** A Special Relationship for the UK After All

Reality Check

A daily explanation of what matters and what doesn't in the world of geopolitics.

Aug. 18, 2016

By Jacob L. Shapiro

Germany seems to be softening its stance on what happens after Brexit.

Michael Roth, Germany’s Minister of European Affairs, made some striking comments about the United Kingdom’s relationship with the European Union yesterday. Roth said, “Given Britain’s size, significance, and its long membership of the European Union, there will probably be a special status which only bears limited comparison to that of countries that have never belonged to the European Union.” This contradicts the previous official German position on what will happen when the U.K. eventually triggers Article 50 and begins the formal process of leaving the European Union, and underscores justhow overblown the ramifications of Brexit have been.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been quite clear formally that the EU should take a firm stance in future negotiations with the U.K. Speaking to the Bundestag shortly after the U.K. voted to leave, Merkel made it clear that the vote meant that the U.K. had left the “European family” and that it would receive no special treatment, nor would it be allowed to “cherry-pick” the privileges it wanted to retain. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was even more frank on the eve of Britain’s vote, saying simply that there would be no future renegotiation with the U.K. – “out is out.”

There was a great deal of hyperbole both in the media and in the words and actions of politicians surrounding Brexit. Those supporting “remain” in the U.K. pointed to government studies saying that leaving would result in immediate and catastrophic consequences for the British economy. Donald Tusk, the current President of the European Council, actually suggested that Brexit was a harbinger not just for the destruction of the EU, but for “Western political civilization.” The idea that Great Britain’s vote meant that the U.K. would turn its back completely on Europe and that Brussels and London would not find common ground on which to work out a relationship is similarly preposterous.

Despite the rhetoric, the U.K. is part of Europe whether it wants to be or not. Great Britain can no more ignore its connection to Europe today than it could ignore Europe’s “hatred and its armaments” in 1934. Over 40 percent of British exports go to the European continent. Almost 12 percent of Britain’s GDP comes from the financial sector, and London’s role as a European financial hub is a crucial part of that. Besides economics, anyone familiar with British history also knows that conflict on the Continent will inevitably threaten to cross the English Channel. Even if Great Britain is changing the terms of its relationship with the European Union, it remains intrinsically linked to Europe: politically, economically and militarily. The U.K. will leave the EU. It will never leave Europe.

** Countering the Narrative: Understanding Terrorist’s Influence and Tactics, Analyzing Opportunities for Intervention, and Delegitimizing the Attraction to Extremism

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/countering-the-narrative-understanding-terrorist%E2%80%99s-influence-and-tactics-analyzing-opportun
by Jordan Isham and Lorand Bodo
Journal Article | August 16, 2016

Introduction
It is now widely recognized that violent extremists have made effective use of the Internet and social media, in particular, to advance their aims through engagement, radicalization, recruitment or propaganda. Violent extremists are also transitioning from their websites and forums towards social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, live streaming on YouTube, and live chats on Telegram, to reach a much wider audience. In consequence, governments are interested in understanding what can be done to counter this content. So far, much of the counter efforts have been placed on restrictive measures, such as takedowns of websites and filtering. More recently, there has been growing interest in alternative solutions to the problem, namely providing counter-narratives. As government and private sector entities attempt to counter the powerful propaganda of terrorist organizations such as ISIS, both time and resources are often spent with little to no return on investment. In order to efficiently and effectively expend resources on CVE campaigns, there is a need for a strategic process of analyzing the appeal to propaganda, tailoring a counter narrative to a regional target audience, and assessing the effectiveness of the counter narrative. To achieve this goal, research is needed to first understand the success of violent radical propaganda and second, to develop appealing counter-narratives. Lastly, it is important to utilize appropriate tools to monitor and evaluate those implemented counter-narratives. When one says the word, “ISIS”, your immediate reaction is the result of your perception of the organization, which is largely founded on the influence of their propaganda. The goal of a counter narrative is to delegitimize their portrayals, and ultimately, to discredit the false perception in which their messages create for vulnerable individuals. If you are interested in creating or consulting a counter narrative program here are some things to consider. 20 things to be exact.

Research First
In order to develop effective counter-narratives, it is first necessary to conduct proper research that will lay the groundwork for any counter-narrative campaign. A recently published study in 2016 by the Quilliam Foundation suggests that counter-extremism approaches have predominantly focused negatively on extremists or positively on those vulnerable to radicalization. However, very little was focused on the different aspects of the radicalization process itself, whether that is the narrative, the grievances or the identity crisis it exploits, or the ideology that underpins it. In other words, counter-narratives have to exploit the vulnerabilities of “fence sitters” by providing credible alternatives. Condemning ISIS or emphasizing liberal values is not effective in terms of countering ISIS’s propaganda. What is more effective is to draw upon “fence sitters’” vulnerabilities by offering them an alternative to ISIS. Heed the warning; you will waste a substantial amount of time and resources if you don’t first conduct proper research. Questions you must ask yourself include, what vulnerabilities are terrorist organizations trying to exploit? Who is the target group and what platform is used to deliver the message? What are the vulnerabilities that the citizens of my country are suffering from? How can I exploit these vulnerabilities and channel it into something positive? What alternative could we offer to those interested in ISIS propaganda?

A Worthwhile Target Audience

The characteristics of those who yield to radicalization are extremely complex. Loneliness. Adventure. Revenge. Depression. Excitement. Purpose. These are all reasons why one sits on the symbolic fence of radicalization. Fence sitters represent a group of individuals who are not enticed by public service announcements, but are looking for the means to ask questions that address their personal needs. Vulnerable individuals require a vehicle to both access information and to suppress their grievances and curiosities, in which they didn’t feel judged, but welcomed. This burning desire, by this unreached target audience, is where CVE efforts must focus.

Report: Contractors outnumber U.S. troops in

http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/crs-report-afghanistan-contractors

By: Leo Shane III, August 17, 2016 (Photo Credit: Senior Airman Cierra Presentado/Air Force)

Defense Department contractors in Afghanistan still outnumber U.S. troops by a 3-to-1 margin according to new research released this week, raising questions again about the role those workers play in the ongoing wars overseas and the oversight they receive.

The data, compiled by the Congressional Research Service and first reported by Politico, shows contractor numbers in both Iraq and Afghanistan dating back to fiscal 2007. Combined, the Defense Department spent more than $220 billion on contractors in both war zones for a variety of services and support. 

The numbers show that the non-military defense workers have outnumbered U.S. troops in Afghanistan continuously since mid-2011, even as the numbers of both have drawn down steadily. But the ratio between the two groups continues to widen as administration officials work to reduce the roles played by armed military personnel in the war-torn country. 

In early 2012, the number of defense contractors in Afghanistan peaked at more than 117,000 individuals, as compared to around 88,000 U.S. servicemembers. 

Of those contractors, about 23 percent were working as supplemental security personnel, and more than 70 percent were foreign nationals receiving money from American companies and agencies. 

The latest figures available, for the first few months of 2016, show nearly 29,000 defense contractors still in Afghanistan, with fewer than 9,000 U.S. troops stationed there. About two-thirds of the contractors were foreign nationals, but only about 10 percent were providing security services. 

Defense Department records show the majority of their contractors in Afghanistan today (more than 12,00) are providing logistics and maintenance services, to both American and Afghan troops. About 1,600 are working as translators, 1,700 as construction workers, and 2,200 as base support professionals. 

Phelps, The Gold Standard

by Felix Richter, Statista.com
-- this post authored by Martin Armstrong
31 year old Olympian Micheal Phelps has taken his incredible tally of gold medals to 21.
With now twelve more than the next most successful Olympic athlete, Larisa Latynina - A gymnast from the Soviet Union competing at the games between 1956 and 1964 - Phelps is certainly justifying his return in Rio after his post-2012 retirement.
Not only does the swimming legend outclass all other athletes when it comes to going gold, Phelps even has a larger haul than some countries. As the chart below shows, with 21 gold medals, he has singlehandedly beaten the all-time gold medal tallies of countries such as Austria, Jamaica and Argentina. While this is more than likely to be his last summer games, over the last four and a bit Olympics he has achieved something truly astonishing - and it's not over yet.
This chart compares the total all-time gold medal hauls of selected countries to that of US swimmer Michael Phelps.




You will find more statistics at Statista.

Calling Al Qaeda’s Bluff

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/18/opinion/calling-al-qaedas-bluff.html?ref=world
Contributing Op-Ed Writer
By HUSSEIN IBISH AUG. 17, 2016
WASHINGTON — The battle for Aleppo could be a turning point in Syria’s civil war — not simply because it may prove a decisive moment in the struggle between the government and the opposition, but because the leadership of the rebel forces is at stake.
Rebel groups have struggled to reorganize and recover from the heavy blows dealt them by the joint Russian and Iranian military surge that began last fall and has shifted the military momentum back toward the government. Yet the already powerful Qaeda franchise Jabhat al-Nusra (or Nusra Front) has now moved to ensure its indispensability and consolidate its influence over more moderate opposition militias.
The Nusra Front fighters have been key players in a loose alliance in the crucial struggle over Aleppo that has recently produced significant rebel victories. Nusra is seeking to build on this success with a deft tactical rebranding: On July 28, its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, announced that the organization was breaking ties with Al Qaeda and forming a new organization, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (or Levant Conquest Front).

In practice, this rebranding is virtually meaningless. Mr. Jolani left no doubt that his group, under whatever name, retains its Qaeda-inspired ideology: His announcement was peppered with effusive praise for Al Qaeda, its current leadership and Osama bin Laden, and he promised no deviation from standard existing doctrines.
Analysts believe that the timing of Mr. Jolani’s announcement was linked to American and Russian air attacks — and especially a proposed but as yet unrealized joint air campaign — against his group. (Russia has already started targeting it.) For their part, Al Qaeda’s leaders said they approved the supposed split, strongly implying its tactical purpose.
Timing aside, the move is not merely defensive; it is a bid for influence, even control. As Nusra increased its influence among armed Syrian rebel factions in the wake of the Russian intervention, it sought to position itself as first among equals leading a broad opposition coalition.
Efforts to secure greater unity earlier this year failed because other rebel groups, most notably the powerful Ahrar al-Sham faction, said they could not consider a formal alliance with any organization affiliated with Al Qaeda. Countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and especially Qatar, which back other Islamist rebel groups, reportedly told Nusra that, among other conditions, it must drop its Qaeda affiliation if it sought closer ties to their Syrian allies.

What’s Wrong With the Pentagon’s Body Counts of ISIS Casualties in Iraq and Syria?

Reviewing the Pentagon’s ISIS Body Counts

Micah Zenko

Council on Foreign Relations

August 16, 2016

Four months after President Obama pledged to the nation in September 2014 “we will degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL,” reporters challenged Pentagon spokesperson Rear Adm. John Kirby about his assertion that “We know that we’ve killed hundreds of their forces.” One reporter asked directly, “can you be more specific on that number?” Kirby replied tersely:

“I cannot give you a more specific number of how many ISIL fighters…[W]e don’t have the ability to count every nose that we shwack [sic]….And we’re not getting into an issue of body counts. And that’s why I don’t have that number handy. I wouldn’t have asked my staff to give me that number before I came out here. It’s simply not a relevant figure.”

Sixteen days later, a U.S. government official offered just such a number: 6,000. Body counts have a long and infamous history in modern U.S. wars, from Vietnam, to Afghanistan, to Iraq, and now in the campaign against the self-proclaimed Islamic State. In each of these conflicts, the U.S. government released estimates of enemy fighters killed, all while either doubting the voracity of those numbers or admitting they were largely irrelevant to achieving the longer-term strategic objective. As Gen. Westmoreland said after the Vietnam War: “Statistics were, admittedly, an imperfect gauge of progress, yet in the absence of conventional front lines, how else to measure it?”

I have a piece in Foreign Policy today that reviews and questions the Pentagon’s estimates of Islamic State fighters killed and lists the data points it has released:

March 3, 2015: 8,500

June 1, 2015: 13,000

July 29, 2015: 15,000

October 12, 2015: 20,000

November 30, 2015: 23,000

January 6, 2016: 25,500

April 12, 2016: 25,000/26,000

August 10, 2016: 45,000

For more on why this recent 80 percent increase is improbable, as well as an official response from the U.S. Central Command, read the full article.

What’s Wrong With the Pentagon’s Body Counts of ISIS Casualties in Iraq and Syria?

Reviewing the Pentagon’s ISIS Body Counts

Micah Zenko

Council on Foreign Relations

August 16, 2016

Four months after President Obama pledged to the nation in September 2014 “we will degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL,” reporters challenged Pentagon spokesperson Rear Adm. John Kirby about his assertion that “We know that we’ve killed hundreds of their forces.” One reporter asked directly, “can you be more specific on that number?” Kirby replied tersely:

“I cannot give you a more specific number of how many ISIL fighters…[W]e don’t have the ability to count every nose that we shwack [sic]….And we’re not getting into an issue of body counts. And that’s why I don’t have that number handy. I wouldn’t have asked my staff to give me that number before I came out here. It’s simply not a relevant figure.”

Sixteen days later, a U.S. government official offered just such a number: 6,000. Body counts have a long and infamous history in modern U.S. wars, from Vietnam, to Afghanistan, to Iraq, and now in the campaign against the self-proclaimed Islamic State. In each of these conflicts, the U.S. government released estimates of enemy fighters killed, all while either doubting the voracity of those numbers or admitting they were largely irrelevant to achieving the longer-term strategic objective. As Gen. Westmoreland said after the Vietnam War: “Statistics were, admittedly, an imperfect gauge of progress, yet in the absence of conventional front lines, how else to measure it?”

I have a piece in Foreign Policy today that reviews and questions the Pentagon’s estimates of Islamic State fighters killed and lists the data points it has released:

March 3, 2015: 8,500

June 1, 2015: 13,000

July 29, 2015: 15,000

October 12, 2015: 20,000

November 30, 2015: 23,000

January 6, 2016: 25,500

April 12, 2016: 25,000/26,000

August 10, 2016: 45,000

For more on why this recent 80 percent increase is improbable, as well as an official response from the U.S. Central Command, read the full article.

Why the Pentagon sees recapture of Syrian city as template for battling the Islamic State

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/recapture-of-syrian-city-a-template-for-coming-us-battles-against-islamic-state/2016/08/16/cad9e11c-63ad-11e6-96c0-37533479f3f5_story.html
By Missy Ryan August 16 
The recapture of an Islamic State stronghold in Syria will serve as a model for future U.S.-backed operations there, U.S. officials said, as the Pentagon lays plans for supporting a march by allied forces toward Raqqa, the militant capital.
Late last week, fighters affiliated with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-supported group that includes Kurdish militias and local Arab groups, regained control of the city of Manbij, which sits near the Turkish border and had been a key logistics point for the Islamic State.
U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the campaign publicly, said the Manbij offensive illustrated the value of the small force of U.S. Special Operations troops now on the ground in Syria, as they coordinated U.S. airstrikes and advised Syrian forces during an intense urban fight.
“Our operating concept has been validated,” said a senior defense official. “Utilizing local forces and our own Special Operations forces, partnered with overwhelming coalition air power, and enough time — the Islamic State really doesn’t have an answer to it.”

Manbij had been a significant military objective for a number of reasons, including its role as a hub for foreign fighters coming into Syria from Turkey, many of whom would travel from there to Raqqa, some 90 miles to the southeast.
They also believe the city was instrumental in the Islamic State’s effort to mount external attacks against the West, saying that militants used the city as a point for pushing experienced fighters toward Europe. In recent weeks, American officials have been combing through large amounts of digital data that U.S.-allied forces seized around Manbij — information that has already provided insight into the group’s recruitment operations.
The Islamic State’s defeat in Manbij was welcome news in a conflict that has confounded U.S. policymakers and created dangerous spillover effects across the region. Since late last year, U.S.-backed forces also have captured the town of Shadadi and a strategic dam from the militants, but neither of those areas was as fiercely defended as Manbij.
Those developments were seen as an affirmation of President Obama’s decision to send a small team of Special Operations troops into Syria — a move that deepened U.S. involvement and exposed American personnel to heightened risk, but one the president’s advisers saw as necessary to turn the tide against the Islamic State.

Russia Is Winning the War Before the War

August 17, 2016
http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/201608/17/russia_is_winning_the_war_before_the_war_109715.html
By James D. Durso
Most Americans don’t know we’re at war; we are, and Russia is winning. Americans think war starts with a formal declaration of war, though this hasn’t happened since December 1941. In other places, “peace” is only the less violent phase between armed contests. One of those places is Vladimir Putin’s Russia which has been regrouping and preparing for the next war since his 2007 speech in Munich.
Wars aren’t always won by artillery barrages, rapid attack, and surprise troop maneuvers. Wars are often won in “Phase Zero” also known as “shaping the battlespace.” Shaping has been defined as “influencing the state of affairs in peacetime” as a prelude to conflict, though this definition falls short by assuming a clear line between peace and war.

Putin’s war is grinding on in Europe - in Crimea, Ukraine, and Georgia - and now he is bringing it to America. The putative Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, possibly Hillary Clinton’s private email server, and the strategically timed leak of those sensitive communications, are only the tip of the iceberg. There is also the relentless flood of Russian propaganda that is befouling the media of Europe and even America, no longer arguing about ideology but questioning the very existence of objective truth.
This is the new “always war” - the hybrid warfare that President Putin is waging using what the Soviet Union called “active measures.” In addition to hacking and disinformation, hybrid warfare includes bribery, blackmail, and covert activities aimed at undermining the political stability of Western countries by funding fringe or “protest” political parties; leveraging oligarchs with KGB backgrounds to buy media, politicians or political office; paying agents provocateurs in migrant communities to encourage outrageous behavior that inflames anger at incumbent leaders; and using committed agents of influence to promulgate the party line.
Victory in this war is measured not by casualty counts, but by weakening any institution that stands in the way of Putin’s goals. Those institutions include the U.S., the EU, and most of all, NATO. There is one measure of success, however: changing NATO from a deterrent against Russian aggression to anything else.

American Conservatism and Russia

Aug. 17, 2016

By George Friedman

Once staunchly anti-Soviet, some conservatives are embracing Putin’s Russia.

Until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, one of the centerpieces of American conservatism was anti-communism. Anti-communism readily translated into anti-Soviet sentiment and that into anti-Russian. One of conservatives’ major criticisms of liberals was that they underestimated the threat the Soviet Union posed. The right saw the left as excessively prepared to negotiate away fundamental American interests and principles to placate the Soviets.

American conservatism has fragmented into so many parts since 1991 that it bears little resemblance to the movement Ronald Reagan presided over. However, of all the fragments, the most interesting and exotic is the one that appears to be pro-Russian, regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin favorably. I am not only talking about Donald Trump, although his speech on national security explicitly called for a working relationship with Russia to fight Islamist terrorism. I am talking about a faction of conservatism that does not see Russia, even led by a former dedicated KGB man (and therefore a former member of the Communist Party), as a strategic or moral threat to the United States, but rather a potential ally.

Part of the reason for this is the rise of the jihadist strain of Islam that has unleashed terror on the United States and Europe. The threat of Russian power seems distant. The threat of Islamic terrorism seems imminent. It poses a threat to Russia as well as the United States. The Russians were fighting Muslim separatists in Chechnya years before 9/11. Indeed, when Putin came to power in 2000, he renewed that war with ruthlessness and managed to mostly pacify the region.

There is a theory that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. In the same way that conservatives focused far more on ideology than they did on strategy, their moral objection to communism has transferred to the Islamic world. They are strengthened in this regard by what they see as liberals’ unwillingness to respond in kind. Just as the conservatives objected to liberal policy toward the Soviets as anything from ineffective to collaborative, so the same objections are being expressed about the liberal response to Islam.

The conservatives see Russia as a nation that confronted the Islamic threat inside its own borders and that makes no apologies for the measures it took to defeat them. When they look at Putin, they see a man who has confronted the enemy and dealt with it. The fact that he is authoritarian and suppresses freedom is a mark of his strength. For this faction, the world is an enormously dangerous place and strength is the essence of doing the right thing. If, in the course of doing the right thing, freedoms are reduced, then it is the price that has to be paid for safety.

This was similar to the response to communism. When Reagan spoke of the evil empire, he was simply announcing a truth others were afraid to announce. When Barack Obama or even George W. Bush were unwilling to name the enemy, Islamist terrorism, they were betraying the country. This conservative faction sees Putin as a man worth emulating because he knows who the enemy is and is prepared to do what he can to crush them. Therefore, in their minds, allying with Putin’s Russia makes as much sense as allying with Stalin’s Soviet Union against Nazi Germany. The enemy of your enemy is your friend.

What Exactly Is Going On In Ukraine?

http://www.realclearworld.com/2016/08/12/what_exactly_is_going_on_in_ukraine_177854.html?utm_source=rcp-today&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mailchimp-newsletter&utm_source=World+News&utm_campaign=cea4af8863-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d519acabbf-cea4af8863-83784069

Hannah Thoburn, Hudson Institute August 12, 2016 

Among Russia watchers, the month of August has become somewhat notorious. Rare is the year that goes by without an eventful August. Sometimes the chaos is internal (the wildfires of 2010 and 2012), while other years the events are external (2008's Russia-Georgia War comes to mind). 

Read Full Article »Among Russia watchers, the month of August has become somewhat notorious. Rare is the year that goes by without an eventful August. Sometimes the chaos is internal (the wildfires of 2010 and 2012), while other years the events are external (2008’s Russia-Georgia War comes to mind).

This year, another August surprise seems increasingly possible. The Ukrainian territories that have been occupied by Russia since 2014 are taking their turn in the spotlight. While violence in the east of the country—the so-called Lugansk and Donetsk Peoples Republics—has begun to ramp up considerably, the past days have seen worrisome developments in Russian-annexed Crimea.

The circumstances are still somewhat murky, but it seems clear thatsome kind of incident occurred on the Russian-occupied side of the Crimean border that resulted in the death of two Russian service members. While the events occurred over the weekend, they did not fully escalate until a few days later. The Russians have accused Ukraine of crossing that border—into what is de jure Ukrainian land—and committing “terrorist acts” that “we will not let pass idly by.”

The Organization for Security and Cooperation’s monitoring missioncould not “confirm media reports of security incidents involving shooting or military activities” in northern Crimea, and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt has written that the United States “government has seen nothing so far that corroborates Russian allegations.”

The Ukrainian government has responded with a blanket denial of involvement in any activity in Crimea, and Ukrainian President PetroPoroshenko has warned that “these fantasies are just a pretext for new military threats against Ukraine.” He has ordered Ukrainian forcesalong the Crimean border to full combat readiness; in the past weeks, Russia has been building up its military assets in northern Crimea and heavy equipment has been seen coming into the peninsula and moving northward. As a response to the alleged Ukrainian incursion into Crimea, the Russian Navy has also launched exercises in the Black Sea.

Despite the increased military tensions, the tenor of Vladimir Putin’s statements on the issue suggest that a full-scale military incursion into mainland Ukraine is not likely. Rather, he seemed eager to use the Crimean events—whatever they were—to kill the Minsk negotiations, which were designed to bring an end to the conflict in the east of Ukraine, saying that any further meetings of the Normandy Group (Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany) “in these situations” would be “senseless.”

Directing his comments not to Ukrainians, but to “our American and European partners,” Putin said that “I think that it is already evident to everyone that those in power in Kyiv today do not seek to resolving the problem through negotiations, but are instead resorting to terror.”

This tone, coupled with Putin’s repeated condemnation of the Ukrainian government as illegitimate (language that has not been used in some time), likely represents a Russian desire to cast blame for the entire situation in Eastern Europe—including the sanctions that have prevented European companies from working and investing in Russia—on “stupid and criminal” Kyiv.

‘Shadow Brokers’ Leak Raises Alarming Question: Was the N.S.A. Hacked?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/17/us/shadow-brokers-leak-raises-alarming-question-was-the-nsa-hacked.html?ribbon-ad-idx=9&rref=homepage&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Home%20Page&pgtype=article
By DAVID E. SANGER  AUG. 16, 2016
The release on websites this week of what appears to be top-secret computer code that the National Security Agency has used to break into the networks of foreign governments and other espionage targets has caused deep concern inside American intelligence agencies, raising the question of whether America’s own elite operatives have been hacked and their methods revealed.
Most outside experts who examined the posts, by a group calling itself the Shadow Brokers, said they contained what appeared to be genuine samples of the code — though somewhat outdated — used in the production of the N.S.A.’s custom-built malware.
Most of the code was designed to break through network firewalls and get inside the computer systems of competitors like Russia, China and Iran. That, in turn, allows the N.S.A. to place “implants” in the system, which can lurk unseen for years and be used to monitor network traffic or enable a debilitating computer attack.

According to these experts, the coding resembled a series of “products” developed inside the N.S.A.’s highly classified Tailored Access Operations unit, some of which were described in general terms in documents stolen three years ago by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor now living in Russia.
But the code does not appear to have come from Mr. Snowden’s archive, which was mostly composed of PowerPoint files and other documents that described N.S.A. programs. The documents released by Mr. Snowden and his associates contained no actual source code used to break into the networks of foreign powers.
Whoever obtained the source code apparently broke into either the top-secret, highly compartmentalized computer servers of the N.S.A. or other servers around the world that the agency would have used to store the files. The code that was published on Monday dates to mid-2013, when, after Mr. Snowden’s disclosures, the agency shuttered many of its existing servers and moved code to new ones as a security measure.

By midday Tuesday Mr. Snowden himself, in a Twitter message from his exile in Moscow, declared that “circumstantial evidence and conventional wisdom indicates Russian responsibility” for publication, which he interpreted as a warning shot to the American government in case it was thinking of imposing sanctions against Russia in the cybertheft of documents from the Democratic National Committee.
“Why did they do it?” Mr. Snowden asked. “No one knows, but I suspect this is more diplomacy than intelligence, related to the escalation around the DNC hack.”
Around the same time, WikiLeaks declared that it had a full set of the files — it did not say how it had obtained them — and would release them all in the future. The “Shadow Brokers” had said they would auction them off to the highest bidder.

Nation-States in the Digital World

http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2016/08/13/nation-states_in_the_digital_world_111989.html?utm_source=rcp-today&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mailchimp-newsletter&utm_source=World+News&utm_campaign=7bf4668d18-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d519acabbf-7bf4668d18-83784069
By Antonia Colibasanu
August 13, 2016
This is the second part of an essay on the evolution of the digital environment in geopolitics. Click here to read part one. Antonia Colibasanu is an expert on geopolitics and strategic intelligence analysis, and an associate lecturer at the Academy of National Intelligence and the University of Bucharest in Romania. The views expressed are the author's own.

To understand geopolitics is to understand power. The Oxford English Dictionary defines power as “the ability or capacity to do something or act in a particular way, to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events.” Science offers a more precise definition. In physics, power is the rate at which work is done -- the work/time ratio, showing the amount of energy consumed per unit of time. The two definitions complement each other -- power has to do with efficiency and influence, building on energy. The digital environment stands astride the logical patterns the human mind develops -- it depends only on innovation and need, with limited to no state intervention. But the nation-state is not completely absent in the digital world and all that regards it, cyberspace included.

Digital Power
Digital power embraces and enhances the three dimensions that traditionally define national power -- political, economic, and military. In order to establish how nation-states build digital power, it is essential to understand the developing factors for the digital environment and the way states facilitate, use, or impede evolution in the sector.
While the internet remains an important component of cyberspace, networked technologies that allow industrial machines to communicate with each other and with their operators are the defining features of the fourth industrial revolution that cyberspace now encompasses. It is these technologies that bring competitive advantages to nation states. Their goal is to increase efficiency, reduce downtime, and monitor quality. The way countries support innovation and promote technological advances, forging dependencies among themselves, will help shape geopolitical trends. Digitalization starts by affecting the economics of a country, forcing it to adapt its policies.

NSA’s use of software flaws to hack foreign targets posed risks to cybersecurity

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsas-use-of-software-flaws-to-hack-foreign-targets-posed-risks-to-cybersecurity/2016/08/17/657d837a-6487-11e6-96c0-37533479f3f5_story.html

With the mysterious release of a cache of NSA hacking tools, the agency has lost an offensive advantage, experts say. (Patrick Semansky/Associated Press)
By Ellen Nakashima and Andrea Peterson August 17 
To penetrate the computers of foreign targets, the National Security Agency relies on software flaws that have gone undetected in the pipes of the Internet. For years, security experts have pressed the agency to disclose these bugs so they can be fixed, but the agency hackers have often been reluctant.
Now with the mysterious release of a cache of NSA hacking tools over the weekend, the agency has lost an offensive advantage, experts say, and potentially placed at risk the security of countless large companies and government agencies worldwide.
Several of the tools exploited flaws in commercial firewalls that remain unpatched, and they are out on the Internet for all to see. Anyone from a basement hacker to a sophisticated foreign spy agency has access to them now, and until the flaws are fixed, many computer systems may be in jeopardy.

The revelation of the NSA cache, which dates to 2013 and has not been confirmed by the agency, also highlights the administration’s little-known process for figuring out which software errors to disclose and which to keep secret.
The hacker tools’ release “demonstrates the key risk of the U.S. government stockpiling computer vulnerabilities for its own use: Someone else might get a hold of them and use them against us,” said Kevin Bankston, director of New America’s Open Technology Institute.
“This is exactly why it should be U.S. government policy to disclose to software vendors the vulnerabilities it buys or discovers as soon as possible, so we can all better protect our own cybersecurity.”
The weekend’s release prompted immediate speculation about who might be behind it. A group calling itself Shadow Brokers claimed responsibility. Some experts and former employees suspect, although without hard evidence, that Russia is involved. Other former employees say it is more likely a disgruntled insider seeking to make a profit.

Whoever it is, “it’s very concerning that potentially someone working for another government is essentially holding hostage companies that are sitting behind these [firewalls], making them very vulnerable,” said Oren Falkowitz, chief executive of Area 1 Security and a former NSA analyst.
The firewalls sold by Cisco, Juniper and Fortinet are highly popular and work on large-scale enterprise systems. “These are very, very powerful and successful” products, Falkowitz said. “They aren’t devices bought by two people.”

NSA and the No Good, Very Bad Monday

https://lawfareblog.com/very-bad-monday-nsa-0

By Nicholas Weaver Tuesday, August 16, 2016,

Monday was a tough day for those in the business of computer espionage. Russia, still using the alias Guccifer2.0, dumped even more DNC documents. And on Twitter, Mikko Hypponen noted an announcement on Github that had gone overlooked for two days, a group is hosting an auction for code from the “Equation Group,” which is more commonly known as the NSA. The auctioneer’s pitch is simple, brutal, and to the point:
How much you pay for enemies cyber weapons? Not malware you find in networks. Both sides, RAT + LP, full state sponsor tool set? We find cyber weapons made by creators of stuxnet, duqu, flame. Kaspersky calls Equation Group. We follow Equation Group traffic. We find Equation Group source range. We hack Equation Group. We find many many Equation Group cyber weapons. You see pictures. We give you some Equation Group files free, you see. This is good proof no? You enjoy!!! You break many things. You find many intrusions. You write many words. But not all, we are auction the best files.
This release included two encrypted files, and the password to one was provided as proof while the other remains encrypted. The attackers claim that they will provide the password to the second file to the winner of a Bitcoin auction.

The public auction part is nonsense. Despite prevailing misconceptions on cryptocurrency, Bitcoin’s innate traceability means that no one could really expect to launder even $1M out of a high profile Bitcoin wallet like this one without risking detection, let alone the $500M being requested for a full public release. The auction is the equivalent of a criminal asking to be paid in new, marked, sequential bills. Because the actors here are certainly not amateurs, the auction is presumably a bit of "Doctor Evil" theater—the only bids will be $20 investments from Twitter jokesters.
But the proof itself appears to be very real. The proof file is 134 MB of data compressed, expanding out to a 301 MB archive. This archive appears to contain a large fraction of the NSA's implant framework for firewalls, including what appears to be several versions of different implants, server side utility scripts, and eight apparent exploits for a variety of targets.
The exploits themselves appear to target Fortinet, Cisco, Shaanxi Networkcloud Information Technology (sxnc.com.cn) Firewalls, and similar network security systems. I will leave it to others to analyze the reliability, versions supported, and other details. But nothing I've found in either the exploits or elsewhere is newer than 2013.
Because of the sheer volume and quality, it is overwhelmingly likely that this data is authentic. And it does not appear to be information taken from compromised targets. Instead, the exploits, binaries with help strings, server configuration scripts, 5 separate versions of one implant framework, and all sort of other features indicate that this is analyst-side code—the kind that probably never leaves the NSA.

Making Sense of Army Electronic Warfare-Cyber Convergence

http://www.defensenews.com/articles/making-sense-of-army-electronic-warfare-cyber-convergenceOne of the Army’s biggest goals in the near future concerns network convergence. As evidence, look no further than the decision to disband its electronic warfare division, which will fold into a newly established cyber directorate at the Pentagon within the Army.

Why converge?
“We need to be aware that we are very likely going to fight an adversary that is converging using [cyber and electromagnetic activity] integration, ISR and fires across full spectrum conflict,” said Col Timothy Presby, Training and Doctrine Command capabilities manager of cyber, at TechNet Augusta earlier in August. “So unless we actually work together and converge our capabilities, we will be left short.”
Many current and former Army officials believe the convergence and new cyber directorate are a good step. Creating the new cyber directorate and keeping it within the G-3 is “absolutely” a good idea, Gen. Jennifer Napper (ret.) told C4ISRNET in an interview at TechNet.

“The fact of the matter is, it all works together or contests each other and interferes with each other so you have to have it all in one area,” said Napper, who formerly served as the director of policy, plans and partnerships for the Cyber Command and commander of the Army’s Network Enterprise Technology Command. “I think it has to be folded into [cyber] because if you look at what we’re really talking about, [it's] moving information of some sort or moving data of some sort and the electromagnetic spectrum just happens to exist. It is the physics behind what we’re doing, but I don’t think it’s a separate domain.”
“If you look at how you allocate the spectrum for either friendly use or using as unfriendly use against our adversaries, when you’re looking at the cyber itself and the connectivity of all those electronic networks, there’s just a natural nexus between them,” she continued, adding that keeping the directorate within the G-3 will help inform and integrate operations as cyberspace operations are not performed in a vacuum, but as part of a larger plan. “You can have effects through cyber with an electronic warfare delivery system.”

Along those lines, integrating cyber forces within traditional combat brigade teams involves a wide range of capabilities commanders can choose from to best service their objectives. “We need to bring capabilities into something that…has multiple options on the battlefield – and that’s one of the key things,” Chief Warrant Officer Abel Chavez, technical adviser for the Army Cyber Protection Brigade, said at TechNet. “When you start looking at the way we distribute our [defensive cyber operations] planners out there, we integrate them in the CEMA cell and actually exercise how the signal community and the electronic warfare community all converge into one environment and produce a good course of action for that commander to be able to execute his mission.”
In the research and development community, TRADOC is working on delivering an electromagnetic command and control tool to provide greater planning and situational awareness in this space. The electronic warfare planning and management tool, which will be released in two to three months, will “help us to operate better in an increasingly congested and contested spectrum,” Col. Mark Dotson, TRADOC capabilities manager of electronic warfare, said at TechNet.

As the tool evolves it will interact with other network systems inside the operations centers to allow for a holistic view and a user defined operational picture, he said, defining aspects of all the command and control tools needed to analyze and perform in the spectrum. As the EW PMT progresses through increments, “it will have real time capability to show what’s happening in the electromagnetic spectrum on the battlefield from both an enemy and friendly perspective,” Dotson said.

Did the NSA Get Hacked?

http://www.defenseone.com/threats/2016/08/did-nsa-get-hacked/130817/?oref=d_brief_nl

BY KAVEH WADDELL

AUGUST 17, 2016

A group calling itself the “Shadow Broker” is auctioning off what it says are the agency’s cyberweapons.

A group calling itself the “Shadow Broker” posted a trove of files online Monday, claiming it contains cyberweapons stolen from hackers called the Equation Group—allegedly the elite hacking arm of the National Security Agency.

The announcement appeared in broken English on a Tumblr account—now inactive but preserved in Google’s caches—along with two encrypted file archives available for download. “Shadow Broker” provided the password for one of the archives to prove the files’ authenticity, but demanded payment in Bitcoin for the password to the second archive.

We hack Equation Group. We find many many Equation Group cyber weapons. You see pictures. We give you some Equation Group files free, you see. This is good proof no? You enjoy!!! You break many things. You find many intrusions. You write many words. But not all, we are auction the best files.

The Equation Group, so named by Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky Labs for consistently using advanced encryption, is said to have been behind Stuxnet, the state-sponsored virus that attacked Iranian nuclear centrifuges in 2009.

Security researchers examined the “Shadow Broker” files found actual hacking tools that exploit vulnerabilities in common pieces of internet infrastructure. They have catchy names likeEPICBANANA, EXTRABACON, ELIGIBLEBACHERLOR, and EGREGIOUSBLUNDER.

Nicholas Weaver, a computer-science professor and researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote Tuesday that the data dump seems real—and that it was probably snagged from anNSA server.

Because of the sheer volume and quality, it is overwhelmingly likely this data is authentic. And it does not appear to be information taken from compromised targets. Instead the exploits, binaries with help strings, server configuration scripts, five separate versions of one implant framework, and all sort of other features indicate that this is analyst-side code—the kind that probably never leaves the NSA.

Nearly all the files, however, appear to be newer than June 2013, suggesting that “Shadow Broker” may have lost access to NSAfiles around then. Snowden commented on Twitter about the timing: That’s the same month he began leaking valuable government documents. He predicted that the agency may have migrated its offensive capabilities to new servers as a precautionary measure, thereby kicking out any intruders.

(A handful of files, however, have timestamps from later in 2013. It’s not yet clear what that means, but it might undermine Snowden’s claim.)

Hacker group claims to have stolen NSA ‘cyber weapons’

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article96004672.html

BY TIM JOHNSON

A mysterious group that calls itself the Shadow Brokers claims to have hacked into the National Security Agency, stolen powerful cyber weapons and surveillance tools, and put them up for auction.

If true, the claim would indicate that one of the U.S. government’s key agencies for cyber warfare is itself vulnerable and has fallen into a pitched and escalating battle with a powerful unknown cyber foe, perhaps Russia.

News of the apparent breach came over the weekend when the Shadow Brokers released a limited number of files, claiming they were part of an arsenal “made by creators of stuxnet,” and other notorious NSA malware that helped crippled Iran’s nuclear program in 2009 and 2010 by shattering many of its centrifuges.

Neither the NSA nor the Office of the Director of National Intelligence responded to queries about whether the NSA had been penetrated. But several cyber security experts took the claims seriously and suggested that the penetration of the NSA marks a watershed moment and is part of rising tensions between the United States and Russia.

Among those backing that view was Edward Snowden, the former CIA employee and NSA subcontractor who in 2013 leaked a trove of secret NSA documents before seeking refuge in Russia.

7) Why did they do it? No one knows, but I suspect this is more diplomacy than intelligence, related to the escalation around the DNC hack.

Snowden tweeted Tuesday that “circumstantial evidence and conventional wisdom indicates Russian responsibility” for the apparent NSA hack, and that the public revelation of the theft is a message that a series of tit-for-tats between Washington and Moscow “could get messy fast.”

Keeping America’s Principles In the Age of Terrorism

http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2016/08/keeping-americas-principles-age-terrorism/130851/?oref=d_brief_nl

BY KATHLEEN HICKSTHE ATLANTIC

AUGUST 17, 2016

Our security should be judged not only by the absence of major attacks but by America’s commitment to the Constitution.

On September 11, 2001, I was working at my desk in the Pentagon when American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the opposite side of the building. My eldest child was less than a quarter mile away, settling in for a day of play at the Pentagon Child Care Center. We were both physically unharmed in the attack, and I returned to work on September 12 with other DoD employees to demonstrate that Americans would not bend to terrorism. But of course the events of that day had long-lasting effects for me and all Americans, as well as for the world.

One of the principal effects of 9/11 was instilling in Americans a fear that their personal security was at greater risk than ever before. Many aspects of the post-9/11 world are indeed new, but the fear it evokes echoes that felt by prior generations. At times the country has met those fears while still holding fast to its core democratic principles. Other times, fear has overruled American principles, especially the protection of individual freedoms. The most important legacy of the American experience following 9/11 will not be the novelty of fear, but rather how well the country copes with that fear while adhering to its constitutional framework.

Given how searing the 9/11 experience was, it is sometimes hard to remember that prior generations of Americans didn’t always sleep soundly either. Pearl Harbor is an often-cited example, but it joins many other moments of intense fear in U.S. history. During the 40-plus years of the Cold War, American school children practiced “duck and cover” drills the way today’s kids might practice school lock-downs. As a teenager in the 1980s, I joined Sting in hoping we could avert a nuclear holocaust if “the Russians love their children, too.” It may seem silly now because those particular threats didn’t come to pass, but it certainly felt real at the time.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, other threats in the United States soon appeared: the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Park bombing, to name just a few. During the 1990s, some in the military liked to refer to the United States as a “homeland sanctuary”; after 9/11, many talked about the end of that sanctuary. But was the United States ever really a sanctuary to begin with?

DoD’s 9 Combatant Commands: What They Are, What They Do

http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/dod%E2%80%99s-9-combatant-commands-what-they-are-what-they-do
by DoD News
SWJ Blog Post | August 17, 2016 
If you’re in the military, you know what the “cocoms,” or combatant commands, are. But for those who might be new to the Defense Department or who work outside of it, you might not.
There are nine combatant commands, six of which have geographic areas of responsibility (AOR). Each cocom has a particular mission, and each may be involved in various operations or exercises (operations are various phases of a war or military engagement; exercises are routine or non-routine training that tests strategies and explores the effects of warfare without actual combat).
So what exactly do these cocoms do? Here’s a quick explainer for each.

U.S. Central Command (Centcom)
Centcom’s AOR includes Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Syria and 15 other Middle East nations located in the central area of the world map.
The turmoil and conflict that continue to build in that region – ISIL, the Syrian civil war, Afghanistan – have made Centcom’s mission a challenging one. So the command is focused on using its global partnerships to build cooperation, respond to crises and deter and defeat all types of threats. It also supports regional development and the rebuilding of local security forces in areas that need to reestablish stability and prosperity.
The major missions for Centcom right now are the ones we hear about most: Operation Inherent Resolve, which aims to eliminate the ISIL threat; and Resolute Support, which supports the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan.

U.S. Pacific Command (Pacom)
Between the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Asia-Pacific rebalance, Pacific Command is getting a lot of attention, too.
Pacom covers 36 nations in the Asia-Pacific and is home to more than 50 percent of the world’s population. It covers more of the globe than any other combatant command, includes the world’s busiest international sea lanes and is home to seven of the world’s largest standing militaries, as well as five declared nuclear nations. So, as you can imagine, keeping stability and prosperity there can be complex. Pacom’s mission is to promote security in those vitals areas (like in the South China Sea), yet encourage peaceful development, deter threats and respond to contingencies, such as disaster relief after the tsunami that hit Japan in 2011.
Two of Pacom’s major biennial exercises are Rim of the Pacific, or RIMPAC, and Talisman Saber/Sabre (depending on who hosts it). Taking place in and around Hawaii and the California coastline, RIMPAC is the world’s largest multinational maritime exercise (it included 26 nations this year) that promotes cooperative relationships critical to making sure the world’s sea lanes and oceans remain safe and secure. Talisman Sabre is a chance for our troops to get land, sea and air training across six locations in Australia, the Coral Sea and in Honolulu, Denver and Suffolk, Va., while giving them the valuable opportunity of working together on anything from combat missions to humanitarian efforts.

America is no longer guaranteed military victory. These weapons could change that.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/america-is-no-longer-guaranteed-military-victory-these-weapons-could-change-that/2016/08/16/004af43e-63d2-11e6-be4e-23fc4d4d12b4_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-b%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.ecf9f46a3145

A photograph taken from a high-speed video camera during a record-setting firing of an electromagnetic rail gun at Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, Va., in 2008. (John F. Williams/U.S. Navy)
By David Ignatius  August 16 
The fight against the Islamic State may get the headlines. But it’s the military threats from Russia and China that most worry top Pentagon officials — and are driving a new arms race to deter these great-power rivals.
This question of how to deal with Russian and Chinese military advances has gotten almost no attention in the 2016 presidential campaign. But it deserves a careful look. The programs begun in the waning days of the Obama administration could potentially change the face of warfare, in the United States’ favor, but they would require political support and new spending by the next president.
A drive to build exotic versions of conventional weapons may sound crazy in a world that already has too much military conflict. But advocates argue that strengthening U.S. conventional forces might be the only way to avoid escalation to nuclear weapons if war with Moscow or Beijing began.

Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work argued for the new deterrence strategy in a presentation this month to the bipartisan Aspen Strategy Group, amplifying comments he made to me in an interview in February. The approach, awkwardly named the “third offset strategy,” would leverage the United States’ technological superiority by creating weapons that could complicate attack planning by an adversary.
The premise is that as Russia and China modernize their militaries, the United States must exploit its lead in high-tech warfare. In the world envisioned by Pentagon planners, the United States could field an array of drones in the sky, unmanned submarines beneath the seas and advanced systems on the ground that could overwhelm an adversary’s battle-management networks. Like the two previous “offsets,” battlefield nuclear weapons in the 1950s and precise conventional weapons in the 1970s, this one would seek to restore lost U.S. military dominance.

The concerns prompting the new strategy were previewed by Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at his Senate confirmation hearing in July 2015: “If you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United States, I would have to point to Russia. And if you look at their behavior, it’s nothing short of alarming.”
China worries some Pentagon officials even more than Russia. A recent study by the Rand Corp., titled “War With China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable,” warned: “Improvements in Chinese military capabilities mean that a war would not necessarily go the way U.S. war planners plan it. Whereas a clear U.S. victory once seemed probable, it is increasingly likely that a conflict could involve inconclusive fighting with steep losses on both sides.”