clearly not serving him well.As early as two months ago, the buzz coming from administration insiders was that Hagel might become a sacrificial lamb on that front. His relations with the White House were not great. He was not seen as a strong secretary of defense. And he was seen, in the words of one former senior Obama aide, as having "gone native." This meant he was becoming a conduit for the growing frustrations of the military leadership in the Department of Defense toward the reactive, strategically incoherent responses of the president and his White House team, particularly regarding the growing threat posed by the Islamic State spreading chaos in Iraq and Syria.

Hagel's appointment may have been a sign of the president's and his closest advisors' bad judgment when Hagel was hired. Hagel lacked the national security bureaucratic know-how and leadership of either Bob Gates or Leon Panetta, the much stronger pair who served the president in the Pentagon during his first term in office. Hagel was a sign of how small the president's circle of acquaintances in the defense area were -- drawn from the one pool Obama knew from his four years in Washington, D.C., prior to becoming president: the Senate. Hagel may have been a brand name but not a great choice. But he was comfortable, it was thought, with Obama, Joe Biden, and John Kerry, four former members -- with Hagel -- of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Americans ruined yoga for the rest of the world

WRITTEN BYMichelle García

November 24, 2014

Powering through Times Square. (Reuters/Lucas Jackson)

Countless articles about the highly lucrative and often ridiculed yoga culture begin by locating us within a spacious, candlelit studio with polished wood floors, possibly bamboo in—pick your random major metro area. On the occasion of my visit to a new studio around the block from my apartment in Harlem, I didn’t get past the reception area or the blonde waif with a face scrubbed free of character, who informed me that following an introductory series, I would be expected to pay 25 bucks for the privilege of accessing the space for a self-led practice.

“So I’m paying you to teach myself,” I said, clarifying the deal that all but included a bridge. “Well in India,” she replied, invoking the yogi motherland, its mere mention imbuing higher power credibility to what sounded like an old-fashioned big city scam. Maybe yogis practice to their own tune in India, but this is New York City, this is Harlem, and what I should have said while I was mindfully annoyed—but didn’t—is that this is the land of pricy Lululemon gear where yogis fit their lotus between a mani/pedi and a cocktail.

In America, classes are described as sweaty, flow, and power; they’re built around endless sun salutations (yogi calisthenics) and doused with a photoshopped version of femininity. Yoga may have its roots as a practice largely for the benefit of men in India, but in this country, $20-$25 buys women an entrée into a world where hips, sacrums, and elongated necks are prized, and a woman’s body is worshipped. In exchange for 90 minutes of our time, we attain a personal encounter with our inner goddess by pushing ourselves to reach high, dig deep, and make contact with our perineum—but often as a means of peddling a stereotype of femininity, one tied to a certain aesthetic of what a woman’s body should be.

What began as an esoteric practice tied to meditation has become an industry with a corporate studio culture and a practice built on the notion of twisting ourselves into becoming someone else. “It makes sense to me that as yoga adapts to our culture what will be popular goes with the culture,” Giaconda Parker, a veteran yoga teacher who tours regularly told me after a class in Austin. “Yoga has been the place where the super-fit, super lean go hangout together.” Only in yoga will people chant in a foreign language, oblivious to the meaning of the words and then closely examine their curves in pants now worn by porn stars. “Yoga has been the place where the super-fit, super lean go hangout together.” 

THIS MALWARE MAY HAVE GOTTEN THE NSA CAUGHT WITH ITS HAND IN THE COOKIE JAR

by Fortuna's Corner 

November 25, 2014 

American and British spies aren’t commenting on the revelations about the bug, but if Symantec’s findings have indeed unmasked a piece of NSA malware, the researchers have stripped agency of an enormously powerful weapon. Regin, the researchers note, “can potentially be used in espionage campaigns lasting several years” due to its “low key nature.”

“Even when its presence is detected, it is very difficult to ascertain what it is doing. Symantec was only able to analyze the payloads after it decrypted sample files,” the researchers add.

This Malware May Have Gotten the NSA Caught With Its Hand in the Cookie Jar

In Norse mythology, Regin is a cunning dwarf who raises the hero Sigurd as his own son in order to use him as an instrument of revenge against Regin’s deceitful brother, Fafnir. Having become a dragon after stealing the family’s hoard of gold, Fafnir is killed by Sigurd, who then goes on to kill Regin when he learns that his adopted father used him to avenge his brother’s crime.

Now, the old Norse dwarf has a second life as a newly discovered, highly advanced piece of malware, techspeak for software used to damage or infiltrate computers. On Sunday, researchers at Symantec, the computer security firm, released their findings on Regin, a piece of malware that bears the hallmarks of British and American government hackers and can be used to infiltrate computers, mine data, access file systems, hijack point and click functions, take screenshots, and carry out network surveillance. The bug is almost entirely encrypted, and its payload can be customized depending on the target.

Symantec’s report compares the bug to Stuxnet, the infamous Israeli-U.S. bug that was used to infiltrate and sabotage Iran’s nuclear program by causing Iranian centrifuges to spin at such excessive speeds that they ultimately broke down. “In the world of malware threats, only a few rare examples can truly be considered groundbreaking and almost peerless,” the researchers wrote in a white paper on the malware. “What we have seen in Regin is just such a class of malware.”

The level of technical sophistication in the malware would appear to suggest that it is the work for a nation state, not a rogue hacker or collective. While a full list of its targets isn’t yet known, the Intercept reports that Regin has been “identified on the same European Union computer systems that were targeted for surveillance by the National Security Agency.” Moreover, the site reports that the malware was used to attack a Belgium telecommunications company whose clients include key EU bodies such as the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the European Council. A security expert hired by the telecom company to remove the malware from its servers told the Intercept he is convinced the malware is either of British or American make.

Improving Strategic Competence

by Linda Robinson, Paul D. Miller, John Gordon IV, Jeffrey Decker, Michael Schwille, Raphael S. Cohen

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Research Questions

Which lessons can be distilled from the U.S. experience in 13 years of war (2001–2014)?

Which capabilities will be needed in the U.S. government, and in land and special operations forces in particular, in future irregular and hybrid conflicts to enable successful operation in conjunction with joint, interagency, and multinational partners?

Abstract

This report contributes to the ongoing debate about the lessons from the past 13 years of war and the requirements for addressing future conflicts. It addresses a particular disconnect in the current debate on the future of national security strategy and the role of landpower caused by an inadequate examination of the national level of strategy made by the U.S. government. The disconnect exists because there has been no systematic effort to collect and analyze insights from those who have been actively engaged in making policy and strategy from 2001 to 2014. 

A RAND Arroyo Center workshop provided a mechanism for eliciting insights from policymakers and academic experts involved in the formation of national-level strategy and its implementation over the past 13 years. This study analyzes and develops those insights in the context of the debate on future national security strategy. It applies those insights to the future operating environment, which will include irregular and hybrid threats, and identifies critical requirements for land forces and special operations forces to operate successfully in conjunction with other joint, interagency, and multinational partners.

Key Findings

Two Trends from World War II to the Present

Land warfare has evolved away from conventional combat against state actors and their standing forces to an increasing incidence of irregular warfare fought by joint forces against nonstate actors. This has led to an increasing U.S. reliance on special operations forces.

EGYPTIAN CYBER ARMY: THE HACKER GROUP ATTACKING ISIS PROPAGANDA ONLINE

by Fortuna's Corner 

November 24, 2014 · 

http://www.fortunascorner.wordpress.com

Egyptian Cyber Army: The Hacker Group Attacking ISIS Propaganda Online

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, has an article this morning (Nov. 24, 2014) on the website — Mashable — noting that “there is a new hacking group in cyber space; and, it’s going after the Islamic State’s online propaganda.” “Last week,” he writes, “less than 24 hours after ISIS social media accounts posted a threatening message from the group’s leader, the audio recording was replaced with a song; and, it’s transcript with a logo resembling that of the Egyptian military — accompanied by a writing in Arabic that read, “Egyptian Cyber Army.”

Mr. Franceschi-Bicchierai asserts that “The Egyptian Cyber Army is clearly inspired by the infamous Syrian hacktivist group; but, a spokesman told Mashable that the group’s members are all Egyptians — some civilians, some with a military, or police background — all sympathizers of the Egyptian government, led by former Commander-In-Chief, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.”

“The goal of the group,” Mr. Franceschi-Bicchierai writes, “is to defend al-Sisi’s government against any opponent, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, or ISIS,” according to the group — “as well as experts who have been tracking the new hacker group.” “With its anti-ISIS stance, the group seems to enjoy a motley crew of hacktivists who are trying to counter the terrorists group’s influence on the Internet.”

Baghdadi “was delivering a message to all extremists…all over the Middle East, and my country that you have to use your weapons in the faces of the government; and, our people — so, we took it down and replaced it with a very popular song,” the spokesman from the Egyptian Cyber Army — who claimed to be a 37yr. old former Cairo police officer named Khaled Abubakr (he declined to provided any identity) told Mashable, “All the people instead of hearing this pig — heard our song and laughed.”

FINALLY, A NEW CLUE TO SOLVE THE CIA’S MYSTERIOUS KRYPTOS SCULPTURE — ‘THE EVEREST OF CODES’

by Fortuna's Corner 

November 23, 2014 

http://www.fortunascorner.wordpress.com

Finally, A New Clue To Solve The CIA’s Mysterious Kryptos Sculpture — ‘The Everest Of Codes’

Kim Zetter, writing on the Nov. 20, 2014, website Wired.com, begins by noting that, “in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall began to fall, American artist Jim Sanborn was busy working on his Kryptos sculpture, a cryptographic puzzle wrapped in a riddle that he created for CIA’s headquarters; and, that has been driving amateur and professional cryptographers mad ever since.”

“To honor the 25th anniversary of the Wall’s demise and the artist’s 69th birthday this year,” Ms. Zetter writes, “Sanborn has decided to reveal a new clue to help solve his iconic and enigmatic artwork. It’s only the second hint he’s released since the sculpture was unveiled in 1990; and, may finally help unlock the fourth, and final section of the encrypted sculpture, which frustrated sleuths have been struggling to crack for more than two decades.”

“The twelve foot high, verdigrised copper, granite, and wood sculpture on the grounds of the CIA complex in Langley, Virginia, contains four encrypted messages carved out of the metal, three of which were solved years ago,” Mr. Zetter wrote. “The fourth, is composed of just 97 letters, but its brevity belies its strength. Even the NSA, whose master crackers were the first to decipher other parts of the work, gave up on cracking it long ago. So, four years ago” she notes, “concerned that he might not live to see the mystery of Kryptos resolved, Sanborn released a clue to help things along, revealing that six of the last 97 letters — when decrypted — spell the word “Berlin” — a revelation many took to be a reference to the Berlin Wall.”

“To that clue today, he’s adding the next word in the sequence — “clock” — that may, or may not throw a wrench in this theory,” Ms. Zetter observes. “Now,” she says, “the Kryptos sleuths have to just unscramble the remaining characters to find out.”

“Is A Clock A Clock?”

“Sanborn told Wired that he’s always been fascinated by Berlin’s many clocks; but, the Berlin Clock — in particular — has intrigued him the most,” Ms. Zetter says. “The clock, also known as the Berlin Uhr, or Set Theory Clock, was designed in the 1970s by inventor and tinkerer Dieter Binninger. It displays time through illuminated colored blocks, rather than numbers; and, requires the viewer to calculate the time based on a complex scheme.”

The European Union in 2030 Report Released

October 27, 2014 

The European Union has more than a half-century of impressive successes, but it has lost direction and momentum over the last decade. Wikistrat’s recently-concluded strategic simulation “The EU in 2030″ articulates a defined sequence of policy initiatives that have the clear ability to remedy that situation, if they are adopted and implemented in the order set out.

Earlier this year, Wikistrat ran a three-week long crowdsourced simulation to explore the centrifugal and centripetal forces that will shape the EU’s future between now and 2030 across three domains: economic and financial; political and security; and social, cultural and human.

On the one hand, the EU has achieved certain supranationalism in the economic sphere such as the common currency, fiscal targets and growing acceptance of transfer payments. On the other hand, its political integration schemes, such as the common foreign and security policy, remain largely stuck at the intergovernmental level. In this way there is a tension between the relative vitality and success of European economic integration on the one hand and, on the other hand, the lack of vitality of a values-oriented common European identity.

The EU has thus turned in a mixed performance across the range of broad policy issue-areas including capabilities, integration level, demographics, membership and global presence. Yet the EU has succeeded impressively at enlarging its membership. The original six-member European Economic Community enlarged to become nine, then 15 members; once the Cold War ended, it rapidly became the European Union of the 28 that we know today, with a few candidates still in line.

Considering these historical strengths and weaknesses, Wikistrat evaluated four master scenarios for the EU’s development as an integration organization up to the year 2030. These “Master Narratives,” outlined in the simulation’s report by Wikistrat Senior and Lead Analyst Robert M. Cutler, show that there in fact exists a possible future path toward enhancing both economic performance and socio-political cohesion in the EU. This unique path was stress-tested and revealed to be extremely robust yet at the same time sensitive to the timing and sequencing of steps.

Big data takes a strategic turn at DoD

JOHN EDWARDS

Nov. 21, 2014

Data center equipment at Eglin Air Force Base. Powerful big data technologies are necessary to turn massive amounts of stored data into shareable intelligence. (Samuel King Jr. / U.S. Air Force)

Sophisticated big data reporting, analysis, visualization, integration and development tools are essential for turning ever-growing mountains of intelligence data into useful, collaborative information that can be efficiently distributed to parties across the military and intelligence communities.

Both communities aim to understand how and when to use the information culled from big data. “Big data means different things to different people, but most commonly refers to the volume, velocity and variety of data,” Mike Friedel, manager for defense at SAS Federal, said. “It is going to take time to learn how to leverage big data. There is a great deal of research and development that is tackling this very thing.”

The military and intelligence communities have adopted big data as a strategic technical solution to address cyber insights, said Air Force Brig Gen Brian Dravis, chief of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Joint Information Environment Technical Synchronization Office. “Big data is an ecosystem consisting of data collection, storage and computation architecture and analytics,” he said.

DISA's biggest IT initiatives focus on securing DoD networks

Written by AMBER CORRIN

Nov. 24, 2014

DISA is preparing to play a key role in a new joint force headquarters dedicated to Defense Department network defenses. (Caleb Barrieau/ / Army)

It’s been a busy year at the Defense Information Systems Agency, where the military saw significant changes in how the Defense Department handles major IT initiatives including cloud computing, mobility, joint regional security stacks and the Joint Information Environment.

These changes are still taking shape against a backdrop of institutional shifts at DISA, where a reorganization is restructuring some of the agency’s functions and officials are preparing to play a key role in a new joint force headquarters dedicated to DoD network defenses.

“Right now the [DoD Information Network, or DoDIN] and joint force headquarters concepts are at the Pentagon for consideration by the senior leadership level, and that’s going to determine the relationship of DISA with [U.S. Cyber Command] as they stand up the joint force headquarters concept,” said Alfred Rivera, DISA acting director of strategic planning and information. “In the meantime DISA, as the major DoDIN service provider, is looking at how to best profile ourselves to be supportive to that joint concept. We’re awaiting direction and working on when we think we can reach initial operating capability based on that guidance.”

There’s no shortage of other priorities as DISA awaits word on a joint force headquarters directive. Agency officials are busy preparing for a new security oversight role in relation to DoD cloud use, helping guide the military’s transition to the Joint Information Environment, standing up joint regional security stacks around the world, and arming DoD users with mobile devices. While agency leaders are balancing numerous priorities, here’s a brief look at what’s happened over the past year in four of DISA’s biggest initiatives:

Changes to cloud broker status

How Many Flying Hours Does It Take To Kill a Terrorist?

Todd Harrison

November 17, 2014

How many flying hours, steaming days or tank miles does it take to kill a terrorist?

I sometimes ask this rhetorical question to people in the military to make a point. Training, while essential to preparing our forces for combat, is an intermediary step toward an end goal. The purpose of our military is not to fly aircraft, sail ships or drive around in tanks. The military exists to deter, fight and win the nation’s wars. So when we think about military readiness we should be thinking about how well our forces are able to do their job.

A few months ago I published an article on this subject in Strategic Studies Quarterly entitled “Rethinking Readiness.” One of the main points I make in the article pertains to the importance of distinguishing between readiness inputs (resources) and outputs (performance). My article clearly touched a nerve with some in the military, as is evident in a two-page memo by a Marine Corps officer criticizing it. The author of the memo seems to agree that the military should be measuring outputs but misses the distinction between inputs and outputs, writing that the military already has “an objective readiness output measure (P/R/S/T-levels).” For those who aren’t familiar with this terminology, he is referencing how the military reports readiness on a unit-by-unit basis in four resource categories: P-level for personnel, R-level for equipment condition, S-level for equipment and supplies and T-level for training. But these are not outputs; these are the essential inputs to readiness. And no matter the degree of fidelity with which the P/R/S/T-levels are reported, they are still measures of the resources applied to readiness, not the actual readiness that results.

But don’t take my word for it; it says so in the Defense Department’s “Guide to the Chairman’s Readiness System.” On pages 9-10 of this manual it says, “Commanders use resource data to report unit readiness,” (emphasis in the original text) and readiness levels reflect the “unit resources measured against the resources required.” It goes on to say that these readiness levels “by themselves, do not project a unit’s performance.” My point is we should try to measure the outputs (performance) more directly rather than using inputs (resources) as a proxy for readiness.

What are some examples of readiness outputs we could measure? In the article, I use a fighter squadron as an example—admittedly because it is easier to conceptualize performance measures for this type of unit. The table below presents a few specific examples for a fighter squadron. Keep in mind, this is only an example and is not intended to be an exhaustive list.

Flying Hours (T-level)