Category: Intl Security

Banning Nuclear Weapons: "Transforming the image we see in the mirror"

A laudable goal. To paraphrase the argument against banning handguns, “nuclear weapons don’t kill people, people making the decision to use nuclear weapons is what kills people.”  Desire for nulcear weapons motivated by power, fear, insecurity,  mistrust, and survival.   

“In the final analysis, any contemplation of war must return to  the nature of humanity, which yet stands as the root cause of war and the wellspring of History’s inestimable tragedy.  Throughout time, governments, like wars, have both flowed from and reflected human nature in both positive and negative manifestation. If we are to overcome the massive violence that has typified modern civilization for five centuries, our ultimate challenge is nothing more or less than transforming the image we see in the mirror. That, however, is a task that lends itself to no purely political solution.”  — Bruce Porter, War and the Rise of The State.

Leaders Seek Ban On Nuclear Weapons, (Philadelphia Inquirer)…Barry Schweid, Associated Press

A new international group committed to eliminating nuclear weapons over the next 25 years has enlisted scores of world leaders as its campaign gets under way at a conference in Paris on Tuesday.

Unmanned Aircraft: Reaper – "Thinking" Ahead

Not uncommon for the military to develop technologies that will eventually be applied within the private/commercial sector.

Delivering Devastation, (Washington Times)…Sara A. Carter

Unmanned aircraft controlled from U.S. fly over Afghanistan, Iraq on ‘kill’ missions.

Air Force officials say that the Predator and Reaper are just the first in a revolution in cyber and warfare technology that will take pilots out of the skies and put them behind computers and joysticks.

“We believe we’ll have a computer with as much computing power as a human no later than 2012,” Gen. Peterson said in reference to meetings he had with IBM and other computer technology firms. “We want the aircraft to initially think through the problem and offer the pilot a couple of solutions to choose from.”

Although the technology is still being developed, he said he hopes that one day advanced aircraft will be able to “plan ahead” and evaluate changes in the mission if required.

Iraq: Significance of the Security Agreement

Milestone In Baghdad, (Washington Post)…Charles Krauthammer, Dec 5, 2008.

The barbarism in Mumbai and the economic crisis at home have largely overshadowed an otherwise singular event: the ratification of military and strategic cooperation agreements between Iraq and the United States.

They must not pass unnoted. They were certainly noted by Iran, which fought fiercely to undermine the agreements. Tehran understood how a formal U.S.-Iraqi alliance endorsed by a broad Iraqi consensus expressed in a freely elected parliament changes the strategic balance in the region.

For the United States, this represents the single most important geopolitical advance in the region since Henry Kissinger turned Egypt from a Soviet client into an American ally. If we don’t blow it with too hasty a withdrawal from Iraq, we will have turned a chronically destabilizing enemy state at the epicenter of the Arab Middle East into an ally.

Also largely overlooked at home was the sheer wonder of the procedure that produced Iraq’s consent: classic legislative maneuvering with no more than a tussle or two — tame by international standards (see YouTube: “Best Taiwanese Parliament Fights of All Time!”) — over the most fundamental issues of national identity and direction.

Natl Defense Strategy: Balance

Note that Secretary of Defense Gates is referencing “Defense” strategy – a balanced concept is also needed for the National Security Strategy that would more effectively integrate the “whole-of-government” approach.

ESSAY: A Balanced Strategy, Reprogramming the Pentagon for a New Age, Robert M. Gates From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2009

The defining principle of the Pentagon’s new National Defense Strategy is balance. The United States cannot expect to eliminate national security risks through higher defense budgets, to do everything and buy everything. The Department of Defense must set priorities and consider inescapable tradeoffs and opportunity costs.

The strategy strives for balance in three areas:

— between trying to prevail in current conflicts and preparing for other contingencies,

—  between institutionalizing capabilities such as counterinsurgency and foreign military assistance and maintaining the United States’ existing conventional and strategic technological edge against other military forces, and

— between retaining those cultural traits that have made the U.S. armed forces successful and shedding those that hamper their ability to do what needs to

What is dubbed the war on terror is, in grim reality, a prolonged, worldwide irregular campaign — a struggle between the forces of violent extremism and those of moderation.

Foundation Principles for Leaders: Application of "Smart" Power

The Armed Services provide one of the better examples of a learning organization which is demonstrated by the current debate in Parameters, on the concept of Effect-based Operations (EBO) to include my response via a  letter to the editor. 

Many of the modern day quality improvement methods were pioneered by the War Department during WWII and evolved into programs/initiatives that have included zero-defects/six sigma, just-in-time/lean, quality circles, Total Quality Management, Capability Maturity Model Integration, Business Process Reengineering and now Continuous Process Improvement. 

Smart Power would include the application of the foundation principles for leaders to optimize all the elements and instruments of national power (also referred to as the “whole-of-government” approach) to help prevent/deter conflict and if deterrence fails, to resolve the conflict quickly and decisively with a minimum amount of resources.

The application of this technology is supported throughout the world by the American Society for Quality.

Acronyms: EBO – Effect based Operations;  ONA – Operational Net Assessment; SoSA – System of System Analysis, CPI – Continuous Process Improvement.

ARTICLES: Parameters, US Army War College Quarterly, Autumn 2008 

Effects-based Operations: More Important Than Ever, by Tomislav Z. Ruby

USJFCOM Commander’s Guidance for Effects-based Operations” by James N. Mattis.  

To the Editor,

The Autumn 2008 issue of Parameters included two excellent articles on the Future of Effects-based Operations that illustrate a “clash of paradigms.” I agree with both authors on the points that “EBO is more important than ever” and that “underlying principles associated with EBO, ONA and SoSA are fundamentally flawed.”

In May 2008, the scope of DoD’s guidance on Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) was appropriately expanded to include combat organizations and will inevitably be applied to combat operations. The CPI concept also provides proven and complementary approaches to improve effectiveness as well as efficiency.

The way ahead is neither to abandon the EBO concept, nor to consider CPI as irrelevant nor to rely solely on traditional approaches, but rather to recognize and build upon foundational principles that effective leaders have intuitively applied when developing optimal strategies that synchronize a systems-of-systems approach with the more traditional and “time-honored principles and terminology.” Stakeholders, systems, variability, knowledge, planned change and people (1)  are the key components that provide the underlying principles for both traditional methods as well as emerging methods such as CPI, EBO, ONA, and SoSA. In a non-military application, the framework is applied to improve capabilities and in a military context, they are applied to reduce an adversary’s capabilities. Of the six principles, the concept of variability is the “what’s new?“ and most critical.

Variation is a law of nature that states that no two people or things will ever be exactly alike. Everyone and everything varies. In the 1920’s, Walter Shewhart developed the new but still relatively unknown paradigm for managing variation that has typically been defined using a scientific or statistical frame of reference.

In March of 2006, the American Society for Quality embraced a broader description of the concept to support more universal awareness and application. To summarize, variation represents the difference between the ideal situation and actual. An ideal represents a standard of perfection uniquely defined by the stakeholders that one can strive for but never achieve; a fact that makes continual improvement possible. Improving efficiency and/or effectiveness has always been achieved by reducing variation.

Ideal or perfect outcomes are defined as those benefiting everyone (win/win). Non ideal outcomes are those that result in zero-sum, somebody wins/somebody loses. Preventing war requires the most optimal (win/win) of approaches; war-fighting is all about optimizing the suboptimal.

Shewhart concluded that although everything varies and individual things are unpredictable, groups of things from a constant system of causes tends to be predictable within a range In other words, if you always do what you always did, on average, you will usually get what you always got. The variation principle is at the heart of military art and science that must address both chaos and order; chaos defined as order without predictability.

The application context for the foundation principles includes the strategic, operational and tactical levels. The distinctions between levels include scope, position of the primary stakeholders, required leadership competencies, degree of influence-direct vs. indirect, and time expected for achieving expected results—long-term, mid-term, short-term.

1. Stakeholders include individuals and groups that are affected by the respective situation in the short, mid and long term. Stakeholders, to include allies, adversaries or competitors, have needs, desires/wants and expectations that are met, or not met, by products/services that in military terms include the full spectrum of military operations. Stakeholder categories would include Political, Military, Economic, Social, Infrastructure, and Information (PMESII).

2. Systems transform inputs into outputs (products/services) to achieve the outcomes expected by stakeholders. Outputs and Outcomes are results that are produced through action. Actions or tasks (collective and individual) are accomplished through processes. A process is a series of actions taken to achieve a result. A system is a collection of processes with a common aim or purpose.

The term process and system are often and correctly used interchangeability depending upon the context. Systems determine 85-98% of the result. Consequently, a “systems-of-systems approach” to build or reduce capability has always been the required strategy for achieving the best results.

3. Variation is inherent in every system and an assessment of variation is how stakeholders keep score, e.g., determine if things got better or worse. Shewart identified two causes of variation (common and special) and two types of systems/processes (stable and unstable).

Common cause is variation that can be expected and predicted within a range. Special cause is unusual or unexpected. Systems/processes consisting of all common causes are considered stable or more predictable; systems/processes containing both common and special are more unstable or unpredictable.

Given the variation principle, a problem is never solved because variation is never eliminated (and gets worse if improvement is not continual). A solved problem represents an acceptable degree of variation; a problem is an unacceptable degree of variation. Stakeholders take action based on their assessments as to the “acceptability” of the variation.

4. Knowledge of variability leads to better results. Feedback to include the qualitative, quantitative, statistical, notional and intuitive leads to information, information to potential knowledge and knowledge to potential wisdom. Knowledge and wisdom are gained through action and assessment to include after action reviews, lessons learned and captured in doctrine, and identification of the right way (s) forward.

5. Planned Change requires the application of problem solving and decision processes that are applied simultaneously at the three levels of warfare (strategic, operational, tactical) and tailored to three general categories: Maintain/sustain the situation, incremental improvement and/or radical improvement. The appropriate  level strategic plan provides the context needed to balance and align ends, ways, and means. 

6. The People principle includes learning and applying a basic knowledge of the behavior of individuals and groups to include their respective cultures and capabilities.

The foundation principles for leaders provide underlying principles that effective leaders have always intuitively applied to improve upon traditional methods as well as assessing the quality of what may perceived as new methods. New methods in this case being CPI applied to combat operations, the EBO concept, ONA, and SoSA. A more conscious awareness and understanding of the variation principle may help resolve the “clash of paradigms” with the effect being obtaining better results with fewer resources. 

 (1) Principles derived from Foundation for Leaders, PQ Systems, Dayton, OH. The term Stakeholder substituted for the term Customer.

Global Trends 2025: Leadership

Gloom, But Not Doom, (New York Times)…Editorial

There’s been a fair amount of hand-wringing since the nation’s intelligence community surveyed the world of 2025. But the headlines from “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World,” published by the National Intelligence Council, are not the whole story.

A relative decline in power also does not mean that the United States will not remain powerful. This country can and must continue to lead. There will be a particular premium on quick, nimble and farsighted decision-making and cooperation.

Their report on the concept states that “leadership is not an entitlement; it has to be earned and sustained. Leadership that serves common goals is the best way to inspire the many different peoples of the world to make shared commitments.” That is a good place to start.

 

Defense Dept: Supply Chain and Vulnerabilities

Inside The Ring, By Bill Gertz, Washington Times, December 4, 2008, Pg. B1

Pentagon suppliers

The chairman of a congressional China commission said the panel is concerned that the Pentagon’s reliance on Chinese suppliers has threatened U.S. computers, weapons systems and equipment with sabotage or other remote electronic tampering.

“On defense supply chain, the commissioners remain concerned about the integrity of the defense supply chain, and we are not sure that the defense logistics system managers know what they are getting from China,” said Larry Wortzel, co-chairman of the U.S. China-Economic Security Review Commission. “It is not secure,” he said of the current Pentagon supply chain.

Mr. Wortzel, in an interview, was commenting on one little-noticed finding of the commission in its report made public Nov. 20. The report to Congress warned that widespread Chinese government computer hacking poses risks because of Chinese-supplied parts in U.S. computer networks.

“Components in these computers and networks are manufactured overseas – many of them in China,” the report said. “At least in theory, this equipment is vulnerable to tampering by Chinese security services, such as implanting malicious code that could be remotely activated on command and place U.S. systems or the data they contain at risk of destruction or manipulation.”

In one case, the Pentagon was found to be using hundreds of counterfeit computer routers made in China. “This suggests that at least in part, Defense Department computer systems and networks may be vulnerable to malicious action that could destroy or manipulate information they contain,” the report said.

Mr. Wortzel said the Pentagon logistics agencies in charge of buying the Chinese-made parts gave the commission the “runaround” when panel members asked about the problem.

“Our recommendation is that Congress haul them in and have a classified hearing on this,” Mr. Wortzel said.

Chinese Embassy spokesman Wang Baodong could not be reached for comment. However, Chinese Foreign Ministry official Qin Gang said in a statement Nov. 24 that the commission views China “through tinted lens” and is undermining U.S.-China cooperation by “tarnishing and attacking China deliberately and misleading the general public.”