nerdgirl

What percentage of US crude oil imports do you think come from Iran? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Concur on the tread carefully ... not sure I concur on which scenario of the two is 'better' ... because the former is likely to lead to the latter or to full out war with Israel. Use of US ordnance of any kind against Iran would be an act of war. Iran almost certainly would retaliate againt Israel with conventional munitions (missiles) and possibly unconventional munitions (mostly chemical agents, imo). Israel will not be contained by US pressure in such a scenario. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

[Akarunway] cited an ABC News story from last week. ABC News also provided the DD1415s, aka updated ‘R-forms’, submitted to Congress, i.e., the primary data. My analysis has not changed over the last 7 days: Could the MOP program be resurrected/revitalized/increased as a means to challenge Iran? Sure. But I think the vector is in the wrong direction. Imo, it's more likely that Iran's nuclear program is being used post-hoc as justification to increase budgets for a program that has had major contracting, technical, and political problems. (That doesn't mean I do or don't think MOP is a useful capability; I'm just acknowledging & recognizing the problems.) R&D programs fall under acquisitions in the DoD. When an agency, like Air Force Research Laboratory in the case of the MOP, wants to move more than $10M in an RDT&E (research, development, testing, & engineering) program, which the MOP is, the DoD must ask permission from Congress. If you look at the linked reprogramming docs from the ABC News story, $430,975,000 was already in the budget, i.e., approved for 2009 in PL 110-417, The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009 in October 2008. The reprogramming is $68,410,000 (16%), which is very close to what DTRA axed out of their budget plus some to make-up for extra cost for Boeing's cost-overruns. This line from the Fox News story is innacurate: "The Pentagon repeatedly noted the 'urgent' need for the bomb in its 2009 omnibus request sent to four relevant congressional committees in July." The reprogramming docs are not the Omnibus bill. The 2009 Omnibus bill didn't include DoD, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, and some of the intelligence community budgets anyway. DoD budget was done in October. The Omnibus bill was sent out of Congress in February 2009. Does that all make sense, regardless of whether you believe it? I don't know how familiar (or not) you are with DoD acquisitions process or the federal budget process. The minutia of acquisitions and budgetary process is probably less sexy, tho. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

What has been most unexpected is the level of frustration and institutional impediments that the APD officers face. I'm not sure how much it is a function of local politics (outgoing mayor and chief are seen as less than supportive of the patrol-level APD to put it diplomatically), current economics/recession, and issues with county court system or shared across local PDs. The brutal honesty by some of the officers, expecially the guys from narcotics, regarding competance (or lack thereof) of other APD officers was also unexpected. I'm doing a lot of mental comparisons with federal LEO and other groups with whom I interact. The officer in charge of the CPA dubbed me "the one & only" about week 4 because I ask tough questions, questions that can't be answered, or things that are 'above his (or whomever we are meeting) pay grade.' One week, he & I spent about an hour after class going through DOJ data and APD data on crime incidents comparatively w/r/t fidelity and definitions as far as ability to extrapolate meaningful trends. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Hater Or biographical? Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Friday night and early Saturday morning, I did my first ride along. Rode along with an officer from Zone 6, the east side of Atlanta, on the ‘morning watch,’ i.e., 11PM to 6:30AM. Frankly, it was pretty cool. There were times of boredom, while the officer was filling out reports or waiting for GA Power. There were times I felt like I was in an episode of Cops. And cruising along at 80mph, weaving around traffic, with the lights and sirens going was just cool. The APD officer with whom I rode was what I would suggest as the epitome of a good cop. If I had to call the APD at 3AM, he’s the officer who I would want responding. He has 3 years on the APD and 12 years prior on the police force of a midsize midwestern city. At one point, I asked if he did all the civilian ride alongs because I speculated the Sgt intentionally chose the officer who would be seen as the best representative of the APD. Not so according to him. In seven & half hours, I saw a lot. I had to wear a bullet proof vest, altho’ there was no time during the ride along that anyone pulled a gun. It said “Atlanta Police” so folks assumed I was APD. I got offered free food/drink (soda/coffee) three times. (And for the cynics out there – no donuts were offered or consumed.) We responded to ten calls over the night. In between generally patrolled the north area of Zone 6. The officer indicated that it was a slow night: one noise complaint, one stolen vehicle with gun inside, one hit-n-run that included knocking over a city light pole, suspected burglary (more on this one later), report of shots fired, unruly customers at a Chinese restaurant, prostitutes at the Quik Mart, officer assist on trespassing at the Peek-A-Boo (& that’s not a children’s book store) that turned into indecent exposure, and 2 remote burglar alarms calls. No reports of ‘felony Hibachery’ tho’. The evening started pretty slow. About 2:30AM, a call of officer needing assistance was received. Upon arriving at the parking garage of an apt/condo complex, what I saw looked like guy in black t-shirt slamming a guy in white button-down shirt into the side of a white car; I couldn’t see what was going on behind the car. Turns out the guy in the black t-shirt is off-duty APD. The guy in the white shirt is drunk and was rummaging through his friend’s car looking for a cd. To the off-duty APD officer, it looked like a break-in. Things apparently escalated. When the off-duty officer identified himself, the drunk guy was uncooperative/uncompliant. This seems to be about when we showed up. There was another patrol car and officer already there too. Drunk guy, in handcuffs, gets put in the back of ‘our’ car. Initially he’s compliant. ‘My’ cop is talking with him trying to get the guy to calm down. The guy’s drunk-dumb and not happy. Off-duty APD officer starts getting back into it with him. Other two uniformed officers intercede. Ego over-riding sense was my intepretation. We end up taking the drunk guy down to city jail. We had been talking about over-zealousness and aggression, especially among younger/newer officers, earlier in the night. The officer who I was with brought it up w/r/t the incident with the off-duty officer. There also was a fair bit that we didn’t see. What I did observe and the discussions/comments of the officer with whom I rode do stand out for me. Next ride along will be morning watch in Zone 5, i.e., downtown ATL. It definitely was a neat experience, as I subjectively define ‘neat.’ Highly recommend anyone pursue it within their own community. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

I don't know ... there's some pretty "magical super badass military medicine" and biomedical research being worked on through DARPA. Yea I really like the first line under the title Very good point,

fingers faster than brain there. Fixed that. Hope it's useful.

I don't have any specific ideas. Reading your post did remind me, however, of a This American Life episode, "Going Big," on the Harlem Children's Zone. The successful program targets the parents just as much as the kids, although at an earlier point than it sounds like your friend's case. The book Whatever It Takes discusses the program. It may provide some usual ideas for your friend. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Interesting, as I get to subjectively define interesting, article from July 2009 on the affect of being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize from Foreign Policy magazine: “Dangerous Prize Nobel victories have a poor track record of producing change. Here’s why.” The conclusions the author presents are not encouraging: “In fact, when one digs a little more deeply into the evidence, one discovers that often, as skeptics would expect, the prize has little impact on the awardees and their causes. Occasionally, but more rarely than its advocates hope, it draws attention to ignored problems. But more troublingly, the peace prize has often brought the heavy hand of the state down on dissidents and has impeded, rather than promoted, conflict-free liberalization. “If the Nobel Peace Prize were merely ineffective at drawing attention to the recipients' causes, we might dismiss it as a harmless daydream. But the award can have very real negative effects on the movements and causes it seeks to honor. “Winners have become the victims of campaigns of character assassination, as Sakharov and his wife Yelena Bonner learned. They have become targets of government harassment and repression: Once Aung San Suu Kyi won the peace prize, boosting "her name and her aura" as one Western diplomat put it, the Burmese junta could no longer ignore her. And their supporters, lacking the prestige that the prizewinners enjoy, have suffered even more.” The author asserts there have been 27 “aspirational prizes awarded since 1971,” … but doesn’t list the entire 27 he identifies specifically. Notably one that he does mention implicitly, Bishop Desmond Tutu, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 “as a unifying leader figure in the campaign to resolve the problem of apartheid in South Africa;” apartheid did not end officially until 1993 and open elections held in 1994. /Marg … p.s. credit due to another dz.commer whose comments got me thinking about what history says about affect/impact of receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.

Your comments spur some questions in my mind ... Was the Manhattan Project solely then-COL/soon-to-be-BG Leslie Groves or Prof Oppenheimer's success? Was the Marshall plan successful solely because of GEN Marshall? Who was the individual responsible for the internet? (We all know Al Gore is not the answer. ) Steve Lukasik? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

It's not unprecedented. E.g., Willy Brandt in 1971 for "Initiator of West Germany's "Ostpolitik", embodying a new attitude towards Eastern Europe and East Germany." /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

I don't know ... there's some pretty "magical super badass military medicine" and biomedical research being worked on through DARPA. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

True. Guys like Kissinger will be at the head of the line. Yeah. Good luck ever getting a Peace Prize, Henry!!! Imagine that ever happening? (I'm pretty confident you were being facetious tho'.) Or is it just illustration of how far afield US domestic politics are? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

I was surprised. I thought it was a joke when I heard the NPT announcement early this morning ... the next thought that went through my head was "the Norwegians have jumped the shark." Poor strategic choice, imo. Further contributes to the perception -- whether real or largely a creation of those who want to knock him -- of a metaphoric pedestal from which he can fall ... or be pushed. Domestically, I suspect the impact will be marginal or slightly negative. It will provide further fodder for criticism by some. Internationally, it's less clear, imo. It's not unprecedented for the Nobel Peace Prize to be given to those who are pursuing its goals and who are in the position to do so. W/r/t the choice of Pres Obama, 'road to zero' (pushed forward by Kissinger, Schultz, Nunn, & Perry) is the one I suspect was recognized. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Yes. And the regular flu vaccine too. Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Would you point the part of the NPT indicating this? Thanks. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

I don’t know whether or not the US is planning to bomb Iran. This story, imo, does not indicate one way or the other. Looking at the DD1415s, aka updated ‘R-forms’, submitted to Congress is interesting to me. Owned very much as my subjective definition of "interesting." We all can do a whole lot of speculating, with a wide range of knowledge underlying those speculations. The Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) program is a joint R&D program between the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). It arose out of perceived urgent needs against hardened and deeply buried targets in Iraq (not Iran) and Afghanistan. Before the MOP, there was the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP). There were technical and political problems with the RNEP. It got zero'd out in the 2006 budget reconciliation process. A more 'politically-palatable' alternative was the MOP, which is non-nuclear. In 2006, there were still a lot of old Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA) guys at DTRA. A strategic decision to bomb Iran is *way* above the pay grades of the directors of either DTRA or AFRL. Things known from 2008: when Boeing prepared and submitted its budget request for the R&D contract on the MOP in 2006, the cost of testing was severely underestimated by Boeing. AFRL needs more money in its budget because the DTRA budget isn’t covering it. Research to enable modification of the B-2s began in 2007. AFAIK, they haven’t been successful, hence need more money. Don’t know when the reprogramming doc was submitted to Congress exactly. Requests were due internally to the DoD 15 May 2009. DTRA oversees the MOP testing program (it’s their tunnel in which the tests are done in New Mexico not the USAFs) … so much speculation possible here that I’m just not even going to touch. Things I don’t understand w/r/t reprogramming docs: Budget Activity 1 is basic research. Congress usually won’t move BA1 to BA7. Not to say that they never have (I don’t know) or that they wouldn’t … just wouldn’t be something on which I would be wager monetarily, programmatically, or politically. IIrc, there are something like 5000 outstanding UONs. There is (or was) a UON for stand-off biological detection. To meet the request, new physics need to be developed/understood to achieve the sensitivity and distance (“requirements”) desired. The operators ask for something, that doesn’t mean acquisition (read: US industrial base) can deliver. Folks are trying. There’s an urgent need for better detection of IEDs. Has been one for some time. Imo, the solution is not going to be a materials (stuff) one but more likely non-material, e.g., look at what the Indian Army has done in Kashmir. Could the MOP program be resurrected/revitalized/increased as a means to challenge Iran? Sure. But I think the vector is in the wrong direction. Imo, it's more likely that Iran's nuclear program is being used post-hoc as justification to increase budgets for a program that has had contracting, technical, and political problems. (That doesn't mean I do or don't think MOP is a useful capability; I'm just recognizing the problems.) /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Yes, he's Special Forces. More specifically Army Ranger. (Others can debate/disagree with me whether or not or too what extent that qualifies as SF.) One of the best, imo, ....oh, what's the word I'm looking for (brain-farting at the moment ) ... narrative biographical sketches by another SF officer: The Pope. I wouldn’t necessarily call him a COIN guru. He’s a definite convert and viewed widely as an operator who can execute and implement COIN-based strategic objectives. Dave Kilcullen is a COIN guru. Thanks Marg. I remember the pope article now. Weren't you pleased with his promotion to his current position due to his knowledge in COIN theory? Yes, I am/was pleased with the choice … as if my opinion on it, matters Imo, it signaled endorsement/support of a counterinsurgency-based strategy and a strategic decision to put someone in command who comes from the irregular warfare and COIN-friendly side, i.e., special operations, rather than someone who —perhaps rightly, or perhaps wrongly— represented (or was perceived as representing) the conventional military approach and resistant/hesitant to adopt COIN-based operational practices, e.g., GEN McKiernan, who is cavalry/heavy armor. McChrystal gets it (‘it’ being COIN) … even if he isn’t a guru. The best reference of which I am aware, at this point, and one that is highly readable is the leaked COMISAF initial assessment. It’s a scanned pdf, therefore difficult for me to copy-n-paste. That document doesn’t specify wanting more troops; that came from a speech GEN McChrystal gave last week at IISS in London. As I've cited, others have indicated as much, e.g., the USMC Commandant's call for 11,000 troops in my OP. GEN McChrystal was asked by the SecDef last spring to make recommendations. He did. In the initial assessment, he writes about needing “resources.” The specific decisions are ‘above [even] his pay grade.’ From a COIN-perspective, one in his position wants more troops because more troops are necessary to do population-centric COIN operations. Effectively resourced counterinsurgencies have a very good track record historically. FM 3-24 recommends a 10:1000 ratio of counterinsurgents to population in insurgent areas (not the entire population). Some, e.g., MG Bob Livingston, USCENTCOM, have recommended a 20:1000 ratio. To reach those numbers would require more troops than even GEN McChrystal mentioned in his IISS speech. Agree. And your synopsis reflects, imo, McChrystal’s initial assessment. The speculation regarding possible need for additional ‘doorkickers’ is my mine. (Btw: most of the folks with whom I have been speaking employ a more ‘colorful metaphor.’) It’s based on my looking at what are probably more operational-level factors, and it’s more complicated and speculative than I’m inclined to go into at the moment. I.e., still working out my thoughts. That ‘said,’ the numbers of folks needed to do effective population-based counterinsurgency and reconstruction is larger, imo. To further on your synopsis: from a counterinsurgency perspective, more troops are needed for securing and stabilizing. More civil affairs. More police trainers. Yesterday I spoke with one of the prior commanders of Task Force Phoenix. During his time in Afghanistan, the Afghan National Police Force (ANPF) went from losing 300 officers a month to losing ~20 month. The ANPF is still largely perceived as corrupt and inefficient. The Afghan National Army (ANA) is perceived as non-corrupt (by Afghan standards, which are very different than the average westerner … even one in DC.) The biggest challenge he cited was getting the Afghans to recognize the importance of protecting the population. Need more – a lot more – civilians for reconstruction and development. I’ve been writing for at least 18 months here on the decline of US institutions, e.g., USAID, whose mission that was and it *should* be. The DoD and military has been the ‘stuckee,’ imo, because of budget factors (budget = resources = capacity). One of the benefits of the use/reliance on soldiers from the National Guard and Reserves by the Army, imo, has been some very effective & innovative programs from the ground-up by soldiers, e.g., a group of Nebraska National Guard soldiers who built an agricultural experimental station in an insurgent area (not Helmand) and engaged the population. Eventually the local population in at least one situation saw more value in the Nebraska National Guardsmen than in fear of insurgent violence ... and reportedly, drove the insurgents out. The critical element is the population ... or what I more often call "tacit supporters." And increased efforts to legitimize the Afghanistan government and build institutions. It’s my understanding that this has already happened since 2004. So your concern is justified and accurate. “Death spiral” is a description I’ve heard. We, the US & NATO, missed the opportunity to do traditional counterinsurgency by pursuing a counterterrorism approach. As US troops secure one area and remove insurgents (or the insurgents move on, disperse, or blend into the countryside), the insurgents return and kill Afghans who cooperate when the US troops move on. Less and less people are willing cooperate because they’ve already observed what happens when the US troops move. There haven’t been enough US troops to stay and secure-stabilize areas. This is a significant part of the impetus for a 20:1000 ratio. This was also why I found the reported low-level of carry-through on threats of voter intimidation in the August Afghan elections to be “more interesting” and perhaps important. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Who is SOF following today? Over the last 3 years? Unfortunately, not really anybody. Bummer. Still think it would be interesting to see how well SOF has identified emerging threat groups, i.e., a post-hoc analysis. Would have been cooler if they were really accurate and were still doing it. (Lots of 'ifs.') If they aren't doing it, who is? A blogger? Lots of folks make predictions; very few go back and analyze accuracy rates. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

I have a lab coat. (And no, you cannot have or borrow it.) Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Who is SOF following today? Over the last 3 years? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Aah, yes ... the British sense of humor. Also somewhat foreign to many Americans. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

While it isn't exactly a measure of how much a country is or isn't hated, "America Is Now the Most Admired Country Globally." Up from #7 in 2008. And the importance isn't popularity per se, but that it makes executing and implementing US foreign policy less difficult. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

When someone highlights something I don't know/a thoughtful perspective that I was missing, that's the most interesting to me (very much owned as my subjective interpretation of interesting). It's the 'what am I missing'/not seeing that I want (and the 'how' & why,' but those are often better dealt with over beer than html markup text). Those are the things needed to solve the really challenging problems, e.g., those are 'unknown unknowns.' Both the British in Malaya and the US in OEF-Philippines have essentially dealt with the domestic audience by being quiet about it. That approach won't work with Afghanistan. You bring an international perspective that I appreciate. [DanG] brings operational perspectives that I appreciate and frankly, don't have. Marc brings another perspective that I value. All teach me. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying