Israeli Military Chief of Staff Says IDF Won Recent Gaza Strip War, But Others Doubt This Claim

Barbara Opall-Rome

Defense News

October 12, 2014

IDF Chief: ‘We Won’ Gaza War - but Experts Question Claim

TEL AVIV — In keeping with the somber introspection of the Jewish high holiday of Yom Kippur, Israel’s top military officer went public last week with rare soul-searching accounts of the recent 50-day Gaza war.

In interviews marking the Oct. 4 fast, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, Israel Defense Force (IDF) chief of staff, took heavy responsibility for the 73 Israelis killed — 67 soldiers and six civilians.

He called on Israel to support global efforts to rebuild Gaza and renew hope for its 1.8 million war-weary residents.

He glossed over criticism by politicians clamoring to wipe out Hamas and reconquer the coastal strip.

He conceded that Operation Protective Edge — which began July 8, paused for numerous collapsed ceasefires and concluded with a still open-ended Aug. 26 truce — ran much longer than planned, particularly due to 17 days of grueling ground war against the tunnel threat.

He even complimented Hamas, from a purely professional perspective, for the strategic planning, asymmetrical tactics and command-and-control capabilities manifest throughout the campaign.

But in Judgment Day interviews with Yediot Ahronot, Israel’s largest daily, and the high-end Ha’aretz, Gantz refused to atone for what he insists is the IDF’s clear victory over Hamas.

“We won,” the IDF chief told Ha’aretz. “Let any officer attending the Command and Staff College analyze it methodically and he will mark every aspect of the campaign as a success.”

Despite international rebuke for more than 2,100 Gazans killed, some 290,000 displaced and Palestinian estimates of US $7.8 billion in damage, Gantz said colleagues worldwide recognize that Protective Edge set new standards for urban warfare.

“Since the operation, many military officers from [the US and] around the world have come here for briefings … and they say what we did there was unprecedented,” Gantz told Yediot Ahronot.

“What we needed to do, we did” with unquestionable success, Gantz said.

But Israel’s traditional critics and many of its staunchest supporters argue otherwise.

Aside from Palestinian counter-claims of strategic victory by virtue of going head-to-head with a regional superpower for 50 days, many in Israel — veteran analysts, retired warriors and public officials — aren’t buying Gantz’ post-war narrative of success.

Experts here are questioning how the IDF allowed a far inferior force to take the fight into Israeli territory and briefly shut down its skies to international flights while preserving its ability to control attacks on the Israeli home front until the last minutes of war.

“This atmosphere of self-congratulation and claims of the IDF fulfilling all of its missions, without any questions, disturbs me,” said Omer Bar-Lev, a lawmaker and former warrior of the IDF’s elite Sayeret Matkal.

In a Sept. 30 address to a Tel Aviv think tank, Bar-Lev said the mere fact that the war lasted a month longer than projected is the first question in the demand for answers.

The myth of Russian humiliation

By Anne Applebaum 
October 17 

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a welcoming ceremony as he inspects the Vice-Admiral Kulakov anti-submarine warfare ship in Novorossiysk, September 23, 2014. (Ria Novosti/Reuters)

Looking back over the past quarter-century, it isn’t easy to name a Western policy that can truly be described as a success. The impact of Western development aid is debatable. Western interventions in the Middle East have been disastrous.

But one Western policy stands out as a phenomenal success, particularly when measured against the low expectations with which it began: the integration of Central Europe and the Baltic States into the European Union and NATO. Thanks to this double project, more than 90 million people have enjoyed relative safety and relative prosperity for more than two decades in a region whose historic instability helped launch two world wars.

Anne Applebaum writes a biweekly foreign affairs column for The Washington Post. She is also the Director of the Global Transitions Program at the Legatum Institute in London. 

These two “expansions,” which were parallel but not identical (some countries are members of one organization but not the other), were transformative because they were not direct leaps, as the word “expansion” implies, but slow negotiations. Before joining NATO, each country had to establish civilian control of its army. Before joining the European Union, each adopted laws on trade, judiciary, human rights. As a result, they became democracies. This was “democracy promotion” working as it never has before or since.

But times change, and the miraculous transformation of a historically unstable region became a humdrum reality. Instead of celebrating this achievement on the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, it is now fashionable to opine that this expansion, and of NATO in particular, was mistaken. This project is incorrectly “remembered” as the result of American “triumphalism” that somehow humiliated Russia by bringing Western institutions into its rickety neighborhood. This thesis is usually based on revisionist history promoted by the current Russian regime — and it is wrong.

For the record: No treaties prohibiting NATO expansion were ever signed with Russia. No promises were broken. Nor did the impetus for NATO expansion come from a “triumphalist” Washington. On the contrary, Poland’s first efforts to apply in 1992 were rebuffed. I well remember the angry reaction of the U.S. ambassador to Warsaw at the time. But Poland and others persisted, precisely because they were already seeing signs of the Russian revanchism to come.

When the slow, cautious expansion eventually took place, constant efforts were made to reassure Russia. No NATO bases were placed in the new member states, and until 2013 no exercises were conducted there. ARussia-NATO agreement in 1997 promised no movement of nuclear installations. A NATO-Russia Council was set up in 2002. In response to Russian objections, Ukraine and Georgia were, in fact, denied NATO membership plans in 2008.

U.S. DUSTED OFF OLD USSR-BREAK-UP STRATEGY FOR USE IN UKRAINE – FORMER FSB CHIEF

October 18, 2014 

http://fortunascorner.com/2014/10/18/u-s-dusted-off-old-ussr-break-up-strategy-for-use-in-ukraine-former-fsb-chief/

Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev. (RIA Novosti/ Said Tcarnaev)

The current turmoil in Ukraine and the military conflicts in Georgia and the Caucasus are a direct result of the anti-Russian policy of the US administration, claims the former head of Russia’s Federal Security Service.

Nikolai Patrushev who headed the FSB from 1999 until 2008 said in an interview with the Russian government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta that intelligence analysts established a current anti-Russian program being executed by American special services dates back to the 1970s, and is based on Zbigniew Brzezinski’s “strategy of weak spots”, the policy of turning the opponent’s potential problems into full scale crises.

“The CIA decided that the most vulnerable spot in our country was its economy. After making a detailed model US specialists established that the Soviet economy suffered from excessive dependency from energy exports. Then, they developed a strategy to provoke the financial and economic insolvency of the Soviet state through both a sharp fall in budget income and significant hike in expenditures due to problems organized from outside,” Patrushev told reporters.

The result was the fall in oil prices together with the arms race, the war in Afghanistan, and anti-government movements in Poland, all of which eventually led to the breakup of the Soviet Union, said the former Russian security chief. He stressed that each of these factors bore hallmarks of US influence.

The hostile policy exercised by the US against the Soviet Union continued into modern times, but this time the target was the Russian Federation as the only country in the world that possessed enough nuclear weapons to effectively oppose the United States.

“American strategists saw the solution of this situation in the final destruction of the state administration in our country with the subsequent breakup of its territory,” Patrushev revealed.

The new plan was put into life through US support of Chechen separatism, but it was thwarted because of Vladimir Putin’s policy, the official said.

However, the CIA has never fully abandoned this strategy and waited for the chance to use it.

The new stage of the Russia-US standoff happened during the 2008 war in Georgia. After the war, Washington became clearly concerned by Russia’s intention to claim its place among leading nations in the 21st century, the former FSB boss noted.

The Italian Military to the Rescue!

Beppe Severgnini

OCT. 17, 2014

Source Link

MILAN — Every nationality is the victim of stereotyping. Some stereotypes are plausible (the Swiss are punctual), others are inoffensive (the Germans are organized) and yet others flatter (the Irish are generous).

But some stereotypes are insulting. Like the one that says Italian soldiers are spineless. A cabinet minister from another European country once told me, “Italian tanks have one forward gear — and three reverse!” Clearly, he was hoping I would laugh.

I didn’t. Italy’s military history can boast more heroes than good armies, I replied. The problem is organization, not courage. Italy may have had wars on its doorstep for 30 centuries, but it doesn’t like warfare. Our history and character make us more inclined to build bridges than burn them. We prefer healing to wounding.

If you want proof, look at the Strait of Sicily, the gateway to Europe for thousands of migrants from Libya, Syria and Eritrea who pay human traffickers a lot of money to be crammed into unseaworthy boats. Some 118,000 migrants made it to the Italian coast in 2014. At least 4,000 more died at sea by drowning, or from suffocation or dehydration. On Oct. 3, 2013, a 66-foot refugee boat from the Libyan port of Misurata sank just outside the harbor of the island of Lampedusa; 366 people died. There were 155 survivors, 41 of them children. Only one was saved with his family.

Since then, the Italian Navy and Coast Guard have rescued 139,000 men, women and children at sea. The area they patrol extends over almost 17,000 square miles, about twice the size of New Jersey. They are there as part of Operation Mare Nostrum (“Our Sea” in Latin), conducted in coordination with Frontex, the European border management agency.

On Nov. 1, Mare Nostrum will be replaced by Operation Triton, for which only eight countries — Finland, Spain, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, Latvia, Malta and Iceland — have signed up. The European Union has allocated just $3.7 million to Triton. It won’t be much use. Which means that Italy will necessarily bear the brunt of this humanitarian crisis.

And for all the ribbing we Italians get about our armed forces, I have no doubt that we’re up to the challenge. Catia Pellegrino, the commander of the Libra, an Italian Navy patrol vessel, has taken part in many rescues. “It’s not so strange to train for war and end up saving lives,” she said. “We make no distinction between Italians on Italian soil and foreigners in difficulty at sea. It’s someone who needs to be rescued.” She added, “We are at sea to serve our country and help those in need.”

Polish Democracy Promotion in Ukraine

Tsveta Petrova

OCTOBER 16, 2014

Tsveta Petrova is an associate research scholar at the Harriman Institute at Columbia University.Poland has been a strong supporter of Ukraine’s democratization since shortly after its own transition twenty-five years ago. Warsaw played a central role with its backing of democratic reformers during Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution. And, in the current crisis in Ukraine, with pro-Russia forces aligned against those who favor closer ties with the EU, Poland has positioned itself as perhaps the most ardent and committed proponent of Ukrainian democracy.

Poland’s deep commitment, distinctive democracy promotion expertise, and unique local knowledge and ties have allowed it to help secure some democratization gains in Ukraine in both 2004 and 2014. However, Poland’s efforts and their effectiveness in the long term have been hampered by two main factors. In some instances, the country relied heavily on its own experience, which has at times limited its democracy promotion approach in Ukraine. In addition, in its bilateral dealings and in its work through the EU, Poland has often had to juggle its interest in democracy promotion in Ukraine with a desire to ensure that Ukraine maintains its independence from Russia.

In sum, Poland’s support has helped to open two windows of democratic opportunity in Ukraine, but it has not yet been sufficient to push Ukraine in a definitively democratic direction.

THE EARLY POST-COMMUNIST PERIOD

Poland began supporting Ukraine’s democratization shortly after its own democratic breakthrough in 1989. This backing included diplomatic initiatives and aid for civil society development, local-level democracy, and state reform. In the early 1990s, Poland created multiple political forums for cooperation, including channels through which to share transition experiences with Ukraine’s local and national governments and civil society organizations. By the late 1990s, Warsaw also began providing aid to these institutions.

By the mid-2000s, the Polish foreign ministry’s development arm, PolishAid, was supplying around $700,000 a year in bilateral democratization aid to Ukraine. In total, Poland provided “roughly the equivalent of the democracy assistance to Ukraine of Sweden and the UK combined,” according to a 2008 assessment of European democracy aid.1 This assistance to Ukraine, praised by many of its recipients, represented a larger proportion of Poland’s overall development aid than the proportion allocated by the United States for its democracy building in Ukraine.

For Poland, there was a lot at stake in Ukraine. Polish leaders believed, and continue to believe, that supporting the internal and external freedom of their Eastern neighbors—their democratization and sovereignty, respectively—would help foster stability and security. Containing the threat of Russian expansionism continued to be a top security and foreign policy objective, and pushing for democracy in the countries between Poland and Russia became central to the country’s Eastern strategy. As then Polish president Aleksander Kwaśniewski said of Ukraine in 2002, “We are convinced that precisely here the important battle is being waged for the future of a secure, democratic Europe of the 21st century.”2

THE 2004 ORANGE REVOLUTION

Building on its early work, Warsaw played a crucial role in Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution, in which mass protests against a rigged presidential election led to a revote and victory for the pro-democratic opposition. Kwaśniewski—a participant in the 1989 Polish roundtable negotiations that ended Communist rule—was invited by the parties to mediate the dispute in Ukraine. He also involved then EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, and then Lithuanian president, Valdas Adamkus, in the talks. Kwaśniewski developed a roundtable plan for Ukraine modeled on the 1989 Polish one. In part because of his local knowledge and ties, he was seen as the most effective international mediator at the Orange roundtable,3 which successfully ended the electoral crisis.

Kwaśniewski’s efforts were only one element of Poland’s support for Ukraine’s democracy advocates. Other prominent Polish political elites, including Lech Wałęsa, Bronisław Komorowski, and Lech Kaczyński, urged the Ukrainian regime to move in a democratic direction. Some Polish politicians and many Polish civic activists visited the opposition protests in Ukraine and organized demonstrations in Poland in solidarity with the Orange movement. Polish representatives also pushed the EU to speak out more forcefully in democracy’s favor. They achieved only limited success, however, in the form of a European Parliament resolutionexpressing support for democratic Ukraine’s European aspirations—but not for the country’s European integration ambitions.

The Reconstruction of Gaza and the Peace Process: Time for a European “Coalition of the Willing”

Yezid Sayigh

OCTOBER 16, 2014

SUMMARY

Europeans should support the bid for increased recognition for the State of Palestine—a low-cost means to infuse political energy back into the stalled peace process.

Speaking at the international pledging conference for the reconstruction of Gaza on October 12, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon emphasized the need to prevent the “cycle of building and destroying” from becoming a ritual, by addressing the root causes of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Last summer’s war was the deadliest of three significant outbreaks of violence endured by the 1.8 million inhabitants of Gaza since December 2008. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry agreed, arguing that, without a long-term peace agreement, rebuilding homes and infrastructure in Gaza would be a mere “band-aid fix.” 

This is entirely correct. But Palestinian leaders are also equally right in cautioning against resuming the existing peace process without correcting its deficiencies, as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas urged in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly on September 26. Former Prime Minister Salam Fayyad echoed this view in arecent op-ed, arguing that simply to “hit the reset button on the stalled peace process” would merely repeat past failures. Instead, they proposed that any new negotiations be conducted between a State of Palestine, recognized by international bodies, and Israel to finalize their borders, and that talks should be conducted within a revised framework based on the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, to end within an internationally mandated deadline. 

These proposals are hardly radical, since they remain focused on achieving mutual recognition and peaceful co-existence between two sovereign states within parameters endorsed by the international community since 1993. But clearly the Palestinians lack the leverage to bring about such a restructuring of the process, nor a reassignment of oversight from the U.S. to the U.N.. Already, U.S. officials have reiterated the standard mantra of the past 21 years: the U.S. will “help facilitate successful negotiations if the parties are willing to make the difficult decisions as necessary to get back to talks.” This is a sure recipe for instant deadlock, and a guarantee that, contrary to Ki-moon’s stated hope, the latest Gaza reconstruction conference will certainly not be the last. 

For once, the Europeans could make a modest, but useful difference. They need not adopt the Palestinian approach wholesale, but supporting the bid for increased recognition for the State of Palestine offers them a low-cost means to infuse political energy back into the peace process without challenging the fundamental principles of reaching a two-state solution through direct negotiation between the parties. Not all EU member-states will endorse this approach, but the opportunity is there for a “coalition of the willing” among them to take a diplomatic lead. 

The EU already has a precedent in the Berlin European Council statement of March 1999, which believed that a final peace treaty could be reached “within a target period of one year.” More pertinently, the EU deemed the Palestinian right to self-determination “including the option of a state” to be unqualified, neither “subject to any veto” nor contingent on reaching a negotiated solution. The statement ended with a declaration of European readiness to consider recognizing a Palestinian State at a future date in accordance with these basic principles—in effect unilaterally, as the sovereign right of EU member-states. 

The Cairo conference for Gaza places the issue in sharp relief. Collectively, EU member-states have given more assistance to the Palestinian Authority than any other donor since 1994, and have now pledged an additional $568 million towards the reconstruction of Gaza. The EU has been here before, stepping up assistance to rebuild infrastructure originally paid for with European funds and damaged in Israel’s reoccupation of most of the West Bank in 2002, and pledging new aid for Gaza’s reconstruction after Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead” in December 2008-January 2009. This time EU representatives in Cairo were vocal in their reluctance to rebuild what will likely be torn down once more. 

The EU is right to question the wisdom of going down the same path again. But this requires willingness to modify the rigid, U.S.-dominated framework within which the “peace process” —such as it is—has been trapped for over a decade. Indeed, the Europeans have been similarly trapped. In 2002, they formed the Quartet—along with the U.S., Russia, and the U.N.—to oversee the peace process, but in practice this became a means to cede diplomatic leadership entirely to the U.S.. The result was to hollow out the Quartet’s Roadmap for Peace even before it was published on April 30, 2003. The original version of the document committed the Quartet to establishing a monitoring mechanism to verify both Palestinian and Israeli implementation of their mutual obligations. But when the U.S. published the official text of the roadmap, it removed this provision in deference to Israeli pressure, without prior consultation with the EU, let alone its other Quartet partners. 

Why Are Swastikas Hot In West Ukraine?

Anna Nemtsova

10.17.14 

Source Link

Ceasefires don’t erase history: The hatreds left by Nazi and Soviet occupations 70 and 80 years ago continue to play out on Ukraine’s streets and battlefields. 

LVIV, Ukraine — Ostap Stakhiv, the leader of a political organization of Ukrainian nationalists, The Idea of the Nation, had been looking for popular support for many years without much success. Then the delicate-seeming 28-year-old started thinking that maybe there was something wrong with the insignia—a lion climbing up a steep hillside—printed on the group’s tracts and fliers. So Stakhiv chose another: the swastika, slightly modified, that Hitler adopted as the emblem of the Nazi Party in 1920 and that millions of Europeans, including millions of Ukrainians, associate with death. 

It worked. Earlier this week, Stakhiv was busy setting up five tents around Lviv for this month's election campaign. He’s preparing to run for the local parliament on October 26th. The organization's newspaper, with double swastikas on the front page, was being distributed along with other propaganda materials, and Stakhiv and his aid, Yulia, marveled at the strength of the symbol. "A yellow swastika on a black field stands for power and spirit," said Stakhiv. 

It also stands for just about everything negative that Russian President Vladimir Putin preaches about Ukraine being taken over by crypto-, and not-so-crypto-, Nazis. But young Stakhiv insists that’s wrong. He says he’s campaigning in opposition to "oligarchs running the country, the actual enemy of Ukraine" and sees his mission as opposing the politics of the current president, the billionaire Petro Poroshenko, who, Stakhiv claims, does not see the real picture. 

“A yellow swastika on a black field stands for power and spirit,” said Stakhiv. 

"The swastika is a very strong symbol, and as soon as we adopted it, we immediately grew popular among young people,” said Stakhiv. “Those who join us know exactly what they want, and they are ready to go to the very end." Today, Idea of the Nation is represented in 14 regions of Ukraine and counts over 1,000 activists, its leader told The Daily Beast. 

How to explain the growing popularity of Nazi symbols in Ukraine? They keep turning up. Ukrainian soldiers have been seen and photographed wearing helmets with swastikas and the letters SS on their helmets. 

A spokesmen for the volunteer Azov Battalion, where the symbols are common, eventually denied they are related to Hitler. He insisted that the battalion insignia reminiscent of the Nazi Wolfsangel, symbol of, among others, the 2nd SS Panzer Division that fought the Russians on the Eastern Front, was actually nothing but the crossed letters "N." 

In fact, most nationalist and ultra-right youth organizations in Ukraine today use symbols that millions of Ukrainian citizens associate with the Nazi army that occupied and brutalized Ukraine during World War II. And one reason, certainly, is that the much longer and very deadly occupation by the Soviets is also a huge part of the national consciousness. The 1933-34 famine known as the Holodomor—“extermination by hunger”—took the lives of some 4 million people. 

On Monday night, a few dozen revolutionary nationalists from another movement, Autonomous Resistance, marched around the streets of Lviv with the red and black flags of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or UIA. These were Ukrainian rebels fighting in the woods of western Ukraine, sometimes in alliance with Nazi forces against Soviet soldiers and sometimes against the German army occupying Ukraine. 

Order of Battle of Russian Army Units That Took Part in War in the Eastern Ukraine

October 14, 2014

The Center for Eurasian Strategic Intelligence (CESI) has put together a single-page map detailing all the different Russian Army units known or believed to have participated in the war in the Eastern Ukraine this year, as well as a breakdown of which military districts these units came from.

I cannot vouch for the veracity of some of the information contained on the CESI graphic, but most of it roughly conforms with what has been disclosed publicly over the past six months.

To view the map, click here.

UK Still Losing Its Fight to Prevent British Muslims From Becoming Radicalized

Reuters

October 13, 2014

Insight - Why Britain is still losing its fight against radicalisation

Britain’s Home Secretary Theresa May speaks at the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham, central England September 30, 2014.

(Reuters) - Mizanur Rahman laughs when he recalls the de-radicalisation programme he was sent on in 2008 after he was released from a British jail where he had served two years for inciting violence against British and American troops.

"I’d go there, I’d sign my name, play pool with some other radicals that I was in prison with and I’d go home," said Rahman, arrested again last month on suspicion of terrorism offences. He denies wrongdoing and has not been charged.

The 31-year-old Londoner denounces his fortnightly de-radicalisation sessions over a six-month period a gimmick. It is a conclusion shared by many British politicians. For more than a decade Britain has tried and failed to prevent young Muslims becoming drawn to militant groups.

Interviews with several people with direct knowledge of these efforts highlight flaws including misdirected funds, poor communication and difficulties in identifying those most likely to turn to violence. At the forefront of Western countries’ efforts to prevent their citizens becoming radicalised, Britain may have lessons for others.

After the shock of 9/11, Britain adopted a two pronged approach to tackling radicalisation. The first was to get tough with “preachers of hate” who whip up extremism. The second was to help Muslim leaders counter extremism among Britain’s 2.7 million Muslims.

But in 2010, the new Conservative government declared the second part of the programme, known as “Prevent”, a failure. Money was going to groups that were sometimes sympathetic to the extremist messages they were supposed to be countering, the government said, and other groups were neither effective nor value for money. Many Muslims, meanwhile, saw Prevent as a police-led spying exercise.

The emphasis has shifted to tough action - promises to strip British Jihadis of their passports and stop radical preachers from speaking in public or using social media.

Having undertaken the “most significant domestic programme by any Western country to foster a moderate version of Islam and prevent radicalisation,” said James Brandon, former head of research at the Quilliam Foundation, “the UK has effectively given up trying to stop jihadists from being created.”

Thanks to Facebook Anyone Can Become a Secret Agent

Frank Schell

American Spectator

October 15, 2014

Covert Operations at a Hard Drive Near You

“There’s a man who leads a life of danger. To everyone he meets he stays a stranger.” So says Johnny Rivers in the 1960s hit song, “Secret Agent Man.” Alas, at that time there was a sense of mystery about covert operations — jet setting into exotic places, trusting no one in a shadowy profession, and risking one’s life in situ.

But now, courtesy of Facebook, anyone can become a secret agent — what a difference digital technology makes. The social media enterprise has recently announced that its members may now use aliases. Previously, Facebook has required its members to use their real names; however, at issue are certain San Francisco based performers, drag artists in particular, who seek anonymity for protection and therefore wish to use online aliases, viewing stage names as part of their persona. While this poses a legal issue about safety and the right to privacy in certain circumstances, it also has vast implications for the intelligence profession.

With over 1.2 billion Facebook users, there is now potential for legions of self-appointed covert operatives to hide behind fake names — projecting duplicity as well as narcissism into a virtual world of espionage. “Bond, James Bond” could be among the most popular names for a certain generation — as well as “M,” Bond’s boss and head of MI6, the British secret service; “Q,” the testy armorer and source of gadgetry; and “Ernst Stavro Blofeld,” the central European chief executive of SPECTRE, Ian Fleming’s imaginary global organization committed to counter-intelligence, terrorism, revenge, and extortion. “Reilly” is yet another possible moniker to commemorate the legendary Sidney Reilly, a daring operative of the early 20th century — portrayed in the mini-series Reilly: Ace of Spies as undermining the German Reich and the Bolsheviks while working for the British. “Mata Hari” and “Casanova” could provide other forms of intimidating digital cover. And “Bourne, Jason Bourne” could be a nom de l’espionnage for younger generations.

Unsociable people and wallflowers will now be able to vicariously assume the personas of great covert operatives, enhancing their self-esteem. Imagine peering into cyberspace at a desktop computer with a vodka martini, “shaken not stirred” as is the preference of James Bond, while holstering a Walther PPK chambered for 7.65 millimeter — pretending to be a super sleuth who must save the West. Add an app for a virtual Bentley or Aston Martin DB 5, and for many, it doesn’t get any better.

A proliferation of aliases is not beyond imagination, as tens of millions of narcissists who willingly gave up their privacy ironically may rush to claim it back, conforming by not conforming to what were accepted standards of disclosure. In the same way that indulgent posturing on social media became an unrelenting fad, soon in the tradition of Hegel’s dialectic, an offsetting rush for anonymity could be in vogue.

New “SANDWORM TEAM” Spyware Shows Russia’s Cyber Spying Capabilities Growing Rapidly

Bill Gertz

Washington Free Beacon

October 15, 2014

New Russian Cyber Spying Campaign Bolsters Need for Continued NSA Use of Software Holes

The National Security Agency should not be restricted from using software holes in overseas spying following disclosure Tuesday that Russian hackers conducted a major cyber espionage campaign using a flaw in Microsoft Windows, a former NSA official says.

The security firm iSight Partners, in cooperation with Microsoft, revealed Tuesday that sophisticated Russian hackers working for the Moscow government conducted the cyber spying campaign against NATO, a U.S. government agency and European countries using a previously unknown “zero day” flaw in the widely-used operating system.

The company called the Russian hacker group behind the cyber spying the “Sandworm Team” that has been active since 2009. The group’s use of the Windows flaw was detected last month, the company said in a statement on the flaw.

“We are actively monitoring multiple intrusion teams with differing missions, targets and attack capabilities,” the statement said. “We are tracking active campaigns by at least five distinct intrusions teams.”

Microsoft released software patches Tuesday afternoon in response to the flaw.

David Aitel, a former NSA cyber security specialist, said there are no indications NSA or allied governments knew about Sandworm prior to Tuesday.

“There’s been a lot of talk about limiting the U.S. intelligence community’s ability to use what we call 0-day against foreign countries to advance our national aims,” Aitel said in an interview with the Free Beacon.

For the U.S. government to release everything it knows about foreign software vulnerabilities “is possibly the worst strategic option we have,” said Aitel, now head of the security firm Immunity Inc.

Aitel disagrees with civil liberties and anti-secrecy advocates who favor curbing NSA spying through zero day flaws and said doing so would be tantamount to unilateral disarmament. American security would be undermined if spy agencies were forced to give up what they secretly know about foreign software gaps used in electronic spying, he added.

The Sandworm case shows that would be a mistake, he said. “That does not affect the Russians,” he said. “The Russians still have this giant pile of stuff that we don’t, and they would be able to continue unhindered against us.”

US Army Cyber Command Growing to Meet Shifting Foreign Threats

Felicia Schwartz

Wall Street Journal

October 15, 2014

Army Bolsters Cybersecurity Force Amid Shifts in Threats, Technology

Lt. Gen. Edward Cardon, commander of U.S. Army Cyber Command, speaks during the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association Cybersecurity Summit in Washington, D.C., on May 28, 2014. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Cybersecurity threats are increasing in frequency and sophistication as technological advances make it easier to wage cyber attacks, according to the Army’s top cyber officer.

As recently as five years ago, would-be cyber attackers needed expert knowledge to take down systems and networks. Now, they can download tools to conduct these operations online, said Lt. Gen. Edward Cardon, commanding general of U.S. Army Cyber Command.

Gen. Cardon, speaking to reporters at the Association of the United States Army annual meeting on Monday, said threats are coming faster and are “increasing in volume and velocity.”

The Pentagon established the U.S. Cyber Command in 2009 to bolster the military’s cyber warfare and cyber defense capabilities. The command is overseen by Adm. Michael Rogers, who also is in charge of the National Security Agency, a military intelligence agency.

The Army created its own dedicated cyber branch in August, partly as a move to recruit and retain cyber specialists for the effort. To combat the changing environment, the U.S. Cyber Command is carrying out plans to recruit 6,000 cyber-focused personnel by 2016, and has already hired about 2,000 of them, Gen. Cardon said.

The Army’s Cyber Command, which falls under the U.S. Cyber Command umbrella, will move to Fort Gordon in Augusta, Ga., by 2019, and will break ground on its new headquarters there in 2016.

Gen. Cardon said the Army is working on ways to recruit and retain a highly skilled and experienced cyber workforce. The Army competes with private tech companies to recruit these workers, and is exploring innovative ways to do so, including making military hiring policies more flexible.

“As I’ve traveled around to the different tech companies, a lot of them would like to work with us, but they don’t want a permanent job with us. So right now the personnel polices doesn’t really allow us to do that, they don’t allow us to bring somebody in for a year,” Gen. Cardon said.

Changing this policy could help bring in more talent, and also allow the Army to be more flexible in recruiting soldiers with specific expertise based on current threats, he said.

Clear Strategic Thinking About Drones

BY MAJOR MATT CAVANAUGH

Source Link

October 15, 2014

*Disclaimer: The materials published on War Council are unofficial expressions of opinion; views are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the US Military Academy, Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or any agency of the US (or any other) government. *Note: Link to online cite guide. 

Note: Last week (on October 7, 2014) I had the privilege of speaking at the West Point Philosophy Forum on the subject of "Killer Machines" (aka drones). A representative version of my remarks follows:

First, you will note that I use the term "drones" instead of the US Air Force's preferred term of art ("remotely piloted vehicle"). I think the USAF's public relations people lost that one. All the major dictionaries go with "drones." So will I.

Let's start with the current debates; drones are everyone’s favorite punching bag. To some, they murder American citizens abroad as part of the country’s “Dirty Wars.” For others, they fundamentally undermine democracy. Charles Dunlap, formerly the Air Force’s top lawyer, argues that technologically advanced airpower of this sort is America’s asymmetric advantage. Civilians like them: drones provide overwatch in conflict areas for the United Nations, deliver packages in Germany (coming soon via Amazon “Air” to you), and make Hollywood cinematography even cooler. And it's not just the shots - it's the movie plots - the recentCaptain America: Winter Soldier sequel featured a villain's plan to create three giant "super drones" with global reach and strike capabilities to kill any terrorist, anywhere, at any time. Or the current season ofHomeland, where the main character, CIA agent Carrie Mathison (played by Claire Danes) has earned the nickname the "drone queen." And, as if he didn't already have everything, George Clooney even has a fleet ofdrones through his NGO.

Maybe we should take a step back and look at airpower more broadly.

Since November 1911, when an Italian pilot dropped three hand grenades out of his monoplane at some Turks in Libya, there have been two general conditions for success when using airpower.

Enemy moves in open terrain, no cover or concealment (i.e. desert)

Enemy has no air force or useful anti-aircraft weapons to speak of

The second has to be modified slightly with drones - defensive measures taken against drones are difficult when there is no threatened pilot and no will to deter. This can be initially frightening. Consider the British public's terrified response to Hitler's V-1 and V-2 rockets - which they called "pilotless planes." Today, drones can seem similarly invincible - they do offer marked operational advantages – they are persistent, precise, greater reach, provide force protection in unique places, and they are relatively stealthy (see Stimson Task Force Report on US Drone Policy, p. 18).

But they are not a dominant weapon – there never has been one and probably never will be. At varying times, the crossbow, dynamite, and nuclear weapons have been raised as potential war-winning weapons. They certainly shaped war, but did not have the power to end it. 

So we should start with the proposition that drones are simply another, arguably more effective and more efficient, variant of airpower. Drones are a tactical weapon that should be “neither glorified nor demonized.” So how should we think strategically about this new airpower tool?

Unfortunately, in invoking strategy, many look to simple “cost benefit analysis” (Stimson Report, p. 11). Journalist Tom Ricks prefers a different term, the "Law of Conservation of Enemies." Or, more famously, right here at West Point this past May 28, the Commander in Chief stated that in using drones, “our actions should meet a simple test: we must not create more enemies than we take off the battlefield.”

The problem with this analysis is that it considers each strike on it's particular tactical merits. For example, did “we” finish that engagement +1 or -1? We end up seeking a series of tactical victories in the hopes that the overall picture will end up favorable to “our” side. This is the rough equivalent of a football team measuring the net thrust of an offensive versus a defensive line (i.e. who pushed who in what direction, and how far). You can see how it might be a useful indicator, but must acknowledge that this only tells one part of the game's story. 

Obama, Please Leave "All Options on the Table" When Fighting Ebola

James W. Carden

October 18, 2014 

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"It seems that a better policy might be for the president to truly keep all of his (and by extension, all of our) options on the table with regard to the burgeoning Ebola crisis." 

Speaking at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta on September 16, President Obama assured the American people that:

“our experts, here at the CDC and across our government, agree thatthe chances of an Ebola outbreak here in the United States are extremely low. We’ve been taking the necessary precautions, including working with countries in West Africa to increase screening at airports so that someone with the virus doesn’t get on a plane for the United States. In the unlikely event that someone with Ebola does reach our shores, we’ve taken new measures so that we’re prepared here at home.” [emphasis added]

Given the alacrity with which the Ebola crisis has unfolded, the above seems like an address from an altogether different era. As usual, the president and his speechwriters get no points for prescience. Only three days later on September 19, Thomas Duncan boarded a flight from Monrovia to Dallas. On September 30, the CDC confirmed that Duncan had contracted the disease prior to flying to Dallas. He died eight days later but not before passing the disease on to two of his nurses, one of whom, Amber Vinson, boarded a commercial flight from Dallas to Cleveland on October 10. She returned to Dallas three days later and is now being treated at Emory University in Atlanta. What makes the story even worse (as if that were possible) is that Ms. Vinson asked for, and received, a go-ahead for her trip from the CDC, though the CDC had initially denied that it had done so.

All the while, roughly 150 people from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea continue to travel to the United States on a daily basis. According to the World Health Organization, there have now been over 9,000 people have been diagnosed with Ebola, of which only 4,500 have survived.

As if to allay concerns over the less than robust response by his administration, President Obama took what for him passes for resolute action and cancelled a fundraising trip to Connecticut and New Jersey ostensibly in order to monitor the situation from the White House. And for its part, while facing a difficult situation, the CDC is not exactly covering itself in glory. Consider this exchange between CNN’s Rene Marsh and the lamentably ubiquitous Wolf Blitzer on the CDC’s efforts to contact Ms. Vinson’s fellow passengers:

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: …they are reaching out to those passengers -- we're talking about 132 people who were on board this flight -- to answer any questions and follow-up with them. They even put out this 1-800 phone number for people who were on board this flight. If they have any concerns, they could call the CDC. We dialed that number today and at last check, the wait time to get through, 390 minutes.

BLITZER: Three hundred and ninety minutes? There's obviously a problem that they have there.

Nothing, you see, gets by Wolf.

Opinions differ over whether a severe outbreak of the African virus will or will not hit the States. Writing in the London Review of Books this week, Harvard epidemiologist Dr. Paul Farmer wrote that “there’s little doubt that the epidemic will be contained in the U.S., which has the staff, stuff and systems” to prevent a large-scale contagion. Yet Laurie Garrett, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, seems to disagree. In a recentWashington Post editorial, she outlined five popular “myths” regarding Ebola, the first being: “Ebola won’t spread in rich countries.” According to Garrett, “no system of prevention is 100 percent,” warning further that “hubris is the greatest danger in wealthy countries—a sort of smug assumption that advanced technologies and emergency preparedness plans guarantee that Ebola and other germs will not spread.” So much for having the “staff, stuff and systems.”

The Real Ebola Threat

Brooks Marmon

October 16, 2014 

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West Africa may be at the center of the ongoing Ebola crisis, but the fear of the virus is pan-African. Much of the world sees Ebola as an African problem and Africans are beginning to internalize this perception as well. The continent’s response to the virus is seen domestically and internationally as a litmus test of the capacity and abilities of national governments which are using the crisis as a means to assure their citizens and international partners of their newfound capacities and crisis response potential.

In southern Africa, Zambia was one of the first countries to announce restrictions on travel from the Ebola affected countries in early August. Shortly thereafter, Kenya Airways halted flights to countries at the center of the Ebola epidemic.* South Africa, a major destination of travelers from West Africa, blocked visitors from the affected countries a few weeks later despite advice to the contrary from the World Health Organization. Namibia and Botswana followed suit soon after.

More recently, the continued spread of the virus has started to impact travel within Africa even outside of the Ebola hotspots. In late September, Namibia’s health minister advised Namibian nationals not to visit Zimbabwe due to Ebola fears. Zimbabwean officials in turn have encouraged their citizens to avoid all of West Africa, explicitly requesting that they cancel visits to popular Nigerian preachers.

Delving further into the Zimbabwe example, the Ebola crisis regularly makes headlines in the national press there. The country has adopted stringent Ebola prevention measures; including placing nearly one hundred travelers from West Africa under close observation for twenty-one days. Doctors and nurses have received Ebola training and a forty-bed Ebola treatment center has been established in Harare. Ebola has severely disrupted customary cultural greetings in West Africa and Zimbabwe’s minister of health has similarly advised Zimbabweans to avoid handshakes and other intimate greetings. From HIV testing centers in the high-density township of Chitungwiza, to Africa University near the border with Mozambique, Ebola awareness posters are common across the country, indicating that both the state and its citizens take the disease very seriously.

Despite the precautionary measures, rumors of Ebola deaths at several Zimbabwean hospitals have gained traction. As a result of these fears, there have been major cancellations of reservations in resort towns like Victoria Falls and postponement of public events. Opponents of the governing party have used the disease as a political tool, leveraging that with Zimbabwe’s decaying health infrastructure and susceptibility to diseases like cholera, Ebola is positioned to devastate the country.

Following successful containment efforts in Nigeria and Senegal, Ebola now appears to be confined to the countries of the Mano River Basin. However, the inadequate conditions that allowed the disease to spread in those countries can be found across the continent. Citizens of countries like Zimbabwe, vividly remember similar failings of their governments to contain impending disasters, such as the initial voices of dissent from war veterans that culminated in the violent appropriation of farmland and hyperinflation. For much of the world, Africa is seen as a monolithic block, and Ebola perceptions will tarnish the whole continent, not only the countries where people are suffering from the virus.

ON PRINCIPLED RESIGNATION [MILITARY]: A RESPONSE

BY THOMAS E. RICKS

October 15, 2014 

http://fortunascorner.com/2014/10/15/on-principled-resignation-military-a-response/

By Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik, U.S. Army (Ret.)

Best Defense guest respondent

Justice in the conduct of war sometimes demands principled resignation of senior political and military leaders. In this, Colonel Anderson is right. But while the current situation calls for a straightforward, no-holds-barred discussion between the president and his military advisors, the criteria for resignation are not present — at least not yet.

When fighting war, soldiers and their leaders are not mere instruments, automatons, or programmed killing machines. Even in battle, they remain capable of making moral judgments, hence retaining responsibility for their decisions and actions. This is what separates legitimate killing from butchery, murder, and massacre. And this is why Americans expect their soldiers and leaders to protest commands that would require them to violate the rules of war. Senior political and military leaders who wage war also remain moral agents. How well they identify war aims; choose the military and non-military strategies, policies, and campaigns necessary to attain those aims; and use their bureaucracies to take action and adapt as a war unfolds determine the length of a war, the costs of a war, and ultimately the success or failure of a war. To say it plainly, the decisions and actions associated with waging war determine whether the lives used in fighting are used well or in vain.

Principled resignation must meet two important criteria.

One, the matter must be more than just “disagreement with the final decision” or “feeling one’s advice is being ignored” or “not getting one’s way.” It must cross the threshold into illegality or immorality. Waging war becomes unjust when the lives of citizens in military service are being wasted. Part of war’s hellishness lies in this: war necessarily uses lives, and sometimes honest mistakes of omission and commission results in live lost in battle. But when lives are wasted in avoidable ways like promulgating manifestly inept policies and strategies, or conducting campaigns that have no reasonable chance of success because they are neither properly resourced nor connected to strategic aims worthy of the name — lives are not used, they are wasted. Senior political and military leaders are co-responsible for the lives of the citizens-now-soldiers they use in waging war. The purpose of the sometimes-heated dialogue among these senior leaders is to increase the probability of wise war-waging decisions and actions.

Central to this first criteria is Colonel Anderson’s claim that “without American combat troops…to physically clear the cities and towns that [ISIS has] occupied, we are in for a long and frustrating open-ended conflict that the American people will quickly tire of.” At the very least, this claim is debatable. This much is clear: without adequate numbers of combat advisors that enhance the capacity of Kurds and Sunni tribes, link Iraqi troops to well-targeted air strikes, help the Iraqis reconstitute their units, and help them coordinate and sustain a nation-wide air/ground counteroffensive, such a counteroffensive is unlikely to succeed. Also clear is the requirement for U.S. quick-reaction forces, medical-evacuation elements, and search and rescue forces to support the advisors who will be on the ground. But whether American ground combat troops are necessary to do the fighting is not clear at all. Also unclear is whether Americans will tire more of U.S. troops clearing cities and towns or of Americans helping Iraqis to do that. Regardless of who does the fighting, the counteroffensive will take long and frustrating years, U.S. assistance and commitment will be needed throughout, and some of that assistance will take the form of uniformed American troops.

5 Places Where World War Three Could Break Out

James Hardy

October 17, 2014 

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Where the unthinkable could happen. 

It seems these days the world is literally on fire. Conflict continues on and off in Ukraine, there are tensions throughout the Asia-Pacific, Ebola is on the rampage, ISIS continues its bloody war of attrition throughout Syria, into Iraq and on and on. Yet, could something even worse be on the horizon—a conflict with more-severe global ramifications?

Before we begin this foray into the five places where World War Three could break out, I should note a few qualifiers and weasel words.

First off, what’s World War Three? As illustrated by the Ukraine crisis and the Obama administration’s struggle to define what is going on in Syria/Northern Iraq, “20th-Century Industrial War” is out of fashion and has been for some time.

Some of the predictions below envisage regime collapse that leads to war, while the specter of a terrorist WMD attack has the capacity to turn apocalyptic very quickly. That said, this might just be a phase: state-on-state violence will still be theoretically and practically possible as long as nation-states possess the means to expend blood and treasure.

That’s why most of the predictions below examine the possibility of conventional strike and counterstrike between nations. No nuclear-armed power—whether it is the United States, China or Russia—would accept defeat to a peer competitor in conventional warfare without then inflicting the maximum penalty on its opponent.

That is one very good reason why World War Three as we know it is unlikely to happen; it is also why all of the possibilities mentioned below involve nuclear-armed—or potentially nuclear-armed—entities.

North Korea vs. the World:

News out of Pyongyang over the last several weeks that Kim Jong-un is feeling unwell has reminded people that Northeast Asia contains its very own brand of extremist Kool-Aid drinkers. The smart line on North Korea is that its “provocations,” to use the accepted term, are graduated steps in a controlled game of escalation that Kim plays to receive concessions in the form of aid or economic largesse from the international community.

The current talks between North Korea and Japan over the longstanding abduction issue are just one particularly cruel variation on this, where Pyongyang is trying to leverage the political importance of the abductees in Japan at a moment where both sides are short of allies in Northeast Asia.

The “provocation” theory works fine until you realize that at the end of the day, North Korea is still developing a nuclear-weapons program and mobile systems to deliver atomic-tipped warheads. Meanwhile, South Korea is building its own deterrent in the form of the “kill chain,” which ambitiously proposes knocking out Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons before they can leave the ground. Throw in the fact that China appears to have lost patience—and more importantly, influence—in North Korea since the purging and execution of Jang Song Thaek, and the situation on the peninsula becomes a lot less predictable.

For sure, North Korea’s behavior is grounded in the absolute logic of regime survival. But if Kim dies or can no longer ensure that the Pyongyang elite benefit from his rule, then all bets are off.

China vs. India (vs. Pakistan)

The border confrontation between India and China that was finally de-escalated on September 27 after nearly three weeks is the latest illustration of just how uneasy relations can be between these two massive neighbors. The recent arrival of a PLA Navy Type 039 submarine in Sri Lanka—China’s westernmost foray with a submarine—is another sign that Delhi and Beijing’s strategic priorities may clash.

Other than history and bloody-mindedness, there is no real reason why the two countries would be destined to go to war. China has concluded a number of successful negotiations with its land neighbors over border disputes—theLine of Actual Control is the only remaining dispute, in fact—and India has the strategic position and military power to exert regional supremacy over the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). The natural borders of the Himalayas and southeast Asia have created geographical spheres of influence that should keep both sides happy.