Whistle Blows Snowden into Injury Time?

I like whistleblowers. I dodged a military career because I had read enough to know that generals do not like to hear you say, "Sir, that is the dumbest idea I've ever heard." No one told me that ambassadors don't like it either.

But governments need to be reminded every once in a while by whistleblowers that all of their employees are also taxpayers and voters and citizens - and at least some of them will live up to those obligations by calling out the government when it forgets who it is supposed to serve. Some of these people are just cranks but some are genuine whistleblowers and their efforts force a change in how we do things and how our government does things.

Snowden seems to be moving beyond that role and appears increasingly to be simply the guy who didn't get it and didn't fit in. It may be that he will yet turn out to be the Daniel Ellsberg of government eavesdropping - but the jury is still out on that.

Do I think that what he has done will help or hurt the US? Yes - on both. Do I think he should be punished under the law? Yes. One of the things about being a whistleblower versus a mere crank, is that the whistleblower stands up and takes the chance that his eventual punishment under the law will be mitigated by a general conclusion that he or she has actually done both government and citizenry a public service. I realized a long time ago that one person can accomplish anything - as long as they are also willing to pay the price.

This post appeared earlier today on The Military Philosopher on Face Book, inspired by this article from Foreign Policy: 

Whistleblowers: Thanks for Nothing, Snowden

blog.foreignpolicy.com

When Edward Snowden first started revealing secrets about the National Security Agency's massive surveillance operations, the small community of U.S. government whistleblowers and their advocates publicly leapt to Snowden's

The Game is Afoot: Advice from The Sage of Baker Street for Intelligence Analysts and Television Pundits

While the world has been preoccupied with underwear bombers and other modern horrors, I went to see the latest incarnation of Sherlock Holmes in the new movie starring Robert Downey, Jr. This is not the first time that the great detective has been reshaped for a new generation, though rarely as dramatically as in this version (anyone remember The 7 Percent Solution). I was nevertheless gratified to recognize elements of the canon in the new film, including the “patriotic V.R.” bullet-hole monogram in his Baker Street flat. While much attention has been given to this new athletic ‘action-man’ portrayal, I also enjoyed the reference to the detective’s intellectual side as he called for “data” that would enable him to attack the ongoing mystery.

Reading the adventures of Sherlock Holmes was my earliest introduction to the disciplined use of reason and logic. These lessons, in addition to other more formal instruction, later proved valuable during a career that included several tours of duty as an analyst either in Washington or overseas, whether the problem was diagnosing local politics or analyzing the international gray/black market trade in missile technology and other sensitive advanced technologies and hardware. For example, it was Holmes who first introduced me to Occam’s razor, though he didn’t so identify it at the time: “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” Holmes was so fond of this bit of advice that he actually stated it twice in the same adventure, The Sign of the Four, “Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.”

In A Study in Scarlet, Holmes responds to Watson’s observation, as their cab carries them to the scene of a possible investigation, that Holmes didn’t seem “to give much thought to the matter in hand.” The world’s first consulting detective replied, “No data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.” Watching the recurring appearances by expert talking heads on the television news and commentary programs revealed that far too many of these individuals had forgotten that bit of advice. Speculation runs rampant and the sound bite rules as they ignored Holmes’s further cautionary advice that “It is an error to argue in front of your data. You find yourself insensibly twisting them round to fit your theories.”

As a public service, therefore, I offer some additional bits of Sherlockian wisdom from my own small collection in the hopes that analysts, pundits, experts, and the general reader will benefit.

“…I make a point of never having any prejudices and of following docilely wherever fact may lead me…” The Reigate Squires. [Don’t prejudge where the information will lead you before you have accumulated the information necessary to support a conclusion.]


“One should always look for a possible alternative and provide against it. It is the first rule of criminal investigation.” The Adventure of the Black Peter. [In other words, always look for possible alternative explanations of the available data.]

“When you follow two separate trains of thought, you will find some point of intersection which should approximate the truth.” The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax. [Evidence is always subject to multiple interpretations or explanations, but as you accumulate additional evidence the correct interpretation emerges.]

“Who is it that profits by it?” The Naval Treaty. [A rephrasing of the classical cui bono? Answer the question of who benefits or profits most directly from an action, event, or outcome and you always have the starting point for your analysis or investigation, and sometimes, it will also give you the end point.]

And the most famous of all, “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?” “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” “The dog did nothing in the night-time.” “That was the curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes. The Silver Blaze. [A reminder never to examine an event or incident in isolation, but to remember that it is but one moment on a time line that strings together a series of events or incidents and to look for how they are connected or fail to be connected. In this instance, it was presumed that a stranger had entered the farm – but if it had been a stranger, why didn’t the dog bark at him? And if the dog didn’t bark at this “intruder” could the “intruder” in fact not have been a stranger to the dog and thus it didn’t bark at him.]

Of course, neither Sherlock Holmes nor Dr. Watson would concede that simply reading the great detective’s adventures would enable anyone to fully absorb his methods and achieve anything like his degree of success. Nevertheless, anyone interested in learning how to be an intelligence analyst (or perhaps even to play at one on television) or anyone wanting to brush some rust of their analytical skills now has some basic concepts with which to start. But both critics and advocates of Holmes’ methods must remember that not even Sherlock Holmes cracked every case nor captured every miscreant or criminal.

Mumbai Mayhem – in the streets and among the pundits

I’ve already seen a fair amount of speculation bouncing around the internet and over the airwaves about the perpetrators of the latest terror attack in Mumbai (aka Bombay), India. Sherlock Holmes at this point would probably be muttering something about the futility of speculation in the absence of sufficient information – and I would suggest that the majority of these pundits still have insufficient information about a group or organization whose latest (if not first) terrorist operation is still ongoing. Certainly my own stints as an analyst taught me this same kind of caution – which as I expect all analysts know is one of the things that drives your policy-maker/decision-maker customers right up the wall.

All of that said, I personally would dare already to disagree about the sophistication, etc. of this attack, based upon what information we already have available.

In the first instance, the principal weapons used by the terrorists appear to be automatic weapons including AK-47s or at least some variation of the Kalashnikov automatic rifle family. This class of firearm is the entry level weapon for both domestic and international terrorists and can be found just about anywhere around the world. Even my daughter has fired one!

The timing of the operation – apparently dusk or early nightfall – offered the attackers both a somewhat covered approach to their objective(s), especially if they did in fact arrive by boat. It also, in Mumbai, offered them a ‘target-rich’ environment. In such a situation, the presence of a large number of civilians offers numerous advantages to the terrorists:

1) multiple targets – the care of the wounded and the identification of the dead impose a major burden on the responding security forces;

2) potential hostages – the assembled civilians in the targeted streets, hotels, restaurants, etc., included a significant number of foreigners (especially UK, U.S., and even Israeli citizens who we understand already were clearly of greatest interest), but also the significant presence of wealthy and/or prominent Indian citizens;

3) cover and concealment – the presence of a large number of civilians offered the terrorists both a crowd within which to lose themselves and a shield that would impose constraints upon the responding security forces.

The multiple targets raise two somewhat contrary thoughts. The targeting of more than one location resulted in dispersal of the terrorists’ numbers vice concentrating their entire force upon a specific target or targets in close proximity from which the terrorists would be able to support each other against responding security forces. On the other hand, the dispersal of targets and the terrorists spread wider panic and forced the security forces to also spread their responding strength. To my mind, along with the absence of masks or any other concealment of the attackers’ identities, this dispersal also supports that as some pundits have already suggested – this group was fully prepared to die in the execution of this attack having maximized the confusion, panic, and physical damage they could create.

The different attacks were not literally simultaneous, according to the timelines so far appearing from Indian and other media sources, although the coordination is evident. The weapons are pretty much the entry level terrorist arsenal of automatic weapons and grenades, and while I would defer to the Indian soldiers who have discussed this, learning the proper use of these weapons is not that difficult for even the average person (or else armies around the world would look very different than they do.). Even the rubber boats (if in fact part of the operation) are available for recreational use in many places around the world.

The one real surprise is that the terrorists were able to plan this attack and raise and equip the force that carried it out without anyone apparently recognizing that this was coming. The Indian security forces were clearly not prepared to prevent this specific attack or anything like it. That part of the terrorists’ operation was reasonably sophisticated – the rest of their operation reflects tactics that can be learned from any of a number of books readily available in public libraries, online, or even in book stores (I have a number of them on my own shelves). They can also be learned from a number of computer/video combat or shooting games – or even via practice with paintball or similar amusements. There are also a number of online sources for overhead imagery that may have facilitated the planning of the attack – assuming that the terrorists didn’t use the old-fashioned technique of actually walking over the ground and checking out the local streets and alley ways. None of the photos of the terrorists so far shown by the media suggest that any of these individuals would have stood out from the crowd if they had been scouting out the area before the attack.

Pending the receipt of that further information I mentioned above, my money right now is on a the attack being the work of indigenous South Asians (Pakistani and/or Indian Muslims) who have been in contact with Al Qaeda. That contact may have taken any of several forms, but it is entirely possible that no more than one or two members of the responsible group, if that many, has had any direct, personal contact with Al Qaeda or its agents.

Not Quite “The Thunderer” – But Still a Timely Noise

When I first began seriously reading about military topics, beyond the usual war stories, battle histories, and biographies of the great commanders, I realized that a number of the authors I was reading either were or had been military correspondents for The New York Times. These included names like Drew Middleton, Hanson Baldwin, Leslie Gelb, and later David Halberstam. Their books, while not reflecting a unified theory of war and warfare or even a single arc of the political spectrum, helped me to think about warfare as a more complex phenomenon and to examine the disparate elements of how we go to war and how we make war.

Nevertheless, like many Americans, I have not in recent years looked to The New York Times for advice or useful insights on military matters, preferring the ‘professional’ presses which actually cater to the career military and civilian military intellectuals (many of which you will find referenced elsewhere alongside by blog). So it was with both surprise and great interest that I read the lead editorial in The New York Times Sunday edition of November 16 – “A Military for a Dangerous World.”

The timing of the editorial is clearly inspired by the global urge to give the President-elect the best advice we can offer (and I’m guilty too, having previously offered my two cents). The editorial hits every one of the points that would be evident to and understood by anyone who has been closely following our ongoing wars since 2001 and the toll that these have taken on our military.

The Times endorsed the increase in our ground forces by the 65,000 Army and 27,000 Marine troops now being raised. This will allow the U.S. greater opportunity to rebuild and to retrain units (both in the regular Army and Marines as well as the National Guard and Marine and Army Reserves) overstretched by repeated deployments in theatre.

The Army and Marines in particular, but the other services as well, need to institute training programs that will maintain U.S. dominance in conventional warfare but will also preserve the hard-earned lessons of irregular and counterinsurgency warfare. The irony to me of the recent emphasis on “asymmetric warfare” has been that virtually all warfare is “asymmetric” in that one always tries to pit one’s strength against the enemy’s weakness. The reality is that given U.S. dominance in conventional warfare our potential foes will continue to look for ways to exploit the weaknesses that they can identify (both in our forces and in the political will that commits those forces to combat). We need to prepare our forces accordingly so that they can respond flexibly and effectively. This includes increasing the Navy’s ability to fight in coastal waters as well as in the deep blue sea so beloved of the carrier and submarine admirals.

Mobility has been a critically important principle of war since the days when everybody walked (or rode an animal that usually walked) to the battlefield. Modern warfare (roughly since the 16th Century) has repeatedly demonstrated the importance of “getting there firstest with the mostest” (Bedford-Forrest) and that “Speed is essential. Haste harmful.” (Alexander Vassilyevich Suvorov). However, in today’s world, mobility means airlift (and logistics means sealift). Today, all of our ‘lift’ capability is in need of attention as much of the existing equipment (aircraft and shipping) is worn and possibly inadequate to the challenges of fighting not one but two conflicts on the opposite side of the world. It would probably astonish the average American to learn just how much use has been made by U.S. and Allied forces of the Soviet-designed Antonov 124 cargo jets flying under charter.

As the editorial points out, carrying out these necessary measures will not be cheap but part of the cost can be made up by spending wisely on capabilities that are really relevant to the conflicts we anticipate. For The New York Times, this raises questions about the F-22 and the national missile defense system. I am not convinced about the unnecessary nature of the F-22. Air superiority over Iraq and Afghanistan has not been in question and the observation, reconnaissance, and close support missions there can be better flown by other aircraft. This does not mean that we won’t need to fight for air superiority in some future clash with a different adversary. Continuing research on missile defense is clearly warranted, though the rush to deploy a complete system now can certainly be questioned.

The hope that money can be saved through reform of the DoD procurement system is a longstanding one, though I am skeptical that any of the previous reform efforts resulted in measurable financial savings. What any new reform effort has to achieve is to make the process more transparent while not burdening it with requirements that draw time and money away from the process itself while failing to create that transparency.

The Obama administration and the American public will be faced with many hard decisions to be made on these kinds of military issues. Whatever is to come, however, can only be improved by contributions such as this editorial from a platform like The New York Times. I look forward to it.

“Surtout, pas trop de zele” – Above all, not too much zeal

Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord (1754-1838) was a man of many accomplishments – among them cleric, diplomat, statesman, aristocrat, revolutionary, and imperialist. He is considered by many the most accomplished European diplomat of his age, with a diplomatic career that began with his mission to London in January 1792 to persuade Great Britain to remain neutral as revolutionary France battled the rest of Europe. His final diplomatic achievement was the 1834 conclusion of a formal alliance among Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, and France. Nevertheless, he is most often remembered today for the many epigrams attributed to him, of which my favorite is “Surtout, pas trop de zele,” often translated as “Above all, not too much zeal." By this phrase, Talleyrand was reportedly reminding his diplomatic subordinates that decisions about war, peace, and the nation’s security must be based upon the exercise of cool-headed reason and not upon emotions or any waxing or waning popular enthusiasm.

Talleyrand’s words came back to me recently as I listened to both presumptive-presidential candidates outlining their views on national security issues and declaring what their future decisions would be with regard to war and peace in different circumstances. Personally, the experience acquired over my diplomatic career leads me to generally disregard such commitments. Statements made in the heat of a political election campaign cannot help but suffer from a surfeit of zeal, intended as they often are to pander to the perceived enthusiasms of all or a part of the electorate.

The United States has had past experiences with the harmful impact of enthusiasms on political-military decision-making. I, for one, want to believe that the next President of the United States will ponder any decisions about peace, war, national security, and the future of the nation with a cool and rational consideration of the merits of the issue at hand – and not by trying to remember what promise he may have made on the campaign trail.