Category: War

Democratizing of Intelligence

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 2 Comments

Back when the news of the alleged CIA prisons broke, Wired News asked: Can Satellites ID CIA Prisons?.

Satellite images could help determine if the CIA ran secret prisons in Europe, according to a Swiss lawmaker who is drawing up a report on the issue for the Council of Europe human rights watchdog.

The idea was commercially available satellite imagery, like that from Google Earth and Microsoft Local, could provide detailed analysis on the cheap. The problem with these services is the timeliness of the imagery. GoogleEarth pics are 3 – 5 years out of date. Microsoft Local apparently has the same age, but is taken at a lower altitude and includes various viewing angles.

The democratization of IMGINT is significant and one more brick out of the wall separating state secrets from Citizen X.

DefenseTech has a thread about Google Earth originating from about
when it came out. Pictures of Area 51 drew a lot of attention, as did
some other areas, including the fact Cheney’s residence was obscured
but other prominent locations were not (adding further fuel to the
Legend of Cheney).

From elsewhere…

This is of an AT&T command and control center for east coast military communications, its anyones guess what is going on there now… Rather a quaint little place, with about 180 parking spaces, I wonder if the neighbors know what goes on there.

And this from The Register, a contest to find odd things in geo-pics, such as a flying car captured on Google Earth.

And when DefenseTech.org comes back online, go here for their GoogleEarth commentary (apparently the Area51 pics are now obscured based on a comment I saw somewhere).

Fourth Generation Category description

~ Matt Armstrong

This is a brief note on what generally will be appearing in this category. There is an ongoing debate right on Fourth Generation Warfare that questions its existence, parameters, and solutions. This is a debate I believe is germain to foreign & security policy (is there really a difference?) and public & cultural diplomacy (again, as substantial a difference as fp and sp). Some have commented on Clausetwitz’s Trinity, including those who claim 4GW’ers misunderstood it, and those that claim that because states do not seem to be central to politics, previous versions of warfare are thus obsolete.

From the planning to the future (hoped for changed) structure of the armed forces (think QDR / Rumsfeld), integration of non-combat resources and military assets as vanguards (Barnett’s SysAdmin), and the role of private military forces in defensive, offensive, and peacekeeping (MOOTW) operations.

Going Norwegian instead of Swedish

~ Matt Armstrong

From the Norwegian Press:

The US elite force Navy Seals has shown considerable interest in the Norwegian high speed patrol boats of the "Skjold" class, built with stealth technology. This makes the vessels difficult to detect by radar.

The US Navy had one patrol boat on loan for a year for test purposes, and the Norwegian Umoe Mandal Yard has now entered into a contract with the Navy Seals for a further study and evaluation of the suitability of the new patrol boats for US purposes.

The Swedes also have a stealth ship, but the Norwegian ship is apparently superior to both the Swedish and American stealth projects currently underway. These craft will become increasingly important with looming (and in some cases current and covert) littoral warfare and anti-piracy efforts, Not to mention penetrating the coast lines of potential adversaries.

Leveraging the Internet, part I

~ Matt Armstrong

It is not just pornographers that purchase domain names that are similar to mainstream companies, publications, etc that people may want to visit. I was trying to surf to a German political journal, International Politik. So I naturally typed in: http://www.internationale-politik.de.  However, that link is a redirect to an old Kurdish freedom page, http://kurdistan-solidaritaet.de. This site, btw is out of date some five years…. but it is an example that it is not just non-terrorists that can use the Net. More to come on this.

Is war about to break out in the Horn?

~ Matt Armstrong

News from the Horn of Africa heats up.

"Ethiopia’s prime minister said on Thursday that he believes it iscommon knowledge that an al-Qaeda terror cell is operating in Somalia’s
capital, Mogadishu…The African Union, also based in Addis Ababa, was meeting late on Thursday to discuss plans to send troops to Somalia to guarantee the safety of the government-in-exile, which was formed after three years of peace talks in Kenya."

Back in May 2005, US Marines were reported to have landed in the area, but that’s dated. Currently, the heat is between the Transitional Government and the "other". From today’s news (emphasis added):

A group of Somali lawmakers in-exile on Tuesday accused Ethiopia of smuggling weapons to militias in Somalia in violation of a 13-year-old UN arms embargo on the war-shattered Horn of Africa nation.

Abdalla Haji Ali of the group said: "Besides donating assorted weapons to favored factions, unfortunately Ethiopian military personnel crossed deep in to Somali regions of Bakol and Bay in the last 48 hours."

He said: "It is a matter of hours or very few days before an Ethiopian-masterminded war breaks out in Baidoa."

The US may still have a presence at Camp United, established Feb 2004. Related to piracy, TopCat, Marathon, etc? Something is clearly coming up…

UPDATE 2 on The $50m contract to fight piracy, a primer on privatized force

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 2 Comments

The recent $50m deal between TopCat Marine Security and Somalia has apparently opened some eyes to the world of private military companies. Two leading experts / authors in the field today, Deborah Avant (The Market for Force: The Consequences of Privatizing Security) and P.W. Singer (Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs)), refer to these private enterprises as Private Military Companies and Private Military Firms, respectively (there are other authors and resources I’d recommend, see my reading list on the right). What many people do not understand, not through lack of caring but through a cloud of understandable and encouraged ignorance, is the private sector has long been involved in providing private tactical military force. Personally, I prefer to use the phrase "private military force" to separate legal and moral accountability and utilization questions away from for-profit motives and from other modes as logistics, training, and assistance. However, in the TopCat Marine Security and Somalia deal, money and service are inextricably linked.

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Update on the Cruise Ship Pirate Attack

~ Matt Armstrong

This is an update / post mortem on my item on LRAD and Defending the cruise ship

Since I posted the item from the TimesOnline stating a sonic weapon (named LRAD from the manufacturer) was used to repel a pirate attack, the major news outlets have since updated their stories to reflect this information. It seems the cruise ship owner has also realized the value the weapon, although a press release on their site does not acknowledge the device.

The "ultra luxury" cruise industry obviously has a lot to lose with
increasing acts of piracy and an increase in the number of
piracy-related deaths. This may bring a problem that has been growing
for the last decade to the forefront of international news, sneaking behind the front pages for years has been increasing concerns of disruption to shipping channels.

Questions about the ships location
(only 100 miles from shore) are now being raised. It is sure that
anti-piracy laws (which laid the foundations for the Laws of War and
the term filibuster) will also be discussed, especially framed as acts of terrorism (criminal without pecuniary gains) acts and not acts of robbery. From a follow-up AP news story:

Seabourn has said it appeared the attackers were pirates whose
motivation was robbery. But Petersen doubted that was the case, because
he said pirates would have tried to disable the ship’s steering and
propulsion if they wanted to get onboard. Witnesses said the attackers
shot grenades toward passengers.

Here is the WashingtonPost’s post-mortem on the incident.

The LRAD and the cruise ship

~ Matt Armstrong

There is an interesting piece of information not in either CNN or BBC as of this writing on the pirate attack on a cruise liner, the Seabourn Spirit, off the coast of Somalia. From the TimesOnline:

The liner used a sonic blaster to foil the pirates. Developed by American forces to deter small boats from attacking warships, the non-lethal weapon sends out high-powered air vibrations that blow assailants off their feet. The equipment, about the size of a satellite dish, is rigged to the side of the ship.

Sonic "weapons" have reportedly been used by Israeli military in Gaza and Lebanon. This "poor man’s system" (not cheap when considering the cost of operating a jet but cheap in the terms of R&D) uses jet aircraft to create a sonic boom, intentionally creating shock waves that locals (Palestinians) say is similar to "an earthquake or huge bomb. They describe the effect as being hit by a wall of air that is painful on the ears, sometimes causing nosebleeds and ‘leaving you shaking inside.’"

The device used by the cruise ship was a "proper" sonice weapon, designed and developed for a specific purpose.

The weapons technology the cruise ship apparently had, according to the TimesOnline, is an LRAD (Long Range Accoustic Device).
This 45-pound, dish-shaped  non-lethal weapon is response to the 2000
USS Cole attack as a deterrent to small boat attacks. Apparently, these
devices have been used on US ships since the summer of 2003.

Now,
the Army and Marines have added this auditory barrage dispenser to
their arms ensembles. Troops in Fallujah, a center of insurgency west
of Baghdad, and other areas of central Iraq in particular often deal
with crowds in which lethal foes intermingle with non-hostile civilians.

In
the growing stable of non-lethal weapons is a Star Trek phaser gun made
real: the Active Denial System will repel enemies with a painful energy
beam.

I am curious if the TimesOnline got it right since other sources, including the WashingtonPost, CNN, and BBC did not report on this (as of this writing / posting). CNN reported the cruise ship outran the pirates. The BBC reports ‘the crew simply took evasive action without returning fire’. According to Daily
International Vessel Casualties & Pirates Daily Report, "gunmen sailing in 3 boats later abandoned chase as they could not venture into high seas".

Or, are they being fanciful. I would tend to believe they got it
right if their description of the cruise ship is correct. It was odd to
read in BBC / CNN the ratio of crew to passengers by better than 1:1 on
the US-owned ship. The ship, owned by a Miami-based subsidiary of
Carnival Cruise Lines, must be an "ultra-luxery" boat with such a high complement of sailors / staff to passengers. Hence, their ability and desire to have such a device.

Modern weapons for modern, indiscriminate war. It will be
interesting to see if news starts to report the use of the LRAD or if
it disappears. This defensive measure is conceptually similar to
equiping airlines with counter-measures against SAM (surface-to-air
missile) attacks.

[UPDATE: CNN reported 7 Nov 05 — one day after I wrote this article — that a ‘sonic weapon’ was used. They did no indicate their source.]

:: SEE UPDATE 9 November 2005 ::

Reducing Logistic Vulnerability and Drag

~ Matt Armstrong

It is a curious thing when warfighting becomes easier, it tends to happen more often. Conflicts today are of lower intensity, happen more frequently, and may be called by different names, humanitarian (and "democratic") interventions & "military operations other than war" to name two. The point is using military force to implement policy has noticably incresed.

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Terrorism, Interegation, & Security

~ Matt Armstrong

Looking a little deeper into possibly why McCain has reacted like he has and you’ll find a press briefing a few weeks ago about tortue.

In the 6 October 2005 Pentagon briefing, an interesting exchange took place between Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, Lawrence Di Rita, and the press. What Mr. Di Rita adroitly avoids is a) the lack of training our interegators have received, b) disregard for field manuals (suggested processes), c) best practices, and d) UCMJ in ordinary or extra-ordinary circumstances.

It is clear the Administration fails to see cause and effect and fails to understand documented superior methods of interegation. True, there are times at which it is no holds barred, but for most of the time, seconds or minutes do not matter. For Mr. Di Rita, there is no distinguishing on these points.

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Pentagon Revises Nuclear Strike Plan

~ Matt Armstrong

The extreme lack to comprehend the value of public diplomacy, soft power, and the (apparently quaint) concept of action-reaction of the current GW Administration has been emphasized in "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations". As the Washington Post writes in Pentagon Revises Nuclear Strike Plan:

A [White House] spokesman said the United States would "respond with overwhelming force" to the use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States, its forces or allies, and said "all options" would be available to the president.

Diplomatic finesse, including a real respect for regional beliefs and political freedoms, and strengthening economic foundations of states and regions are completely absent from nearly every bit of communication from this Administration. Practical application of our cultural and economic power to strengthen our country and not the top leadership and their cronies has been replaced by the ignorance the facts ("what has Brownie done wrong?").

Is a bigger stick the real path to making the world safer? Did that work in the school yard? Will it work with people driven to extremes from financial hardships (both domestically and foreign that are apparently invisible to the Administration)? Wake-up and smell the home-brewed explosives symbolizing McVeigh and Osama bin Laden opportunists and undermine their support. The failure to complete the mission in Afghanistan has resulted in handing over a volitile region to the enemy. The failure to properly execute the mission (which was what again?) in Iraq and follow through the appropriate clean-up toward ‘state-building’ is handing over a volitile region to the enemy.

What does this doctrine really solve? Does it help with Latin American super-gangs (also the result of economic desperation and disparity)? Did the legal prosecutions of the first World Trade Center bombers really deter anybody, as the prosecutor claimed when announcing the indictments?

Ah, but who am I really speaking to? The choir or empty cyberspace? Probably the latter…

Powell’s “painful blot”

~ Matt Armstrong

In a Barbara Walter’s interview, written up on the Telegraph (The Daily Telegraph’s online newspaper):

Asked whether the statement about WMD tarnished his reputation, [Powell] responded: "Of course it will. It’s a blot. I’m the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world and [it] will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It’s painful now."

"[CIA Chief Tenet] didn’t sit there for five days with me misleading me. He believed
what he was giving me was accurate…the intelligence system did not work
well," Mr Powell said.

Quick Note: Linking Piracy and Terrorism

~ Matt Armstrong

Concerns over pirates and terrorists forming partnerships are receiving more attention. The International Herald Tribune reported today

special operations commandos and the marine police recovered a vessel early Tuesday that had disappeared and been reported hijacked nearly three years ago. After initially sailing on in defiance of orders to stop, the crew of 20 Chinese nationals aboard surrendered without a fight

This issue, along with other similar situations, have excerbated fears of insurers of increasingly hijackings. Are the insurers crying wolf or does intelligence indicate a  reasonable liklihood of a future terrorist connection? Probably both.

If Iraq is flypaper, what does that make us?

~ Matt Armstrong

So, these two flies are cruising around when they find an open window. Naturally, they go on in, because that’s what they do. Smelling something tasty, they land to check it out. They’ve landed on flypaper and can no longer go home, if they wanted to. Their days numbered, they ask why they did it and struggle to free themselves, fighting against the industrial society that is now holding them while they were trying to find a free bite of food, perhaps because the wild food is gone…

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Dual Use Skills

~ Matt Armstrong

There must be concern about teaching (former) Afghan fighters how to get around some of the hightest mountains in the world better than they already can. This dual use technology, personal skill + equipment, is potentially a great recruiting tool. Transforming the Afghan economy from poppy farmers to tourist haven and economic cross roads is in the interest of most people, with the obvious exception of Taliban and other extremists.

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Chinese Peace Corps + Energy Exploitation

~ Matt Armstrong

In the spirit of challenges of securing energy sources and "hearts and minds" comes an article in the People’s Daily Online:

The 12 young volunteers from places such as Beijing, Sichuan and Yunnanwere going to Ethiopia in Africa to begin a six-month service work in
methane exploitation, Chinese-language teaching, physical education,
health care and information technology.

This Chinese Peace Corps is now in competition to win the hearts and minds with a Peace Corps perceived to be co-opted by the Defense Department. The long term goal for China is clearly cultural and technological imperialism as they seek to recreate a multi-polar world.

From the recent UNOCAL take-over attempt by CNOOC to competition for African energy resources, the Ethiopian service project is one of the many subtle salvos a patient China will fire.

Electronic Extortion

~ Matt Armstrong

I recently became hooked on the TV series 24. Unfortunately, through Netflix we were able to watch the three seasons prior to the one that just ended. The point is CTU’s (Counter Terrorism Unit) utilization of technology is impressive and indicative of where things can go. It also demonstrated the reliance on technology and also where things can go. Heavy reliance on technology for voting, combat, or security can easily lead to over-reliance. Once "over" happens, a weak link can be targeted.

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Stealth Ships

~ Matt Armstrong

The deployment of stealth technology on the sea, while still far from mature, is the next logical step in the evolution of warfare. Anti-terrorist and anti-criminal law enforcement and littoral combat operations against new and varied enemies are bringing new demands on ship technology.

The Swedes, conscious of their reliance on naval operations, are developing the Visby. Besides its own sensor avoiding abilities, it is designed to utilize unmanned vehicles for remote sensing.