Strategic Social is a leading provider of public safety technology, business consulting and program management solutions to commercial and government customers in challenging and austere environments.

According to Constellis Group Chairman and CEO Ignacio Balderas, “The business and cultural synergies between the Constellis Group companies and Strategic Social are noteworthy. Our businesses operate in the same geographic regions and serve similar customers including governments, multinational corporations and NGOs. Additionally, Strategic Social’s solutions complement the program management, mission support, logistics, security, training and advisory services within our current portfolio. Most importantly, the company’s ethical and customer-driven approach is a perfect fit for Constellis Group.”

“We pride ourselves on our cross-cultural understanding, ethical business practices and commitment to building capacity amongst our employees and the communities in which we live and work,” says Matt Bigge, CEO of Strategic Social.

“Everything we do starts with understanding the people in the geographies where we work. Our solutions are driven by demographics, sociology and bespoke, localized case studies. At Strategic Social, we understand, empathize and engage. This localized approach gives us a dramatic competitive advantage,” he emphasized.

Headquartered in Reston, Va., Strategic Social supports expeditionary operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and North Africa.

About Constellis Group

Constellis Group is a holding company comprising a family of businesses that provide complementary security, support and advisory services to governments, multinational corporations and international organizations working in challenging environments worldwide. The Constellis Group portfolio includes Constellis Ltd., Strategic Social, Tidewater Global Services, Triple Canopy and their affiliates. Visit www.constellisgroup.com.

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As the so-called Start-Up Nation, Israel has become well known for its powerful and innovative high-tech economy.  The small country of just seven million managed to perform an economic development miracle in establishing a world leading Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) sector.  As the Israeli ICT industry grew and attracted investment from major multi-nationals, it was only a matter of time before those same multi-nationals looked to expand: in 2008 Cisco wondered about the potential to expand their Israeli operation to the West Bank.

Nowadays, Cisco is not alone in looking to the West Bank as a possible new market for the ICT industry.  While originally private-sector interests drove investment in the Palestinian high-tech sector, these efforts are now focusing on a range of diverse benefits.  In just a few years the Palestinian ICT sector has become the concentration of cooperative efforts between international development organizations, local and international private sector organizations, as well as the Palestinian Authority.  The goal no longer remains at simple market expansion, but instead comprehensive socio-economic development of the West Bank through the building of an ICT industry.  This initiative also has a secondary benefit: it is sparking some of the most productive Israeli-Palestinian collaboration seen today.

Facilitated by programs and projects organized in part by development organizations, like Mercy Corp, and multinationals, like Cisco, Palestinians are participating in training and capacity building exercises to improve and develop the local ICT sector.  Following these capacity building programs, Palestinian companies have established solid foundation and begun to explore the regional market, including in their work for and in unison with their Israeli counterparts.  These market collaborations stem from mutual benefits derived from the partnerships.  Israel benefits from utilizing a highly skilled, yet comparatively cheap labor force, while also gaining potential access to the emerging greater Arab ICT market.  Comparatively, Palestinian firms and employees gain exposure to and experience in the international market regionally and globally.

Limited to outsourcing projects and basic services for the time being, due to size and capacity, proponents of further developing an ICT sector in the West Bank look to harness existing comparative advantages in order to succeed.  Many of the guidelines for pursuing a high-tech economy in the West Bank are similar to those cited in the Israeli case, as well.  A limited ability to economically engage with the surrounding region led Israel to develop an information- and technology-based economy.  In a similarly isolated situation, the West Bank demonstrates potential to nullify border issues through the utilization of a service- and knowledge-based high-tech economy.

Additionally, the comparative advantages noted in the Israeli case included a young, educated, and technology literate population.  With the highest college graduation rates in the Arab world, and a demographically young population, the West Bank presents a strong base for knowledge-based industries.  Furthermore, the Palestinian student body has adopted a focus on high-tech subjects, with 2,500 graduating in computer science each year.  Statistics like these, and the rise of the ICT sector from 1% (2008) to 8% (2011) of the Palestinian GDP, demonstrate an optimistic view of future economic growth in the West Bank.  However the road to true development via an established ICT sector faces challenges as well, including those influenced by the outcome of this week’s peace negotiations.

Following the departure of American forces in 2011, Iraq faced a precarious political and security situation.  The federal government, under Shia Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, was operational, holding free and fair elections, but relied on a delicate cooperative balance between political powers in the nation.  To exacerbate the turbulent political environment, regional and domestic issues have made this balance increasingly unsteady.  The government struggles to foster accountability to its divided population, as the Sunni, Kurdish and even other Shia sects develop harsh critiques of Maliki’s government.  Although on the surface the present Shia Prime Minister, Sunni Speaker of the Council of Representatives, and Kurdish President of Iraq would appear to provide sufficient sectarian representation, reality presents a tumultuous state of affairs not easily maneuvered by self-interested parties.

What challenges prevent the successful political navigation of such a crucial time for Iraq?  While the nation has always dealt with a domestic atmosphere tense with sectarian issues, this specific uptick in violence has particularly strained the state of affairs and progress in the political arena.

Perhaps the most frustrating result of increased regional and domestic pressure is the reemergence of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI or The Islamic State of Iraq).  Following years of brutal al-Qaeda operations, by 2007 Iraq was all but unified against al-Qaeda with the efforts of U.S. forces, the ISF, and the U.S.-backed Sunni Awakening Movement.  This coalition, coupled with independent Shia militias who, in addition to targeting U.S. troops, also fought al-Qaeda militants.  However, with the departure of U.S. Forces and growing minority discontent toward Maliki’s Shia-led government, al-Qaeda has benefited from a resurgence in violence.  This renewal of strength pulls from simultaneous goals of fighting both the Syrian and Iraqi governments.  Al-Qaeda in Iraq has publicly associated and claimed partnership with parts of the Sunni opposition in Syria, most notably its questionable merger with Jabhat al-Nusra.  The spillover of Iraqi al-Qaeda fighters into Syria and vice-versa, as well as similar practices among Shia militias, has threatened a short-lived lull in sectarian violence.

However, fresh terrorist violence is not the only confrontation to Iraq’s political stability.  In order to briefly address the dwindling security situation in Iraq one must consider Iraq’s place in a region of conflict.  Historically sandwiched between neighbors that all see great value in promoting their respective opinions in Iraq, regional actors play a significant role in Iraq’s security, economic, and political affairs.  While past decades saw meddling on the part of Turkey and the Gulf nations, the most substantial external influence now comes from other actors.  Cradled between the ongoing Sunni uprising against Bashar al-Assad in Syria and strong, yet unpredictable Shia neighbor Iran, Iraq must deal with an international presence in its domestic affairs.

While sectarian hardships have stifled progress in the political and security realms, there have been significant economic developments and accomplishments in Iraq since the U.S. withdrawal.  Iraq has experienced rapid growth: 10.2% in 2012 and estimates of 9.4% annually through 2016.  With these kinds of promising economic prospects Iraq is viewed by some as a market of the future; Citigroup recently opened in Iraq this week as its first new market since 2007.  However, in the eyes of other interested investors, such as HSBC who is considering a pullout from Iraq, the situation is not so bright.  In a recent program note on Iraq, the IMF reported the powerful effect oil has had on the Iraqi economy, bringing in $90 billion in revenue in 2012, but also emphasized that Iraqi economic prospects are subject to “significant risks, deriving mainly from institutional and capacity constraints, oil prices volatility, delays in the development of oil infrastructure, and an extremely fragile political and security situation.”

Due to this potential for remarkable gains or equally damaging regressions, Iraq is at a significant turning point in plotting its future course. U.N. Special Envoy to Baghdad Martin Kobler concernedly discussed this crossroads, noting that Iraq could experience a collapse of the federal state into sectarian-defined regions or it could blossom into a regional economic power with political stability.  Whether or not increasing oil revenues can lead to comprehensive economic prosperity and development for Iraq will be greatly decided by the ability of the country to advance past the recent period of political and sectarian conflict.

Simply put, Big Data is a collection of large and complex data that cannot be processed on a single machine, but needs a cluster of servers to be processed. It is about looking at information in entirely new ways in order to improve whatever it is that a company or agency does. If managed effectively, big data can be a huge competitive advantage, enabling businesses to leverage a wealth of information to benefit decision-making processes.

Additionally, for government agencies across multiple sectors that have technology-enabled collection of vast pools of data, Big Data services offer the opportunity to finally organize and analyze this information. For example, Freddie Mac was able to leverage Big Data processes to quickly identify those homes affected and under duress during Hurricane Sandy and within a week the agency took effective measures to stop possible foreclosure proceedings on those borrowers. This would not have been possible before the era of Big Data. By comparison, during Hurricane Katrina, Freddie Mac was unable to pinpoint impacted properties in a timely manner.

Some agencies are even going a step further in trying to become more transparent by standardizing their processes and making raw data more easily accessible to public. The Government stands to benefit significantly from properly analyzed Big Data. With the amount of public transit, healthcare and public-safety data, governments have access to countless ways the public sector could use this information to save money and improve services. By efficiently handling Big Data challenges and using analytics to effectively unlock key information, agencies can derive a variety of benefits, from improving the way they presently utilize IT to discovering new services and capabilities.

Some of the advantages of using Big Data and analytic tools in the Federal agencies are:

• Make better decisions more quickly. Instead of merely guessing, decision makers can use analytics tools and other technologies to process data, improving understanding of situations and allowing enhanced solutions to be implemented.
• Forecast outcomes. Gives agencies the ability to predict results by allowing the user to play out scenarios under controlled circumstances and to identify correlations and trends in underlying data and more.
• Eliminate waste, fraud and abuse. Identifying unnecessary steps and inefficiencies in processes, an organization can minimize internal waste. Also some agencies, given the sensitive nature of their business information, can use Big Data to identify and eliminate fraud and abuse by the people or parties they serve or monitor.
• Improve productivity. With the right set of analytic tools, even nontechnical users can work with large data sets to find information, deliver better services or make decisions that support the mission.
• Enhance transparency and service. Big Data allows agencies to make data available to the public, standardizing processes and making the system more transparent. It also allows agencies to offer information as a service, whether it’s online tax records, census information, weather data, mortgage information or more.
• Reduce security threats and crime. Analyzing Big Data is key to helping police, homeland security officials, intelligence analysts and others pinpoint patterns and other hidden information to help identify specific threats.

Big Data is not just a trend for larger companies or government agencies to adopt; small and mid-sized businesses are also feeling the pressure of managing and analyzing their data, thus giving leverage and competitive advantage to the companies that effectively use and manage Big Data. Several experts term Big Data as a new engine for innovation in the IT industry and recognize it as one of the game changer technologies that will transform the future.

In July 2006, Ambassador Crumpton, the State Department’s Counterterrorism Coordinator, informed a full Foreign Relations Committee that he was surprised at the Islamic Courts Union’s (ICU) takeover of Mogadishu in June of 2006, an action that effectively defeated the U.S.-designed Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT).  Earlier that year, numerous credible reports  asserted that the CIA had begun funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars through secular Somali warlords to create the ARPCT in an attempt to “help [the U.S.] root out al-Qaeda and to prevent Somalia becoming a safe haven for terrorists.”  Instead, the U.S. payments actually “strengthened the hand of the people whose presence we were worried most about,” i.e. the extremists within the ICU and the broader al-Qaeda leadership.

Given the weakness of Somalia’s transitional government at the time, secular warlords with the military capabilities to fend off an encroaching Islamist insurgency may have seemed like the ideal party to fund, but in reality, they did nothing to legitimize the central government or counter the root causes of instability.

For the historians among us, this might be no surprise given that the Somali conflict has been sustained by a complex sociology and economy of war.  That is to say that the Somali conflict has, in a way, been organized by those in competition for resources in conditions of great scarcity. Therefore, providing cash to Somali warlords, simply because they were in opposition to the ICU, did not mean that the cash would go toward fighting extremists; instead, it would be used to maintain the warlords’ power networks (a situation eerily similar to that of Afghanistan).

Effectively, the money removed long-term leverage.  This very calculus to use violence and cash payments only cemented Somalia’s clan culture and political system, encouraged Somali stakeholders to benefit only at the equal expense of others and ultimately created new vested interests that became problematic down the road.

The lawlessness and broader corruption created by bags of cash to secular warlords should have been no surprise when thrown into a society built on diffuse authority and that has historically harbored an immense distrust of central security and governmental forces.

The challenge, then, is to acknowledge that reforming civilian alternatives to local governance and justice (like the ICU) in Somalia cannot be dismissed as too costly, too dangerous to study, or not feasible given the long-term costs.

Such historic miscalculations won’t repeat themselves when a civilian authority is answerable to its own people and not bags of cash.

Published in 1940, the Small Wars Manual (SWM) tells of lessons learned over the 20 years that the U.S. Marine Corps fought small “Banana Wars” (now known as insurgencies) where they occupied and administered several Latin American nations and learned the utmost importance of understanding local realities.  The SWM made great attempts to show the need to understand how the military sees the world just as the military needs to understand how the world sees it and why.  When boiled down to exclude obsolete sections, the SWM serves as a sort of timeless guide to engage in ethnographic understanding.

The U.S. cannot, as Council on Foreign Relations President, Richard Haas argues, maintain policy choices in the Middle East that “lie between preoccupation and disengagement.”  Since militarily disbanding a state and security apparatus, as was the case in Iraq a decade ago, is an unwanted and unrealistic option, perhaps in Syria we should heed the lessons of decades past:

“A serious study of the people, their racial, political, religious, and mental development [is of primary importance]. By analysis and study the reasons for the existing emergency may be deduced; the most practical method of solving the problem is to understand the possible approaches thereto and the repercussions to be expected from any actions which may be contemplated.”

Such words from the SWM ring of the power of cultural understanding of the local population, a concept that has both deterred the U.S. from arming the Syrian opposition and may also be useful in assessing the effectiveness of other forms of aid. If it were not for the ubiquitous rise of radical jihadists and al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria, the U.S. may very well have already provided increased military support to the Syrian opposition movement.  If there is one lesson to learn from the U.S. arming the Afghan mujahidin that would eventually lead to Taliban rule, it is that political, economic and cultural disengagement after the fall of a regime is the most direct route to instability. Therefore, efforts to invest in and supply the appropriate groups, something the U.S. has been privy to but not directly involved, are only the tip of the iceberg.

To understand how to engage in a country that has seen military action for millennia, perhaps we should invest more heavily in a manual that can help build movements of conscience through cultural understanding and engagement with and within a country.  Maybe that way, people can hold their leaders to account before real and tragic abuses serve as the rallying cry for the use of force.

Al-Qaeda “franchises” have become fairly prevalent over the past decade as the group was driven out of Afghanistan with its senior leadership establishing safe havens in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Regions and promoting the rise of regional affiliates such as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). However, with significant blows to its leadership and recruitment efforts, the group has turned to the instability caused by the Arab Spring for members to replenish itself. Since the beginning of protests across the Middle East over two years ago, many Salafi and Islamist Jihad groups with questionable ties to the dominant terror organization have emerged under the name of Ansar al-Sharia. These groups use political turmoil to promulgate their cause in countries such as Yemen, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Morocco.

Though many of these new groups may only tacitly acknowledge an affiliation with al-Qaeda, Syria’s al-Nusra has done just the opposite, publicly proclaiming its association with AQI. Starting out as one of many militant groups in the Free Syrian Army fight against the Assad regime, at over 5,000 men strong, al-Nusra has a reputation as being the most respected rebel group due to its disciplined fighters and  past victories against the Assad regime.  Al-Nusra is notorious for its violence and suicide bombings and has also been outspoken in regard to its plans for Syria after the current regime falls: building up and establishing a jihadist network under a common identity in the name of Islam, instituting Sharia Law, and establishing an Islamic Caliphate (the Levant). The creation of its own Sharia court in Syria has also helped al-Nusra gain ground amidst political instability and lack of rule of law.

While the “traditional” threat of al-Qaeda may appear to be waning, these franchised or marginally-affiliated groups may pose an even greater threat to U.S. interests as they do not subscribe to one doctrine or strategy, tend to be locally-embedded and sometimes garner the support of local populations due to their security-providing role. In many cases, weeding out jihadists from legitimate revolutionaries is an impossible goal, making decisions about arming opposition movements even more difficult, especially in the case of Syria. For other nations experiencing their own Islamist insurgencies and al-Qaeda resurgence, the key to defeating these groups lies in the state establishing stability and security to starve them of rhetorical fodder, further recruitment and ungoverned safe-havens.

In a recent testimony in front of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, identified cybersecurity as the number one threat to national security. Surpassing terrorism, the threat of cyber-attacks is gaining more attention from the government in more ways than one.  Recent cyber-attacks have been launched on defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, the International Monetary Fund, and private U.S. banks, among others. The growing capabilities of hackers in countries such as China, Russia, and Iran has prompted a whole-of-government approach to combat this rising threat.

Obama’s 2014 budget proposal recognizes this threat by substantially increasing investment in cybersecurity efforts. Most notably, the proposed budget would increase spending on cybersecurity to $4.7 billion, up more than $800 million from last year’s budget. Specific budgetary investments relating to defense include approximately $40 billion on information technology, allotted to the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Justice to combat cybersecurity threats. Further, the National Institute of Standards and Technology would receive a $100 million boost from last year’s funding.

Governmental efforts to thwart cyber-attacks have been around since the 1990’s. However, as a result of rising threats, more attention was placed on cybersecurity during the Bush administration, with the advent of the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative in 2008.  In addition, two main governmental initiatives, the Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) initiative, and the Einstein 2 & 3 programs, have been establishing a front line of defense against cyber-attacks for years. On top of current initiatives, more legislation is in the works to build up adequate cyber warfare defenses.  Just last week, the House passed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which will allow businesses and the government to share information regarding cyber-attacks. Civil liberties groups are outraged at this bill due to its implications for privacy protection, as it will allow companies to share personal information with government agencies. The U.S. government will have to walk a fine line between ensuring protection from cyber-attacks while not breaching American citizens’ rights to privacy.

White House budget proposals usually act as indicators of the current administration’s top priorities, but with imminent cuts to almost every sector, many have argued that there are no more “sacred cows.” Many Americans have come to believe that the Pentagon’s inflated budget does not necessarily translate into a proportionately prepared and equipped defensive force. However, politicians and 50% of the general public agree that cyber-attacks pose a serious problem for the United States. As cyber-attacks against the homeland become increasingly abundant, the public is more likely to support investing a higher portion of the scarce budget in offensive and defensive cyber initiatives.

New forums for social interaction have provided worldwide access to an endless supply of information and news.  As a result, power has shifted from large traditional information providers, such as governments and the mainstream media, to the citizens themselves.  Oscar Morales’s One Million Voices Against FARC is one of social media’s first success stories, as Morales was able to mobilize millions of Colombians against terrorism using Facebook. The movement started by providing the public with the face of a victim, in this case the child of a FARC rape victim, whose story was circulating around the news at the same time.  This timing caused the movement to go viral gaining thousands of supporters on Facebook within hours of its inception.  Rather than let one image define his movement, Morales continued to provide information to his network. Through social media, he was able to organize the movement to reveal more victims to the public, to provide videos, photos, and information against the FARC.  This movement spread across the globe, leading to demonstrations around the world with millions of people in attendance.

In addition to giving social media users the power of information, the new leaderless format of movements has helped to create anonymity for the founders of movements and protect their members. For example, We are All Khaled Said, an influential movement against the Egyptian Government in the weeks leading up to the Egyptian Revolt, was able to use anonymous social media accounts to provide a level of secrecy necessary to evade the dangers of government persecution and punishment.  Additionally, Facebook and other media outlets allowed the movement to connect with other networks and movements, providing wide-ranging support, as well as legitimacy, to the group.

Though social media has ushered in a new era of global community, citizen journalism and information sharing, many academics would advise against buying into the belief that social media, and social media alone, has led to some of the most dramatic social upheavals of recent history. Rather, Jon B. Alterman argues in “The Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted,” that it was social media’s ability to empower individuals and convey information to the traditional media that made it a tool of revolutionaries, not a revolutionary force in and of itself.

Nonetheless, social media has facilitated the opening of closed societies and in this new era of global interconnectivity, it will continue to mobilize and connect individuals around the world, shifting traditional means of geopolitics to a more population-centric approach.

The latest survey by the Bureau of Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs shows that 5% of Afghanis living in urban areas are addicted to opium, compared to .03% in the U.S.  Additionally, the percentage of the population addicted to opium in rural areas is projected to be in the double digits. This makes Afghanistan the country with the highest addiction to opiates worldwide. Further, Helmand and Kandahar, two of the most instable provinces in Afghanistan, are also the largest producers of opium. This linkage between opium production and corruption illuminates the importance of tackling the production of poppy.

Relative peace and stability following the withdrawal of U.S. forces is predicated on the subjugation of the Taliban insurgency, making efforts to stem their funding ever more important. Initiatives by the U.S. government to combat the production of opiates involve enforcing and strengthening the rule of law and the criminal justice system.  However, the popularity of informal law at the tribal level, coupled with the paradoxical meshing of Shariah Law with common law, make the establishment of a transparent legal system extremely challenging.

Amy Schimisseur, Team Lead for the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Afghanistan Counter-narcotics, spoke at an event held at Georgetown University called Afghanistan 2014 and Beyond, about initiatives in place to change attitudes and behaviors regarding the production and trafficking of opium.  One initiative is the Counternarcotics Public Information Initiative (CNPI), which disseminates public information and awareness through Afghan media outlets, NGOs and government agencies regarding the effects of the poppy crop.  Local leaders are being trained to hold community councils on the dangers of drug use and Preventative Drug Education initiatives within public schools have also sought to stem drug use at an early age.

Economic aid also acts as an important tool to encourage the destruction of opium crops and to provide opportunities for development. A widely successful initiative is the Good Performers Initiative (GPI). The program involves incentivizing provinces to eradicate opium production in return for development assistance ($1 million USD/year) for sustainable infrastructure projects such as schools, roads and sports stadiums.  The project ideas come from local villages within the given province and the contracts are awarded to Afghan companies.  This not only incentivizes governments to eradicate poppy production, it also employs local Afghans and builds capacity.

Even though troop withdrawals will take place, the U.S. plans to continue its war with the Taliban nonviolently on both the governmental and civil society fronts.  It is essential that the rule of law provide citizens with security, consistency of expectations, and protection by and from government.  With the prospect of the Taliban trying to make a move after the majority of U.S. troops have left, the capacity of civil society and the government, as well as economic development and market opportunities, will be necessary to combat insurgency movements.