Thirteen years after Sept. 11, 2001 the United States still rightly prioritizes the development of new cadres for the intelligence community. This emphasis is not just logical because of the continued threat of terrorism but also makes sense when considering demographics: the oncoming retirement of the baby boom generation requires that new talent take its place. Developing that new talent, however, has not been as easy as US officials wish. There are at least three problems plaguing both the academic...
- Опубликовано:
- 08.06.2014 04:23:00
There seems to be a strong divergence in American governmental perception behind Chinese and Russian command of cyberspace and their general cyber interaction with state authority. On the one hand, there is the assumption that this is a natural manifestation of the growing desire on the part of Russia and China to achieve global superpower status. On the other hand, there are the counter-arguments that emphasize China's and Russia’s own perception of inability to operate effectively...
- Опубликовано:
- 01.06.2014 19:19:00
Do not concern yourself with whether or not you find your opinions in the majority or minority. Majority or minority is irrelevant. Find your truth through research, logic, evidence, and reflection, deep across all levels. How many do or don't believe in it is immaterial.
The world needs less sheep. The problem is not how big or small your flock is. The problem is you are SHEEP.
- Опубликовано:
- 30.05.2014 17:58:00
Many cyber experts state that the United States is woefully ill-prepared for a sophisticated cyber-attack and that each passing day brings us one step closer to a potential virtual Armageddon. While the problems hindering the development of an effective and comprehensive cyber deterrence policy are clear (threat measurement, attribution, information-sharing, legal codex development, and poor infrastructure to name several), this piece focuses on one aspect of the debate that heretofore has been relatively...
- Опубликовано:
- 29.05.2014 15:02:00
... went into crafting a safeguards deal with the IAEA- whose short lived success was attributed by some to the branded diplomacy product known as smart power- sending the entire process back to square one.
Billions of dollars are spent annually, and thousands of jobs are created in government and the private sector by all major actors. Yet there seems to be an inability to act with mental toughness and provide the sound analysis that avoids “miscalculations.” The European Community dawdled ...
- Опубликовано:
- 22.05.2014 01:04:00
The Intelligence Community, regardless of regime type, has famously always tried to co-opt and ultimately adopt advancements and evolutions in technology, especially in terms of media. Newspapers, radio, and television have long been appropriated in order to influence, massage, and outright manipulate messages and events important to the national interest. Often the question is not so much whether a country’s intelligence community engages in such activity but rather how explicit and open will...
- Опубликовано:
- 21.05.2014 19:43:00
... global stage? Some of this is undoubtedly tied in with what President Obama is most personally comfortable with. Another explanatory variable has affected not just Obama the politician but Democrats as an entire party – defending against the accusation of being foreign policy weaklings. This was arguably the biggest lesson learned from the Democratic failure of 2004, when Vietnam war veteran, Purple Heart winner, and long-time Foreign Affairs Senate stalwart John Kerry lost to Bush. A Democrat ...
- Опубликовано:
- 19.05.2014 20:29:00
... why the West won’t as well.
Putin is violating international law by interfering with Ukrainian affairs.
One of the most successful movie franchises in history, The Pirates of the Caribbean, is actually a fantastic teaching tool for this accusation. In the very first film, when Elizabeth was taken aboard the Black Pearl to face the dreaded Captain Barbosa, she was dismayed to learn he was not going to follow the so-called holy Pirate’s Code. To which, rather bemusedly, Captain Barbosa ...
- Опубликовано:
- 14.05.2014 18:11:00
... because the West and Kiev wants that question obliterated from the news doesn’t mean it is any less relevant to the actual people in the eastern half of the country.
And so here we sit. Eastern Ukraine remains unsettled. More casualties mount. Accusations fly about Russian subterfuge as authorities in Kiev violently struggle to preserve its larger territorial mass. How it will all play out, for better or for worse, is beyond anyone’s guess. But in the meantime I will wonder if this Ukrainian ...
- Опубликовано:
- 10.05.2014 21:12:00
... future, for membership in the international community[xiv]. It had to stand firmly behind the Maidan (while maintaining contact with Yanukovych’s government until the very end), for not doing so would have been a betrayal not just of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, but of the very values that they, too, associate Europe with. The last stage in the Ukraine crisis where the EU, at least on the surface, was still a step ahead, not behind, of Russia, was the 21 February deal between Yanukovych ...
- Опубликовано:
- 07.05.2014 11:35:00
... and the Muslim Brotherhood has been declared once again illegal, but the situation resembles the past only superficially. The US could not grant unconditional support to the actions undertaken by the militaries because the massacre of more than one thousand protesters was broadcasted in the whole Arab world and manifestations of support in favour of President Mohammed Morsi were organized in Turkey, Tunisia and Palestine, with huge media coverage by the most pro-Brotherhood broadcaster, Al-Jazeera....
- Опубликовано:
- 28.04.2014 18:31:00
“Even the leaders were unsure about what they would do next or how to avoid fatal missteps. Each side called on its intelligence services to supply that knowledge.”
The quote is from an article by Markus Wolf and Tennent Bagley, two icons of the Cold War intelligence community with opposing ideologies writing in 1997 in the Los Angeles Times as a team about how in August, 1961 construction of the Berlin Wall surprised the best and the brightest in the West.
They wrote a review of...
- Опубликовано:
- 27.04.2014 18:46:00
The debate over the applicability or non-applicability of international law to cyber war and the need for a cyber-specific international treaty might be irrelevant. Both camps, pro and con, argue about the need for cyber war to have the Law of Armed Conflict or some new international legal project properly cover the cyber domain. Both camps, however, misread how the structure of the cyber domain precludes strategically ‘piggy-backing’ on conventional norms of war. International laws on...
- Опубликовано:
- 25.04.2014 20:36:00
Though Syria has somewhat fallen off the media radar in the West because of a Malaysian plane crashing into the Indian Ocean and Crimean referendum consequences booming across Europe, an on-going conflict and crisis continues in a critically important region of the world. The problems in Syria remain poorly understood in the West across the board, but especially so when it comes to understanding Russian strategy on Syria vis-à-vis the United States. The common US position has simply dismissed...
- Опубликовано:
- 11.04.2014 05:56:00
... century, many civil conflicts were fought within and among the riparians along the Nile River Basin (NRB), most notably Burundi, Chad, the Congo, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Sudan. Scholars noted that ethnic and religious differences were two of the primary causal factors behind these conflicts, but the potential of a new conflict stimulus is rapidly emerging: the contest over rights to the region’s main fresh water resource, the Nile River. While some scholars are skeptical about the relevance of resource ...
- Опубликовано:
- 07.04.2014 17:54:00
These are the days of garment-rending. At least, this is likely the lament privately voiced by many in the corridors of American and European power. Obama’s recent trip to Europe to shore up greater resolve and commitment for strengthening sanctions and isolating (or is it shaming?) Russia after the Crimea annexation (or is it secession?) was fairly uneventful. The fact of the matter is no one in Europe seems to be all that eager to truly push violent confrontation with Russia as long as Russia...
- Опубликовано:
- 01.04.2014 17:44:00
Starting to heat up the internet (well, at least in Russia and Eastern Ukraine, while likely not even to be acknowledged in Western Europe) is a hacked telephone call last week between the former Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council Nestor Shufrich and the former Prime Minister, recently-freed-from-prison, media darling Yulia Tymoshenko. The recording, which lasts just over two minutes, pulls no punches as Tymoshenko and Shufrich basically excoriate everyone associated with...
- Опубликовано:
- 25.03.2014 16:26:00
These are the days of our Spring discontent. It is ironic to consider that as events continue to unfold in Crimea the path that might hold the most hope for future peace and stability is the one that guarantees all sides being at least somewhat disappointed. Allow me to elaborate:
Why Ukraine should be disappointed: Crimea is done. As the famous Southern saying in America goes, ‘closing the barn door after the horses have left doesn’t do much good.’ Authorities in Kiev are understandably...
- Опубликовано:
- 21.03.2014 05:43:00
... for the people of Crimea, but the bitter reality and perhaps even more bitter truth is that high politics on the global stage can still come off in such a blunt manner. Unfortunately, this type of cynical maneuvering has been going on for literally thousands of years and will likely not end with the current crisis. But on a positive note, this could end up concluding without major bloodshed and a relatively quick peaceful ‘political settlement’ in the near future. If this happens, then ...
- Опубликовано:
- 17.03.2014 01:24:00
I have some bad news for the United States. Russia doesn’t listen to America. Unfortunately, I have worse news: contrary to what many specialists, analysts, and commentators across the transatlantic community may think, it is not because Russia is trying to rekindle the Cold War or desperately grasping at whatever remnants of old Soviet power it used to have. No, I’m afraid Russia doesn’t listen to America because of the unfortunate tendency by the US to act like a geopolitical...
- Опубликовано:
- 15.03.2014 18:45:00
