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AFCEA/KGS Global Intelligence Update: 11/03/10

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 00:27:00 -0700

NightWatch

For the Night of 3 November 2010

Japan-US: Update. The United States said it recognized Japanese sovereignty over the Northern Territories - the four islands in the Kurils chain that Japan claims -- during a press conference on 2 November. However, the statement said the islands that are in dispute between Japan and Russia do not fall under Article 5 of the US-Japan mutual defense treaty because they are not under Japanese administration, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley stated.

Comment: The message is that the US will not defend Japan in a fight with Russia over the Kuril Islands, even if asked. The treaty has no automatic defense provision as does the NATO treaty. On the other hand Russia is not interested in or capable of a fight in the Far East.

North Korea-China: Update. North Korean Cabinet Premier Choe Yong-rim is visiting northeastern China to step up joint economic projects, Yonhap reported 3 November, citing unnamed diplomatic sources. Choe traveled to Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, earlier in the week, and visited Changchun City on the 3rd.

Choe's trip, according to local news media, follows an October visit to the region by 12 high ranking North Korean mayoral and provincial chiefs, touring food, chemical and agricultural factories as well as other major facilities.

Comment: Choe's trip is the third high level visit related to North Korean manufacturing enterprises in regions of China that border North Korea.

Cumulatively, the reports indicate North Korea and China have reached an agreement about conducting an experiment in North Korean capitalism in northeastern China. That way, the authoritarian communist institutions in North Korea are not contaminated, but the North Korean leadership has an opportunity to assess the feasibility and profitability of implementing Chinese-style capitalist economic reforms under controlled conditions.

It seems extraordinary but a North Korean capitalist enclave in China appears to be under development in northeastern China. If confirmed, it would be genuinely extraordinary, bordering on bizarre.

India: The Chandigarh Tribune reported the results of last Wednesday's bi-annual naval conference, at which Minister of Defence Antony spoke. Antony said the government approved the construction of two new naval bases in the Bay of Bengal, opposite the Malacca Strait and Sri Lanka. At present, the only Indian naval base in Bay of Bengal is the huge naval establishment at Vishakapatnam, the headquarters of the Eastern Naval Command.

The northernmost base will be built at Paradip in Orissa State, closer to Bangladesh and opposite the Malacca Strait. The southernmost base is at Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu State, opposite Sri Lanka.

The Tribune commentator assessed that the two new bases are a counter to China's increased naval presence in the Bay of Bengal, including in Burma and Bangladesh. The Navy has smaller stations in the eastern Indian Ocean, but no full-size bases capable of providing all logistics support, supplies, replenishment, repair and maintenance. A third base for nuclear powered submarines also will be built at a separate location in the Bay of Bengal. The bases will take at least three years to build.

Comment: Chinese naval interest in the eastern Indian Ocean is spurring the expansion of India's naval infrastructure. China has announced its intention to build a deep sea port at Sonadia near Cox Bazar, Bangladesh. It is also building ports in Burma/Myanmar. All are in the Bay of Bengal.

Most major Indian naval infrastructure construction has been focused against the threat from Pakistan. The new bases represent a shift in Indian strategic thinking -- to counter the threat from Chinese poaching in the Indian Ocean, without reducing vigilance against Pakistan. A new naval base in western India was announced in April 2010.

Mexico: A Mexican news outlet reported and the US State Department confirmed that four American citizens were "murdered" while visiting Juarez, Chihuahua State, over the weekend. These four were innocent bystanders in the gun fights between drug cartel fighters over the weekend.

With those four, a total of 20 Americans were killed in Juarez in October, making it the most deadly Mexican town for Americans in 2010. The US State Department today expressed condolences to the families.

End of NightWatch for 3 November.

NightWatch is brought to you by Kforce Government Solutions, Inc. (KGS), a leader in government problem-solving, Data Confidence® and intelligence. Views and opinions expressed in NightWatch are solely those of the author, and do not necessarily represent those of KGS, its management, or affiliates.

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AFCEA/KGS Global Intelligence Update: 10/28/10

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 23:14:00 -0700

NightWatch

For the Night of 28 October 2010

China/Taiwan-US: Taiwan will ask the United States to postpone the sale of two advanced weapons systems to save money, a senior legislator with ties to the military said on 28 October, Reuters reported.

Comment: A decision to not spend money usually and obviously means that money will be saved. However, the timing of the announcement is propitious because it neutralizes temporarily an issue that might have blemished the US President's visit to India late next week. Taiwan will want something in return.

North Korea-Cuba: Chief of the General Staff of the Korean People's Army Vice Marshal Ri Yong Ho, left Pyongyang on 28 October to lead a delegation to Cuba, The Associated Press reported.

Comment: Reports of a close relationship between North Korea and Cuba extend for decades in the past. They include allegations of large North Korean troop deployments to Cuba.

Nothing significant has ever been proven. Still the visits have continued. Cuba and North Korea share the distinction with Vietnam and Laos of being the last surviving Marxist-Leninist states.

China-Pakistan: Chinese Major General Yang Hui, director general of the Intelligence Directorate, visited Chief of Army Staff General Kayani at General Headquarters on 28 October, Associated Press of Pakistan reported. The two discussed matters of professional interest, according to Pakistan's Inter Services Public Relations.

Comment: A visit by a Chinese intelligence general to Pakistan usually signifies a problem. The usual problem is that Pakistan is harboring, aiding, training and abetting anti-Han Chinese Islamic terrorists in the 42 terrorist camps that Pakistani intelligence sustains in Pakistani Kashmir.

Chinese intelligence officials seldom visit unless there is a problem. The Chinese do not seem concerned that Pakistani-trained terrorists kill Indians or Americans, but they do object to Pakistan providing or tolerating training of Xinjiang Uighurs who want to kill Han Chinese.

End of NightWatch for 28 October.

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AFCEA/KGS Global Intelligence Update: 10/25/10

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 22:08:00 -0700

NightWatch

For the Night of 25 October 2010

Japan-China: The Japanese government formally protested to the Chinese government on 25 October the presence of Chinese patrol boats near the Senkaku Islands. Japanese authorities detected two Chinese patrol boats late Sunday in Japan's "contiguous zone" but did not cross into Japanese territorial waters, Kyodo reported, citing Japan's coast guard.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku said in the protest message that seeing Chinese patrol boats made his government feel "uncomfortable. He also said that Japan will step up its monitoring activities around the Islands, according to Kyodo.

China's foreign ministry claimed that its boats' patrols are both legal and based on need.

Comment: Mainstream international press did not report the Chinese patrol boat activity nor at least three more anti-Japanese protests and demonstrations over the weekend. The confrontation over the Senkakus continues.

South Korea-US: For the record. A Pentagon spokesman today rejected claims by South Korean media that a planned U.S.-South Korea naval exercise had been postponed due to Chinese protests, Reuters reported. The spokesman told reporters that authorities in Washington and in Seoul were unable to reach a scheduling agreement, adding the exercises were intended to send a message to North Korea and should not be China's concern.

Comment: The comment by the spokesman misses the point that the North has moved closer to China during the succession period than at any time since the government of Deng Xiaoping in the early 1980s. The US is much less significant than it was a year ago in North Korea's strategic calculations. Since China agreed to assume over watch responsibility for the Kim regime this year, the Allies have succeeded in sending no significant "messages" to North Korea.

Afghanistan-Iran: President Karzai confirmed on 25 October that his office has received "bags of money" from Iran, but said the payments have been transparent and a form of aid from a "friendly" country. He also said the U.S. has known about the Iranian assistance for years and that Washington also gives the palace cash payments.

"The government of Iran has been assisting us with five or six or seven hundred thousand euros ($700,000 to $975,000) once or twice every year, that is an official aid," said Karzai. "He (Karzai's chief of staff) is receiving the money on my instructions."

Comment: Afghanistan is a poor country in a rough neighborhood. All donations are welcome. Karzai proved today he is no fool by outsmarting the New York Times.

Algeria: Terrorists detonated a bomb against a parked military vehicle on Monday, 25 October, killing two soldiers and wounding three others. The attack occurred about 80 kms east of Algiers.

Comment: Al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility. The last attack in Algeria was on 12 October. The interval between attacks plus the low risk nature of the latest attack reinforce the NightWatch hypothesis that this branch of al Qaida is weak and declining.

A group that can only muster enough strength to attack once in a fortnight and then only detonate a small bomb against a parked vehicle is scraping by, using criminal behavior to show it is still around … barely.

Mexico: For the record. Suspected members of the Sinaloa drug trafficking cartel warned that they would kill 135 people after security forces seized 134 tons of marijuana last week in Tijuana, Baja California state, Milenio reported today, 25 October. The warning was made over a police radio frequency late on 24 October reportedly minutes after gunmen killed 13 patients at a drug rehabilitation center in Tijuana.

End of NightWatch for 25 October.

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FTC Nails Work-at-Home Scammers Claiming Bogus Ties to Google

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 10:19:00 -0700

From today's WSJ: Finally, the individuals behind one of the myriad, fraudulent "work-at-home" scams that prey on the under and unemployed get something approaching their just deserts. One down, 10,0000+ more to go.

As always, if something sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly is.

This post and comments also appear on Mike Russell's Transcending Technology blog.

By JOHN KELL

An online marketer that falsely claimed ties to Google Inc. has been forced to stop operations as part of a Federal Trade Commission action that also resulted in the defendants giving up about $3.5 million in cash and other assets.

As part of a broader operation on scammers that bilk consumers through a variety of schemes—the FTC initially announced a complaint in 2009 against several defendants that allegedly sold a bogus work-at-home product under names including "Google Money Tree," "Google Pro," and "Google Treasure Chest."

By using the name and logo of the search giant and falsely promising that consumers could earn $100,000 in six months, the defendants lured consumers into divulging their financial account information to pay a modest shipping fee for a work-at-home kit. The FTC claims the defendants failed to disclose adequately, however, that buying the product would trigger automatic monthly charges of $72.21 for another product, and that those charges would continue until the consumer took steps to cancel.

The complaint charged that the defendants violated the FTC Act by failing to adequately disclose that consumers would be subjected to monthly charges; by making false or unsupported claims that consumers were likely to earn substantial income; and by falsely claiming that they were affiliated with Google.

The settlement includes a $29.5 million judgment against defendants Jonathan Eborn; Michael McLain Miller; Tony Norton; Infusion Media Inc.; West Coast Internet Media Inc.; Two Warnings LLC; Two Part Investments LLC; and Platinum Teleservices Inc.

A fourth defendant, Stephanie Burnside, is subject to a judgment of $741,900, the FTC said. The defendants will give up cash and other assets that include two cars, interests in a Harley-Davidson Inc. motorcycle and a boat, and a gun collection—which total about $3.5 million. The unpaid portions of these judgments are suspended based on the defendants' inability to pay.

Under the settlement agreement, which was proposed in the U.S. District Court in Nevada, the defendants are banned from selling products through "negative option" transactions—in which the seller interprets consumers' silence or inaction as permission to charge them. The defendants also are barred from making misleading or unsupported claims while marketing or selling any product or service.

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AFCEA/KGS Global Intelligence Update: 10/6/10

Wed, 06 Oct 2010 23:42:00 -0700

NightWatch

For the Night of 6 October 2010

Japan-US-China: A U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia said 6 October that the security alliance shared by Washington and Tokyo needs to be in good working order to cope with a rapidly changing Asia. According to this US official, it critical that American policymakers focus on the changing security environment and not leave U.S.-Japan relations behind. He added that the United States did not play a role in facilitating dialogue between China and Japan in their dispute over the arrest of a fishing boat captain as it would not have been appropriate.

Comment: Actually, the assistant secretary misspoke because his boss, the Secretary of State, made a strange but strong statement in support of Japan that was not backed up by the Department of State. That disjointed behavior indicates policy disarray in the US when Chinese bullying has become the norm in East and Southeast Asia.

The US must stand with the Allies or accept that China now dominates northeast Asia. There are no in-between positions; no room for subtle balancing acts. The normal condition is that Asian states take responsibility for their own security. Restoring that normal condition has been the direction of international security developments since the end of World War II.

The US is not an intrinsic part of that formula. If the US chooses to remain consequential in the outcome of Asian disputes, it must demonstrate the post-War rules remain in effect. The Secretary of State's statement showed an instinct for this truth. In the end, the US did not back Japan. The Chinese will take careful note.

Japan-China: Update. Two Chinese fisheries patrol boats withdrew from waters near the Senkaku Islands, a Japanese coast guard spokeswoman stated. This action is a start in restoring normal security conditions around the islands. The Japanese coast guard is said to be using radar to monitor the Chinese ships.

South Korea-North Korea: For the record. The government in Seoul may consider sending a special envoy to North Korea if it leads to peace on the peninsula, South Korean national security aid Kim Song Hwan said at a confirmation hearing for his nomination as foreign minister. Kim also dismissed speculation that North Korea and South Korea are secretly pushing for a summit. Exchanges between the two countries would speed up if North Korea were to take responsibility for the sinking of a South Korean warship last March, Kim added

Comment: Kim's statements indicate the North is not yet ready to restore dialogue and bilateral cooperation with the South as they were before the Party Conference. The North's leadership is not confident at this time of its ability to manage complex international affairs.

North Korea-South Korea: For the record. The South Korean Secretary for National Strategy Kim Tae Hyo, at a forum on the future of Northeast Asia, said North Korea's nuclear program is evolving at a very fast pace.

Seoul believes North Korea is currently operating all its nuclear programs, including highly enriched uranium processing and the nuclear facility in Yongbyon, Kim stated, adding that North Korea is constantly working on making its weapons smaller. The dilemma is that strong neighboring countries may not faithfully cooperate with Seoul when North Korea might be harboring a nuclear weapon, Kim said.

Comment: As momentum towards nuclear talks builds, the South Koreans seem to want to ensure the North does not get a pass on its proliferation activities just because it is willing to resume talks conditionally. South Korea wants the North to apologize for sinking the corvette Cheonan before nuclear talks resume.

On the other hand, new construction at Yongbyon indicates new investment in that facility. It is axiomatic in despotic regimes that the successor pays tribute to the predecessor by honoring him with greater undertakings. Kim Chong-il outdid his father Kim Il-sung but creating missiles and nuclear weapons, though the real decedent directive from father to son concerned unifying the Koreas, not polarizing them.

Any new nuclear successes, such as uranium enrichment to weapons grade, would be proclaimed in the name of the successor. The South's accusations almost certainly have a core of fact that is a matter of national security concern, independent of the political maneuvering over nuclear talks.

Russia-Vietnam: For the record. The Russian Navy has proposed to re-establish a logistics base for Russian warships in the Vietnamese port of Cam Rahn Bay, formerly the largest Russian base outside Russian territory, Interfax reported 6 October. The Navy completed a report justifying the base's restoration, the completion of which could be finished within three years should a political decision be made, a source in the navy command said.

The primary purpose of the base is to support Russian naval vessels combating piracy in the Indian and Pacific oceans, former chief of the navy's General Staff Viktor Kravchenko said, adding if Russia still considers itself a maritime power, the restoration of such bases is "inevitable."

Russia-India: For the record. Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov began a two-day visit to India on 6 October to attend the Russian-Indian intergovernmental commission on military-technical cooperation, Itar-Tass reported. A protocol will be signed that will address military-technical cooperation.

Discussions will touch on repairs and upgrade of the aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov; production of Su-30MKI aircraft and T-90C tanks in India; the joint development and production of fifth-generation fighter aircraft and of multipurpose transport aircraft; and the joint development and production of BrahMos cruise missiles. Serdyukov will meet with Indian Defense Minister A.K. Antony.

Comment: The timing of the Vietnam, India and Algeria initiatives, infra, indicates the Russians are making a bid to rebuild the weapons client base of the Soviet Union.

Pakistan-US: Update. Today, the US Ambassador to Pakistan apologized for the 30 September helicopter attack that killed Pakistani Frontier Corps soldiers at their post opposite the Afghan border. The Ambassador said a joint investigation has established that the US helicopter crews mistook the soldiers for insurgents they had been pursuing. The ambassador extended deepest apologies to Pakistan and the families of the Frontier Corps who were killed and injured. The Ambassador promised the US government will coordinate better with Pakistan to ensure such actions do not happen again.

Comment: This apology should save face for the government in Islamabad and start convoys moving through Torkham, assuming promises of compensation accompanied the apology.

Pakistan-NATO: The closure of the northern border crossing point at Torkham continued today. In Nowshera, about 40 NATO fuel tankers were set on fire by rocket-propelled grenade fire.

The status of the southern bordering crossing site at Chaman, on the road to Kandahar, has received scant reporting. Today, Pakistan's Dawn News reported that Pakistani customs officials detained 152 trailers and oil tankers with supplies for NATO forces in southern Afghanistan, after officials detected document tampering. U.S. officials in Pakistan approached customs officials 5 October with a request to release the trailers and tankers, but were told they would not be allowed to go to Afghanistan until the documents were cleared.

Comment: There are many ways to use border crossing procedures for political signaling. It now appears Pakistan has been using transit through both primary border points to Afghanistan for conveying its message that armed helicopter flights in Pakistani airspace cross the line of tolerable US actions inside Pakistan.

This incident and its aftermath have multiple significant implications. One is that the US has found a red line that Pakistan cannot afford to let the US cross. Mistakes from drone attacks are more forgivable than helicopter attacks inside Pakistani airspace. The latter humiliate the Pakistan armed forces, the only dependable institution promoting stability at this time.

Another implication is a lesson the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban will learn. A week-long cutoff of supplies at two border crossing points in Pakistan is enough to generate action by the US to have the border choke points reopened. That is enormously useful information.

A third is that US helicopter crews along the border do not necessarily know in which country they are flying. A fourth is that they cannot distinguish attacks from warning shots. There are others about the training, cultural and situational awareness of US and Pakistani forces.

Afghanistan- International Security Assistance Force (ISAF): ISAF announced it will use an alternate supply route from Russia and Central Asia to bypass the main supply routes through Pakistan, The News reported on 6 October. The US Central Command's decision reportedly was based on Pakistan's refusal to give a timeline for the resumption of the NATO supplies at the Torkham border. The alternate route will carry supplies from Riga, Latvia, through Russia, around the Caspian Sea, through Kazakhstan and south through Uzbekistan.

Comment: Islamabad also has demanded $600 million in compensation for using the country's road network.

Readers also should expect Pakistan to demand contractual, consequential and punitive damages as the result of the US apology for the 30 September attack. That seemingly modest, honest concession will open the flood gates to multiple high-dollar law suits for losses in Pakistani courts because the US has admitted liability.

Algeria-Russia: For the record. Russian President Medvedev and Algerian President Bouteflika signed a joint statement on 6 October for more coordination and communication between the two countries, Itar-Tass reported. The statement said the two countries' heads of state will meet regularly and that their foreign ministers will hold at least one meeting a year. The statement also said that there will be more coordination in the energy sector between the nations, considering the problems of energy security and resources in the world. Defense technology and military coordination were also mentioned in the statement.

Mexico: For the record. Fernando Larios, chief of a municipal police station in Ciudad Juarez, was shot to death by an armed group 6 October, El Universal reported. Larios was traveling in his personal vehicle when the group fired at least 50 shots at him.

Note: This is a reminder the drug cartels finally have figured out that assassinations of public officials -- mayors and police chiefs - are good for business.

Mexican President Calderon will sign an initiative restructuring the country's police departments into a unified command 6 October, the Mexican daily El Financiero reported. The proposal would consolidate Mexico's 2,200 local police departments in an effort to streamline their work in counter narcotics operations, according to the press.

Comment: The larger benefits of a national force are stricter control of recruitment; uniform pay and performance standards and reduced vulnerability to wholesale subornment of police departments by drug cartels.

End of NightWatch for 6 October

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Tessa, my assistant, grabs a cat nap while I work late…

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 08:53:00 -0700

via twitpic.com

These days, Tessa the Russian Blue prefers to perch high atop the corner Ikea bookcase in my home office. Sleeping …or waking.

AFCEA/KGS Global Intelligence Update: 9/29/10

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 23:56:00 -0700

NightWatch

For the Night of 29 September 2010

The Senkakus Confrontation

Japan: The Defense Ministry is considering a plan to station ground troops on the islands south west of the main Japanese islands.

China: Japanese trading houses reported China resumed customs procedures and applications for exports of rare earth minerals that were previously halted to Japan.

Comment: Having had Japan reject China's demand for an apology and damage payments, the Chinese now appear to be attempting to ease tension and return to pre-crisis normality. In other words, they are pocketing the Japanese concession of releasing the fishing boat captain and moving on.

That places the burden of going forward on the Japanese whose planners are deliberating action that would show Japan has not surrendered its claim to the Senkakus, and is prepared to back its claim with a token military presence. That would be a counter-escalatory action, if it occurs.

North Korea-South Korea: Update. During this Watch, the two Koreas held a working-level military meeting at Panmunjom. This is the first such meeting in two years. No results have been reported but the meeting is consistent with other actions that signal the North wants no external crisis at a time of internal leadership transition.

No news services reported details of the Party Conference that was to have convened today, 28 September.

North Korea: At the United Nations. At the United Nations, North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Pak Kil Yon said Wednesday that Pyongyang would continue to expand its nuclear arsenal in order to deter what it perceives as American and South Korean aggression in the region.

Vice Foreign Minister Pak Kil Yon on told the UN General Assembly on 29 September that North Korea has vowed to strengthen its nuclear arsenal because of the threat from the United States. He said that as long as U.S. nuclear aircraft carriers sail around North Korea, the country's nuclear deterrent should not be abandoned but strengthened further.

Note: Pak's statement strikes a discordant note among many other North Korean behavioral themes that promote an international environment of reduced tension while leadership issues are deliberated in Pyongyang.

Pakistan: For the record. The Pakistan Army dismissed reports that a surge in U.S. unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) strikes on Islamist militants in northwest Pakistan disrupted planning for Mumbai-style attacks in European cities. A military spokesman said there is no information or intelligence that militants were plotting attacks.

US and international media reported the attacks pre-empted militant planning for attacks in London and cities in France and Germany similar to the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India.

Comment: One of the salient lessons from the US experience in intelligence warning is that early action to manage a threat under conditions of uncertainty makes moot other questions about the nature of a threat that only become clear too late to manage the threat. Potential damage avoided is a good news event for the US that produces many ripple effects in a terrorist community.

End of NightWatch for 29 September.

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Lawrence of Afghanistan

Sat, 18 Sep 2010 08:42:00 -0700

Peter O'Toole's portrayal of the enigmatic T.E. Lawrence in David Lean's epic 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia is probably how most of us (North Americans, at least) think of him. But, where does the mythic, cinematic Lawrence end and real history begin? And what influence on modern conflicts does he still exert in 2010? British military scholar Neil Faulkner's latest piece in The Independent seeks to shed some light.

—Mike Russell/@planetrussell

Guerrilla of Arabia: How one of Britain's most brilliant military tacticians created the Taliban's battle strategy

By Neil Faulkner

GETTY IMAGES
Action man: TE Lawrence, the archaeologist, author and military leader, wrote a series of seminal treatises on guerrilla warfare

The aim of Operation Moshtarak in February was to capture the city of Marjah in Afghanistan's war-torn Helmand province. Fifteen thousand troops, mainly American, British and Afghan, were to take on between 400 and 1,000 Taliban insurgents holed up in a city of 80,000 people.

Commanders talked of a "new model war". An Afghan administration and police force would move into Marjah behind the soldiers. Engineers would maintain power and water supplies. "We've got a government in a box, ready to roll in," said the then-US General Stanley McChrystal.

But as the offensive unfolded, reported Taliban casualties were few, and Marjah turned out not to exist. Faithfully reported by global news media, it was in fact invented by US military officials. "This is all a war of perceptions," McChrystal said. As The Washington Post reported, the decision to launch the offensive was intended to influence US public opinion on the effectiveness of military action in Afghanistan by showing it could win a "large and loud victory". In reality, Marjah is a vaguely-defined area of villages, markets and family compounds. If there are tens of thousands of people, they are spread across 125 sq miles. Marjah was invented because a military operation has to have a clear-cut goal to be deemed a victory. President Obama had doubled the total US troop deployment, but public support was waning. The generals needed a victory, so they created Marjah and planned Operation Moshtarak to capture it.

A phantom city was needed because the enemy is a phantom. A task force is assembled and motors into bandit country. If it is too small, it risks annihilation. If it is too big, it finds itself punching the air. A golden rule of guerrilla warfare is that you fight only if you are certain to win. So the invaders of Afghanistan are waging a war against an enemy who is never there.

"Suppose we were (as we might be)," wrote T E Lawrence, "an influence, an idea, a thing intangible, invulnerable, without front or back, drifting about like a gas? Armies were like plants, immobile, firm-rooted, nourished through long stems to the head. We might be a vapour, blowing where we listed... Ours should be a war of detachment. We were to contain the enemy by the silent threat of a vast, unknown desert ..."

Lawrence was a young officer who had spent the first two years of the First World War in the intelligence department in Cairo. On a diplomatic mission to the Hijaz region of western-central Arabia in 1916, he had formed a personal relationship with Prince Faisal, a commander now ranged in revolt against Ottoman rule. Faisal asked that Lawrence be attached to his service as a British liaison officer. Lawrence's superiors agreed. The Ottoman Empire, though much reduced, still controlled a vast territory from south-eastern Europe to the Caucasus, the Tigris, the Yemen, and the Suez Canal. Plunging into the world war, this ramshackle traditional empire, though fighting a war on four fronts, against the Russians in the Caucasus and the British in Gallipoli, Sinai, and Mesopotamia, proved a tougher opponent than its enemies predicted.

The Arab Revolt, led by the Emir of Mecca, had been encouraged by secret British diplomacy as a source of military and ideological support for the Allied cause. But after momentary success – principally the capture of Mecca itself, along with the Red Sea ports of Jidda and Rabegh – the Revolt stalled. Medina remained in Ottoman hands, and the city's 10,000-strong garrison was receiving reinforcement. When the Turks went on to the offensive, the Arabs fell back, and the tribal irregulars forming the army began to melt away. In late 1916, the Revolt hung by a thread.

Lawrence, newly arrived in the Hijaz, was witness to this looming disaster. His response appears to have been a radical re-conceptualisation of the war. He turned conventional military thinking on its head and created a new theory of modern guerrilla warfare. What if the Arabs ignored the Turks? What if they simply marched away from them into the desert? What if they constituted themselves as a "silent threat" and waged a "war of detachment"?

This they did. In fact, even before Lawrence had worked it out, they had made a start by marching 200 miles north – away from the Turks threatening them around Medina – and establishing a new base at Wejh. Supplied here from the Red Sea by the Royal Navy, they then staged a series of raids on the Hijaz Railway. Running through 1,000km of desert, a lifeline on which the Ottoman grip on Arabia depended, the Turks had to defend it. But against an enemy who could appear suddenly out of the desert haze at any point to defend the line at all was to defend all of it. So instead of a concentration of force at the decisive point – at Medina, from which a thrust towards Mecca might have snuffed out the rebellion – the Turks were forced to plant 100, 200 or 300 men every few kilometres.

Then, in June 1917, Faisal's Northern Army, inspired by its brilliant British military adviser, leapt forwards again, some 250 miles to Aqaba. But they did not go direct: following a 500-mile route through the desert, a small commando group appeared north-east of Aqaba, raised the local tribes in revolt, and rolled up the Ottoman positions all the way to the coast.

With a new forward base, the insurgency could be supplied as it spread into Syria. British intelligence reports from 1918 reveal its success. The Arab armies comprised about 5,000 regulars and a fluctuating force of up to 20,000 tribal irregulars. Yet more Turks were deployed against them than there were fighting General Allenby's army of 340,000 men west of the Jordan in Palestine.

In fact, given that most of the serious fighting was done by Faisal's Northern Army, which was never more than 8,000-strong, often as low as 3,000, the imbalance was extreme. The raw statistics imply that one of Faisal's guerrillas was 35 times more effective in tying down Turkish troops than one of Allenby's Tommies.

Lawrence's ideas on guerrilla warfare were touched upon in his "Twenty-seven Articles", which appeared in an internal British intelligence bulletin in 1917. They were then developed in three post-war treatises. Reading closely, one can identify 15 distinct principles of guerrilla warfare (see box). They are extraordinary. They invert many principles of conventional military theory, such as concentration of force, and the centrality of pitched battle to destroy the enemy's main forces and will to fight. In this sense, they are the work of a brilliant maverick – an unconventional intellectual who had not even undergone the military training given to volunteer wartime officers (though he probably learnt something as a member of the Oxford University Officers' Training Corps).

They draw on the traditional tactics of the "eastern way of war" – as embodied in Bedouin tribal raiding – yet elevate this into a strategy for what would later be called a "national liberation struggle". The Arab leaders' emphasis was on creating a regular army, not on guerrilla warfare. Again, just as Lawrence was not hidebound by British military tradition, nor was he constrained by Arab political ambition.

The third striking thing about the 15 principles is how seminal they are. Guerrilla warfare is as old as human conflict, but Lawrence's treatises represent the first systematic conceptualisation of its strategy. And this conceptualisation is remarkably comprehensive. Later theorists of guerrilla warfare – notably Mao, Nguyen Giap and Che Guevara – have added little of substance. Lawrence is the real teacher of the guerrilla fighter.

The fourth remarkable thing is lack of recognition for the intellectual achievement. Despite the central significance of guerrilla warfare in the last century of world history, Lawrence has rarely been acknowledged. Robert Taber's 1965 book, The War of the Flea: A Study of Guerrilla Warfare, Theory and Practice, has no mention of Lawrence nor the Arab Revolt. Only recently has awareness grown – notably among US Army officers – of Lawrence's significance as a military theorist.

The exigencies of imperial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made the study of guerrilla warfare a necessity, and officers have been encouraged to read Lawrence's 1922 treatise Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Leading counterinsurgency specialist Lieutenant-Colonel John Nagl echoed Lawrence in the title of a recent book Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam: Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife (2002). His point – "to make war upon rebellion is messy and slow, like eating soup with a knife" – encapsulates the challenge of foreign invaders fighting guerrillas.

But Seven Pillars of Wisdom, however carefully read by US officers, is likely to be the book of their defeat in Afghanistan. The counterinsurgent regular cannot replicate the tactics of the insurgent guerrilla. The former is an invader. The guerrilla is embedded in local society. This basic dichotomy manifests itself in a dozen practical, and potentially deadly, ways. The regular is imposed on the military landscape and is dependent on heavy equipment, modern communications, and external supply. Intelligence depends on observation posts, patrols, and interrogation, and security entails the full panoply of fortified posts, armoured vehicles, and firepower. The invaders are therefore highly visible, relatively immobile, and poorly informed.

Compare the guerrilla. He is largely self-sufficient, highly mobile, with superb intelligence from his social network, and indistinguishable from the civilian population of which he is part. He is almost invisible, yet has the capacity to strike anywhere, anytime. The regular strives to dominate landscape by visible threat and heavy firepower. But wherever he is, the guerrilla is not.

The guerrilla dominates the landscape, for his embeddedness makes him an invisible, secure, and ineradicable presence. He is powerful because he is a phantom. Let the last word go to Lawrence. He could be describing Operation Moshtarak – 15,000 men chasing phantoms out of a non-existent city in Afghanistan. But, of course, it is the Arab Revolt of 1916-1918. "It [the rebellion] had a sophisticated alien enemy, disposed as an army of occupation in an area greater than could be dominated effectively from fortified posts... The active rebels had the virtues of secrecy and self-control, and the qualities of speed, endurance, and independence of arteries of supply... The presence of the enemy was secondary. Final victory seemed certain, if the war lasted long enough for us to work it out."

Military mastermind: Lawrence of Arabia's 15 principles of modern guerrilla warfare

1. Strive above all to win hearts and minds

2. Establish an unassailable base

3. Remain strategically dispersed

4. Make maximum use of mobility

5. Operate mainly in small, local groups

6. Remain largely detached from the enemy

7. Do not attempt to hold ground

8. Operate in depth rather than en face (i.e. not in lines)

9. Aim for perfect intelligence about the enemy

10. Concentrate only for momentary tactical superiority

11. Strike only when the enemy can be taken by surprise

12. Never engage in sustained combat

13. Always have lines of retreat open

14. Make war on matériel rather than on men

15. Make a virtue of the individuality, irregularity, and unpredictability of guerrillas

Dr Neil Faulkner is editor of the new 'Military Times' magazine (out now), and co-director of the Great Arab Revolt Project. For details, visit Military-times.co.uk

This article (less my comments and links) was published in The Independent.

AFCEA/KGS Global Intelligence Update: 9/3/10

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 22:25:00 -0700

NightWatch

For the Night of 3 September 2010

South Korea-US: Update. US Forces Korea today confirmed that South Korea and the United States will hold anti-submarine warfare exercises from 5 to 9 September in the Yellow Sea. The statement said the exercises will send a message of deterrence to North Korea, while improving Allied anti-submarine warfare capabilities. Ten ships will participate including the two U.S. guided-missile destroyers, USS Curtis Wilbur and USS Fitzgerald, and a fast-attack U.S. submarine.

South Korea's Joint Staff announced the South will contribute four destroyers, a submarine, high-speed frigates and P-3C aircraft to practice techniques to cope with infiltration by enemy submarines.

As of this Watch, neither China nor North Korea has commented in response.

India- South Korea: In Seoul, today, Indian Defence Minister Antony and South Korean National Defense Minister Kim approved two memoranda of understanding that will strengthen force cooperation and defense industrial collaboration under the India-South Korea Defence Agreement.

The first memorandum of understanding (MoU) covers sharing of military expertise; exchanges of visits by military personnel and experts in defense services; education and training, and conduct of military exercises, as well as joint visits by ships and aircraft. It also includes cooperation in humanitarian assistance and international peacekeeping.

The second MoU is far reaching, aimed at identifying futuristic defense technology research and development for co-development and co-production of defense products.

Defence Minister Antony remarked that "We live in a troubled neighborhood. Some call it a fragile region. We have to maintain balance and restraint even in the face of grave challenges to our security."

Comment: This was a high powered delegation that included senior officers from the armed services and from the defense research establishment. The Indians came to create an architecture for doing business and their timing could not have been better.

Serendipitously, the Indian delegation is in Seoul coincident with a powerful Chinese military region commander's visit to Pyongyang as a follow-up to Kim Chong-il's secretive China visit. The Indian visit also almost coincides with the start of the US-South Korean naval exercises in the Yellow Sea.

For Readers keeping score, North Korea showed the world it has one powerful ally. South Korea showed China it has two at opposite ends of Asia. Japan's statement of solidarity with South Korea over the Cheonan sinking brings the South's total to three of the most advanced and militarily powerful states with the best trained forces in the world. This is tonight's good news.

India-China: India conveyed its concerns to China on 3 September about an increase in the Chinese troop presence and activities in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Embassy officials said Indian Ambassador to China S. Jaishankar met China's Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Zhang Zhijun in Beijing to discuss India's concerns.

India news papers quoted government sources that 11,000 Chinese have been detected in the Pakistan-controlled section of western Kashmir

In response to the Indian demarche, the Chinese said the soldiers were assisting with flood relief without further explanation.

Comment: The Indian press indicates China stonewalled India on this and several other issues, especially those related to Kashmir. While not confirmed, the size of the Chinese contingent equals that of an infantry division. The location could be east of Islamabad … if confirmed. Earlier press reports indicated the Chinese troops were providing security for railroad construction, but the Chinese did not confirm those reports.

China appears to be dropping the nuances in its policy actions of the past ten years as to disputed regions of Asia. In doing so, it is siding openly and unequivocally with longstanding allies. This explains China's open embrace of Kim Chong-il, which matches its equally open tilt to Pakistan on the issue of Kashmir.

China is asserting itself as the Asian hegemon from Northeast Asia, through Southeast Asia to Southwest Asia. This is a strategic challenge to the interests of the US, its allies and friends.

Pakistan: Pakistani Taliban again claimed responsibility for killing at least 43 people and injuring 78 others in a suicide blast at a Shiite procession in Quetta, Pakistan, according to police chief Ghulam Shabir Sheikh. The occasion of the march is al Quds Day, which is an annual protest in solidarity with the Palestinians and to condemn Israel. Al Quds is the Muslim name for the city Jerusalem.

Comment: Pakistani Sunni terrorists evidently will not tolerate Pakistani Shiites protesting in support of Sunni causes, namely, the Palestinians. The plight of the Palestinians has no relevance to the goals of the Pakistani Taliban which include creation of a Pakistani Islamic emirate based in Islamabad.

Mozambique: Update. News services reported no new food riots in Maputo and one small disturbance in Chimoio in central Mozambique, where 50 protestors were arrested.

One local commentator reported the riots began on Tuesday with an e-mail and SMS campaign urging people to protest against a recent 17 percent increase in the bread price as well as a rise in the costs of water and electricity. The source of the messages is not known. The increase in the price of bread in the past year has been 25%.

The government response to the riots is that the price increases are irreversible.

Comment: New analysts need to pay special attention to increases in the price of bread, cooking oil and heating oil in any country in the less developed world because these are the triggers for most of the coups since World War II. Regardless of the country or culture, price increases in any one of these three commodities plus one or other utilities lead to uprisings and government overthrows.

In 2008 in Mozambique the trigger for rioting was increases in the fares for public transport, on top of food shortages. The increased price of bread and the cost of utilities indicate the riots were mostly a spasm of urban unrest that does not jeopardize the government, at least not yet.

Lying in background is the fact that Mozambique only grows 30% of the wheat it needs. The rest and a host of daily necessities are imported. Riots have ended for now, but they will recur unless prices come down.

People go hungry and get angry when a loaf of bread costs a nickel more, when 70% of the people live on $2.00 a day. No amount of extra labor can supply the extra nickel. That is the point when riots occur.

Special comment (length alert!): The Mozambique riots provide a textbook example of the phenomenology of internal instability caused by economic privation … or greed. Unless government leaders are preter-naturally wise, increases in the prices of the three commodities or various utilities always create a political discontinuity.

The grievance is micro-economic - insufficiency of any amount of labor to pay for the increased price of necessities. The government response is authoritarian and forceful -- protests are an affront to the political order and a challenge to government authority and civil order.

Almost all governments are prone to interpret protests as challenges to authority, aka civil order, although the grievance might be fundamentally NOT political, but economic. Economic grievances usually start as pleas for help, not challenges to the political order

There develops a mismatch in which people desperate for economic relief are given riot police truncheons, rubber bullets and water cannons.

Use of force against economic protestors inexorably converts economics into politics. This is the point at which inchoate economic protests mutate into organized political movements that might evolve into insurgencies or revolutions.

Governments in the dire straits of that in Maputo can more easily afford to spend rubber bullets and use truncheons than to roll back food prices, which are in the control of outside business enterprises. This is a common, nearly universal pattern, during food and commodity crises in poor, mismanaged economies.

An authoritarian response to a legitimate economic complaint from the people, especially city folk, will work the first time to restore order, but always increases and intensifies stress. The hungry protestors invariably and rightly conclude the government is not listening, does not understand and does not care about their complaints.

They organize and prepare for another round or protests because force is not an appropriate, reflexive (in the sense of a mirror reflecting an image) response to severe economic need. There will be another, escalatory round of disturbances, after the protest organizers regroup, evaluate, learn and expand.

The government will have kicked the can down the road, but only for a time. Unless the government learns and obtains the resources for alleviating the economic complaint - lowers prices without reducing supply, even at lower quality -- the government will find itself at risk of overthrow.

The lesson from the study of more than five dozen instability crises is that governments survive and thrive when their solutions match the people's grievances. The mismatch of using force as a response to economic need always leads to government overthrow, eventually, barring outside assistance. The clock is ticking in Mozambique.

Final point. One strategy the Egyptians, notably, pioneered and mastered is to lower the quality of the bread to enable lowering the price. In past bread riots under Mubarak, the government used two tactics to lower the price of a loaf of bread without losing money.

The first was to reduce the size of the loaf along with the price. Smaller loaves cost less. This was seldom satisfactory but bought time, literally, for the government to concoct another scam.

The second was to reduce quality by permitting government bread inspectors to approve use of increased amounts of sawdust and bakery floor sweepings as low cost substitutes for flour. In Mozambique in the past, the government has permitted Casava flour to substitute for wheat flour as a price reducing measure in the production of bread.

Both tactics work to lower prices, while meeting demand and averting rioting until the bread market could stabilize. If it fails to stabilize, the government will be at risk of more rioting.

UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO): The FAO said on 3 September that is has called a special meeting to address the recent increase in food prices around the world. The meeting is scheduled for 24 September, most likely in Rome, the FAO headquarters.

The organization said world food prices rose in August to the highest level since September 2008. That was the year of food riots around the world over steep price increases that were engineered by speculators plus shortages.

Comment: Food analysts judge and Chicago Board of Trade data show there is no shortage of wheat. The spike in prices is far below the spike in 2008. World wheat production is 648 million metric tons, down 5% from last year, but still the third largest harvest on record. World demand is slightly higher than production, however, but can be more than satisfied by the 175 million tons of wheat stored in stockpiles.

There is no shortage of wheat, although Russia has extended its ban on wheat exports because of a prolonged drought. Russia contributes about 10% of the world wheat supply annually. Countries that rely on Russian supplies will face a local shortfall until they negotiate alternate supplies.

The problem leading to riots is not supply, usually, but distribution/availability at reasonable cost. For countries as poor as Mozambique, even slight price increases make living impossible. Mozambique's computed per capita income is $900, but 70% of the population lives on $2.00 per day and unemployment is more than 21%, according to the CIA Factbook.

Other countries known to be at risk of disorders because of increases in the price of bread are China, Egypt, Pakistan, Senegal and Serbia. More food riots are unavoidable this fall.

US- Transportation Safety: Note: this comment is based exclusively on open sources, not on special information available only to the government.

A canister that resembled a pipe bomb was detected in luggage at 9 p.m. EDT at the Miami International Airport on 2 September. This led to the detention of a passenger, closure and evacuation of four terminals and summoning of a bomb squad, among other responses. In the end, all was well.

This action, as inconvenient and costly as it was, is the price of flight safety when passengers are oblivious to how others might items they packed in their luggage. The majority always suffers from the stupidity or denseness of the few when there is zero tolerance for failure.

Still Miami's action stands in stark contrast to the action yesterday of Chicago or Birmingham authorities in notifying the Dutch to investigate the Yemeni owners of luggage containing suspicious items. Both were apparently false alarms. The difference is Miami kept the press accurately informed with regular updates that kept the situation from blowing out of proportion, at least based on the press accounts.

Almost all of the media reporting about the Yemenis, according to Feedback, was inaccurate. The fact that US authorities would know about the press inaccuracies and not hold a press conference to update or correct them all day seems odd. It also risks significant and expensive legal action.

The larger point is the difference between Miami and Chicago as to the triggers for action to keep airline transportation safe.

Law enforcement officials in some locations continue to rely on the sliding scale of criminal evidence to take action to keep people safe. They act when they have a suspicion of criminal behavior. The Yemenis did nothing to raise a criminal suspicion.

On the other hand, all airports contain notices that passengers consent to searches of themselves, their fingerprints and their luggage, as a condition for flying. This imputes no suspicion of criminal or civil wrongdoing; it is a civil consent. The penalty for refusal is not criminal detention; it is a denial of flight.

That means inspectors are empowered to do what is reasonable under the circumstances. In tort law that is called the reasonable man standard. It is a behavioral standard, not a criminal evidentiary standard to support a prosecution.

Miami, hopefully deliberately and conscientiously, acted on a reasonable man standard and the passenger's consent to search. It is reasonable to question the owner of luggage that X-Rays show contains what looks like a pipe bomb or other hazard. Plus, the passenger consented to such searches in buying a ticket!

The inconvenience was expensive, but not as expensive as a mid-air explosion. The outcome was airport and aircraft safety; there is no basis for legal liability from a consent search.

Chicago and Birmingham applied a criminal law standard against the Yemenis. The trigger for action was suspicion of criminal behavior. The result was different.

The Dutch ended up doing the work US officials should have done, and could have done legally, before the flight. The good news is there was no bomb. Presumably, neither Yemeni was conducting a trial run, but that will never be confirmed now. The good outcome was a matter of luck, not intelligence. Huge potential legal liabilities remain on both sides of the Atlantic.

Feedback is welcome on the differences between intelligence evidence used with civil standards for assessing behavior plus passenger consent vs. law enforcement criminal evidentiary standards.

End of NightWatch for 3 September.

A Member of AFCEA International

via us1.campaign-archive1.com

UK to Launch ‘Comprehensive’ Policing of Online Advertising

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 07:54:00 -0700

UK to launch ‘comprehensive’ policing of online advertising, incl. corp. websites, social networks and mobile apps.

The UK is to introduce one of the world’s most ambitious attempts to police online marketing next year, when the Advertising Standards Authority extends its regime to corporate websites, social networks and mobile applications.

Regulating the web is notoriously tricky, given its international and anonymous nature, but the British self-regulatory body will go further than those in most other large advertising markets.

“When this goes live next March this will be the most comprehensive approach to the regulation of advertising in website space anywhere in the world,” said Chris Smith, chairman of the ASA.

The rules will capture marketing through Twitter and Facebook pages and could even include user-generated content, such as YouTube videos, if members of the public are asked by companies to aid their marketing efforts.

New sanctions to shame offenders will include a “rogues’ gallery” on the ASA website and warnings appearing in search results alongside listings of products and brands of companies that refuse to comply with the code.

Search engines such as Google, as well as traditional media companies, have helped finance the new powers and will donate space in their sponsored results to help with publicising and enforcing the ASA’s work.

The ASA, funded by the industry, can already ban misleading or offensive advertising on television, posters, print and online ads, such as banners. The body admits that many “grey areas” will have to be addressed on a case-by-case basis.

Oliver Gray, director-general of the European Advertising Standards Alliance, said the ASA’s remit extension was part of a wider best-practice strategy but that the UK’s was more “comprehensive” than most. “What will come into place in the UK will be very robust.”

He said the ASA had conducted more research into potential problem areas and had led the way in establishing funding from the internet industry, which other countries were now trying to emulate.

The ASA has seen complaints about online marketing double in recent years, even though it has been unable to remedy them. But the new rules have also been motivated by a desire to maintain the industry’s self-regulatory system at a time when concerns about children’s safety on social networks have been attracting attention.

Tim Bradshaw will be answering questions on Twitter about the ASA’s new duties from 1pm BST – follow the #FTchat hashtag.

via ft.com

Kodak Flips the Bird to Mino HD With Newest Pocket Camcorder

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:19:00 -0700

So, what's Kodak do for an encore to its über-popular Kodak Zi8, Zx1 and PlaySport pocket camcorders... and, well, Flip the bird to the Mino HD and its video-on-the-fly, pocket camcorder brethren?

It does this.

Say, Kodak, we'd love to see a PlayTouch live, up-close and personal as soon as you can send one along for review.

—Mike Russell

via gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com

Kodak Adds Touch to Its Mini-Camcorder

By RIK FAIRLIE

Kodak has expanded its pocket camcorder line with the new PlayTouch Video Camera, a slim, snazzy update to its very capable (but plain-Jane) Zi8 model. It’s more compact than its predecessor and the waterproof PlaySport, and has a bigger 3-inch LCD screen with touch navigation.

Kodak’s PlayTouch Video Camera

The $230 PlayTouch is just 0.6-inch thick and weighs 3.5 ounces. The screen lets you view video in horizontal widescreen mode, although shooting is done vertically.

I had a quick look at the PlayTouch at a Kodak event a month ago, and the touch interface and menu controls are very intuitive and add a lot of appeal to the camera. The larger screen, which has a glare-shield feature that lets you apply two filters to the LCD for better viewing in bright sunlight, is also a great addition.

The PlayTouch has the same 1080p high-definition video capture as its predecessors and employs a 1/3.2 CMOS sensor that’s one stop more sensitive than that of the Zi8, according to Kodak. The mini-camcorder can also capture 720p video at 30 frames per second and 60 frames per second (the latter for slow-motion playback). It includes a jack for an optional stereo microphone.

As with other Kodak models, the PlayTouch has the familiar swing-out USB connector for shuttling video to a computer (it’s compatible with the Windows and Mac operating systems), and the included video-editing software lets you grab still images from video clips.

Of course, there is a Share button that lets you upload videos to popular social networking sites and send them to as many as 32 e-mail addresses.

The PlayTouch uses SD/SDHC cards for memory. It has an HDMI output for connecting to your HDTV, and Kodak even throws in an HDMI cable.

Look for it this fall in five colors: black, magenta, orange, teal and silver.

Learn how Ushahidi tapped into crowdsourcing to become a powerful crisis-management tool.

Ushahidi Software that helps populations cope with crises

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 07:04:00 -0700

MIT 2010 Young Innovator - David Kobia, 32

Long reach: David Kobia’s (Twitter: @dkobia) Web programming helps communities facing catastrophe around the world. Photo Credit: Yvonne Boyd

Multimedia

The Ushahidi project brings crowdsourcing to bear on some of the most desperate situations people face around the world. Its downloadable software allows users to submit eyewitness reports during a conflict or disaster; the collected reports are displayed on a map. At times when ordinary sources of news and public information are unavailable, Ushahidi gives users a way to share information and shape political opinion, guide rescuers, or pool resources. Ushahidi has been used to monitor elections in Sudan, document violence in Gaza, track the BP oil slick, and assist earthquake recovery efforts in Haiti.

Ushahidi was born during the riots that followed Kenya's 2007 presidential election. President Mwai Kibaki had imposed a media blackout throughout the East African nation, so the Internet provided the only open channels of mass communication. David Kobia was 8,000 miles away in Birmingham, AL. A Kenyan expatriate who had dropped out of the University of Alabama at Birmingham to work as a Web developer, Kobia was frantically trying to moderate an online forum, Mashada, that had started as a personal project but was becoming a very public arena for Kenyan politics. Discussions on the site were spiraling into vitriol and paranoia. A French news agency reporting on Mashada called it Kenya's answer to Radio Mille Collines, the infamous Rwandan radio station that had fueled that country's genocide in 1994.

"Being mentioned in the same sentence as Radio Mille Collines is akin to being called a Nazi," says Kobia, a gentle man with an open face and an easy smile. Beset by remorse and despair, he pulled the plug on Mashada, got into his car, and sped up Interstate 20, planning to spend a somber winter holiday with friends in Atlanta. Somewhere near the Georgia border, his cell phone rang. An online acquaintance, Erik Hersman, was calling. Hersman had read a post by a prominent Kenyan blogger, Ory Okolloh, calling for someone with the know-how to program a Google map to track the violence and destruction. "Can you put it together?" Hersman asked. Seeing an opportunity to atone for Mashada, Kobia turned around and headed back to Birmingham. Two days later, Ushahidi was up and running.

Ushahidi map of the disputed Kenyan election in 2007. Credit: Ushahidi

That initial version was simple: just a map and a form that let users describe an incident, select the nearest town, and note the location, date, and time. Nonetheless, it was enough to attract widespread attention. "Suddenly my phone was ringing off the hook to do an interview with BBC News or NPR," Kobia says.

By now, Ushahidi--the name means "testimony" in Swahili--has played a central role in coördinating the responses to crises around the globe. Kobia, with the help of Hersman, Okolloh, program director Juliana Rotich, and a growing number of coders, has continued to develop and expand the original no-frills online application into a downloadable open-source platform that includes a time line, an API to develop applications for mobile devices, an architecture that allows functionality to be added through software plug-ins, and support for several mapping protocols. It has been used in more than 30 countries, mostly by grassroots relief and watchdog organizations, to direct aid workers to specific locations, document corruption, and track complex events in space and time.

"Ushahidi is one of the most globally significant technology projects," says Ethan Zuckerman, cofounder of the blog network Global Voices and a senior researcher at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. "It's built on open standards and accepts input not only from the Web but from mobile devices--a critical feature for enabling global participation. And it evolves with each installation, resulting in a system that can aggregate, map, and authenticate crowdsourced data in a very wide range of environments."

Redemption
Kobia grew up in Kenya, the son of a civil engineer and a schoolteacher. He moved to America to study computer science at the University of Alabama in 1998. By that time, the dot-com boom was under way, and Kobia left school to build publishing platforms for Time Inc., Reader's Digest, and Cygnus Publications and also for sites that automated processes such as hiring or booking travel. Through those projects, he gained the deep knowledge of online infrastructure that made it possible for him to assemble the first version of Ushahidi so quickly.

Soon after Ushahidi came online, Kobia was contacted by NetSquared, a nonprofit that promotes the Web as a vehicle for social change. The organizers invited the Ushahidi team to enter its Mashup Challenge, and Kobia flew to San Jose, CA. Walking among the gathered Silicon Valley hipsters, he thought that a group of Africans had little chance. To his great surprise, Ushahidi won the competition. It was a triumphant moment for Kobia, who still felt lingering guilt for the Mashada forum. "I felt drunk with redemption," he says.

Returning to Birmingham, Kobia wrapped up his business and threw himself into Ushahidi, funded by $25,000 from NetSquared and a grant from Humanity United. Later, he secured some $700,000 from philanthropies including the Cisco, Knight, and MacArthur foundations. The result is a system that packs tremendous communication power into a simple user interface. The platform collects incident reports through e-mail, status updates, and blog posts; reports can include text, photos, audio, and video. It uses another open-source program, FrontlineSMS, to aggregate text messages, making good use of the cell phones that are ubiquitous in the developing world even where computers are rare.

Incoming incident reports queue up on a dashboard screen where administrators--usually volunteers for organizations that have downloaded Ushahidi and set it up on a server--can categorize and vet them by cross-checking against news and other information online. Within minutes of arrival, messages deemed valid are posted to a public Web page, where they appear on a map as colored dots that grow as reports from those locations accumulate.

Helping Haiti

After receiving the NetSquared prize, Ushahidi played a role in crisis after crisis as tech-savvy grassroots organizations downloaded the platform. With each implementation, it grew as users requested features and Kobia and a growing team of developers obliged. The most challenging test came early this year. On the evening of January 12, 2010, Kobia received an urgent phone call from Patrick Meier, director of crisis mapping and strategic partnerships at Ushahidi and founder of the International Network of Crisis Mappers, an Internet-based group that brings together cartographers, imaging experts, and specialists in crisis management. He was looking for ways that digital mapping might help Haiti cope with the aftermath of the earthquake that had just struck.

Kobia set up a Ushahidi website for the crisis, and within hours, the system was fielding reports of human misery on a vast scale--25,000 text messages and 4,500,000 Twitter posts before the month was out. Working through the U.S. State Department, he arranged with Haitian telecommunications companies to supply a four-digit SMS code for emergency messages. Aid workers in Haiti distributed the number on printed flyers.

The bulk of incoming incident reports were written in Creole, so Ushahidi arranged for some 10,000 Haitian expatriates in North America to serve as translators, first through a custom system and later through a partnership with the commercial crowdsourcing website CrowdFlower. Meanwhile, Meier organized Tufts University students to log reports around the clock. First responders, including members of the U.S. military, used Ushahidi's map to set priorities, organize, and reach distressed people.

Ushahidi map of the 2010 Haitian earthquake. Credit: Ushahidi

Ushahidi had a decisive impact on the Haitian crisis--and vice versa. On the one hand, Kobia was thrilled to see the system rise to the occasion. On the other, the effort almost drove his team into the ground. "We put in 20-hour days for a month," he says. "Developers were getting burned out." He realized that the organization was failing in its goal of giving others the ability to use the platform independently.

Since then, Kobia has focused much of his energy on making Ushahidi more accessible and easier to operate. For instance, an initiative called Crowdmap delivers Ushahidi's functionality directly over the Web, so local groups don't have to install it on servers of their own. He's also working on a system that uses machine learning and natural-language processing to evaluate the validity of incoming data.

Some of these efforts might ultimately generate revenue: larger organizations might pay for Crowdmap's services or license other parts of the Ushahidi technology. This is necessary, Kobia says, to insulate Ushahidi from the whims of charity, about which he is deeply ambivalent. "In truth, I don't like nonprofits," he says. "They've never solved any problems. Instead, they've destroyed free enterprise and turned Africans into beggars. Some of the best programmers in Kenya are working for nonprofits when they could be creating an economy. Ushahidi's challenge is not to get caught in that cycle."

To that end, Kobia has started an innovation center meant to galvanize Nairobi's burgeoning high-tech community. "There's a pool of mind-blowing talent waiting to be tapped," he says. "We remind them, 'It's your duty to participate in this community and build your own businesses.' " --Ted Greenwald

via technologyreview.com

AFCEA/KGS Global Intelligence Update: 8/23/10

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 22:06:00 -0700

NightWatch

For the Night of 23 August 2010

Australia: Update. Saturday's parliamentary elections produced no majority for any party for the first time in 70 years. Readers will understand that this means that the major parties must attempt to form a coalition with each other or by appealing to independents or the Greens.

The preliminary count is Labor won 72 seats; the conservative Coalition won 69; Greens captured one seats; independents 3 and one seat is still undecided.

One Australia commentator evaluated the outcome as a widespread repudiation of liberal policies. He cited the fact that ousted Labor Prime Minister Rudd came to office with 70% favorable polls. On the other hand, the distribution of seats in parliament indicates a polarized electorate favoring no clear policy preferences, except for less government.

North Korea-China: Update. Chinese envoy Wu Dawei said he wants to visit South Korea on 27 and 28 August to hold multilateral talks on North Korea's nuclear program, diplomatic sources in Beijing said 23 August. The announcement came during a meeting with Beijing-based South Korean diplomats in which Wu discussed his recent trip to North Korea.

The diplomats disclosed no other details of Wu's trip report. The Chinese are engaged again and are carrying water for the North Koreans, but nuclear talks are not imminent.

Afghanistan: The London Sunday Times carried a detailed story from a single Taliban source about the only American soldier in Taliban captivity. The US soldier supposedly is now a convert to Islam and is training the Taliban in bombing making and in setting up ambushes. The Taliban suspect he is cooperating to keep from being beheaded.

The US Army private has been missing since June 2009. He has been reported to be in captivity in Paktika Province, which borders west central Pakistan. The Times story tends to corroborate the earlier reports about his location.

Comment: The Times article played down the most important fact, namely that the soldier is alive. If his collaboration is keeping him alive but results in the death of fellow soldiers, he might have outsmarted himself, assuming the story is accurate. One reason to doubt its authenticity is that the Taliban are quick to produce propaganda videotapes. Certainly the conversion of a captured US soldier would be a propaganda coup, if it occurred.

Iran-US: A US spokesperson said today that the United States is troubled by Iran's nuclear intentions, not its development of new weapons systems. Iranian intentions are a greater concern as any new weapon system is not likely to tip the regional balance. The spokesman also added that the United States is ready to engage Iran and hopes to have talks in September.

Comment: One important point to keep in mind about Iran's "new" weapons is that their technology is up to 50 years old. Even its most advanced and accurate missiles are knock-offs of Soviet missiles designed in the late 1950s-70s. They can do significant damage, to be sure, wherever they land, but the threat they pose is technologically familiar and more defensible than more modern weapons systems.

A second point is they are deterrent because they are first strike or retaliatory weapons. As first strike weapons, they invite a counterstrike by the intended target, for example Israel. As retaliatory weapons, their attack would begin after portions of Iran were already destroyed. In other words, the Iranian population and cities are essentially defenseless.

Iran has no defense against an Israeli or US first strike. The leaders want to camouflage that fact by showing off weapons, without admitting that they have little value in protecting Iranians. The US spokesperson appropriately characterized the new weapons as not upsetting "the regional balance."

Nuclear warheads for the new missiles, however, would upset the regional balance. They would not do much to improve the survival probabilities of Iranians should deterrence fail, but they might improve the chances that deterrence will work because nuclear armed missiles can hold potential enemy cities hostage to casualties and effects on the scale of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

As first strike weapons, their use would be essentially an act of national suicide because Iran would experience nuclear retaliation. The leaders' interpretation of Shiite theology tends to embrace martyrdom, but their actions and decisions - not their words -- have been utilitarian, bordering on secular, when faced with risks to the national patrimony and the safety of the population.

For example, Iran will soon begin generating electric power from the nuclear reactor at Bushehr. The leaders seem to enjoy brinksmanship, but they are not suicidal so much as moderately successful in their defiance of the US. At least for now.

Somalia: Hundreds of additional African Union (AU) peacekeeping troops from Uganda and Burundi deployed to Mogadishu on 21 August in support of the Somali Transitional Federal Government, Radio Voice of Mudug reported 23 August. AU forces reportedly barred the port in Mogadishu to facilitate the troops' arrival. The new contingent, said to be heavily armed, will be stationed at the African Union Mission in Somalia base at Halane.

Comment: This is the first increment of several thousand AU forces promised after the bombing in Kampala, Uganda, during the World Cup. Soldiers from Uganda and Burundi constitute the 6,100 troops in the AU mission, known as AMISOM. Guinea and Djibouti also have promised troops, but none have arrived.

One of the direct consequences of the Kampala bombing is Uganda's pledge to send an additional 2,000 soldiers to Mogadishu's defense. If the intent of the bombing was to help the Islamists in al Shabaab and the clans that support them, it backfired.

End of NightWatch for 23 August.

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AFCEA/KGS Global Intelligence Update: 8/19/10

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 23:44:00 -0700

NightWatch

For the Night of 19 August 2010

South Korea-US: Update. The aircraft carrier USS George Washington probably will not participate in joint naval exercises in the Yellow Sea next month because they will feature anti-submarine warfare operations, according to an unnamed South Korean National Defense Ministry source. Instead, the US might send at least one Aegis-equipped destroyer. The exercise will be "significantly" scaled down, according to the source.

Comment. A decision apparently has been made to not provoke China and to not permit the presence of a US aircraft carrier in the Yellow Sea [to] jeopardize a possible resumption of six party nuclear talks, described below. Great powers gain more respect by acting like great powers than by subtlety and tailoring. When a great power does not conform to expectations of great power behavior, middle powers get confused and then aggressive. Small powers get afraid of middle powers. See Iraq below.

North Korea-China: Update. North Korea and China agreed on 19 August that mechanical failure and loss of direction caused a North Korean fighter aircraft to enter Chinese airspace and crash in Liaoning province, Xinhua reported, citing unnamed departmental investigations into the incident. North Korea expressed its regret to China over the accident.

This terse statement does not answer a fraction of the questions deriving from the location and manner of this crash in China, but it puts further public inquiry to rest. That is its purpose.

China-North Korea: Wu Dawei, China's special representative for Korean Peninsula affairs, visited North Korea 16-18 August, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced. Wu met officials in Pyongyang to discuss maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and restarting the six-party nuclear talks, according to a ministry press release.

The Korean Central News Agency announced, "The two sides had in-depth discussions on the regional situation and the bilateral relations of friendship and matters of mutual concern including the resumption of the six-party talks and the denuclearization of the whole Korean Peninsula. They reached a full consensus of views on all the matters discussed."

Comment: This means that the North has agreed to return to the six-party nuclear talks, at least on a conditional basis. Past conditions included acceptance of North Korea as a nuclear armed state by the other parties.

Another hypothesis moves in a different direction. This is that internal conditions have deteriorated to the point that the North is desperate for aid and is prepared to invite bribes … er, incentives from the six parties, just as it dabbles in summitry discussions with South Korea.

A warming trend has begun. Expect talks, if for no other reason than to obscure the sinking of the corvette Cheonan.

India-Pakistan: Security. On 19 August, the Indian Army accused Pakistan of violating the ceasefire along the Line of Control, charging it with trying to push militants into the India's Jammu and Kashmir State under the cover of an armed clash.

A Defense Ministry spokesman said Indian military posts in southern Kashmir received small arms and mortar fire from Pakistani-controlled Kashmir in a pre-dawn skirmish with Pakistani troops that lasted around two hours. "Pakistani troops opened unprovoked fire at Indian posts and targeted several positions in Poonch District," said an Army Lieutenant Colonel. "Our soldiers retuned fire." There were no casualties.

Comment: Skirmishes of this sort tend to be seasonal in spring and fall. Infltration in summer usually is preparatory for a special occasion or to respond to a special need of the Kashmir insurgents. India reports nearly all border incidents so as to keep media attention on Pakistan as a supporter of insurgency and violent extremists. As a general rule, these kinds of exchanges are, in fact, cover for Kashmiri separatist teams, infiltrating from Pakistan into Indian Kashmir, as the Indians stated..

Politics. Pakistan will not accept any "preconditions" for resuming talks with India, including New Delhi's demand for action against terrorism emanating from Pakistani soil, a Pakistani Foreign Office spokesman said 19 August. He also said India will have to show "flexibility" to ensure talks are resumed, and Pakistan is ready to achieve constructive results on all issues, including Jammu and Kashmir. The Indo-Pakistani dialogue ceased after the Mumbai attacks in November 2008.

Comment: The prospects of warmer, more normal relations earlier this year appear to have faded. Pakistani leaders are fond of bashing India to divert attention from their crisis management shortcomings or lack of resources, in this instance, in handling the flood relief and recovery.

Reading Pakistani media is a study in curious contrasts. National level and northern Punjabi politics have continued with little apparent disruption caused by the national flooding catastrophe that has displaced 4.5million Pakistanis. CIA's fact book reported that the GDP grew by only 2.7% in 2009. The floods threaten to wipe out any growth this year. Infiltration programs into Indian Kashmir and talks with India seem disjointed from the national effort at crisis damage control and stabilization.

Iraq: For the record. Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said in an interview with the Italian news outlet Corriere della Sera that President Obama's "abandonment of Iraq" is causing a tragic power vacuum and neighboring countries are intruding in Baghdad politics, Today's Zaman reported.

He claimed he repeatedly warned Washington about the issue, but the Americans are leaving and Iranians, Turks, Syrians and others are filling the vacuum. As instability increases, neighboring states are vying to gain influence in Iraq, he said. Turkey is unusually active and should be balanced with a contrary power.

Comment: Zebari's statements exhibit little confidence in the Iraqi government's ability to balance neighboring, external influences or to prevent a deterioration of security. His interests are served by some exaggeration, but, curiously, his remarks do not exaggerate much, if at all. As noted above, middle powers misbehave when great powers do not fill the strategic space. (That is a behavioral observation rooted in decades of experience, not a statement of political advocacy.)

Colombia-Venezuela: Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin, Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera and Commerce Minister Sergio Diaz-Granados traveled to Caracas, Venezuela, for a visit intended to help normalize diplomatic relations between the countries, El Espectador reported 19 August. Rivera met his Venezuelan counterpart, General Carlos Mata, on 19 August; Holguin is to talk with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro on 20 August, Semana reported. Diaz-Granados will convene with Venezuelan economic officials to establish a working group for economic and infrastructure cooperation.

Comment: Relations are being "reset," now that President Uribe is out of office. The easing of tension is a positive development even though the warming trend will be short-lived. Readers will recall that on 3 August the two countries nearly engaged in border skirmishes, which helps put in perspective the time lines for warming and frigid periods in bilateral relations.

Mexico: Security forces in Mexico have found the body of the kidnapped mayor of the northern city of Santiago. The body of Mayor Edelmiro Cavazos was found handcuffed and blindfolded outside the nearby city of Monterrey, local media said.

He was kidnapped from his home on Sunday night by 15 armed men. State governor Rodrigo Medina said he believed Cavazos might have been targeted because of his efforts to tackle corruption in the local police force.

Comment: Criminal and cartel actions to target officials of Cavazos' stature are infrequent. The local descriptions of the kidnapping suggest it was not directly drug-related, but might have been an old-fashioned criminal payback.

End of NightWatch for 19 August.

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MIT Tech Review: Dual Antennas Would Boost Cell-Phone Signals

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 02:38:00 -0700

New design would mean fewer dropped calls, longer battery life.

Radio circuit: This wireless transmitter has been connected to three directional antennas, a setup that shows how cell phones could save power by directing radio signals toward cell towers.
Credit: Lin Zhong / Rice University

The recent furor over the iPhone 4's antenna has made consumers aware of the constraints designers face when trying to build sleek, compact gadgets that also get a good connection. Researchers at Rice University have come up with a design that could make signal worries a thing of the past, and extend battery life as well. The design uses two antennas that focus their power in different directions.

The antenna in your current cell phone beams a signal out in every direction. "Only a tiny fraction of that energy actually reaches the base station," says Lin Zhong, whose research group investigates ways to make computing devices more efficient. Not only is this a waste of a cell phone's battery life, he says, but it creates unnecessary interference for other users.

Antennas that beam out energy in a narrower band can be more efficient. Cell towers use this tactic, with several antennas pointing in different directions to better serve users. Zhong's group has developed a prototype antenna system that could give that ability to cell phones themselves, saving energy and extending battery life.

The researchers connected a small Wi-Fi transmitter to three cheap directional "patch" antennas facing in different directions, as well as a standard omni-directional antenna. Only one of the four was active at any one time, with the directional antenna being used to send data to the base station, and the omni-directional one used to receive it.

The system was mounted on a motorized spinning platform to test its most crucial quality: the ability to stay connected when the orientation of the device changed as it rotated (by switching to whichever antenna was generally oriented toward the base station). The directional antennas monitored the quality of packets received from the base station to decide which among them should send the next packet.

Even when spun at one revolution per second, the prototype could stream video with almost zero interference. That suggests the approach would work well in real situations, says Zhong. He collected a week of data from the accelerometers and compasses of 11 smart phones actually in use by real people, and found that these phones were rarely rotated at more than a third of a revolution per second while connected.

The current prototype used Wi-Fi frequencies because off-the-shelf directional Wi-Fi antennas are easier to acquire. But the results apply to any frequency, says Zhong. His group is working on a version that connects multiple antennas to Nexus One cell phones running the Android operating system, as well as computer simulations of the approach. Results so far back up the Wi-Fi tests, he says.

via Tom Simonite, mobile.technologyreview.com

AFCEA/KGS Global Intelligence Update: 8/11/10

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 01:12:00 -0700

NightWatch

For the Night of 11 August 2010

Fiji: Military leader Commodore Bainimarama said that China was the one country that understands the reforms he is trying to implement, Agence France-Presse reported 11 August. China is the only nation that can assist Fiji in its reforms because of the way the Chinese think outside the box, he said, and that the Chinese are visionary in what they do.

He said Fiji must maintain trade but should forget about the politics of the Pacific Forum, Australia and New Zealand. Fiji needs infrastructure, water and electricity, and Australia, New Zealand and America will not provide help, he stated.

Comment: During the past two decades, Chinese survey and other ships have sought to gain access to South Pacific states with mixed results. Access to and influence in Fiji would be a significant strategic achievement for China.

China - Special comment: The Japanese news service Asahi Shimbun published a report on 10 August that is a good summary of Chinese progress in developing an aircraft carrier force. The primary source of the information overstates its novelty and urgency. Almost all of the activities described have been reported, including the training of the first class of 50 pilots for carrier-based aircraft; the indigenous development of a carrier-based fighter; the creation of two sites for training carrier pilots and the continuing modification of the 60,000 ton carrier Varyag at Dalian to prepare it for training of crews and air wings. China purchased this carrier from Ukraine in 2001.

The article describes the Chinese as going forward at a "feverish pace." That overstates a decades-long program whose first milestone was purchase of Australia's HMAS Melbourne in 1985 for use in land-based training.

The important point is that the Chinese have maintained a consistent and steady pace in moving toward aircraft carrier capabilities for a quarter century. The pace is not feverish, but it is significant, cumulative and unwavering.

The item is a reminder that China's now medium-range intentions to follow the US pattern for asserting strategic dominance at sea, using aircraft carriers with a Chinese, poor-man's twist. They are smaller, sea control carriers by US standards, but mightily threatening to the northeast Asian and the Southeast Asian US friends and allies.

In past crises, western Pacific and Southeast Asian states could rely on the arrival of a US carrier task group to tilt the balance in the US favor. In the future, a Chinese aircraft carrier task group might arrive first, backed by carrier-tracking over the horizon radars, linked to carrier-killing ballistic missiles. Not there yet, but even in open source materials that end-state looks increasingly clear.

South Korea likely will respond with its own carrier force that is likely to match the Chinese, except in numbers. It is not clear how the Japanese leadership will respond, but the Maritime Self-Defense Force and the South Korean Navy are likely to find more reasons to train together and cooperate than ever before.

The prospect of a Chinese aircraft carrier squadron was once a distant future. That future is fast approaching and is spawning a northeast Asian naval buildup.

Pakistan: The Daily Times reported the following note.

"Mufti Munibur Rehman, the chairman of the Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee, announced on Wednesday that the Ramazan moon has been sighted, and that the fasting will begin today (Thursday), as Ramazan 1, 1431, will fall on August 12. The meeting of the Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee was held at the Metrological Office, Gulistan-e-Johar in Karachi."

Ramadan has begun.

Germany-Afghanistan: Acting on instructions from Berlin, senior officers ordered two 600-man German battalions to team up with Afghan soldiers in the coming months and clear Taliban fighters from districts the insurgents now dominate, The Wall Street Journal reported 11 August.

The new German commander of the battalion in Konduz province expects to begin a series of attacks in October. German commanders are splitting the two battalions off from the 4,400 troops currently in Afghanistan. The new battalions will have enhanced capabilities, such as reconnaissance technology and combat engineers, along with access to artillery support.

Note. The report did not specify the target district, but it should be Chahar Dara in Konduz Province. Since mid 2007, the Germans have mounted multiple offensives to suppress the Pashtun rebels in Chahar Dara without lasting success.

Better technology is obviously not a solution. With 1,200 soldiers, the Germans only will have a four-to-one superiority, according to German data about the Taliban fighter presence in Konduz. This operation has poor prospects for achieving any lasting success.

It is curious that the government in Berlin announced its backing for this operation. Public statements of support of that kind are a red flag for a last concerted effort. Reinforcing that suspicion is that the announcement of this offensive operation coincides with the government proposal for cutting the German army from 95,000 personnel to about 55,000. Thus, this looks like the one last good effort with a demonstration that the announced plan for defense cuts does not signify a change in the German commitment in Afghanistan … yet!

Russia-Abkhazia: Russia has deployed S-300 air defense missile systems in Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia region, Russian air force chief Colonel General Alexander Zelin said 11 August, RIA Novosti and Reuters reported.

"We have deployed the C-300 system on Abkhaz territory, which, alongside other aircraft defense systems of the ground forces, will solve the problems of air defense of the territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia." Zelin said similar air defense systems have already been deployed in South Ossetia.

The deployment falls within the bilateral agreement on military cooperation, Abkhaz Foreign Minister Maxim Gvindzhia said, according to RIA Novosti. Gvindzhia said the air defense systems are necessary because of the "constant threat" from Georgia and its allies.

South Ossetian Defense Minister Valery Yakhnovets said that while his country has reliable air defense systems in place, S-300 battery deployments "would not be superfluous.

The US State Department spokesman said it was his understanding these systems had been in the two secessionist states of Georgia for some time. The US statement suggests the advanced systems deployed with Russian regiments in the fight against Georgia and never left.

That implies that today's statement by Zelin is not intended to be news, so much as intimidating and provocative to Georgia.

Somalia Anti-piracy patrol: For the record. According to the London-based International Maritime Bureau, the number of pirate attacks worldwide decreased in the first half of 2010 by 34% year-on-year mostly due to the ongoing anti-piracy operation in the Gulf of Aden. More on this later.

Venezuela-Colombia: For the record. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations and create five joint commissions dealing with bilateral trade, security, debt payment, infrastructure and promoting investment in border regions, Globovision reported 10 August.

The agreements were the result of their summit meeting in the Colombian city of Santa Marta. Many will recall that President Santos, most recently, was the Minister of Defense in the Uribe administration and regularly castigated Chavez. So Chavez has responded with superficial magnanimity to "reset" relations with a new president. This easing of tension will not last and the ever-mercurial Chavez is likely to be the first to need an external threat to build political support.

End of NightWatch for 11 August.

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AFCEA/KGS Global Intelligence Update: 7/28/10

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:00:00 -0700

NightWatch

For the Night of 28 July 2010

Administrative note:
This is a light night for threat-related information. That is tonight's good news.

North Korea: Working level military talks between the United Nations Command (UNC) and North Korea scheduled for Thursday, 29 July, have been postponed, the UN Command announced. A date for the next round of talks has not been set.

The last meeting was Friday. The start of large-scale US-South Korean exercises on Sunday made a follow-on meeting this week highly unlikely. South Korean and U.S. forces on Wednesday wrapped up the four-day, large-scale military exercises off the South's east coast in a show of force to deter North Korea from future aggression.

Venezuela: The government denied reports of a military buildup along the Colombian border today. General Franklin Marquez, the local regional commander, said there has not been any type of reinforcement, no military contingency, and the personnel numbers are the same as they have been all year.

Marquez was the source for the report about a buildup of the National Guard. He was quoted verbatim, but apparently was out in front of the President in his statements.

End of NightWatch for 28 July, 2010

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AFCEA/KGS Global Intelligence Update: 7/26/10

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 23:12:00 -0700

NightWatch

For the Night of 26 July 2010

South Korea-China-North Korea: For the record. An 81-year-old South Korean prisoner of war from the Korean War is known to have been sent back to North Korea after having been arrested in China in August last year.

The POW fought in the Korean War in the 3rd division of the South Korean Army's 5th Corps and was captured by North Korean forces in 1952. After years in captivity, he managed to escape North Korea with the help of a South Korean group and a "refugee broker." The refugee broker who had helped the soldier escape reported him to Chinese police after arguing with the South Korean group over money

The POW was arrested on 24 August last year, eight days after he fled North Korea, according to Dong-A Ilbo.

A source from the South Korean government told The Dong-A Ilbo Monday, "The government has made tremendous diplomatic efforts (to bring him back) but he was eventually sent back to North Korea."

South Korea had contacted Chinese diplomatic authorities more than 50 times since the South Korean soldier was detained in China (to request his handover to South Korea), but Beijing failed to inform Seoul of his location and health condition. South Korea reportedly pushed China on the matter to the point that it caused diplomatic conflict.

Comment: This report is significant because it and others like it establish that prisoners of war from the Korean War are still alive in captivity in North Korea. At least 8,000 American soldiers are unaccounted from the Korean War and some have been seen in North Korea - some were pulling plows like oxen near Haeryong. They are not defectors or traitors, according to high reliable eyewitnesses.

A second point from this incident is that it is increasingly typical of Chinese treatment of its former tributary states. The North Korean prison system is porous and up for sale. When a prisoner escapes to China, China also wants to be paid to move the person to South Korea because China refuses to give refuge to any escapees from North Korea.

There are no refugee camps along the Chinese side of the Yalu River. If a Korean lacks proper credentials, China hands that person to the North Korean police who are permitted to operate on the Chinese side of the River.

North Korea-US: North Korea will continue to consider nuclear deterrence as a possible countermeasure to increasing nuclear threats from the United States, according to Korean People's Army (KPA) Vice Marshal Kim Yong Chun, as reported by the Korean Central News Agency on 26 July. Strengthening nuclear power is the sovereign right of North Korea, Kim said, adding that any war initiated by the United States or South Korea would be met with North Korea's "nuclear deterrence.

Comment: Vice Marshal Kim is the First Vice Chairman of the National Defense Commission, under Kim Chong-il. His remarks suggest North Korea is backing down a trifle from its weekend threats. The location of the major exercises in the Sea of Japan probably reassured him that the US does not intend to use this exercise as cover for attack preparations, which is doctrinal with the North Koreans.

India: For the record. The Indian Finance Ministry on 26 July approved a restructuring plan for the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), the Press Trust of India reported. Home Affairs Minister P. Chidambaram said the modernization plan, which was proposed by the Home Ministry in 2009, gives the ITBP 15 new battalions, three recruit training centers, a counterinsurgency and jungle warfare school, a high-altitude medical training center and additional materiel. The plan also allows ITBP to recruit additional support staff, ITBP chief R. K. Bhatia said. ITBP plans to conduct more short-range patrols along the borders, unnamed sources said.

Comment: The Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) is a paramilitary force established on 24 October 1962 for providing security along India's border with Chinese-occupied Tibet. It has more than 60,000 policemen in 55 battalions which areresponsible for 2,115 kilometers of border in the Himalayas. The expansion should take it to about 75,000 personnel, about 10,000 fewer than the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), which guards the mountain borders with Nepal and Bhutan. These two are the largest police forces, specializing in mountain police and combat duties.

The ITBP and the SSB are components of the more than half-million strong Central Paramilitary Forces which would come directly under the command of the Indian Armed Forces in wartime.

From time to time, Indian media will report piecemeal about upgrades to various forces along the China border. There are three kinds: Indian armed forces, Central Police Organizations and Central Paramilitary Forces, of which the ITBP is one of the most elite units.

The significance of today's report is that it reinforces that all forces along the China border from Kashmir to Burma are being upgraded. Upgrades to Indian Army units were featured items in Indian reporting last summer.

NightWatch uses as a predictive hypothesis that India expects to confront China in less than two decades. In some scenarios, this confrontation is part of a two front war with Pakistan, according to Indian strategists. Several years ago the Singh government ordered the start of long term preparations for a showdown.

Pakistan: Yesterday, Al-Jazeerah carried a three-minute live satellite interview with retired Pakistani Brigadier Imtiyaz Ahmad, former head of Pakistan's Intelligence Bureau, in Islamabad, to speak about the NATO operations in Afghanistan and Taliban attacks. Excerpts are repeated for their effect.

Asked "why does the power of the Taliban increase with the increase in military operations against it," Ahmad, speaking in English with voice-over translation into Arabic, says:

Actually, we should not have any doubt that the Americans and the NATO forces have faced huge failures in their war in Afghanistan and have not been able to achieve any clear or big victories in this war. It is noticed that almost 75 percent of Afghanistan is under the Taliban's control, while only 25 percent of the land is under the Karzai government's control, and these also are not spared from Taliban attacks.

He adds:

We should also notice that during the last two months, NATO losses increased significantly, consequently, big disagreements emerged between the US Administration and US military commanders -- and in particular NATO commanders. We have been faced with a huge international incident, which is the dismissal of General McChrystal. I do not think that the new commander, despite his knowledge of the nature of the country, will be able to make any significant change in the war strategy implemented thus far.

Asked "how can the Taliban use this recent development represented in the missing US soldiers," Ahmad says:

These incidents prove that the Taliban has started to obtain a certain edge over the NATO war strategy; moreover, the Taliban has beaten NATO in the intelligence information collection race.

Comment: This interview does not present an accurate description of conditions in Afghanistan by any measure, but it is what Pakistanis regularly hear about Afghanistan.

Ahmad is a discredited brigadier who was convicted for involvement in a plot to overthrow Benazir Bhutto when she was Prime Minister in the 1990s. Musharraf suspended his sentence by enacting the National Reconciliation Ordinance, which has since been judged unconstitutional. He is not an authority on Afghanistan, but he is viscerally anti-US.

The point is that a significant number of prominent Pakistani generals, who benefited from US associations while in uniform, in retirement become bitterly anti-American. They have influence in shaping public attitudes against the US. Al Jazeerah gives them a platform.

Russia-Iran: The Russian Foreign Ministry said on 26 July that Iranian President Ahmadi-Nejad's recent anti-Russian comments are irresponsible and unacceptable, referring to the statement that Moscow is taking cues from the West about Tehran's nuclear program, RIA Novosti reported.

The Russian ministry called Moscow's stance objective, constructive and independent and called on Tehran to provide specific solutions to the issue. The ministry said on its website that Moscow encourages continued talks between Iran, Brazil and Turkey about a possible exchange of low-grade uranium. Brazil and Turkey should be invited to the Vienna Group meeting in September, according to the ministry, and Russia looks forward to multilateral talks with Iran as soon as possible.

Comment: This summer the Russians made a strategic reassessment that has altered Russian tactics in dealing with Iran. The Russians have never trusted Persia and steadfastly have worked to prevent or hinder the emergence of a strong Iranian military force, under the Shah and under the Ayatollahs.

Under Putin and Medvedev, Russian behavior appears to have been predicated on a strategic assessment that Iran has no nuclear weapons program and that engagement with Tehran plus trade connections and arms sales would protect Russian strategic interests. For old hands, the notion that Russia would tolerate a nuclear armed Iran is inconsistent with a thousand years of Russian-Persian history.

On the other hand, the notion that Russia could profit from Iranian trade, use contacts to monitor Iranian activity and manipulate the government in Tehran to serve Russian interests of annoying the US and making money is quintessentially Russian. These are tactics for dealing with and containing a troublesome neighbor. They never signified that Russia would condone another nuclear weapons state on its southern flank.

As long as the Russians rejected US and Israeli evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, the engagement tactics were adequate and acted as spoilers to US strategic dominance. This began to change during the deliberations for the most recent UN Security Council Resolution increasing sanctions against Iran

Open sources lack details on the substance of US consultations and arm-twisting with Russia at the UN. Whatever was said or demonstrated has proven to be sufficient to change Russia's assessment of Iran's long term intentions.

The Russian leaders are not saying Iran has a nuclear weapons program now, as others argue. They are accusing Iran of moving in that direction, towards a foreseeable end state that creates an intolerable threat to Russia - a nuclear armed Iran.

This reassessment, manifest in much sterner Russian policy statements and behavior towards Iran, indicates the Russians have corroborated at least parts of the US evidence plus the US interpretation of the evidence, so that they are now taking a much more confrontational position towards Iran. This change in Russian attitude towards Iran is confirmed by the latest exchanges between the leaders in the past several days.

The Russians also are much less critical in public of anti-ballistic missile defenses that the US is installing in Poland. It might be the most important diplomatic and intelligence achievement of the Us Administration to date.

Reactions to Wikileaks on Afghanistan:

One of the more unfortunate decisions by the various media is to describe the leaked documents as the Afghanistan Log. The word connotes images of care, authority, and deliberation in recording events, as in a Captain's log. The leaked reports are not that kind of log at all. As noted previously, a field report is not proof of facts that it relates, but that is how some media are reporting: it's in the Afghanistan Log therefore it must be true. Nonsense.

All reports have date-time groups on them, but analysts select for retention some reports from the thousands they read, based on criteria they establish for what is important and what is probably reliable. The reports themselves cumulatively expose an intelligence analyst's level of insight and experience.

The selection criteria by which these 92,201 reports were saved to be leaked instead of millions of others, indicate the leaker had little insight about what is important and no ability to filter obvious fabrications. An experienced hand would have discarded most of what has been reported to date. But public disclosure of even junk evokes strong reactions when a conflict is not popular.

Pakistan: "The people of Pakistan and its security forces, including the ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence], have rendered enormous sacrifices against militancy and terrorism. "Our contributions have been acknowledged by the international community, in particular by the United States", a Foreign Office statement issued here on Monday said.

"As underlined by the US National Security Advisor in his statement on Wikileaks yesterday (Sunday), the ongoing counterterrorism cooperation between Pakistan and the US will continue with a view to defeating our common enemies", the statement maintained.

Germany: The German defense ministry on Monday [ 26 July] criticized the leak of around 92,000 classified US military documents on the Afghanistan war, but said the news value was rather limited. The German news magazine Spiegel as well as The New York Times and the Guardian newspapers at the weekend printed excerpts of the documents, which were released by the Wikileaks website.

"Obtaining and releasing documents, some of them secret, on such a scale is a highly questionable practice since it could affect the national security of NATO allies and the whole NATO mission," defense ministry spokesman Christian Dienst said. "We're in the process of analyzing the material so as to find out whether the security of our German troops on the ground is affected in any way."

Sweden: The Swedish force in Afghanistan is named several times in the secret documents leaked to Wikileaks. The Swedish Armed Forces will now investigate whether the leak could affect Swedes' safety or the situation in Afghanistan

Among other things, there are several reports on attacks by resistance fighters on Swedish troops in Afghanistan and reports of Swedish ordnance disposal technicians being called in on several occasions to defuse suspected bombs. "We do not yet know whether the leaked information will impact the situation for the Swedish force over there, but that is something we will be taking a closer look at. Looking at things like this is naturally one of our functions," said Torbjorn Gustafsson of Armed Forces Headquarters public relations staff.

Norway: Classified documents that were recently leaked by Wikileaks mention how Norwegian soldiers killed an Afghan. The military has not managed to find anyone who remembers the episode.

On 29 November last year Norwegian soldiers are said to have killed a man who had something that was perceived as a dangerous object in his hand. Afterward, it came out that what the man held was a flashlight.

"I did a double-take when I read about that. I couldn't remember this episode. That's why I got in touch with the man who was deputy commander of the unit in question in Afghanistan. He can't remember this, either. We have talked with a number of people now and not encountered anyone who knows about the episode. That's a little odd," says John Espen Lien, acting communications chief of the Armed Forces, to [the Norwegian news agency] NTB

Helge Luras, an Afghanistan expert and adviser at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (Nupi), thinks the 92,000 secret-classified documents on the war in Afghanistan which have been made public by Wikileaks could come from centrally placed sources in Washington. "I think this could be a leak from someone highly placed in Washington. That is speculation, of course, but the leak is so extensive and comes at a point when the debate about the strategy in Afghanistan is so intense that it can't be ruled out that this is a deliberate leak."

UK: The government "laments" the leak of documents allegedly revealing cases of Afghan civilians killed by UK troops, Downing Street said. Reports say the Wikileaks website obtained more than 90,000 US military files and made them available to newspapers, including the Guardian.

The records include references to at least 21 incidents involving UK troops. The Ministry of Defence said it had been unable to verify the claims and it would not speculate on specific cases.

Canada: Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon on Monday said he was "concerned" for the safety of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan following the leak of some 90,000 secret US military files. "Our government is concerned obviously that operational leaks could endanger the lives of our men and women in Afghanistan," Cannon told reporters.

End of NightWatch for 26 July.

A Member of AFCEA International

AFCEA/KGS Global Intelligence Update: 7/8/10

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 21:29:00 -0700

NightWatch

For the Night of 8 July 2010

India-Pakistan: Update. Next Thursday, the Foreign Minister of Pakistan and the Indian Minister of External Affairs will meet in Islamabad to resume their dialogue. A Pakistani spokesman said all issues are on the table, but then immediately removed one, namely the Indian concern about the Chinese plan to build a railroad through the Karakoram Mountains.

He also referred to Pakistan's concern for the human rights of people living in "Indian-occupied" Kashmir. However, the spokesman said Pakistan is approaching the meeting with an open mindset.

Pakistan: Security. Several Chinese engineers working in Baluchistan survived an attempt on their lives when unidentified assailants fired two rockets at a five -star hotel in the provincial town, in a pre-dawn attack on Wednesday. According to reports, the Chinese engineers left the hotel elevator minutes before the attack, which damaged a portion of the hotel building.

The Chinese engineers had arrived in Gwadar recently and were reportedly working on an oil refinery. Official sources believe that they were the targets of the attack. Security officials and paramilitary forces cordoned off the area after the attack and began investigations against unidentified assailants.

Comment: Baluch hostility to foreigners is less interesting than that the Chinese are building an oil refinery in Gwadar, in western Pakistan. That provides the motive for building a railroad link to Xinjiang, China, or maybe a pipeline, if that is feasible.

China is developing lines of communication through Pakistan and Burma to complement oil pipelines in central Asia that will ensure crude supplies to China in the event of a crisis in Northeast or Southeast Asia in which US Naval forces would disrupt the maritime supply route through the Straits of Malacca and Singapore.

Pakistan: Gratitude. The head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, said "foreign powers" were responsible for terrorism in his country, Samaa reported 8 July. During a briefing at a session of the National Security Committee, General Pasha said U.S. counterterrorism policy is being looked into and that changes will be made in accordance with Pakistan's national interest. According to Samaa, the foreign powers mentioned were specified as Western powers.

John McCreary's Comment:: The duplicitous, calculated comments of Pakistani politicians, such as Lieutenant General Pasha, expose the psychology of blame that infects Pakistani leaders. They do not accept responsibility for their own actions and constantly indulge in blaming those - in this case, the US -- who have provided enormous assistance to support elective, democratic government.

The US has persevered in this support despite overwhelming evidence that helping Pakistan is against the best interests of the US, Indian and Afghan governments. Even neutral international observers have concluded that Pakistani government organizations have never stopped supporting the Taliban.

Pakistani strategists are fond of accusing the US of being an inconstant ally of Pakistan against India. In the world-wide fight against terrorist groups, Pakistan is the inconstant ally. Its lack of gratitude is a world class disgrace. Pakistani political and military leaders should have the humility to appreciate they are not very clever in their initiatives to manipulate the US.

Security. Private security firms and Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) working in Pakistan have been found involved in assisting the Pakistani Taliban militants financially and providing them with the human resource. The militants arrested by the law enforcement agencies in different operations disclosed the names of private security firms and NGOs, who actually have been funding the militants and providing them with human resource for activities of terrorism in the country.

After the disclosure by the militants, the Interior Ministry asked the Government of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa to provide a detailed list of those private security firms and NGOs. The Interior Ministry and the Khyber Pukhtunkhwa government have ordered an investigation.

Israel: An army inquiry into the Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound maritime flotilla criticized the Israeli Defense Forces' (IDF) planning but did not single out any military officials, Ynet reported 8 July.

The inquiry's report said there was a lack of coordination between forces involved in the raid, mishaps in planning and failure to make use of available intelligence. The report said the military planners thought IDF forces would only face low-level violence.

Note: The after-action report indicates there is little learning occurring in the IDF, despite the intelligence and tactical failures of 2006. Lieutenant General Ashkenazi should offer to resign. Israel cannot afford to tolerate these continuing and repeated intelligence and operational failures. If no senior officers tender their resignations, that means the entire exercise is fraudulent, political and not to be accepted at face value.

UK-European Court of Human Rights: The European Court of Human Rights on 8 July halted the extradition of radical preacher Abu Hamza and three other men to the United States on terror charges. The court said the possible length of US jail terms -- life without parole -- raised concerns about breaches of the European human rights code and needed further examination before a final ruling.

Hamza, whose full name is Mustafa Kamal Mustafa, is wanted on terror charges in the US. The three other men facing extradition are Babar Ahmad, Syed Talha Ahsan, and Haroon Rashid Aswat. Ahmad, a 36-year old computer expert, has been in a UK prison without trial for nearly six years, refused bail since his arrest in August 2004 on a US extradition warrant.

This is an extraordinary perversion of the notion of justice, as understood in the Anglo-Germanic world. In the EU Court's interpretation, the nation-states must prove the fairness of their system of dispensing justice, over the heinous nature of the criminal's behavior. This is tantamount to turning the world upside down in that the dead have no advocate and the accused has more protections than those he killed.

The UK went along with this decision.

Kenya-Somali pirates: Last week, the first hearings were held in a Kenyan courtroom specially designed to bring pirates to justice. The court room is in Shimo la Tewa maximum-security prison, 10 miles north of the coastal city of Mombasa.

The courtroom at Shimo la Tewa was built with $5 million of international donations. The United States, the European Union, Canada, Australia, and others, channeled money for the facility through the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). "This, we hope, is going to go a long way to improving the efficiency of the trials, in a secure, modern environment," said Alan Cole, coordinator of a counter-piracy program at the UNODC office in Nairobi.

The Seychelles agreed that it, too, would prosecute pirates. The UNODC also is refurbishing the main prison in Victoria. Tanzania will soon begin talks over taking suspects.

With enough money, almost any state will prosecute pirates. At least now there is little excuse for capital ships in releasing pirates they capture or in taking them back to Europe, where the Somalis invariably seek political asylum!!!.

End of NightWatch for 8 July.

A Member of AFCEA International