Category: National Security

National Security – DIME

Mumbai: Terrorist Tactics – "Active Shooter"

The Next Mumbai  (Washington Post)…David Ignatius

…There was far too much of that fear-mongering and spasmodic reaction after Sept. 11, which had the effect of destabilizing the United States almost as much as it did its enemies. The challenge is to understand the adversary so that if an attack comes, the authorities will respond with cool heads and steady aim.

“Mumbai is a worst-case ‘active shooter’ problem,” says a former CIA officer who helped organize a DHS pilot program on the subject last summer for police chiefs. “It had multiple shooters, multiple locations, mobile threats, willingness to fight the first responders and follow-on SWAT/commando units, well-equipped and well-trained operatives, and a willingness to die. Police department commanders in America should be scratching their heads and praying.”

Financial Crisis: Background – Systems Perspective

POST: Bankers, you have nothing to gain but your chains! by Thomas P.M. Barnett on November 29, 2008

A good rendition of the argument that says we’re at the end of an extended period of deregulation that has logically run its course.

ARTICLE: A short history of modern finance: Link by link; The crash has been blamed on cheap money, Asian savings and greedy bankers. For many people, deregulation is the prime suspect,” The Economist, 18 October 2008.

It would be a mistake to argue that, had politicians rather than bankers been in charge, policy would have been more prudent. Indeed, politicians encouraged banks to make riskier loans. This was particularly true in America, where a series of measures, starting with the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, required banks to meet the credit needs of the “entire community”. In practice, this was social policy: it meant more lending to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two government-sponsored giants of the mortgage market, were encouraged to guarantee a wider range of loans in the 1990s.

The share of Americans who owned their homes rose steadily. But more buyers meant higher prices, making loans even less affordable to the poor and requiring even slacker lending standards. The seeds of the subprime crisis were sown, and the new techniques of securitisation allowed banks to make these loans and then offload them quickly.

Could the crisis have been avoided or minimized? Can the next crisis be prevented?   I believe the answer to both question is  yes but a new paradigm is needed. 

Nuclear Capabilities, Challenges and Threats

Codes For Armageddon: A New President To Hold Nuclear Launch ‘Football’ (Baltimore Sun)…David Wood, Nov 30, 2008

…What awaits the new commander in chief is the weighty responsibility of defending the United States – and a nasty brew of nuclear weapons problems that range from the threat of terrorist attacks to potential new regional and superpower arms races. Iran and North Korea are rushing headlong toward building nuclear arsenals. And the main arms reduction treaty with Russia expires next year.

According to a report last month by the International Atomic Energy Agency, 439 nuclear power reactors currently are operating in 30 countries, with 36 plants under construction.

The increased nuclear activity “naturally increases the risk that nuclear material could be diverted to make nuclear weapons,” IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei told the United Nations. This year alone, the IAEA has investigated 250 incidents involving the loss or theft of nuclear or radioactive material. Much of it is never recovered, he said.

Senior U.S. intelligence officers, asked to weigh the risks that will dominate the next 15 years, noted that the spread of nuclear material and weapons technology is accelerating. They said a number of weak regimes, like North Korea, might acquire and then lose control of nuclear weapons. They listed new ways that might tempt actual use of nuclear weapons, for example in low-yield blasts or high-altitude detonations to cripple enemy communications.

Given these trends, they said in the recent report, the risk of nuclear war in the near future, “although remaining low, is likely to be greater than it is today.”

Joint Chiefs Chairman, President-Elect Meet

Joint Chiefs Chairman ‘Very Positive’ After Meeting With Obama (Washington Post)…Karen DeYoung, Nov 30, 2008.

…There was little talk of exiting Iraq or beefing up the U.S. force in Afghanistan; the one-on-one, 45-minute conversation ranged from the personal to the philosophical. Mullen came away with what he wanted: a view of the next president as a non-ideological pragmatist who was willing to both listen and lead.

…. Obama has been careful to separate his criticism of Bush policy from his praise of the military’s valor and performance,.

Obama’s expected retention of Robert M. Gates as defense secretary and expected appointment of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state and retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones as national security adviser have been greeted with relief at the Pentagon.

In an October survey by the Military Times, nearly 70 percent of more than 4,000 officers and enlisted respondents said they favored McCain, while about 23 percent preferred Obama. Only African American service members gave Obama a majority.

Even as the Iraq war continues, Defense officials are far more worried about Afghanistan, where they see policy drift and an unfocused mission.

One of the biggest long-term military issues on Obama’s plate will be the defense budget, currently topping 4.3 percent of gross domestic product once war expenditures are included. Obama has said he will increase the size of the Army and the Marine Corps, finding savings in the Iraq drawdown and in new scrutiny of spending, including on contractors, weapons programs and missile defense.

Financial Crisis: Analysis and Projections

POST: Revealing charts on losses in the financial crisis, Thomas P.M. Barnett on November 28, 2008.

Post provides a synopsis and links to four articles in Economist magazine.

FINANCE AND ECONOMICS: “Global finance: Lifelines; A special section on the crisis looks at prospects for the global economy, individual countries and markets. It begins with the tricky job of saving the financial system,” The Economist, 11 October 2008.

FINANCE AND ECONOMICS: “Fiscal implications: Deep pockets; State backstops work best if banks are small and borrow at home,” The Economist, 11 October 2008.

FINANCE AND ECONOMICS: “The world economy: Bad, or worse; At best, the world economy is on the brink of recession,” The Economist, 11 October 2008.

SPECIAL REPORT: “When fortune frowned: A special report on the world economy,” by Zanny Minton, The Economist, 11 October 2008.

Iran: Strategic Doctrine

Deter Iran,  (Washington Times)…Louis Rene Beres, Thomas McInerney and Paul E. Vallely

…In the final analysis, President-elect Barack Obama must quickly fashion a broad, coherent and updated strategic doctrine from which effective and credible policy options can be suitably drawn and implemented. Among other refinements, it will be necessary to fully modernize our nuclear arsenal, and to reinvigorate all of our nuclear capabilities.

…  If, for any reason, Iran is permitted to “go nuclear,” our re-fashioned doctrine will have to identify viable options for coexistence with that country. In turn, these options will require enemy perceptions of persuasive American power and of an American willingness to actually use this power.

How should we deter a nuclear Iran, both from launching direct missile attacks, and from dispersing nuclear assets among terrorist proxies? Should our new president do more to aid and empower the Iranian opposition? And for “Deterrence Against Nuclear Terrorism,” how should he compensate for the absence of “fingerprints,” and for the limits of satellites and radars? This is significant because Ahmadinejad says that soon there will be a world without the United States and Israel. Coupled with his regular pronouncements to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, this sends nuclear alarm signals that cannot be ignored.

A nuclear threat to American cities could come from cars, trucks and ships. Ballistic missile defense would be of no use against such ground-based attacks. Could we truly convince Tehran and its surrogates that any proxy act of nuclear terrorism would elicit a massive nuclear retaliation against Iran itself? We must, but meaningful policies can emerge only from a carefully re-conceptualized U.S. strategic doctrine.

Louis Rene Beres is an author and political professor at Purdue University. Gen. Thomas Mcinerney is retired vice chief of staff of the Air Force and co-author with retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely of “The Endgame: Winning the War on Terror.”

Natl Security Strategy: Realism vs. Idealism

Obama’s Bush Doctrine, (Washington Post)…E. J. Dionne Jr.

In electing Barack Obama, the country traded the foreign policy of the second President Bush for the foreign policy of the first President Bush.

What’s most striking about Obama’s approach to foreign policy is that he is less an idealist than a realist who would advance American interests by diplomacy, by working to improve the country’s image abroad, and by using military force prudently and cautiously.

This sounds a lot like the foreign policy of George H.W. Bush, and it makes perfect sense that Obama has had conversations with the senior Bush’s closest foreign policy adviser, Brent Scowcroft. Obama has drawn counsel from many in Scowcroft’s circle, and Gates himself was deputy national security adviser under Scowcroft.

Obama did indeed denounce the impending war as “dumb,” “rash” and “based not on reason but on passion.” But in retrospect, the speech may be most notable for other things Obama said that separated him from some in his antiwar audience.

Not once but five times did Obama declare, “I don’t oppose all wars.” The first several paragraphs of the speech were devoted to the wars that Obama thought were justified: the Civil War, World War II — in which, he said, “that arsenal of democracy . . . triumphed over evil” — and the battle against terrorism after the attacks of Sept. 11. “I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again,” he said.

In fact, Obama sounded a great deal like — Brent Scowcroft. In a widely noted 2002 op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, published six weeks before Obama gave his speech, Scowcroft warned that an invasion of Iraq “very likely would have to be followed by a large-scale, long-term military occupation.” Going to Iraq, Scowcroft said, would “divert us for some indefinite period from our war on terrorism,” and it could “destabilize Arab regimes in the region,” “stifle any cooperation on terrorism” and “even swell the ranks of the terrorists.” Clinton, who once said that “we have to be both internationalists and realists,” is a natural fit with the new Obama-Scowcroft-Gates establishment. In explaining the appeal of Clinton, a senior Obama adviser recently spoke several times of the president-elect’s respect for her “toughness” and described the practical reasons for choosing a figure who would have instant credibility around the world.