Evidence Accumulating That Russia Firing Short-Range Rockets Across the Border at Ukrainian Military Targets

Russia Is Firing Missiles at Ukraine

Michael Weiss and James Miller

Foreign Policy, July 16, 2014

Just as news broke today that the U.S. Treasury Department was instituting a new suite of sanctions against Russia, video evidence has emerged apparently showing the most definitive proof yet of Moscow’s direct participation in the ongoing war in eastern and southern Ukraine: Russian rockets being fired toward Ukraine.

This afternoon, a video was posted to YouTube and shared on social media that claimed to show Grad rockets being fired from a Russian border town likely into Ukraine. Our team at the Interpreterfound several other videos with the same descriptions — Grad rocket launches from Gukovo toward Ukrainian territory.

The BM-21 Grad is a Soviet-designed, multiple-launch rocket system mounted to a truck, capable of firing unguided rockets with a range of 12-27 miles, depending on the particular rocket used. Both the Ukrainian and Russian militaries use BM-21 Grads, though videos of Grads in the possession of the separatists show vehicles with a different camouflage pattern than what is used by the Ukrainian military. Despite claims by the U.S. State Department, there has so far not been any direct evidence that these weapons came from the Russian military.

If confirmed, the videos posted today could be the smoking guns that directly connect the Russian military with the weapons being used against the Ukrainian military on the other side of the border.

If confirmed, the videos posted today could be the smoking guns that directly connect the Russian military with the weapons being used against the Ukrainian military on the other side of the border.

Several of the videos, filmed near a pond of some sort, were apparently taken by a resident of the town. A careful perusal of Google Street View reveals that several physical features in the videos match exactly a location in the northwest corner of the town, less than two miles from the Ukrainian border. The distinctive topography of the lake, the placement of bushes and rocks, the tree line in the background, and a series of evenly spaced light poles that appear in multiple videos and in the Google maps appear to place the rocket launch inside of Russian territory. A preliminary analysis of the angles in the videos shows that there is almost no way that a Grad rocket launch from this location could miss Ukrainian territory. Yet another video, taken due south of the rocket launch, proves conclusively that these rockets were launched inside Russia and not over the border.

By NIV ELIS

07/14/2014 

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Terror texts’ bring cyber warfare to mobile phones

It is still unclear who is behind the messages, however, and Amichai-Hamburger notes that they could be coming from devious Israeli pranksters.

A woman sends a text message [illustrative photo] Photo: Vivek Prakash / Reuters

On the third day of Operation Protective Edge, a Haaretz news update on 29-year-old Sareena Denis’s phone alerted her to horrifying news. Hamas had hit a chemicals plant in Haifa. The city was being evacuated. Twenty-five people were dead.

“I was so worried, I was so scared. It was this realization that the conflict escalated to a whole other level,” said Denis, a Chicago native who made aliya in 2010, and had been taking the semi-regular red alerts and trips to the bomb shelters in stride.

Yet none of the news sites was carrying the story, and none of her friends had heard about it. Soon, Haaretz clarified that the text messages sent to thousands of phones “were in fact sent from a fake account.”

“I was relieved, but at the same time I was so upset, because it’s very disturbing to know that some hacker or Hamas has my phone number,” Denis said. “Something about having my emotions manipulated, it just felt like, as terrorists, they had really achieved their goals. I just started bawling when I realized what had happened.”

The false message, written in English, was one of several that made its way to people’s phones during the operation. Though police do not yet know if the texts originated from abroad or within Israel, they are perceived as part of a psychological war waged by Hamas or its supporters, akin to the cyberattacks on Israeli websites that have proliferated in recent years.

According to Haaretz, the messages “were most likely sent from a pro- Hamas source as psychological warfare to instill fear and panic in Israeli citizens.”

On Monday, a message from “SMSQASSAM,” signed Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades – Hamas’s military wing – vowed to keep firing on Israelis until its “legitimate demands” were met.

An earlier message, claiming to be from “SHABAK,” the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), stated that a suicide bomber was on the loose, waiting to blow up civilians hiding in bomb shelters. “Beware of strangers in shelters,” it warned.

Another, written in Hebrew and allegedly sent from Home Front Command, said the IDF was planning an attack in Gaza at 12:16, and instructed people to get to their bomb shelters near that time to avoid retaliatory rockets.

The missiles keeping Israel safe may do more long-term harm than good

By Yoav Fromer 

14 July 2014 

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Yoav Fromer teaches politics and history at Tel Aviv University. He is also a contributor to Tablet Magazine. 

A supermoon, is seen behind Israelis sitting and standing on a hill at the Israeli town of Sderot, overlooking the Gaza Strip, as they wait to watch Israeli forces’ bombardment and missiles fired by Palestinian militants from inside Gaza towards Israel. (Lefteris Pitarakis/Associated Press) 

TEL AVIV — By now, it is a ritual. Nearly every morning for the past few days, and just about every evening, rockets fired from Gaza have rained down on this city and its suburbs, activating wailing sirens and sending frightened people scattering for cover. As in Kafka’s short story about the leopards that invade the temple so consistently that they eventually become a permanent part of the religious ceremony, these unnerving rocket attacks quickly become part of the quotidian experience for millions of Israelis. 

The subdued public reaction I see from my apartment window is so characteristically Israeli: rather than panic, most of them move with ironic detachment toward the bomb shelters or duck and cover along the highways. They wear a mixture of fatalistic apathy and a self-assurance that no harm will come to them. Asked by the press, time and again, why they are not scared, most Israelis living in the metropolitan Tel Aviv area have supplied the same response: Iron Dome. 

While this latest round of violence between Israel and Hamas is far from over, Israelis have already hurried to proclaim a winner. The groundbreaking missile defense system, developed a few years ago by the Israeli defense industry (with generous U.S. funding), has been hailed by commentators in Israel and around the world as the main “victor” in this recent clash. And for good reason. It has performed majestically: nearly all of the rockets fired towards Tel Aviv and other major population centers have been intercepted by the Iron Dome giving it, according to the Israeli Army, a 90 percent success rate. Thank the defense system for the lack of fatalities and the relatively low casualty rate among Israeli civilians. For now, it is both a physical and a psychological solace that enables Israelis to go about their business. 

But, over time, Iron Dome may do them more harm than good. What looks like a tactical miracle may, accidentally, help engender a grave strategic blunder. Technology can mislead us by providing a false sense of security. But it cannot – and must not – become a substitute for effective diplomacy. And Iron Dome’s ability to protect Israelis from periodic rocket attacks so far will never remove the strife and discontent that has produced the motivation to ruthlessly fire them in the first place. 

Russia's Centuries-Long Modernization Project Has Come to an EndThe Crimea campaign is an attempt by to find a new purpose for the state

By Igor Fedyukin

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The current outburst of tensions over Ukraine is typically described as a replay of a centuries-old Russian tradition of imperial dominance of its neighbors. Yet, beneath this “Russia as usual” façade there might be a truly tectonic shift: For the first time in centuries, it appears that the Russian state does not have a modernizing project. This means nothing less than a reinvention of the Russian state.

Back in the eighteenth century, Catherine the Great insisted provocatively in her programmatic “Instruction” that “Russia is a European power.” Decades later, Alexander Pushkin conceded that the government “is the sole European in Russia.” “European,” here, was synonymous with modernity, and the implication was that most of the country is un-European—i.e., archaic—and that only the government could be relied upon to behave in a European fashion and, perhaps, even Europeanize the rest. A recently released draft of the government’s cultural policy doctrine, however, insists that “Russia is not a European power.” While this and similar statements, readily echoed by the official media, are part of a calculated effort to mobilize public opinion, they also reflect a wider cultural and social change in the country.

Catherine the Great insisted in her programmatic “Instruction” that “Russia is a European power.”

Modern Russia began with Peter I, and from that moment on, Russia's society and culture, but also politics, was based on an assumption that Russia and the Russians ought to become something they were not, and that it was the state that had a right and a moral obligation to effect this transformation. Peter famously worked to modernize his armed forces, to build a navy, to introduce the latest European technologies, but perhaps even more famously, he forced his nobles to wear foreign dress and speak foreign languages, to dance foreign dances and read foreign books. These efforts, successful as they were, defined Russia’s social-cultural paradigm for the next centuries: At its core, the country had a cultural gap between the elite and the “people,” with the elite embodying a superior—more modern—cultural model, and the rest of the populace being archaic, backward, and inferior. Most visibly, at the height of the Soviet period, movies and mass culture invariably presented an authority figure: a teacher, an officer, a senior and more “conscious” worker, a Party member. This figure was more educated, more urbane, more cleanly and formally dressed, better able to exercise self-control and self-restraint. He was juxtaposed against “the people” as their role model.

Naturally, the definition of what counts as modern has changed over time. The depth of the desired modernization has also varied. Peter and his successors certainly did not dream of a thorough reformation of the peasantry. The cultural split between different tiers of society was viewed as permanent and necessary, as it followed naturally from the differences in their social and economic functions; the elite were there to shepherd the people, making them more regulated, more industrious, or perhaps, more moral, while preserving their essentially archaic nature. At the later stages, and especially during the early Soviet period, the modernizing project in Russia openly called for a total reconstruction of the lower classes.

That does not mean that the relationship between partners in modernization (the elite—especially some portions of it—the intelligentsia, and the state) was easy. In fact, since the late eighteenth century, their interactions have been somewhat tortured. And yet, it was this partnership in modernization that provided the state and the elite with a mission. Why does the state have a right to dominate the people, to extract resources, to rule without consulting with the people? Because it is modern, and because it leads the archaic people toward modernity. Thus, at all stages, joining the elite meant accepting, at least outwardly, the "modern" ways in everything—in everyday life, dress, social intercourse, work ethics, the law, and individual autonomy. 

Democratization and Instability in Ukraine, Georgia, and Belarus

Authored by Dr. Robert Nalbandov.

Added June 26, 2014 

Type: Monograph 

208 Pages 

Download Format: PDF

Cost: Free 

Brief Synopsis

View the Executive Summary

This monograph analyzes the interconnections between the democratic institutionalization of the newly independent states of Ukraine, Georgia, and Belarus, their political (in)stability, and economic development and prosperity. By introducing the concept of regime mimicry into the field of public administration, this monograph extends the epistemological frameworks of the democratization school to the phenomenon of political culture. Successes and failures of the democratic institutionalization processes in these countries largely depend on the ways their institutional actors reacted to internal and external disturbances of their domestic political, econmic, and cultural environments. While Georgia’s political culture revealed the highest degree of flexibility in accepting the externally-proposed institutional frameworks and practices, the bifurcate political culture in Ukraine impeded its democratic institutionalization, while the rigid political culture in Belarus completely stalled the process of institutional transformations.

A special report on cyber-security Defending the digital frontier

Jul 12th 2014

Companies, markets and countries are increasingly under attack from cyber-criminals, hacktivists and spies. They need to get much better at protecting themselves, says Martin Giles 

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THE TERM “CYBERSPACE” was coined by William Gibson, a science-fiction writer. He first used it in a short story in 1982, and expanded on it a couple of years later in a novel, “Neuromancer”, whose main character, Henry Dorsett Case, is a troubled computer hacker and drug addict. In the book Mr Gibson describes cyberspace as “a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators” and “a graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system.”

His literary creation turned out to be remarkably prescient. Cyberspace has become shorthand for the computing devices, networks, fibre-optic cables, wireless links and other infrastructure that bring the internet to billions of people around the world. The myriad connections forged by these technologies have brought tremendous benefits to everyone who uses the web to tap into humanity’s collective store of knowledge every day.

But there is a darker side to this extraordinary invention. Data breaches are becoming ever bigger and more common. Last year over 800m records were lost, mainly through such attacks (see chart 1). Among the most prominent recent victims has been Target, whose chief executive, Gregg Steinhafel, stood down from his job in May, a few months after the giant American retailer revealed that online intruders had stolen millions of digital records about its customers, including credit- and debit-card details. Other well-known firms such as Adobe, a tech company, and eBay, an online marketplace, have also been hit.

The potential damage, though, extends well beyond such commercial incursions. Wider concerns have been raised by the revelations about the mass surveillance carried out by Western intelligence agencies made by Edward Snowden, a contractor to America’s National Security Agency (NSA), as well as by the growing numbers of cyber-warriors being recruited by countries that see cyberspace as a new domain of warfare. America’s president, Barack Obama, said in a White House press release earlier this year that cyberthreats “pose one of the gravest national-security dangers” the country is facing.

The Future of Unmanned Drones in the U.S. Military

July 15, 2014

Reports Of the Death Of UAVs May Be Premature

There’s quite a debate going on in the U.S. Department of Defense about the future of UAVs. Pundits and many senior commanders see UAVs as much less useful in an environment of conventional rather than irregular warfare. That’s important because the army and marines are retraining their forces to handle conventional war, what the military calls “near-peer” (against someone who has similar weapons and abilities) combat. In near-peer operations there is little agreement on how effective UAVs will be.

At the same time the Department of Defense has done some work on defeating enemy reconnaissance UAVs and this influences the negative attitude towards UAVs in a near-peer battlefield. This is a prudent move, as the American success with UAVs has been noted and most major nations are acquiring them and plan to use them against any future foe. The Department of Defense study found that current American models (from the tiny Raven to the huge Global Hawk) when used as potential targets were all quite vulnerable. While the 2 kg (4.4 pound) Raven, with its 130cm (4.5 foot) wingspan, and 109cm (three foot) length made it a small target when flying at several hundred meters altitude, U.S. snipers found it could be consistently hit. In Iraq, very few enemy gunmen were good shots and Raven losses to bullets were few. The Afghans dida little better but not by much. Wind, equipment failure, and birds are still the biggest source of Raven losses.

The larger UAVs (Shadow, Predator, Reaper) are target practice for anti-aircraft missiles, although not usually the shoulder fired variety. Most large UAVs fly at 6,000 meters or more, while shoulder fired missiles can go no higher than 3,000 meters. But there are a growing number of vehicle mounted anti-aircraft missile systems available and these would quickly clear the skies of Predator class UAVs.

The Department of Defense is now quietly seeking electronic countermeasures that might be used by large UAVs to defeat guided missiles. At the same time, stealthier UAVs (RQ-170, Avenger) are being developed. Also at the same time, air force and navy researchers are seeking to increase American capabilities to detect and defeat enemy UAVs. That is being done quietly, since anything discovered in that effort could be used against American UAVs.

Against a well-equipped opponent able to knock down American UAVs the U.S. will have to rely more on space satellites (thus the great fear of Chinese attacks up there). Troops will have to learn how to cope with higher UAV losses and depend on things like one-use rockets equipped with cameras. Ironically, the smaller UAVs like Raven will become even more important because the micro-UAVs are much cheaper and built to take a beating (and be regularly lost and replaced). In the meantime, orders for the older UAVs (Predator, Reaper, Global Hawk) are being cut to provide money for new, more survivable, models.

Experts Find “Potential Back Doors” Built Into U.S. Government Software Standards

July 15, 2014

Experts report potential software “back doors” in U.S. standards

U.S. government standards for software may enable spying by the National Security Agency through widely used coding formulas that should be jettisoned, some of the country’s top independent experts concluded in papers released on Monday.

Such mathematical formulas, or curves, are an arcane but essential part of most technology that prevents interception and hacking, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been legally required to consult with the NSA’s defensive experts in approving them and other cryptography standards.

But NIST’s relationship with the spy agency came under fire in September after reports based on documents from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden pointed to one formula in particular as a Trojan horse for the NSA.

NIST discontinued that formula, called Dual Elliptic Curve, and asked its external advisory board and a special panel of experts to make recommendations that were published on Monday alongside more stinging conclusions by the individual experts.

Noting the partially obscured hand of the NSA in creating Dual Elliptic Curve - which Reuters reported was most broadly distributed by security firm RSA - the group delved into the details of how it and other NIST standards emerged. It found incomplete documentation and poor explanations in some cases; in others material was withheld pending legal review.

As a whole, the panels recommended that NIST review its obligation to confer with the NSA and seek legal changes “where it hinders its ability to independently develop the best cryptographic standards to serve not only the United States government but the broader community.”

They also urged NIST to weigh the advice of individual task force members who made more dramatic suggestions, such as calling for the replacement of a larger set of curves approved for authenticating users, in part because they were selected through unclear means by the NSA.

“It is possible that the specified curves contain a back door somehow,” said Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Ron Rivest, a co-founder of RSA and the source of the letter R in its name. Though the curves could be fine, he wrote, “it seems prudent to assume the worst and transition away.”

More broadly, Rivest wrote, “NIST should ask the NSA for full disclosure regarding all existing standards… If NSA refuses to answer such an inquiry, then any standard developed with significant NSA input should be assumed to be `tainted,’” absent proof of security acceptable to outsiders.

In an email exchange, Rivest told Reuters that “NIST needs to have a process whereby evidence is publicly presented” about how the curves were chosen.

Less Than Zero: Hyping the Cyber War

Bea Edwards 

07/14/2014 

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This week's issue of Time magazine features an arresting cover: "World War Zero" screams the headline in huge red block letters. An ominous silhouette of a man in a hoody looking into a background of electronic ones and zeroes darkens the center of the frame. "The global battle to steal your secrets is turning hackers into arms dealers," the sub-heading warns.

Before we all strap on our body armor to go fight World War Zero and hacker arms dealers, though, we should consider the deft turn of phrase used by Time. The key word in the war declaration turns out to be 'your,' as in 'your secrets.' The magazine cover suggests that the secrets in question are personal data from all of us, which hacker arms dealers are conniving to steal and then sell to evil aliens. But if those are the secrets we're talking about, then here in the Homeland, we're not sure any longer who they actually belong to. If Facebook is to be believed, then Facebook owns our personal information. We 'shared' it with the corporation and we therefore forfeited our rights to it. Similarly, if you've got a Verizon iPhone, you had 30 days after you bought it to opt out of a data sharing program that gives location, age and gender data to advertisers, along with information about the sports teams you like, the restaurants you frequent, and whatever else you happen to record on your phone. If you missed that 30-day window, then your data belong to Verizon. And if that isn't enough, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court, taking its cue from a 35-year-old Supreme Court ruling, determined that Fourth Amendment protections from unreasonable search and seizure don't apply to your phone call logs (metadata) because when you subscribe to a phone service, you surrender your data to the telecom. So Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and Cricket own your secrets. Following this line of argument, you can't claim that the government has no right to your information because you already gave it away to a private corporation. In other words, it's no longer yours.

So it seems, our secrets have already been taken. First by Facebook and Verizon, and then by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the FISA court. Nonetheless, we're apparently plunging into World War Zero to protect our pre-seized secrets from someone else, with whom, according to Time, we're already locked in battle:

This conflict only occasionally becomes visible to the naked eye - in May, for example, when the U.S. indicted five members of the Chinese army for stealing data from American companies, including Westinghouse and Alcoa.

Oh wait. This has taken a surprising turn: the Time story isn't really about our secrets. It's about corporate secrets and intellectual property, which makes a little more sense. The author of the piece, Lev Grossman, then quotes the duplicitous and thoroughly self-serving Keith Alexander, former head of the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command, as proof that we have to go defend these secrets. According to Grossman, Alexander called "China's ongoing electronic theft of American intellectual property, 'the greatest transfer of wealth in history.'" Note the qualifier on intellectual property: 'American.' Note also, the hysteria, unsubstantiated by any fact at all.

Alexander, of course, has his own reasons for hyping illicit cyber transfers. He now runs his own cyber-security firm, which peddles to private industry the techniques he learned while collecting a paycheck from the public. According to Bloomberg, he charges clients hundreds of thousands of dollars a month for access to his expertise.

From the Cold War to the Code War: UK boosts spending on cyber warfare

By Steve Ranger 

July 14, 2014

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Summary: We don't need more tanks, we need the latest in cyber warfare, says UK PM David Cameron. 

UK prime minister David Cameron said that £800m would be spent on intelligence and surveillance equipment. Image: Frederic Legrand / Shutterstock.com

The UK is upping its spending on cyber defence as a report warns that the country's increasing reliance on a connected infrastructure could create new opportunities for criminals and terrorists.

Prime minister David Cameron said that £800m will be spent on intelligence and surveillance equipment, which he said "includes the latest in cyber defence technology". The Ministry of Defence (MoD) was unable to provide any breakdown of the spending or detail what projects this would include.

Cameron said: "We are equipping our armed forces for the conflicts of this century, not the last. The threats we face have changed utterly in 30 years — from the clarity of the Cold War to the complex and shifting challenges of today: global terrorism, organised crime, hostage taking, the risk of nuclear proliferation, cyber attack, energy security.

"It is not massed tanks on the European mainland we need, but the latest in cyber warfare, unmanned aircraft technology and special forces capability... in the 21st century, you cannot defend the realm from the white cliffs of Dover."

The UK's National Security Strategy lists cyber attacks as a 'tier one' threat to national security, alongside international terrorism and warns the threat from cyber attacks "is real and growing".

In addition, the newly published Global Strategic Trendsreport by the MoD's Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre sets the context for defence and security out as far as 2045, and warns: "As more of our work and social activities depend on a richly interconnected information and communications network (which may, in places, be extremely vulnerable to attack) there could be more opportunities for criminals and terrorists to have a greater impact on our day-to-day lives."

Op-Ed: Global Leadership — Learning From History

Professor John F. Troxell

July 15, 2014 

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We are in the season of discontent concerning the position of the United States in the world. Following the financial crisis, it was the declinist narrative, and now it appears to be verging on a competency, or weariness, narrative. We recognize our fundamental strengths and lean away from global responsibilities. Pundits from both sides of the aisle wonder about the direction of our nation and the unease this has caused in the rest of the world. Signs of retrenchment and floundering abound, and the concern over the future leadership role of the United States is not just a partisan endeavor. The National Intelligence Council’sGlobal Trends 2030 listed as one of its potential game-changers the uncertain “role of the United States.” Whereas the United States was previously perceived as a global stabilizer, in the future, the United States is increasingly perceived as a variable.1 Highlighting the perception of growing unease over the role of the United States was the recent cover story in the Economist entitled, “What Would America Fight For? The Question Haunting its Allies.”2 Crises in Syria, Ukraine, the South China Sea, and now Iraq—all cry out for U.S. engagement in support of the liberal world order we have assiduously supported for decades.

Fortunately, this season of discontent corresponds with a season of momentous commemorations that offer valuable lessons that could help us get back on track toward demonstrating global leadership and responsibility. August marks the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War I, viewed by many as the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century, “the first calamity of the 20th century, the calamity from which all other calamities sprang.”3 We have also recently witnessed the moving commemorations of the 70th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. Arguably, however, a more important anniversary is the convening of the Bretton Woods conference, just 1 month later in July 1944 that resulted in correcting the failed legacy of World War I by creating international institutions for governing the global economy. Finally, in June, despite Chinese government efforts to erase memories of the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen crisis, it remains an important reminder that China continues on an evolutionary and very uncertain path. These three events speak volumes about important lessons the United States should be applying now as it struggles to define its role in the world following its debilitating decade of war. As Robert Kagan recently noted, “These days it is hard to watch both the conduct and discussion of American foreign policy and not sense a certain unlearning, a forgetting of old lessons. . . .”4 Relearning just a few lessons from these commemorative occasions should help our leaders and people understand the importance of U.S. global leadership as we shape the future, and avoid the perils of the past.

Excellent scholarship abounds on the run up to World War I, and two recent books worthy of consideration are: Sleepwalkers by Christopher Clark; and, The War that Ended Peace by Margaret MacMillan. Among the many reasons for the outbreak of World War I, two stand out as of particular importance for what they say about current circumstances: the perils of nationalism and complacency.

Lack of trust between the pre-World War I great powers was exacerbated by the failure to abate the rise of nationalism. The advent of mass media led to the growth of a nationalist public opinion, fanned by politicians appealing to popular fears and prejudices and their populism. “Governments were finding,” MacMillan concludes, “that their ability to maneuver was increasingly circumscribed by their publics’ emotions and expectations.”5 Today, U.S. political leaders seem to be most interested in winning the next election, as opposed to leading the nation, let alone the global community. Appeals to populist platforms on both the left and right, along with an over emphasis on nation building at home, all stoke fears and nationalist responses. Sure, all politicians want to win reelection, but occasionally the good ones rise above personal aspirations to make the hard choices for the good of the nation. Newt Gingrich recalled that one of the most courageous decisions President Clinton made was to eventually come out in favor of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). It was a tough choice, and he had to make the case to the American people. President Obama recently argued that leadership requires leveling with the American people about required sacrifices, yet an election focus feeds populist responses and trumpets government payouts, not sacrifice nor national responsibility.

Make It a Smaller and Cheaper Force

JULY 14, 2014

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Caitlin Talmadge is an assistant professor of political science and international affairs at the George Washington University. She is a co-author of "U.S. Defense Politics: the Origins of Security Policy."

If we started from scratch, the military would be smaller and cheaper. We would spend less on conventional ground forces and on personnel. We would buy more intelligence and special operations capabilities, and invest more in air and naval assets, especially unmanned platforms and submarines. Combatant commanders would not overshadow diplomats. And we likely would organize our forces by mission (e.g., armored combat, antisubmarine warfare, air superiority, counter-terrorism) and not service (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines).

What we have now is a bloated defense budget that hedges against many possible scenarios but is devoid of the prioritization that real strategy or intelligent organizational reform require.

Instead, our military largely retains the organization and force structure of the past. This intransigence is frustrating, but it is not a moral failing. It is what we should expect when the country does not face a set of clear and compelling external threats the way it did during the Cold War or World War II.

America today confronts a variety of dangers and nuisances. Many may engage our interests, broadly conceived, but almost none truly threaten our territorial integrity, general prosperity or fundamental safety. The result is a bloated defense budget that hedges against many possible scenarios — global jihadism, China’s rise, North Korea's collapse, Russian resurgence — but is devoid of the prioritization that real strategy or intelligent organizational reform require. We may not like it, but this incoherence will persist unless and until the world becomes dangerous enough to produce consensus about an alternative.

The good news is that America’s defense establishment has a much better record of adapting to the conditions it eventually encounters than predicting in advance the whims of its political masters or the surprises of international affairs. Wars rarely break out where planners expect them, and combat usually requires capabilities not foreseen during peacetime. Historically the United States has excelled in facing these challenges because of the country’s wealth, human capital and technological sophistication.

Tending to these fundamentals is the real key to preserving America’s long-term national security. We can always adjust the organizational wire diagram — and always do.

A New U.S. Military Would Be an Army of Advisers

JULY 14, 2014

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John Nagl, a retired Army veteran of both Iraq wars, is the headmaster of The Haverford School in Philadelphia. He is the author of the forthcoming "Knife Fights: A Memoir of Modern War in Theory and Practice."

The United States has an extraordinary ability to defeat any conventional armed force on the planet; our tanks, ships and planes will make short work of any enemy in frontal war. For that very reason, the enemies we face will not confront us in suicidal direct conflict; instead, they will fight us indirectly, as insurgents and terrorists. Waging war against us from amid the sea of innocent populations handcuffs our conventional strength and dooms us to fight grinding forever wars like those in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The U.S. armed forces are unbeatable, instead of sending troops, we should train our friends and allies.

It's far better to have our friends and allies fight our terrorist and insurgent enemies than to do it ourselves. They have the local knowledge of human and geographic terrain, speak the language and understand the culture. But to fight effectively, foreign forces need American support, especially communications, intelligence and airpower. Without it, they will be less effective than they should be, and may even crumble under contact, as the Iraqi Armed Forces we spent billions of dollars training and equipping did recently.

Our response to that disaster was to deploy a small force of advisers — sadly, too little, too late. It would have been far better to have left advisers with the Iraqi Army when our own combat forces departed. Properly trained in Arabic and in the skills of combat advising, they could have prevented the return of Islamist murderers to a country too many of my friends died in, wresting control from insurgents just a decade ago.

Six years ago, I argued in The Times that “For the United States, helping our friends defend themselves will be critical for victory in the long war, and improving our adviser capacity will be the foundation of a long-term strategy.” We still have not built that capability to perform that task, although we need it desperately now in Iraq and will need it next year in Afghanistan. It’s well past time to get started building it.

West Point 2014: What’s the “Theory of the Case”?

By Nathan Freier

JUN 4, 2014 

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The President’s West Point speech struck many observers, including me, as incomplete. His great strength is his capacity to be the “leveler-in-chief” — especially on issues of war and peace. He has a rare knack among politicians for outlining in plain English what the United States can and cannot hope to achieve with foreign policy activism, largely undeterred by the inevitable blowback that ensues. Critics sometimes find this approach uninspiring. I think it’s refreshing. However, the recent West Point speech was clearly not the best example in this regard.

We are all sensitive to the complexity of national security decision making today, and the administration’s clinical, risk- and cost-conscious approach to it is likely appropriate for the times. Further, one can quibble with specific policy initiatives, outcomes, and process fouls but this President’s philosophical predisposition toward informed calculation is exactly what is required for our current circumstances. Rushing into anything anywhere nowadays is a recipe for getting stuck or burned to such an extent that we may be unable or unwilling to respond to even greater foreign policy challenges in the future (see Iraq). 

What was noticeably absent from West Point 2014 was some consumable and commonly understood description of the terrain against which the administration is applying President Obama’s deliberative, risk-informed approach. Individual foreign policy initiatives and challenges — the “pivot” to Asia; Syria, Iran and the greater Middle East; and Russia-Ukraine — are still outlined in isolation, as the administration has yet to advance an aggregated and universal “theory of the case” that would justify specific policy choices. 

What makes this kind of description a tall order today is the fact that the United States faces important but also wildly dissimilar national security challenges. Contemporary security challenges span regions from the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East to the Asia-Pacific. They manifest simultaneously between states and peoples, in contested territory, seas, and airspace. And, they are complicated and intensified by new threats from cyberspace and prolific social networking and electronic connectivity. In every case, effective U.S. and allied responses would profit from the kind of careful cost-benefit calculation the “leveler-in-chief” favors. However, before setting off toward solutions, a clear understanding of how the administration defines the basic contours of its 21st century problem set would be useful. Unfortunately, that’s not what came out of last Wednesday’s remarks. 

Without this basic understanding, we are driving in the dark at a time when variety, volatility, and uncertainty — not structure, institutions, or formal relationships — define international security. We shouldn’t be put off by the most common criticism of current U.S. policy — too reactive — as the sheer number of consequential challenges and the speed of change in current events outpaces bureaucracies that operate best on consensus. On the other hand, there are fundamental questions as to whether or not the administration’s framework or context for decision making is right. 

CLIMBING THE CELLAR STAIRS OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING & LOVE THE STATUS QUO

Peter Munson

July 14, 2014

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I spent the better part of the last decade trying to understand why our military bureaucracy was so dysfunctional. In a business where the stakes are so high, the illogic of the machine can become viscerally, obsessively personal. The 24/7 online feed of bad news, bad ideas, and even worse infighting draws some of us in—like an addiction. We badly want something to change. Deep down we know it won’t, but we can’t force ourselves to look away. We feed on the anger and hope for disruption.

A few years ago, Ben Kohlmann brought a rare, action-oriented, and quite positive idea to defense dialogue, advocating the need for “disruptive thinking.” This rallying cry motivated a wide audience. Hopes for improved talent management, better policies, and greater engagement were all wrapped up within a single buzzword, one that can be divisive. While the initiative produced start-up type of forums that were effective at addressing smaller ideas, when it comes to the problems that loom largest, there is no forum anywhere that can make the beast change. It took some time on the outside, a bit more understanding of innovation, and a TV show for me to come to terms with it.

Our national security network is so tightly bound up and so self-serving that no amount of reasoning, rationalizing, pleading, or intervention can bring even consideration of real change. This mass can only be disrupted and that disruption can only come from outside (please see the legendary iconoclast John Boyd on outside thinking, destruction, and creation). For there is no hive mind and no incentive that can convince the entire establishment to jump from the platform of status quo into the icy waters of change until the platform is clearly and undeniably on fire.

In the grand world of strategy and politics, disruptions occasionally do aggregate into epochal events, providing the means and motivations for others to set the platform of your status quo afire. Only that will produce change in our ponderous beast. My perspective is not much of a revelation, merely a way to help other addicts like me cope with the reality of the game. Think of it as a sharing session—one that is a good deal more verbose than that of my inspiration, Reginald “Bubbles” Cousins.

Disruptive innovation

Clay Christensen and Joseph Bower first coined the term “disruptive innovation” in the article “Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave.” They found that industry leaders are good at producing innovations valuable to their current customers. These sustaining innovations are improvements in “the performance of established products along the dimensions of performance that mainstream customers in major markets have historically valued.”

In contrast, incumbents are rarely able to lead disruptive innovations, which “bring to market a very different value proposition” and “are typically cheaper, simpler, smaller, and, frequently, more convenient to use.” These offer a different value proposition to tap new markets. While this does not threaten the incumbent in the short term, rapid improvements and wider applications of the disruptive idea may soon compete for incumbents’ customers.

A disruptive innovation is not simply revolutionary in its magnitude or discontinuous in the leap of improvement it makes. Many revolutionary products have been the fruit of sustaining innovations made by incumbents. The critical distinction is that disruptive innovations create new value networks that ultimately remake markets. It is a wholly different sort of innovation, not simply a distinction of magnitude.

STRATEGY: DOES THE CENTER OF GRAVITY HAVE VALUE?

John Haines

July 15, 2014 

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I recently had the opportunity to hear Sir Lawrence Freedman address the Naval War College’s Current Strategy Forum, during which he exhorted, “The wrong question to ask at the start of a campaign is: What is the enemy’s center of gravity? The term should henceforth be banned.” I later read with interest his article on the subject here at War on the Rocks.

If we accept Nietzsche’s claim about the fundamentally metaphorical nature of concept-formation, where are students of strategy left in the aftermath of Freedman’s declaration? The center of gravity(COG) merits further consideration, if for no other reason than its frequent repetition since Clausewitz formulated the metaphor nearly two centuries ago.

Metaphorical expressions like COG are based in some concrete concept. They are not per se ”right” or “wrong” so much as the concept that undergirds the metaphor allows for an apt or inapt analogy. To the extent that an analogy is unsatisfactory, it could reflect something as simple as a poorly translated phrase from Clausewitz’s original German. That is, the original analogy in German may have been quite apt; it is the translation that is at fault. It also may be that a metaphor like COG has taken on meaning in the period since Clausewitz first used it that makes the analogy seemingly less apt. Finally, it may be that the concrete concept on which the metaphor is based is outdated or for some reason has less salience today, causing the analogy to seem less apt or wholly inapt. As Sir Lawrence himself writes in Strategy: A History, “Clausewitz never quite got to grips with the metaphor.” The purpose of this essay is to try and come to grips with it, assessing Clausewitz’s use of COG and suggesting how we might recover it as a useful metaphor. That task will require us to put aside concrete concepts based in the Newtonian mechanics of Clausewitz’s time and to consider some from quantum mechanics.

Conceptual metaphors typically use concrete or physical concepts as their source, and more abstract concepts as their target. The source-domain is the conceptual one from which we draw a metaphorical expression; the target-domain is the conceptual domain we are trying to understand. Metaphorical expressions from a source-domain are mapped onto a target-domain. For Clausewitz, his source-domain for COG was Newtonian mechanics; his target-domain was military strategy. Mapping is the process of creating analogies between the source and the target domains. Thus the danger of conceptual metaphors: they create new meaning in the target-domain, sometimes unintentionally. When, like Clausewitz’s, the target is military strategy, inapt metaphors can have consequential effects.

The case against the COG metaphor is that it is defective because it is inaptly descriptive. COG is a perfectly valid concept when confined to Newtonian mechanics, but this delineates the metaphor’s limits. Rescuing it requires that we challenge the conventional translation of some of Clausewitz’s terms. With those corrections in place, we can decouple the metaphor from his understanding of Newtonian mechanics, and apply principles of quantum mechanics.

Clausewitz never used the English term “center of gravity.” The one he used most frequently (50+ times) is Schwerpunkt, a compound word formed from schwer, meaning “hard” and punkt, meaning “point.” Its translation as “center of gravity” is interpretive, not literal. COG lacks the German word’s inherent dynamism, and was adopted most likely because Clausewitz sometimes used Schwerpunkt interchangeably with the Latin term centra gravitates and the German words Kern (“core”) and Zentrum(“center”).

Clausewitz’s elaboration of Schwerpunkt appears in a commonly-referenced English translation (Howard & Paret,1989) as:

Want To Fix Retention? Start by Making the Military a Real Meritocracy

by Guest Blogger for Janine Davidson

July 14, 2014

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Marines with Combat Logistics Battalion 15, Combat Logistics Regiment 17, 1st Marine Logistics Group, run in formation along Red Beach Training Area, Dec. 6, 2013. (Sgt. Sarah Fiocco, USMC/Courtesy Marines Flickr) 

By Amy Schafer 

This commentary comes courtesy of Amy Schafer, research intern for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. She notes that an inflexible promotions structure and rigid “all or nothing” pension system push too many talented servicemembers to leave the military early in pursuit of other opportunities. A better system, Schafer argues, would emulate some of the best practices of Silicon Valley by rewarding high achievers and allowing more freedom in choice of assignment. 

With July 1 marking the fortieth anniversary of the military’s all-volunteer force and with the continued military drawdown, it’s time to take another look at retention. While budget cuts and sequestration may lead to fewer men and women in uniform, it is essential that the military considers ways to keep their best and brightest. There are many challenges to military retention, including the lack of a “meritocracy,” limited to no control over assignments, the “all or nothing” twenty-year pension system, and the role a family or spouse plays. 

Tim Kane, a former Air Force officer, examines this issue in Bleeding Talent: How the U.S. Military Mismanages Great Leaders and Why It’s Time for a Revolution. As he argues, “The Army has bled talent for decades, a consequence of a deeply dysfunctional organization that poorly matches jobs with talent and doesn’t trust its officers to make choices about their own careers.” 

There are several areas where reform could be highly effective in influencing the best junior officers to stay past their minimum service requirement; among the most promising is a system that more resembles a meritocracy. 

A recent survey of over 5,000 active duty Navy personnel by CDR Guy Snodgrass presents hard data on the challenges and concerns facing service members as they decide whether or not to separate from the Navy. According to the survey, 64 percent of sailors believe that performance rankings are based more on timing than merit, with 21 percent citing timing and merit, 9 percent citing neither, and only 6 percent believing performance rankings are based upon merit alone. 

Outrage: Army Announces Officer Promotions To Be Based On Merit, Performance

August 6, 2012

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – US Army staff officers were stunned today after the announcement from the Chief of Staff that future promotions will be based on merit and performance rather than time in service.

A morning press conference was led by General Ray Odierno, who broke the news and answered questions.

The audience was composed of a select group of Majors and Lieutenant Colonels chosen specifically for the test panel.

“The officer corps has always been a middle-class welfare system. History shows that 95 percent of Captains get promoted to Major and 94 percent of Majors are promoted to Lieutenant Colonel,” said a Lieutenant Colonel who wished to remain anonymous. “I’ve kept my nose clean and maintained a very solid mediocre career for 18 years now and only have 2 left. How the hell am I supposed to get a job on the outside?”

Another Major who had reentered the combat-Army after a seven year stint as a West Point instructor was just as incredulous.

“You’re telling me a captain with six years in the Army who’s been deployed three times could be doing my job as a battalion XO or S-3? Impossible!”

General Odierno responded to the criticism.

“We’re not saying you’re getting kicked out. You can still go get your Ivy League Masters Degree and teach 19 year old kids, but I’ll be damned if I put you all in a position to actually affect combat operations. I’m tired of you witless ass clowns getting soldiers killed simply because you stayed in the Army.”

The crowd of nervous and slightly overweight field-grade officers seethed, but the General continued.

“A proven performer will now take your place. Some of these stand-outs will hold down battalion executive or operations officer positions, once they’ve demonstrated their ability to handle the job. They’ll also be promoted accordingly. Just like in the real world.”

A major with 16 years in the Army stuttered while looking at the franticly scribbled notes from his diary.