Information Operations

Newsletter

Compiled by: Mr. Jeff Harley

US Army Strategic CommandG3 Plans, Information Operations Branch

Table of Contents

The articles and information appearing herein are intended for educational and non-commercial purposes to promote discussion of research in the public interest. The views, opinions, and/or findings and recommendations contained in this summary are those of the original authors and should not be construed as an official position, policy, or decision of the United States Government, U.S. Department of the Army, or U.S. Army Strategic Command.

Table of Contents

Vol. 7, no. 10 (19 – 28 January 2007)

1. A Counter-Revolution in Military Affairs? Notes on US High-Tech Warfare

2. Light Boosts Destructive Power of Microwave Weapons, Sensors

3. NATO Reveals Dark Arts of Psy-Ops

4. China's Anti-Satellite Weapon Fuels Anxiety

5. Freedom of Information, the Wiki Way

6. Wikis a New OPSEC Threat?

7. Defense Domain, Civilian Awareness

8. Signals Foil IEDs But Also Troop Radios

9. Pentagon to Contractors: Meet DOD Infosec Standards

10. China Confirms Firing Missile to Destroy Satellite

11. China Internet Market Grows To 137 Million Users

12. Google Blots Out Iraq Bases On Internet

13. UNH 'Geeks' Unveil a Cyber Threat Calculator

14. Iraqis Hold Reopening Celebration for School

15. LTG David Petraeus: A Military Leader Bringing “Soft Power” to Iraq

16. Camp Lemonier Soldier Recalls Heart-Warming Experience In Kenya

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A Counter-Revolution in Military Affairs? Notes on US High-Tech Warfare

By Jacob Levich, Aspects of India’s Economy, Issue 42, December 2006[Aspects of India’s Economy] Editor's Introduction

The recent report of the Iraq Study Group appointed by the US Congress, as well as candid remarks by top officials of the US and UK, reveal the depth of the crisis of the US military occupation of Iraq. The crisis has exposed the limitations of the very area which is the US's forte, namely, its military strength.

In December 2002, three months before the United States invaded Iraq, we concluded a brief sketch of the history of modern Iraq thus:

The Iraqi armed forces may not be able to put up extended resistance to the onslaught. But the Iraqi people have not buckled to American dictates for the past more than 11 years of torment. They will not meekly surrender to the imminent American-led military occupation of their country. And that fact itself carries grave consequences for American imperialism's broader designs.1

Those broader designs were not restricted to Iraq. In a separate section we described those designs, why US imperialism was driven to undertake them, and the hurdles in its way:

The exact shape of things is hard to predict. Yet it is clear that it is not the sophisticated military technology of the US, but the response of people worldwide that will play the crucial role in determining that shape.

The following essay shows, with remarkable concreteness, how the people of West Asia have met the world's most sophisticated military technology, and held their own. This analysis is particularly important in times when the ruling media worldwide project that technology, rather than human organisation, determines the course of historical development.

— The Editor.

When Colonel Harry Summers told a North Vietnamese counterpart in 1975 that "[y]ou know you never defeated us on the battlefield," the reply was: "That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.2

News stories surrounding the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq proclaimed the arrival of a long-promised "Revolution in Military Affairs" (RMA), a new system of warfare that was said to combine innovative battlefield tactics with high-tech weaponry, networked communications, and sophisticated surveillance technology. The US military promoted its latest toys as "force multipliers" — factors that promised dramatically to increase US combat effectiveness without requiring additional troops. Advanced weapons systems publicly acknowledged by the Department of Defense included unmanned spy drones, powerful "bunker buster" explosives, and precision-guided munitions; additionally, the US arsenal was rumored to contain fearsome new weapons from the realm of science fiction: battlefield death rays, "E-bombs", even devices that would allow GIs to see through walls.

"Wired" or "postmodern" warfare, it was widely claimed, would transform the 21st-century battlefield and assure American supremacy for generations to come. As one television commentator gushed: "It is hard to imagine a technological change that has had a similar impact on international affairs. The development of the tank? The first flight of a military aircraft? The invention of gunpowder? It is somewhere at that level."3

This degree of enthusiasm for RMA did not long survive the first flush of triumph. After several years of grueling guerrilla warfare in the Middle East, US strategists are now re-learning the fundamental lessons of Vietnam: that guerilla war is a political, not merely a military, struggle; that technology, no matter how sophisticated or lethal, cannot defeat a determined popular resistance; that resistance fighters draw their power from the sympathies and co-operation of the people.4

The following, a re-evaluation of RMA's most highly-touted weapons in light of the realities of combat, reaffirms that it is people, not armaments, that remain decisive.

Precision Munitions

"Afghanistan will be remembered as the smart-bomb war," predicted the New York Times in a front-page article that touted the "swiftness and accuracy of … a new kind of American airpower."5 In fact US "smart bombs" has already been used during the 1991 Gulf War and the 1999 attack on Yugoslavia, and their performance was in some ways unsatisfactory. Not only were laser-guided weapons far less accurate than contemporary propaganda suggested; they proved unusable in bad weather (cloud cover or sandstorms prevent laser guidance systems from "painting" the target.)6

The new JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition), a compact satellite navigation system that converts a free-falling 2,000-lb. bomb into a guided smart weapon, was designed to solve the weather problem. Reports from Afghanistan and Iraq suggest that the JDAM's GPS guidance technology worked well in sandstorms and through cloud cover, resisted jamming, and was in general

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"remarkably good and remarkably consistent," though its accuracy probably falls short of Defense Department claims.7 Relatively quite cheap at a cost of about $20,000 per bomb, the JDAM will likely remain a lethal threat to fixed, observable targets for years to come.

Far more expensive, at $500,000 apiece, is the US Navy's Tomahawk cruise missile, a ship-launched, radar-guided flying bomb that debuted in the 1991 Gulf War and was also used in Iraq and Afghanistan. Because of its high cost and inaccuracy relative to the JDAM, it is somewhat out of fashion as a conventional battlefield weapon, though nuclear cruise missiles remain an important part of the US arsenal.8 The Tomahawk is essentially unchanged since its introduction in the late 1970s, but a new high-tech "tactical Tomahawk" is in development. Promised improvements include networked on-board computers capable of processing targeting data from multiple sources, as well as a TV camera for battlefield observation. Originally scheduled for delivery in 2004, the Tactical Tomahawk has been delayed repeatedly and may not appear in combat anytime soon.

At least one of the Pentagon's "spy drones" is now used extensively for the delivery of precision munitions, and can therefore be discussed in this section. The Predator, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) designed for surveillance and reconnaissance, began carrying laser-guided Hellfire missiles during the US invasion of Afghanistan and continues to fly combat missions in Iraq and elsewhere in Asia. The object of especially breathless praise from Western journalists, the Predator is in practice slow, relatively inaccurate, and virtually unusable in rainy weather.9 A Defense Department study dating from late 2001 found "serious deficiencies in reliability, maintainability and human factors design" and reported that by late 2001, 22 of the 50 Predator aircraft built for the U.S. Air Force [at a cost of $25 million each] had been shot down or crashed.10 The Predator is nevertheless valued in its reconnaissance role and is credited with detecting enemy mortar positions and warning convoys of potential ambushes.11

Overall, the US estimates the accuracy of precision munitions used in Iraq and Afghanistan at about 90 percent.12 However, the 2006 Lancet study of civilian mortality in Iraq attributes 13% of civilian deaths to airstrikes — i.e., out of 601,027 estimated deaths from violent causes, nearly 80,000 Iraqis had been killed by US bombs as of June, 2006.13 Yet military analysts seem satisfied with the performance of high-tech bombs and missiles, despite their evident failure to reduce civilian casualties. This is because the purpose of precision-guided munitions is not to avoid "collateral damage," despite contrary claims by US propagandists. The real importance of the weapons is that they protect planes and pilots from anti-aircraft fire; long-distance precision airstrikes mean fewer sorties and less exposure to enemy guns.14 Measured strictly in terms of lost aircraft per sortie, performance appears to have been superb.15 Thus the fact that precision munitions have, if anything, increased civilian casualties is not of great concern to military planners, except insofar as the US is occasionally embarrassed by newspaper accounts of "unnecessary" killings.

Of far greater concern to imperialist countries is the demonstrated impotence of precision weapons in the face of determined guerilla resistance. During the invasion of Lebanon, Hezbollah fighters were able to counter Israel's US-supplied smart bombs using classic guerilla tactics, digging in (a network of reinforced underground bunkers consistently thwarted precision weapons) or blending into the population as circumstances required. Nor were Israel's high-tech targeting systems effective in locating small, easily portable weapons like Hezbollah's Katyusha rockets.16 Despite its overwhelming success in applying pre-emptive firepower in the context of full-scale invasions, the US and its allies have discovered the futility of "firing precision munitions from attack aircraft against … 'phantoms' or 'ghosts' — shadowy groups blended into existing society without respect to international borders."17

As a result, the air war in Iraq has undergone a distinct shift over time from precision tactical bombing to strategic bombing intended to punish the people for their support of the resistance.18 A similar trajectory was followed, much more rapidly, in Lebanon, where the Israeli Air Force responded to the failure of its initial precision strikes against Hezbollah by widening the air war to civilian targets, including apartment buildings, airports, bridges, highways, and human beings.19 In both cases the aggressors disastrously underestimated the courage of the people, whose support for the resistance and willingness to sacrifice grew stronger than before. As a Beirut mother told an American reporter in July 2006:

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If Israel and America want to do this to us, all we can do is to bear the situation, so if we have to stay underground we will. We don’t mind staying here as long as the boys are O.K. [a reference to Hezbollah’s fighters] and as long as Sheikh Nasrallah is fine. We can bear anything.20

The strength and breadth of popular support for Hezbollah remains an embarrassment to US and Israeli propagandists, who have sought to portray the party and its militia as mere cat's-paws for Syrian interference in Lebanese affairs. Polls taken in the aftermath of Israel's invasion, showing that 87% of Lebanese supported the resistance,21 were dismissed or ignored by Western media, but Hezbollah's surprise victory is in itself sufficient proof of popular support. The tactics that defeated Israel's high-tech munitions — construction of elaborate underground command centers and hardened missile sites throughout the country, lightning transfers of armaments and fighters in the face of Israeli bombardment, even the fighters' ability to melt at will into the civilian population — required the sympathy and coordinated assistance of the people, often over years of painstaking preparation.

Bunker busters

Official sources have been putting out mixed messages about the bunker buster, a bomb designed to penetrate and destroy hardened underground command centers. Although military spokesmen have uniformly praised the performance of bunker busters in the current wars, the Defense Department has never ceased to demand bigger and more potent versions of the weapon, from which it might be surmised that existing models are not as effective as claimed.

The latest generation of conventional bunker busters, thermobaric weapons purportedly able to penetrate reinforced concrete to a depth of 3.4 meters, were extensively used in both Iraq and Afghanistan. (Thermobaric bombs, also known as fuel-air explosives, use atmospheric oxygen to ignite a metallic fuel such as aluminum, creating a more powerful and sustained shock.22) It is not yet clear how effective these weapons were, since hard data remains classified. However, in 2005 a controversy over US plans to fast-track development of a "Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator" required officials to admit that "[p]otential adversaries increasingly are building hardened retreats deep beneath the earth, immune to conventional weapons."23 More recently, a rough evaluation of the bunker buster's performance could be derived from the IDF's 2006 attack on Lebanon. In July, the US rushed 100 bunker busters to Israel as part of an effort to kill Hassan Nasrallah and the rest of Hezbollah's leadership. The assassination targets, concealed to a depth of 40 meters in a network of hardened bunkers, emerged unscathed.24

Intelligence and reconnaissance

The US military's dominance of the traditional battlefield owes much to its sophisticated systems for electronic warfare, especially its capacity for virtually instantaneous collection and coordination of electronic intelligence. In theory, US C4I (Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence) is fully integrated from top to bottom — i.e., the US is already engaged in "network-centric" warfare.25 In space, GPS satellites determine the location, speed, and direction of targets and relay the information to cruise missiles and other precision munitions. High in the sky, the converted Boeing 707 known as JSTARS collects and combines radar, infrared, and video information to create real-time electronic maps for the use of battlefield commanders. Closer to the ground, a dozen varieties of reconnaissance drones, ranging from the airliner-sized Global Hawk to the tiny, hand-launched Raven, use electronic imaging to identify and track targets. Electronic information is instantaneously distributed to command posts, laptops, and Strykers (high-speed armored ground vehicles equipped with 50-cal. heavy machine guns and the latest in battlefield technology) — and may soon be made available to individual soldiers through the "Land Warrior" concept discussed below.

In practice, network-centric warfare is far from seamless. During the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, electronic surveillance succeeded in locating objects of potential military interest, but could not generally distinguish among enemies, friendlies, and civilians.26 The result was considerable "collateral damage" and several well-publicized friendly-fire incidents, including the death of American football star Pat Tillman.27 High-tech equipment was unevenly distributed on the battlefield, prone to breakage due to its delicacy, and highly dependent on the logistical supply

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line.28 Field commanders were often overwhelmed with the sheer amount of information available, while generals discovered that vast knowledge of enemy dispositions does not guarantee correct strategic and tactical decisions.29 Still, despite its flaws, high-tech C4I has worked well enough in support of the motorized maneuvers, massive airstrikes, and setpiece battles in which the US military continues to excel.

In the context of guerilla warfare, however, the latest surveillance gadgets have little availed US forces. Iraq's resistance fighters have learned to maneuver in small, lightly equipped groups that are virtually undetectable by US drones, or at worst indistinguishable from civilian traffic. Small-scale, highly efficient "hit and run" attacks (e.g., IEDs and sniper fire) are calculated to thwart US drones; cellular organization and face-to-face communications are relied upon to outflank signals intelligence.30 Indeed, because the high-tech, high-flying apparatus of US electronic signals intelligence is oriented toward monitoring and destroying the highest levels of a unitary command structure (hence the Defense Department's public obsession with "decapitation strikes"), it is also especially inadequate for the penetration of small, disciplined guerilla cells.31 As a result the US has yet to achieve a useful intelligence picture of the Iraqi resistance, and appears to be doing little better in Afghanistan.32

Thus military analyst Anthony Cordesman, in a bleak and exhaustive assessment of US counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq, finds that network-centric warfare has been trumped by what he calls "human-centric warfare":

[S]ensors, UAVs, and IS&R [information seeking and retrieval] can have great value in Iraq, just as they did in Vietnam and South Lebanon, but they are anything but "magic bullets." The unattended ground sensor program in Vietnam was once touted as such a magic bullet but took less than a year to defeat.33

Even more disturbing to US theoreticians, Hezbollah's successful defense of southern Lebanon in 2006 provided evidence that a well-organized guerilla force can beat the high-tech West at its own game. Hezbollah flummoxed Israel's satellite and overflight intelligence with decoys, developed counter-signals technology that cracked encrypted radio communications, and intercepted key battlefield information simply by listening in on IDF soldiers' cell phone calls to their families.34 Jamming technology, possibly supplied by Iran, blocked anti-missile missiles aboard Israeli vessels, allowing Hezbollah to disable at least one Israeli warship.35 Although Israeli electronic intelligence is "close to, or superior to, that available to US forces," Cordesman finds that "modern technology does not provide the kind of sensors, protection, and weapons that can prevent a skilled urban force from forcing Israel or the US to fight it largely on its own terms."36

Infantry equipment

The theoretical "Land Warrior" — an infantryman equipped with 17 lbs. of high-tech gear including mini-computer, GPS receiver, battlefield wi-fi, and heads-up visual display — has yet to appear in combat, though some elements of this wearable ensemble were finally appearing on a limited basis in Iraq as of May, 2006.37 Apart from this untested system, technology has made little surprisingly little difference to the US front-line soldier. Thirty years after Vietnam, US infantrymen continue to rely on the M-16 automatic rifle, which they still regard as inferior to the AK-47 generally used by guerilla fighters. (Soldiers in Iraq report that the M-16's notorious jamming problems are exacerbated by sand.38) GIs are much fonder of the M240 medium-weight machine gun, a versatile and highly mobile weapon which has largely replaced the Vietnam-era M60, and the reliable M2 .50-cal. heavy machine gun, dating from WWII and described by one Marine as "the ultimate fight stopper"  and "the most coveted weapon in-theater."39 Shoulder-mounted rocket launchers like the SMAW (Shoulder-Launched Multipurpose Assault Weapon) employ technology that is decades old and no better than that used by resistance fighters. 40

The most important innovations in infantry kit are not weapons as such. Recent advances in night vision and infrared sensing now give US troops a distinct advantage after dark; in particular, standard-issue night goggles now employ futuristic image-enhancing technology that boosts very small quantities of light into the visible range. In the same Marine's words: "Our guys see in the dark and own the night. Very little enemy action after evening prayers. More and more enemy

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being whacked [i.e., killed] at night during movement by hunter-killer teams."41 At present, resistance fighters have no way to counter night vision apart from courage and prudence; presumably US superiority will erode over time as advanced night-vision technology enters the arms black market.

Also highly rated by US troops is state-of-the-art "Interceptor" body armor. Relatively light (though "hotter than hell") at six lbs., the ceramic-plated equipment has lived up to manufacturers' claims, consistently stopping AK-47 rounds and light shrapnel.42 Together with improved battlefield medicine, the new body armor has undoubtedly saved many American lives and thereby enhanced morale. However, since the armor protects only the torso, it cannot greatly reduce the number of disabling injuries due to attacks from snipers and IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices).43 Therefore it presents no insurmountable obstacle to traditional hit-and-run guerilla tactics.

Chimeras

After five years of war in the Middle East, the most fantastic new devices purportedly in the US arsenal, reminiscent of Hollywood science fiction, have yet to appear on the battlefield. Some of these weapons may still be in development; some exist but have not been used for political or tactical reasons; some may never have existed except as journalistic fancies or black propaganda. A quick review of these mostly chimerical weapons is instructive.

Despite prewar fears, the US is unable to "see through walls," except in a very limited sense. The military's inability to identify hidden human targets was made plain during the April 2004 siege of Fallujah, where the US eschewed house-to-house fighting; instead, Marines called in air strikes or fired shoulder-mounted rockets to flatten every building that could conceivably be used to shelter resistance fighters. Reportedly, a handheld radar system intended for use in house searches is only now ready for deployment in Iraq. It will allow GIs to detect the presence of human beings through a concrete wall, but its range is limited to 50 feet. Moreover, the device must be held – by hand – adjacent to the wall that is to be seen through, suggesting that its use against well-defended guerilla positions would be suicidal.44

The E-bomb, an explosive weapon designed to overwhelm electrical circuitry by generating an intense electromagnetic field, is undoubtedly real.45 However, there is as yet no evidence that the US has used E-bombs in combat. (Not E-bombs but precision munitions were used to disrupt and destroy Iraqi communications during the 2003 air assault.) Because the weapon's effective range cannot be reliably controlled, the E-bomb is essentially useless in low-intensity guerilla wars except as a "strategic weapon" to be used against the people in general.46 In the context of "asymmetrical warfare" — a think-tank catchphrase for struggles between Western superpowers and Third World nations or irregulars — the E-bomb is discussed primarily as a threat to the West. The technology required to build a simple E-bomb is apparently so straightforward that US counter-terrorism experts are alarmed: "Knock out electric power, computers and telecommunication and you've destroyed the foundation of modern society. In the age of Third World-sponsored terrorism, the E-bomb is the great equalizer."47 Meanwhile, guerilla forces can defend against E-bombs with relative ease: potential targets can be "hardened" by means of low-tech metal enclosures known as Faraday cages.48 The E-bomb, then, is one high-tech weapon that is potentially more advantageous to the weak than the strong.

By contrast, only wealthy nations can afford to invest in laser weapons.49 The US is actively researching a variety of space-based high-energy laser systems, mostly in the context of missile defense, but true space-to-ground laser cannons are said to be decades away.50 Battlefield laser guns, designed to blind enemy soldiers, have been developed by several countries including the US, but no country has yet dared to use them, presumably because they are explicitly banned under international law.51 However, a new class of "directed energy" beam weapons may soon be deployed in Iraq. This purportedly humane weapon fires a beam of electromagnetic energy that "flash-heats human targets from a distance [and creates] an unbearably painful burning sensation by instantaneously heating moisture under the skin."52 The beam may also cause blindness and birth defects.53 Designed to be mounted on military trucks, directed energy weapons are intended, not for combat as such, but for crowd control — specifically the "Black Hawk Down scenario" in

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which GIs do battle against angry civilians. One such weapon, Raytheon's Active Denial System, is reportedly ready for use in Iraq, but Defense Department officials have expressed concern over "public perception" (read: news footage of children and pregnant women shrieking in agony) and "legal issues" (read: illegality.)54

Rumors that the US used horrific "secret weapons" to inflict atrocities in Afghanistan and Iraq still surface from time to time. In the aftermath of Fallujah, for example, numerous witnesses reported that the US had used a mysterious anti-personnel weapon that "melted" the flesh of its victims while leaving their bones, and sometimes clothing, intact. The reports were accurate, but the weapon was neither new nor secret. As an Italian television documentary later revealed and State Department officials eventually admitted, the US had deliberately used white phosphorus — a spontaneously flammable chemical intended for battlefield illumination — to burn fighters and trapped civilians alive.55 Overall, no convincing evidence has emerged of high-tech "secret weapons"; rather, the record suggests that the US remains quite capable of inflicting atrocities with its vast, well-publicized store of traditional weaponry.

Conclusion

The current US dilemma is in the Middle East is encapsulated in its struggle to cope with IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices), homemade bombs typically concealed under roads used by US supply convoys. In Iraq, IED attacks began in July 2003 and have increased steadily thereafter in both numbers and proficiency. The US logged 10,953 separate IED attacks in 2005, accounting for 674 deaths (or 61.6% of all combat deaths) and 4,256 wounded (or 71.6% of all combat wounds).56 The IED's effectiveness as a guerrilla weapon cannot be measured in casualties alone; these cheap, easily constructed booby traps57 also disrupt logistical support, tie down manpower, and undermine troop morale. Recognizing the grave threat posed by IEDs, the US launched a series of high-tech counter-measures, each of which was inventively nullified by a continuously evolving resistance:

The first IEDs were triggered by wires and batteries; insurgents waited on the roadside and detonated the primitive devices when Americans drove past. After a while, U.S. troops got good at spotting and killing the triggermen when bombs went off. That led the insurgents to replace their wires with radio signals. The Pentagon, at frantic speed and high cost, equipped its forces with jammers to block those signals, accomplishing the task [in Spring 2005]. The insurgents adapted swiftly by sending a continuous radio signal to the IED; when the signal stops or is jammed, the bomb explodes. The solution? Track the signal and make sure it continues. Problem: the signal is encrypted. Now the Americans are grappling with the task of cracking the encryption on the fly and mimicking it—so far, without success.58

The story is a vivid illustration of the swiftness and flexibility with which resistance forces have adapted to high-tech warfare. Applying human intellect to cheap, widely available technology, resistance fighters have found ways of defeating some of the most sophisticated devices in the American arsenal. Meanwhile US analysts, traditionally prone to underestimating Third World adversaries, have been forced to acknowledge the guerrilla's superior ability to learn, communicate, and adapt; the Army's new counter-insurgency manual teaches that "[a] skillful counter-insurgent must be able to adapt at least as fast as the opponent."59

What the high-tech military cannot hope to emulate, however, is the guerrilla's most powerful resource: the assistance and protection of the people. The tactical initiatives that have stymied the world's most powerful military machine are in every case underpinned by popular support and cooperation. Even in the absence of a coherent political program, the people of the Middle East have never doubted the need to resist foreign occupation, and have remained steadfast despite the immense human sacrifices exacted by the American style of warfare. Above all, they have refused to be intimidated either by high-tech paraphernalia or by the staggering lethality of US munitions. Their courage and persistence have entirely affirmed a military truth well enunciated by retired Major-Gen. Robert Scales Jr.: "If the enemy can see you, and range you with his weapons, he doesn't need a UAV to locate you or a precision weapon to kill you. All he needs is a 13-cent bullet."60

Notes:

1. Behind the Invasion of Iraq, Aspects 33 & 34.

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2. E. Cohen, Lt. Col. C. Crane, Lt. Col. J. Horvath & Lt. Col. J. Nagl, "Principles, Imperatives, and Paradoxes of Counterinsurgency," Military Review (March-April 2006), p. 53, usacac.leavenworth.army.mil/CAC/milreview/English/MarApr06/Cohen.pdf.

3. "Hi-Tech War," Innovation, PBS, aired 2/3/04, transcript at www.pbs.org/wnet/innovation/episode4_essay1.html. For an enthusiastic overview of RMA, see Steven Metz, Armed Conflict in the 21st Century: The Information Revolution and Post-Modern Warfare (Strategic Studies Institute, Army War College March 2000), webdoc.sub.gwdg.de/ebook/p/2002/carlisle/conflict.pdf.

4. In the wake of the US debacle Iraq, fashionable military thinking now emphasizes political operations, human intelligence, propaganda, and joint action with indigenous forces — essentially a retread of the counterinsurgency doctrine of the 1960s. See Eliot Cohen et al., "Principles, Imperatives, and Paradoxes of Counterinsurgency," Military Review, March-April 2006; "Military Hones a New Strategy on Counterinsurgency," New York Times, Oct. 4, 2006, www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/washington/05doctrine.html. Ironically, Mao's On Guerilla Warfare has become required reading for US military analysts. See, e.g., Ralph Masi, "Mao as Guide to Fight in Iraq," RAND Corp., Jan. 4, 2004, www.rand.org/commentary/010404SFC.html; Thomas X. Hammes, "Countering Evolved Insurgent Networks," Military Review, July-Aug. 2006, www.army.mil/professionalwriting/volumes/volume4/october_2006/10_06_2.html.

5. "Use of pinpoint air power comes of age in new war," New York Times, Dec. 24, 2001.

6. Peter Grier, "The JDAM Revolution," Air Force Magazine, Sept. 2006, www.afa.org/magazine/Sept2006/0906JDAM.asp.

7. "Afghanistan: First Lessons," Jane's Defense Weekly, Dec. 19, 2001. The US measures the accuracy of its bombs by means of a misleading formula known as "circular error probable" or CEP. The CEP is simply the radius of a circle in which 50% of fired weapons can be expected to strike. Therefore, JDAM's widely-reported CEP of 13 meters means that only one-half of JDAMs fall within 13 meters of the target. "Planned JDAM Upgrade Boosts Accuracy to 10 Feet," National Defense, Dec, 2001, www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/issues/2001/Dec/Planned_JDAM.htm. This is one reason large numbers of civilians are routinely killed by "precision" airstrikes.

8. See "BGM-109 Tomahawk," Federation of American Scientists Military Analysis Network, www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/bgm-109.htm. The Navy insisted on using all of its Tomahawks during the 2003 air assault on Iraq and had difficulty persuading Congress to order more. Cpt. Steve Morrow, "What Comes After Tomahawk," Proceedings of the US Naval Institute, July 2003, www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,NI_Tomahawk_0603,00.html.

9. Project on Governmental Oversight, Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, March 25, 2000, www.pogo.org/p/defense/do-020311-failures-predator.html.

10. Jeffrey St. Clair, "Flying Blind," Counterpunch, Oct. 30, 2001, www.counterpunch.org/predator1.html. The CIA uses the Predator as an assassination weapon, in which role it has performed erratically and sometimes disastrously. It is responsible for many of the most highly-publicized killings of civilians in the current wars, including the CIA massacre of at least 80 schoolboys in an October 2006 attack on a madrassa in Pakistan. This was supposedly an unsuccessful attempt on the life of al-Qaeda deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri. "Questions Surround Pakistan Strike," Council on Foreign Relations Daily Analysis, Nov. 1, 2006, www.cfr.org/publication/11883/questions_surround_pakistan_strike.html.

11. "U.S. Drones Crowd Iraq's Skies to Fight Insurgents," New York Times, April 5, 2005.

12. James Dunnigan, "The Continuing Air War in Iraq," Strategy Page, Feb. 15, 2005, www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/200521423.asp. The 90% figure, presumably inflated for propaganda purposes, designates the percentage of bombs that hit their targets, and does not reflect bombs wrongly targeted due to bad intelligence.

13. G. Burnham, R. Lafta, S. Doocy, & L. Roberts, "Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey," The Lancet, Oct. 11, 2006, www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf. The high number of civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan is due in part to US willingness to bomb heavily populated areas (even a high-tech weapon precisely targeted at, say, an urban anti-aircraft emplacement will still kill everyone within the weapon's considerable lethal range). Additionally, faulty intelligence continues to cause numerous civilian deaths, as in the air strike that wiped out an Afghan wedding party in July 2002. See Marc Herold, A Dossier on Civilian Victims of United States' Aerial Bombing of Afghanistan: A Comprehensive Accounting (2002), www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm.

14. See Carlo Kopp, "JDAM Matures," Australian Aviation, Dec. 2002, www.ausairpower.net/TE-JDAMPt1.html.

15. E.g., the US Air Force did not lose a single aircraft during the 2001-02 invasion of Afghanistan. Daniel Haulman, USAF Manned Aircraft Combat Losses 1990-2002, Air Force Historical Research Agency, Dec. 9, 2002, abstracted at www.stormingmedia.us/48/4804/A480434.html.

16. Pepe Escobar, "The Spirit of Resistance," Asia Times Online, July 26, 2006, www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HG26Ak02.html; Lin Xu, "A Repeat of the Iraq War? Hezbollah Wins 'the Assymetric Warfare'," Washington Observer, Aug. 2, 2006, www.washingtonobserver.org/en/document.cfm?documentid=62&charid=3.

17. G.Wilson, J. Sullivan & H. Kempfer, "Fourth Generation Warfare: How Tactics of the Weak Confound the Strong," Defense and the National Interest (Dec. 24, 2005), www.d-n-i.net/fcs/comments/c490.htm.

18. Seymour Hersh, "Up in the Air," New Yorker, Nov. 28, 2005.

19. Philip H. Gordon, "Air Power Won't Do It," Washington Post, July 25, 2006; Human Rights Watch, Fatal Strikes: Israel’s Indiscriminate Attacks Against Civilians in Lebanon (Aug. 2006), hrw.org/reports/2006/lebanon0806/index.htm.

20. Jon Lee Anderson, "Letter from Beirut: The Battle for Lebanon," New Yorker, Aug. 7, 2006, www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060807fa_fact.

21. "As Fighting Continues, Lebanese Author Says New Poll Shows Overwhelming Support For Hezbollah," Democracy Now!, aired July 27, 2006, transcript at www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/27/1423248.

22. These weapons, which typically result in massive civilian casualties, have been used for decades by the US and the former Soviet Union. During the first Gulf War, the US used thermobaric bombs primarily as anti-personnel weapons. "Behind the Invasion of Iraq," Aspects Nos. 33 & 34, www.rupe-india.org/34/torment.html. Counter-terrorism analysts fear they will eventually employed against the US by resistance fighters and/or terrorists. "Thermobaric Terrorists?" Defense Tech, Jan. 28, 2004, www.defensetech.org/archives/000747.html.

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23. "Bush admin. drops 'bunker-buster' plan," USA Today, Oct. 26, 2005, www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-10-26-bunker-buster_x.htm. Officially, the US no longer intends to build a nuclear bunker buster, but investigative journalist Seymour Hersh believes the weapon already exists and may be used against Iran. Hersh, "The Iran Plans," New Yorker, April 17, 2006, www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060417fa_fact.

24. "U.S. sends Israel bunker buster bombs to kill Nasrallah," Al Jazeera.com, July 25, 2006, www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=11783;  Alastair Crooke & Mark L. Perry, “How Hezbollah Defeated Israel Part One: Winning the Intelligence War,” Asia Times, Oct. 12, 2006, www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HJ12Ak01.html. (Italy's RAI News has reported that Israel used a radioactive bunker buster against the Lebanese village of Khiam. This was apparently not a fission weapon, but it may have employed enriched uranium to increase penetration, much like the notorious US anti-tank ammunition tipped with depleted uranium. RAI News, "Israel Detonated a Radioactive Bunker Buster Bomb in Lebanon," Nov. 11, 2006, www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20061111&articleId=3813.)

25. Network-centric Warfare, or NCW, has been defined as a "concept of operations … that translates information superiority into combat power by effectively linking knowledgeable entities in the battlespace." D. Cammons, J. Tisserand III, D. Williams, A. Seise & D. Lindsay, Network Centric Warfare Case Study Volume I (US War College Center for Strategic Leadership), June, 2006, p. 13. Like much recent military theory, NCW is modeled on innovations in the corporate sector, which has successfully used networking techniques in the workplace to extract greater surplus value from a smaller labor force. For an overview, see Vice Adm. Arthur K. Cebrowski, "Network-Centric Warfare: Its Origin and Future," Proceedings of the US Naval Inst., Jan., 1998, www.usni.org/Proceedings/Articles98/PROcebrowski.htm.

26. John Luddy, The Challenge and Promise of Network-Centric Warfare, Feb. 2005 (Lexington Institute white paper), www.lexingtoninstitute.org/docs/521.pdf.

27. The platoon that killed Tillman was directed from a remote high-tech Forward Operating Base using real-time satellite data. "Startling findings from Pat Tillman investigations," Associated Press, Nov. 10, 2006.

28. A Marine lieutenant vividly captured the limitations of technology on the battlefield: "If you put a hole in a paper map, you have a map with a hole in it. You put a bullet through a computer screen, what do you have? A piece of junk." "Point, Click … Fire," Business Week, April 7, 2003, www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_14/b3827608.htm.

29. John Luddy, op. cit.

30. US intelligence can easily intercept radio transmissions, e-mails and, in occupied or cooperative countries, landline telephone calls. Its ability to monitor cell-phone conversations remotely is well-known; less known is the fact that the US can often pinpoint the location of a given mobile phone, and hence track its user — even when the phone is apparently powered off. Colombian drug smuggler Pablo Escobar and alleged Al Qaeda kingpin Abu Musab al-Zarqawi were both assassinated in this fashion. Mark Bowden, Killing Pablo (2002); "Cell phone tracking helped find al-Zarqawi," CNN News, June 10, 2006, www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/06/09/iraq.al.zarqawi/index.html. By contrast, US "HUMINT" (human intelligence) is notoriously inadequate in the Middle East. Nearly four years into the Iraq War, the US still cannot recruit the required numbers of Arabic speakers, let alone reliable informants, and is bedeviled by double agents.  See "The Enemy Spies," Newsweek, June 27, 2005, www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8272786.

31.US Congresswoman Jane Harman put her finger on the problem in a March 2004 panel hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations: "My bottom line is, we have to penetrate these cells. The only ways we will know the plans and intentions of these people is to have somebody in the room, or as close to the room as we can get it. Signals intelligence — what we can hear flying around with very impressive air and satellite power … — is not enough." After Iraq: New Direction for U.S. Intelligence and Foreign Policy (CFR Mar. 8,2004), transcript at www.cfr.org/publication/6862/after_iraq.html?breadcrumb=%2Fbios%2F5%2Frichard_k_betts.

32. See John Prados, "Blind in Baghdad," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Jan-Feb 2005, p. 18, www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=jf05prados. US inability to gather useful intelligence on Iraq's cellular resistance groups has been cited as a major reason for its resort to mass detention and torture. Seymour Hersh, "The Gray Zone: How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib," New Yorker, May 24, 2004, www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/040524fa_fact?040524fa_fact. Cellular organization, however, is designed to resist torture. As an Iraqi resistance officer advised an American reporter: "I think my organization has about 2,500 men. … But I only know the names of my men and two men: the one above me and [another cell commander based nearby]. If they torture me, I can only tell them two names of commanders. Each of those commanders only knows a few names and none of my men or the other men in the cells." P. Mitchell Prothero, "Leader of terror cell reveals data on command structure," Washington Times, Dec. 8, 2003, washingtontimes.com/world/20031208-111942-6488r.htm.

33. Anthony H. Cordesman, Iraq's Evolving Insurgency and the Risk of Civil War (Center for Strategic and International Studies), draft revised June 22, 2006, p. xviii, www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/060622_insurgency.pdf.

34. Alastair Crooke & Mark L. Perry, op. cit.

35. Iason Athanasiadis, "How hi-tech Hezbollah called the shots," Asia Times, Sept. 9, 2006, www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HI09Ak01.html.

36. Cordesman, Preliminary Lessons of the Israeli-Hezbollah War (Center for Strategic and International Studies), draft revised Aug. 17, 2006, p. 12, www.mafhoum.com/press9/284P51.pdf.

37. "Science Fiction Gets Left Behind," Strategy Page (May 19, 2006), www.strategypage.com/htmw/htinf/articles/20060519.aspx.

38. "A Marine reports from Iraq," Washington Times, Nov. 22, 2005, www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20051121-093501-9601r.htm.

39. Ibid.; "M240G Medium Machine Gun," Federation of American Scientists Military Analysis Network, www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m240g.htm.

40. Although it is not yet widely available in the field, a shoulder-mounted thermobaric assault weapon, the SMAW-NE, was reportedly used to destroy entire buildings during the 2004 siege of Fallujah, crushing any fighters or civilians inside. However, "[d]ue to the lack of penetrating power of the NE round, we found that our assaultmen had to first fire a dual-purpose rocket in order to create a hole in the wall or building."  "Marines Quiet About Brutal New Weapon," DefenseTech.org, Nov. 14, 2005, www.defensetech.org/archives/001944.html.

41. "A Marine reports from Iraq."

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42. Ibid.; 2005 US Army Weapons Systems Handbook pp. 138-39, reprinted in Federation of American Scientists Military Analysis Network, www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/wsh/138.pdf.

43. Among US forces in Iraq, the ratio of wounded to killed among US forces in Iraq is about 8 to 1; in Vietnam it was 3 to 1. Nearly 3000 US troops have been killed in Iraq, but more than 20,000 have been wounded; of these, only half have returned to duty. Military analysts concede that "wounded are a much better measure of the intensity of operations than killed." "U.S. Casualties in Iraq Rise Sharply," Washington Post, October 8, 2006. While there may be less impact on homefront morale when soldiers are wounded and not killed, from a purely military point of view there is little difference. To the resistance fighter, the US preoccupation with wartime death tolls reflects a weakness: while demoralized Western armies must go to extraordinary lengths to hold down casualties, the guerilla's greater willingness to sacrifice for his cause means that losses are more easily sustainable without damage to morale.

44. "New Device Will Sense Through Concrete Walls," American Forces Information Services, Jan. 3, 2006, www.defenselink.mil/news/Jan2006/20060103_3822.html.

45. Nuclear bombs are known to generate an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that can destroy electrical and electronic equipment, particularly computers and radios, over a large radius. Although the US has not yet dared to use nuclear weapons in the Middle East, it is widely believed to have developed conventional E-bombs that use high-powered microwaves to generate EMPs. See Carlo Kopp, "The Electromagnetic Bomb – A Weapon of Electrical Mass Destruction," Chronicles Online Journal (U.S. Air Force 1996), www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/kopp/apjemp.html.

46. By now, of course, the value of strategic E-bombing in Iraq or Afghanistan would be nil, since neither country has much in the way of electronic infrastructure left to destroy.

47. "E-Bombs And Terrorists," Popular Mechanics, September 2001, www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1281421.html. India is among the nations believed to have tested E-bombs. Ibid.

48. "The Electromagnetic Bomb - a Weapon of Electrical Mass Destruction."

49. Not to be confused with laser-guided bombs. The total cost of the laser-based component of the Strategic Defense Initiative, commonly known as "Star Wars," has been estimated at $194 billion through 2015. Economists Allied for Arms Reduction, The Full Costs of Ballistic Missile Defense, January 2003, p. 60, www.epsusa.org/publications/papers/bmd/bmd.pdf.

50. Defense Science Board Task Force, High Energy Laser Weapons Systems Applications, June 2001, www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/rephel.pdf.

51. "Blinding Laser Weapons," BMJ 1997; 315:1392 (29 November), www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/315/7120/1392.

52. Jacob Levich, "John Kerry's World of Hurt," Counterpunch, June 10, 2004, www.counterpunch.org/levich06102004.html.

53. Stew Magnuson, "Directed Energy Weapons Face Hurdles," National Defense, March 2006, www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/issues/2006/march/directed_energy.htm.

54. Ibid.

55. "US used white phosphorus in Iraq," BBC News, Nov. 16. 2005, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4440664.stm. The use of chemical weapons against human beings is, of course, a war crime.

56. Cordesman, Iraq's Evolving Insurgency and the Risk of Civil War, p. vi.

57. It has been estimated that the total cost of every IED used in Iraq through 2005 is lower than the replacement cost of a single downed Cobra attack helicopter. Cordesman, Iraq's Evolving Insurgency and the Risk of Civil War, p. xxv.

58. "The Enemy Spies," Newsweek, June 27, 2005.

59. E. Cohen, Lt. Col. C. Crane, Lt. Col. J. Horvath & Lt. Col. J. Nagl, p. 51.

60. "Battle Plan Under Fire," Nova, PBS, aired May 4, 2004, transcript at www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3110_wartech.html.

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Light Boosts Destructive Power of Microwave Weapons, SensorsBy David A. Fulghum, Aviation Week and Space Technology, 21 January 2007

Electronic warfare is becoming less a science of developing new technologies and more a process of sensor fusion, target networking and finding new ways to manipulate existing tools of the trade. A case in point--lasers and high-power microwave devices long have been eyed as competing directed-energy attack options. However, researchers are now combining the two to produce smaller, cheaper, more powerful, nonkinetic weapons. Electronic attack has taken a new path as well, shifting from covering enemy emissions with noise to finding, penetrating and exploiting enemy networks from low-power cell-phone networks to sophisticated air defense systems. The following articles explore some of those changes.

High-power microwave weapons may be on the verge of a high-speed turn toward the practical.

An advanced concept, pioneered by BAE Systems' researchers, uses light to multiply the speed and power at which HPM pulses--powerful enough to destroy enemy electronics--can be produced without the need for explosives or huge electrical generators.

Researchers predict leaps of 10-100 times in power output within two years. That advance could push the beam-weapon technology far beyond the 1-10-gigawatt limit of current tactical-size HPM

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devices. Long-standing industry estimates are that it would require a 100-gigawatt pulse for a few nanoseconds to disable a cruise missile at a useful range.

BAE Systems is not alone in the chase. Northrop Grumman and Raytheon are also building distributed array radars that can produce air-to-air and surface-to-air HPM weapons effects, contend longtime Pentagon radar specialists. In particular, the F-22, F-35, F/A-18E/F and newest F-15 radars are designed to accept modifications that would focus their beams to produce HPM energy spikes powerful enough to disable cruise, anti-aircraft, air-to-air and emitter-seeking missiles. Germany's Diehl is developing suitcase-size HPM devices that could be placed surreptitiously in a target building to damage electronics such as computers.

In addition, the U.S. military is giving classified briefings on the threat of HPM weapon technologies being developed in China and Russia. The Russians are believed to be developing radio-frequency microwave weapons for air defense, and the Chinese are developing HPM and electromagnetic pulse weapons for information warfare.

However, BAE Systems researchers claim they have made a singular leap in HPM weapons technology by combining the use of lasers and radar-like microwaves. Furthermore, the technology is scalable through the use of 4-in.-square arrays, each an integrated structure of dielectrics and electrical conductors. One hundred of them distributed over a square meter, for example, can generate up to 10 gigawatts of power, says Robert D'Amico, BAE Systems' director of advanced programs.

"We have shown everything we claimed with a laboratory testbed," says Oved Zucker, director of photonics programs for BAE Systems' advanced concepts facility here. "We are in the process of demonstrating total power substantially above 10 gigawatts, and we have plans to test [the system] further in an airborne mode.

"The power bandwidth product--how much power and how fast you manipulate it--is potentially the largest of any technology around. Having the bandwidth with larger power is where the money is," he says. There's no dearth of missions for HPM technology, including detecting and detonating improvised explosive devices, finding suicide bombers or hidden explosives, and attacking shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles.

There's also the appeal of weapons that can rob a foe of communications, power and mobility--while largely eliminating collateral damage to people and structures--which is a high priority for the U.S. military.

The development of HPM weapons has been hobbled for the last 30 years by seemingly intractable cost, size, beam-control and power-generation requirements. Tests of modified air-launched cruise missiles carrying devices to produce explosively generated spikes of energy were considered big disappointments in the early 1990s because of an inability to direct pulses and predict effects. New active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars can jam emitters or possibly cause damage to electronic components with focused beams. But power levels and ranges are limited by aperture size.

BAE Systems' photonically driven technology could open the way to much smaller and more powerful electronic jammers, nonkinetic beam weapons for cruise and anti-ship missile defenses, and stealth-detecting sensors.

"You could put a [sensor] system on a fighter-size aircraft that could generate enough power, with a 1-ft. resolution, to see stealthy objects at 100 mi." D'Amico says. "You can defeat stealth with enough power. If stealth takes the signature [of an aircraft or missile] down a factor of 10, you have to increase the [sensor's] power by a factor of 10." Most current fighter-size radars have less than a megawatt of peak power. Detecting stealth would require tens of gigawatts, which is now impossible in fighter-size packages.

What effects can HPM produce as an electronic warfare weapon?

"At one end, it can fry anything [electronic] that's out there," Zucker says. "The levels of EW extend from the sledgehammer to just making the [computer's] brain a little bit befuddled so it can't think for a moment. At a lower level, you can kill the detector of the other guy's radar as part of the

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suppression of enemy air defenses. You don't need much power because you're going after the most sensitive part. You're blinding the system."

The level below that is to momentarily stop electronics from functioning. A radar will try to defend itself by using a chain of circuits to "blink," and thereby shut out intruding signals. One method of exploitation is to do something during the blink. But if an intruding signal is fast enough, the radar can't react in time to keep out the invader.

"You can put energy in there and it won't be able to respond," Zucker says. "Another low-level effect is to make the computer skip bits so that it's not processing efficiently for the moment. All these games have to do with how much power [can be applied] and how fast."

BAE researchers envision HPM pulse weapons that are powerful enough to disable a tank, a missile, perhaps a helicopter or aircraft, but at the same time are small and light enough to function as part of a microwave radar sensor designed into the skin of an aircraft.

Alternatively, the HPM weapons could be scaled up to shipboard size--perhaps 100 sq. meters--to produce terawatt-size energy pulses. That's theoretically a large enough energy spike to stop another ship.

"You kill the brains by aiming at the bridge area because of all the computers and control systems there that run the ship," Zucker says.

This brute-strength scaling up of the technology involves installing a distributed array on the side of a ship. The elements would work together to form a large virtual antenna and then pull enough power from the ship's electric engines to concentrate a beam on vulnerable areas. From a few hundred yards, predictions are that the energy spike--focused in a beam several feet wide--could disable all the electrical equipment, including propulsion, leaving the ship a darkened, drifting hulk.

Researchers have some unusual techniques in mind for the associated antenna arrays.

"We are integrating a large number of transverse electromagnetic [TEM] apertures," to produce the distributed transmitter arrays, he says. "To produce a large number of TEM antennas is sensible only if you can make each one sing to the same tune through this coherence [or synchronization] that comes from using [the speed of] light. That allows us to spread the source [of HPM pulse production] across the whole wing of an airplane. Moreover, TEM doesn't have a cutoff frequency, which gives us flexibility."

Because the high-speed switches modulate the HPM, they match the circuitry to the antenna. Composite skins for fuselages could have the conductors and switches built into them. At the moment, BAE is looking at new, 20-cm.-thick aircraft wings, tapered at the leading and trailing edges, with imbedded antenna structures instead of using a bolt-on system.

"That is my radiator, and it is a phased array," Zucker says. "It can be a radar, communications, receiver or HPM transmitter. The wing is the source with more gain than any aperture that's been available before. I don't have to pump the energy through wave guides. More area means more power and gain. Instead of megawatts, we're talking about gigawatts of peak power."

Researchers say the antennas, photoconductive switches and transformer blocks can be built into conformal skins for unmanned combat aircraft as well. Unmanned designs are favored initially because of the vagaries in distribution of HPM side lobes, the effects of HPM on humans, and the disturbances that energy spikes can create in fly-by-wire flight control systems.

Zucker also is designing fly-by-light flight control systems for UAVs. With fly by light, actuators are triggered by simple blobs of light that can't be disrupted by spikes of electrical energy produced by the aircraft's payload.Table of Contents

NATO Reveals Dark Arts of Psy-OpsBy Jerome Starkey, The Times (UK), 22 January 2007

British troops in southern Afghanistan are battling to break the will of the Taleban by splitting hard-line commanders from their troops.

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The psychological warfare, or “psy-ops”, experts work alongside the SBS and American special forces. During a recent operation to retake Taleban strongholds in Kandahar they preyed on the insurgents’ worst fears — such as being captured — to make them abandon strategic positions.

Major Kirsty McQuade, the top Nato psy-ops officer in southern Afghanistan, said: “We exploit psychological vulnerabilities. Being captured is a big fear for the Taleban. Most of them want to live to fight another day. But they would rather die than be captured.”

Psy-ops are normally shrouded in secrecy, but Major McQuade gave The Times an insight into Nato tactics.

Commanders believe that there are two types of Taleban insurgents in the war-ravaged south: Tier 1 Taleban are the leaders, some of whom are foreign; Tier 2 are the rank and file.

Major McQuade said that Tier 1 wanted to regain control of the country. “Some of them have power and prestige and they like that. Some of them are just psychopaths.

“Tier 2 are often motivated by factors such as debt. Some are very poor and uneducated and they do as they are told.”

In Operation Baaz Tsuka, in which Canadian, British and American forces routed hundreds of Taleban from two districts that they had been using as platforms for assaults on Kandahar, the psy-ops troops targeted the two groups with separate messages.

Leaflets showing the bloody body of a dead gunman and a hooded prisoner of war warned Tier 1: “Enemies of Afghanistan leave now. Capture and death await you.” The footsoldiers were told: “Choose peace, return to your homes and meet with your elders.” More than 88,000 leaflets were dropped.

In a separate operation in Helmand province, Royal Marines hauled a loudhailer into battle to talk to the Taleban. “We explain to Tier 2 that their commanders don’t care about them, they are just using them for their own aims,” Major McQuade said.

“If you can clear the debt or give them an alternative way of making money they are often willing to give up.”

A day after the leaflet drops Canadian forces took control of Howz-e Madad, a former Taleban-held village, without firing a shot. However, analysts suspect that many fighters fled to Pakistan to prepare for a spring offensive.

Fear is the key

Genghis Khan, 13th-century leader of the Mongols, would leave a few people in each village he attacked alive to allow them to tell stories about his ferocity to other villages and create an atmosphere of fear.Table of Contents

China's Anti-Satellite Weapon Fuels AnxietyBy Geoffrey York, the Globe and Mail, 22 January 2007

BEIJING -- With a dramatic display of its power to destroy a satellite in space, China is warning the world that its military arsenal is modernizing much faster than expected and could challenge the United States for global dominance by the middle of this century.

The successful test of China's anti-satellite technology is a major victory for Beijing's military strategy, which aims to use high-tech weaponry and "asymmetric warfare" to bridge the gap between itself and the United States.

China has not yet confirmed the test, but the reports of the Jan. 11 incident are now widely accepted as accurate. Beijing used a ground-based medium-range ballistic missile to destroy an aging Chinese weather satellite that was orbiting Earth at an altitude of 865 kilometres, according to U.S. intelligence reports.

The satellite was only about a metre in length, so its destruction by a ballistic missile was a highly impressive show of precision targeting.

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It was the first successful test of anti-satellite weaponry in more than 20 years, breaking an unofficial moratorium that began in the Cold War. It immediately elevated China to the top ranks of space technology, making it one of only three countries (along with the United States and the former Soviet Union) to prove its ability to shoot down an object in space.

Other countries are watching with concern. The satellite-killing missile test has fuelled anxieties about a Chinese military buildup that has already shocked the experts with some remarkable breakthroughs. It could trigger a new arms race in space. And it has exposed a key vulnerability in the U.S. military doctrine, with its mounting dependence on satellite communications and satellite spying.

The test has prompted a wave of protests and concerns from Canada, the United States, Japan, Britain, Australia and South Korea. "Canada has expressed its strong concerns to the Chinese authorities over the reported anti-satellite test and the possible negative effects," the Foreign Affairs Department said in a statement.

Canada has long been opposed to the weaponization of space and was among the leaders of an international campaign against an arms race in space.

The Chinese missile test is certain to give political ammunition to U.S. hawks who support the so-called Star Wars technology of space-based weaponry and ballistic-missile defence systems. It raises the spectre of a global arms race in space, especially since satellites are increasingly seen as crucial to modern warfare and intelligence operations.

Last summer, the U.S. administration declared space vital to national security. The statement was a strong signal that Washington has no intention of accepting Chinese and Russian proposals for the demilitarization of space.

Shortly afterward, China used a ground-based laser to "paint" a U.S. satellite, showing its space technology to be more powerful than expected. China also surprised many analysts by unveiling the Jian-10 fighter-bomber jet, said to be superior to its Russian counterparts and putting China at the leading edge of military aviation.

China's military budget increased from $31.3-billion (U.S.) in 2005 to $35.9-billion last year, according to official numbers. But its true military budget -- including high-tech research by other government departments -- is at least double this amount, and perhaps more.

China's latest defence "white paper," released by the Central Military Commission at the end of last month, contains some ambitious goals for military modernization. With a focus on high-tech "information warfare," the paper proclaims that China must be "capable of winning digitalized warfare" by the middle of this century.

"Although no direct reference is made to competition with the United States, it seems clear that the CMC is determined that China must increase its military power over the next few decades to a level comparable to that of the world's superpower," political analyst Willy Lam wrote in a recent report on the Chinese military.Table of Contents

Freedom of Information, the Wiki WaySite to Allow Anonymous Posts of Government DocumentsBy Elizabeth Williamson, Washington Post, January 15, 2007

You're a government worker in China, and you've just gotten a memo showing the true face of the regime. Without any independent media around, how do you share what you have without landing in jail or worse?

Wikileaks.org is a Web-based way for people with damning, potentially helpful or just plain embarrassing government documents to make them public without leaving fingerprints. Modeled on the participatory, online encyclopedia Wikipedia, the site is expected to go live within the next two months.

Organizer James Chen said that while its creators tried to keep the site under wraps until its launch, Google references to it have soared in recent days from about eight to more than 20,000.

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"Wikileaks is becoming, as planned, although unexpectedly early, an international movement of people who facilitate ethical leaking and open government," he said.

The site, whose FAQs are written in flowery dissident-ese -- "What conscience cannot contain, and institutional secrecy unjustly conceals, Wikileaks can broadcast to the world" -- targets regimes in Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but not exclusively. It was founded and partially funded, organizers say, by dissidents, mathematicians and technologists from China, the United States, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa. The site relies on a worldwide web of volunteers and contributors to post and vet the information, and dodge any efforts to shut it down. To protect document donors and the site itself, Wikileaks uses its own coded software combined with, for the techies out there, modified versions of Freenet and PGP.

"I think it's an intriguing effort," said Steven Aftergood, an open-government advocate who runs the Federation of American Scientists' Secrecy News blog.

"It's significant that their emphasis seems to be on relatively closed societies rather than the U.S. or Europe, that have a rather robust media sector.

"They have the potential to make a difference," he said.

But for now, Aftergood has declined Wikileaks' invitation to serve on its advisory board.

"I want to see how they launch and what direction they go in," he said. "Indiscriminate disclosure can be as problematic as indiscriminate secrecy."

The thought that a nation's defense plans could turn up as "you've got mail" across the globe is a chilling one. So, too, is the potential for a miscreant to sow mayhem by "leaking" documents, real or fake.

"Unless there are some kinds of editorial safeguards built into the process, it can be easily sabotaged. That was the concern I was trying to raise," Aftergood said. "We'll have to see."

Wikileaks organizers say the site is self-policing. "Wikileaks will provide a forum for the entire global community to examine any document relentlessly for credibility, plausibility, veracity and falsifiability," they wrote in response to e-mailed questions. "If a document is leaked from the Chinese government, the entire Chinese dissident community can freely scrutinize and discuss it; if a document is leaked from Somalia, the entire Somali refugee community can analyze it and put it in context. And so on."

Because organizers are scattered around the globe, "In the very unlikely event that we were to face coercion to make the software censorship friendly, there are many others who will continue the work in other jurisdictions."

For a review of Wikileaks' first document, a weirdly worded memo titled "Secret Decision" said to be issued by the Somalia Islamic court system's Office of the Chief of the Imams, go to http://www.wikileaks.org/inside_somalia_v9.html.Table of Contents

Wikis a New OPSEC Threat?By Steve Field, dring.wordpress.com, 21 Jan 07

It seems as if the Department of Defense is focused on blogs as the biggest threat to OPSEC in the new media realm. It may be, however, that they overlooking another possibility — wikis.

From the Washington Post:

Wikileaks is developing an uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. Our primary interests are oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the west who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their own governments and corporations. We aim for maximum political impact; this means our interface is identical to Wikipedia and usable by non-technical people. We have received over 1.2 million documents so far from dissident communities and anonymous sources…

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Wikileaks opens leaked documents up to a much more exacting scrutiny than any media organization or intelligence agency could provide. Wikileaks will provide a forum for the entire global community to examine any document for credibility, plausibility, veracity and falsifiability. They will be able to interpret documents and explain their relevance to the public. If a document comes from the Chinese government, the entire Chinese dissident community can freely scrutinize and discuss it; if a document arrives from Iran, the entire Farsi community can analyze it and put it in context.

For those not familiar, wikis, such as the popular wikipedia, are information sharing sites that are completely maintained and updated by visitors — the community controls the wiki’s content.

Granted, wikileaks.org is designed to ferret out unethical behavior in government, but this exposes another problem — how difficult would it be to set up a wiki to lead information about DoD operations? Or other government secrets for that matter?

Something to keep an eye on…Table of Contents

Defense Domain, Civilian AwarenessBy Patience Wait, Government Computer News, 22 Jan 07

Elder, Garcia walk two sides of the cybersecurity beat

The world of combat has expanded to include cyberspace as a battlefield. Two men are now responsible for protecting the United States in cyberspace—Air Force Lt. Gen. Robert Elder, who heads the Pentagon’s strategic efforts in waging cyberwar, and Gregory Garcia, who handles the defense of the nation’s cyberassets.

Garcia is the first assistant secretary for cybersecurity and telecommunications at the Homeland Security Department. It is he who worries about how to prepare American society—government, commercial interests and individual citizens—to protect themselves from assaults on their electronic assets, whether home computers or nationwide networks.

The White House appointed Garcia, a former vice president for information security programs at the Information Technology Association of America trade association in Arlington, Va., in September. His former colleagues were pleased with the pick, but did not hesitate to suggest his priorities.

“I think the first thing is to do the job of making the department more aware of cyber issues and of being a champion for cybersecurity,” said Joe Tasker, ITAA’s senior vice president of government affairs. “We’re now at a place where 90 percent of American businesses are on the Internet ... The ubiquity and power of the networks is becoming inescapable.”

On the offensive side of the equation, Air Force secretary Michael Wynne made it clear when he approved the creation of a Cyber Command that combat already is taking place in cyberspace.

“[T]he cyberspace domain contains the same seeds for criminal, private, transnational and government-sponsored mischief as we have contended with in the domains of land, sea, air and now contemplate as space continues to mature,” Wynne said in November. “In cyberspace, our military, America and indeed all of world commerce face the challenge of modern-day pirates, of many stripes and kinds, stealing money, harassing our families and threatening our ability to fight on ground, air, land and in space.”

Elder, commander of the 8th Air Force, based at Barksdale Air Force Base, La., is the first head of the Cyber Command. The 8th Air Force already had many cyberspace capabilities, including intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and electronic warfare, and the creation of this major command gives Elder the responsibility for creating “cyberspace warriors,” who can react to any threats 24/7, he said.

ROBERT ELDER

GCN: What are your two or three top priorities for establishing this new command?

ELDER: Our first priority is to establish cyberspace as a warfighting domain, characterized by the use of electronics and the electromagnetic spectrum.

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Today, cyberspace operations are generally viewed as network operations, information operations, or use of the Internet as an enabler for military operations in physical domains. The Air Force now recognizes that cyberspace ops is a potential center of gravity for the United States and, much like air and space superiority, cyberspace superiority is a prerequisite for effective operations in all warfighting domains.

Our second priority is to present Air Force cyberspace forces and capabilities to U.S. Strategic Command for their global missions, and to other combatant commanders through their Air Force component commanders for theater operations. This includes establishment of a 24/7-air operations center.

Our third priority is to develop a plan to organize, train and equip the Air Force to effectively conduct cyberspace operations. We intend to build capacity to conduct cyberspace operations across all aspects of [doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel and facilities]. We must develop a robust capability to manage risk for operations in cyberspace.

GCN: Can you elaborate on the role the Air Force will play in providing cybersecurity, and how it relates to the roles of other governmental offices (civilian and DOD)?

ELDER: There are many government agencies involved in cybersecurity. Air Force Network Operations is the service component to the Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations and will continue in that role.

However, as a warfighting domain, cyberspace is much more than computer networks, it is a domain characterized by the use of electronics and the electromagnetic spectrum. Although we didn’t call it cyberspace before, we’ve been operating in this domain at least since World War II, with radar, chaff curtains and telephone networks. ... Superiority in cyberspace will be defined in much the same way as we define air or space superiority—maintaining freedom of action for the United States and its allies, while denying freedom of action to our adversaries.

Our Air Force command-and-control networks and other cyberspace capabilities must be capable of operating in a contested environment, and we will seek to deny the advantages cyberspace provides to our adversaries. Air Force Cyberspace Command will focus its efforts on military operations in and through cyberspace, but in support of JTF-GNO, will work closely with other government agencies. ... [We] will be postured to support homeland security, critical infrastructure protection and civil support operations using cyberspace.

GCN: Establishing this command implies there are real threats in cyberspace. Can you describe what’s happening on this frontier?

ELDER: Our adversaries operated in cyberspace in the past, are doing so today, and will do so even more in the future. Your readers are well aware of the attacks they experience with their networked computers every day. The Air Force can’t afford to disconnect a [command-and-control] system to purge itself of malware; as a result, we are very aggressive in our efforts to protect and defend these networks.

Al-Qaida coordinated the 9/11 strike with international and cellular communications, and they trained their pilots on simulators. Additionally, there are now hundreds of anti-U.S. Web sites, including ones actively used for planning and coordinating attacks on U.S. interests, and our adversaries can communicate freely via text messaging and e-mail. If we can establish cybersuperiority, we can inhibit the adversary’s ability to use cyberspace as an enabler.

We have very few peer competitors or entities with similar capabilities, in air, on the ground or at sea. However, we have many potential peer competitors in cyberspace due to its low entry costs. And the cyberdomain is also very attractive to both state and nonstate rogue actors because of its potential to achieve high-impact effects with low probability of detection or retribution. We can’t afford to lose the initiative in this area.

Our dependence on cyberspace demands an even greater emphasis on our ability to ensure freedom of maneuver in the domain. This will entail more than just “sitting guard” at workstations. It will mean approaching the problem just like we approach defending other physical domains. We need to be prepared to operate in cyberspace while our dominance is being contested.

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GREGORY GARCIA

GCN: As the first assistant secretary for cybersecurity at Homeland Security, a lot of folks in the business community have high expectations for you. What are your immediate priorities?

GARCIA: The first is that this function, cybersecurity and telecommunications, is going to lead in the national effort to prepare ... our networks, our information and communications systems, [to] make them more robust against cyberattacks.

Second, when incidents do happen, we need to have a strong, national coordinated response capability ... in partnership with the private sector, a strong level of incident response that links over to state and local first responders. Over time, the next year or so, I’ll be working toward really integrating cyber and communications functions to better reflect the convergence that’s taking place in the marketplace. We’re looking to secure both the pipes—the transport—and the content—the info.

Finally, the third strategic priority is to build awareness. This function is a bully pulpit. I want to help develop a well-informed public at both the enterprise level and individual consumer level. ... That’s a matter of getting out and talking, doing a lot of talking.

GCN: Does it really make a difference whether this is done at the assistant-secretary level or lower in the DHS organizational chart?

GARCIA: It has made a difference already, just simply by virtue of there being somebody at this level. It sends a clear [message] of the priority that this administration places on cybersecurity, communications security. I have briefed the secretary a couple of times now; he is engaged and considers this a priority.

GCN: How have you been working on these priorities?

GARCIA: One of the first things that I pushed for, and that we’re close to having done now, is co-locating the U.S.- Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) and the National Coordination Center, the communications industry/government partnership for watch and warning. That’s going to facilitate the information sharing we need between industry and government [and] build our incident response capability. ... That is one of the reasons I was brought on to DHS, in recognition of my strong ties with industry.

A couple of the high-level things we really need to do [are] work with [the Office of Management and Budget] to raise the bar for federal agencies, to strengthen all of our security.

Secondly, [we need to] really work with the private sector to get that coordinated incident response capability that we need to be able to move quickly and decisively. [And] we need a mature, real-time information sharing capability.

GCN: What are the pitfalls, the things you worry about?

GARCIA: The threats are constantly evolving against our cyber and communications infrastructure. We’re going to build upon this shared responsibility ... by industry, by government—all levels of government—by consumers [and] academia. And if we can put in place the structures and systems that will prepare us and deter against those threats, [if we] build incident response capability and awareness, then we’ll be better able to protect ourselves. The pitfall is that we don’t reach the level of partnership that we all know is necessary.

The one thing that I worry about is lack of awareness. I think that will be one of our biggest challenges, to be able to articulate ... how important everybody’s role is, that one computer or one network of computers can be the portal through which an attack is launched.Table of Contents

Signals Foil IEDs But Also Troop Radios By Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY, 23 January 2007

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has launched an urgent effort to develop radio systems immune to the jamming signals that troops use to foil homemade bombs planted by insurgents in Iraq.

The jammers, which block signals that detonate improvised explosive devices (IEDs), have become so powerful they can "cause the loss of all communications" for U.S. troops, a Pentagon solicitation

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to contractors says. It calls for information on devices that will allow troops to use jammers and radios at the same time. The Pentagon said the information is needed "to support urgent, ongoing initiatives" for jammers.

Jammers have been a lifesaver by disabling IEDs, the leading cause of death of U.S. troops in Iraq.

Bombs have killed at least 1,168 U.S. troops, according to an analysis of Pentagon data by iCasualties.org. The total is probably higher, the website says, because the Pentagon does not include details of each death. The site noted that the highest monthly death toll for IEDs occurred in December, when bombs killed 71 U.S. troops. All told, more than 3,000 U.S. servicemembers have died in Iraq.

Communication has been a historic advantage for the U.S. military, allowing it to send troops where they're needed most and to avoid "friendly fire" casualties. The jammers that protect troops from roadside bombs can keep them from knowing the location of enemies and allies. In close-quarters urban warfare, ensuring communication can be a life-or-death matter.

"It is a nightmare," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a military think tank. "Any part of the spectrum we can use to communicate is part of spectrum that the enemy can use to detonate an IED."

IEDs have killed 20 U.S. troops in Iraq this month, according to iCasualities. Adding 21,500 U.S. troops — as President Bush has announced — would be complicated by poor communication.

"Twice as many combat troops means twice as big a problem," Pike said.

The Pentagon posted the urgent notice on Jan 4. Jammers are a large portion of Pentagon efforts to fight IEDs. In 2006, the Pentagon spent $3.5 billion to counter IEDs, $1.4 billion of that on jammers.

The military has dealt with the communication problem for years. Troops initially kept power to jammers low enough to avoid interfering with communication, Marine Lt. Gen. James Mattis told Congress in 2005. But detonators for the bombs have grown more sophisticated, requiring more powerful jammers.

Christine DeVries, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon's Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization — the military's lead agency in fighting IEDs — said she could not provide details on the urgency of the request.

The Army has ramped up efforts to deal with electronic communication and warfare. Since Jan. 1, each Army battalion headed to combat has been required to have an electronic warfare operator, said Col. Laurie Moe Buckhout, chief of Army electronic warfare. Rendering IEDs harmless by an electronic signal will be one of the operator's responsibilities, Buckhout said.

The Army has put electronic warfare on par with learning to fire a weapon or administer first aid.

Army electronic warfare operators disrupt enemy communication, ensure U.S and coalition troops can talk to one another and prevent the enemy from knowing what friendly forces are doing, Buckhout said. A large portion of their responsibilities will be dealing with IEDs.Table of Contents

Pentagon to Contractors: Meet DOD Infosec StandardsBy Patience Wait, Government Computer News, 22 January 2007

The Defense Department is proposing to amend the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement to address training requirements that apply to contractor personnel who perform information assurance functions for DOD.

The proposed rule change provides that contractor personnel accessing information systems must meet applicable training and certification requirements.

The changes would apply DOD Directive 8570.1, Information Assurance Training, Certification and Workforce Management, and DOD Manual 8570.01-M, Information Assurance Workforce Improvement Program, to contractors.

The deadline for comments to be submitted in writing is March 23; all comments should reference DFARS Case 2006-D023. Comments may be submitted using the federal e-rulemaking portal at http://www.regulations.gov or via e-mail to dfars@osd.mil.

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Comments also can be submitted via fax to (703) 602-0350, or by mail to the Defense Acquisition Regulations System, Attn: Felisha Hitt, OUSD(AT&L)DPAP(DARS), IMD 3C132, 3062 Defense Pentagon, Washington, DC 20301-3062; or hand-delivered or couriered to Defense Acquisition Regulations System, Crystal Square 4, Suite 200A, 241 18th Street, Arlington, VA 22202-3402.Table of Contents

China Confirms Firing Missile to Destroy SatelliteBy Edward Cody Washington Post, 24 January 2007

BEIJING, Jan. 23 -- Breaking 12 days of silence, China confirmed Tuesday that it had fired a guided missile into space to destroy one of its satellites in a test that generated protests from the United States and other nations.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Jianchao, said the United States and other governments have now been informed about the secret test through diplomatic channels. He emphasized that the use of anti-satellite technology does not mean China has abandoned its long-standing opposition to the military use of space.

"I should stress at this time that the test was not targeted against any country and does not pose a threat to any country," Liu said at a ministry briefing. He added that he knew of no plans for another such test by the Chinese military.

The Chinese test shot, which culminated in the destruction of an overage weather satellite 537 miles above Earth, was detected by U.S. monitors Jan. 11, but the Chinese government refused to discuss it. The test raised concern in Washington, where officials and analysts interpreted it as a signal by China that U.S. military satellites could be vulnerable to attack.

With the U.S. military heavily reliant on satellites for reconnaissance, navigation, weapons guidance systems and anti-missile defenses, China's ability to shoot down satellites could pose an added threat in the event of hostilities over Taiwan. In addition, China's newly demonstrated ability could threaten Taiwanese satellites monitoring Chinese short- and medium-range missile deployments along the Taiwan Strait.

U.S. officials said they were also dismayed by the Chinese test because the United States and Russia, after testing anti-satellite technology in the 1980s, more recently have abstained from such tests, partly because destroying satellites creates debris that could damage satellites in nearby orbits. Liu declined to address questions on this danger.

Experts estimate that several hundred thousand debris fragments were created by the destruction of the satellite, which orbited in a section of space where as many as 125 other satellites fly.

China, which has embarked on an accelerated military modernization program, has repeatedly emphasized its desire to be able to compete in 21st-century warfare. The military, which runs the space program, has identified space-based communications and sensing systems as key to such efforts. Some Chinese military theorists also have advocated asymmetrical warfare, in which pinpoint weapons would be used to disrupt the more advanced and better-equipped U.S. military.

At the United Nations, China has consistently advocated the peaceful development of space and pushed for an international agreement to prevent it from becoming the theater for a new arms race. The Bush administration has opposed China's suggestion for an international conference to pursue such an accord, arguing there is no need for it.

In that light, Liu was asked whether the anti-satellite test violated the spirit of China's proclaimed position and, in any case, why China kept silent for nearly two weeks while officials around the world were discussing it on the basis of U.S. intelligence reports.

"We have nothing to hide," he responded. "After the relevant parties expressed their concerns, we made our response about the test quickly. We stressed that China opposes weaponization and an arms race in outer space."Table of Contents

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China Internet Market Grows To 137 Million Users By Steven Schwankert, IDG News Service, January 23, 2007

China added another 14 million Internet users in 2006, retaining its status as the world's second largest Internet market with 137 million total users, the China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC) announced Tuesday.

Of those, 90.7 million access the Internet using a broadband connection, a 15 percent jump over 2005, although total broadband use held steady at two-thirds of the Internet population. Also, 17 million users now access the Internet primarily via a wireless device.

Beijing residents accounted for 30.4 percent of the nation's total Internet use. Shanghai placed second with 28.7 percent of total Internet users. By contrast, the Tibet Autonomous Region accounted for only 0.1 percent of China's total Internet users, with 160,000. At present, only about 10.5 percent of China's 1.4 billion people use the Internet.

According to the 122-page report, 58.3 percent of Chinese Netizens are men, with 41.7 percent women. The two largest age groups for users are between the ages of 18 and 24 with 35.2 percent and between 25 and 30 with 19.7 percent. The report also noted that 57.8 percent of Internet users said they are not married.

Although many in the Internet industry, especially online advertising, like to point to Internet users as a more affluent group, the opposite seems to be true in China. The largest income group, 25.3 percent of respondents, earns less than Chinese renminbi 500 ($64) per month. Only 1.6 percent had a monthly income of more than renminbi 10,000 ($12,800).

Seventy-six percent of Chinese Internet users access the Internet primarily from home. Their primary online activity is sending and receiving e-mail (56.1 percent), followed closely by reading news (53.5 percent) and search (51.5 percent).

Users whose primary access point was a mobile device did so to send or receive e-mail (72.2 percent). Those who chose not to use their mobile device to access the Internet said the biggest obstacle was the high cost (69.6 percent). China does not yet have 3G (third generation) mobile service outside of test areas and pilot programs, but China Mobile Communications Corp. and China United Telecommunications Corp. offer 2.5G GSM (Global Standard for Mobile Communications) and CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) services, respectively, that allow for Internet access from mobile devices and computers with compatible modem PC cards.

Chinese Internet users also expressed deep concerns over giving out their private information online. Sixty-two percent said they were "totally unwilling" to give out private information online, with another 28 percent saying they were "not very willing" to do so. Only one percent said they were "very willing" to provide such information over the Internet.

CNNIC, a quasi-government organization, defines an "Internet user" for the purposes of the report as someone over the age of six who uses the Internet on average at least one hour per week. It does not release the size of its sample for the report.Table of Contents

Google Blots Out Iraq Bases On Internet By Thomas Harding, the Telegraph (UK), 21 Jan 07

British military bases in Iraq have been "blotted" out from Google Earth maps at the request of the Government to hinder terrorist attacks, it can be revealed.

Sensitive installations such as the Trident nuclear submarine pens in Faslane, Scotland, and the eavesdropping base at GCHQ Cheltenham have also been obscured, a search of the site shows.

Google was first alerted to the security breaches after personnel at the British headquarters at Basra Air Station in Iraq were astonished at the clarity with which all their positions were shown on the popular internet site.

The pictures, which were either aerial or satellite shots, showed the large number of vulnerable tent locations, vehicle parks and were clear enough to show tank tracks.

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After coming under almost daily mortar barrages, including one round that hit the divisional headquarters where the British general in charge of troops in Iraq is based, the Army contacted Google to have the pictures of the camp blurred so that details were obscured.

Following negotiations, Google agreed to blot out British bases in Iraq after the company was persuaded they would be helpful to terrorists.

But it was not done early enough to stop insurgents obtaining copies of the pictures which, with the longitude and latitude given, help them co-ordinate mortar and rocket attacks.

As revealed in The Daily Telegraph last week, an insurgent arrested by British troops in Basra was found with a Google Earth map of the Shatt Al Arab base, home for 1,000 soldiers.

The satellite photographs show in detail the various buildings inside the bases including vulnerable areas, such as tented accommodation, lavatory blocks and where lightly-armoured Land Rovers are parked.

An intelligence officer said: "This is evidence as far as we are concerned for planning terrorist attacks. Who would otherwise have Google Earth imagery of one of our bases?

"We have never had proof that they have deliberately targeted any area of the camp using these images but presumably they are of great use to them.

"We believe they use Google Earth to identify the most -vulnerable areas such as tents."

One soldier has been killed in the last six months following a mortar attack and there have been several injuries.

There have also been reports that the images were being sold to members of rogue militias in the marketplace in Basra.

Google said it had opened channels of communication with the military in Iraq "but we will not go into the details of those conversations".

"Google gets information from third-party providers so all the pictures are publicly available," a spokesman said.

"We do of course listen to requests from government but we don't comment on the details of any of those discussions."

It takes just 30 seconds to log on to the Google Earth website and look for sensitive locations.

Research by The Daily Telegraph has provided some interesting images. In addition to Faslane and GCHQ the entire aerial footage of Hereford, home to the SAS, has been fuzzed out. But the Special Forces Support Group headquarters, which provide additional troops for the SAS, in St Athan, Wales, is shown vividly with airstrip and barracks. Similarly, pictures of the Royal Navy base in Portsmouth show with some clarity aircraft carriers, frigates and destroyers in the harbour.

Other clearly visible sites that could be useful to terrorists include MI6 headquarters in London.

One website even set up a "Spot the Black Helicopter" competition where users were asked to find sensitive military bases using Google Earth.Table of Contents

UNH 'Geeks' Unveil a Cyber Threat CalculatorBy Clynton Namuo, Union Leader, 26 January 2007

DURHAM – The University of New Hampshire unveiled a cyber threat calculator at a conference in St. Louis, Mo., yesterday that will aid the government and business in fighting terrorism.

The calculator evaluates how big a danger a certain person, group or nation poses. It uses a sliding scale of up to 140 points; the higher the number, the greater the threat.

"We wanted people who were really geeks essentially to be able to take this information to their bosses and say 'Hey, this is what we should be looking at,'" said Andrew Macpherson, an assistant professor of research in justice studies, who along with his students developed the calculator.

Once fully developed, the calculator will be a powerful intelligence tool that will help identify how likely an attack is, who the attacker may be and where the attack may occur.

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Such a tool will be of greater use in the future when major cyber attacks are more likely to occur, Macpherson said. So far, terrorists simply do not have the capability to launch large-scale, devastating cyber attacks.

"We have very few indications that terrorists are looking to use cyber attacks against the United States of America," he said.

Macpherson also said he hopes the calculator will shed light on the threat of cyber attacks and possibly bring more funding and attention to the growing problem. He unveiled the calculator yesterday at the Department of Defense Cyber Crime Conference 2007.

Cyber attacks are put in two main categories, said Macpherson, who also spearheaded the state attorney general's Cyber Crime Initiative to educate more law enforcement officials on how to fight the crimes.

The first category is tactical and includes attacks that law enforcement would deal with such as fraud or identity theft. The second type of cyber attack is strategic and includes larger attacks that the government would respond to, such as terrorists trying to fell the power grid.

The threat calculator will help identify the larger strategic attacks using a set of 28 variables, Macpherson said. Each person, organization or nation is judged on each variable.

Those variables also fall into two categories €" intent and capability €" and include things such as whether or not the country is stable and has been hostile to the U.S. before and whether or not its military has the ability to execute such attacks.

Surprisingly, the calculator makes all its computations based solely on information readily available to the public. No classified data is used, Macpherson said. He said 80 to 90 percent of intelligence is done using just such open-sourced data.

For example, if an intelligence agency gets a tip on a possible train attack somewhere at a certain time, it will first check if the train actually goes to that area and if so, whether or not it will be there at the given time. That is all information anyone can get, Macpherson said.

"We feel we are one of the few academic institutions in the nation that is conducting this type of research," he said.

Macpherson will discuss more cyber threats on a Discovery Channel show titled "Future 2057" airing Sunday (27 January) at 8 p.m.Table of Contents

Iraqis Hold Reopening Celebration for SchoolBy Multi-National Force - West PAO (via Blackanthem Military News), Jan 25, 2007

AR RAMADI, Iraq - An Iraqi neighborhood north of Ramadi celebrated the reopening of its combined primary and secondary school Tuesday by sharing the moment with visiting Iraqi Army Soldiers and Coalition Forces.

Community leaders asked Maj. Derek Horst, civil affairs team leader with the 4th Civil Affairs Group, to cut the ribbon for the Al Haitham School, which provides classes for the Abu Jassim tribe.

The school was temporarily closed in November for renovations. Tribal leader Sheik Taher, who oversaw the renovations, led a group of community leaders and military personnel on a brief tour of the building after the ribbon cutting.

First Lt. Stuart Barnes, a civil affairs team leader with B Company, 486th Civil Affairs Battalion, said attendance at the school shows stability in the area continues to increase.

"We’re making progress day after day," he said.

The school, which began holding classes again earlier this month, hosts an estimated 200 to 300 students, Barnes said.Table of Contents

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LTG David Petraeus: A Military Leader Bringing “Soft Power” to IraqBy James Forest, Ph.D., Family Security Foundation, 26 January 2007

Iraq is a mess. The good news is that of all the military leaders this administration could choose to tackle the complexities in Iraq, few would be as perfect for the task as Lieutenant General (LTG) David Petraeus. He commanded the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) in Iraq during the first year of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and led the team that successfully pacified and reconstructed the northern city of Mosul. At one point during this period, a group of West Point faculty (including myself) were treated to a conference call with Petraeus, who described the vast diversity of their civil affairs efforts, and I was struck by his incredible grasp of critical infrastructure challenges, local cultural nuances, and the non-kinetic dimensions of effective counterinsurgency. He and his team demonstrated the political savvy of the best mayoral administrations in the U.S., and their results of their efforts spoke volumes. We brought his observations and lessons learned from the field into our classrooms, where our cadets—Army officers of the future—surely benefited.

In June 2004, he became the first commander of the Multi-National Security Transition-Iraq, and later that year was chosen as the first commander of the NATO Training Mission-Iraq. His leadership and experience are unquestioned. But it his impressive intellect and enormous grasp of the non-kinetic aspects of military conflicts which will be of greatest assistance to our men and women deployed in Iraq. You see, LTG Petraeus is one of a rare breed of senior scholar-soldiers who knows—and can convince others, drawing on extensive historical facts and solid academic theory—that military power of even the greatest magnitude cannot resolve a complex counterinsurgency on its own.

For example, in the January-February 2006 issue of Military Review, Petraeus offered fourteen observations from his experiences in Iraq. This article has become required reading in several military education programs, and warrants a brief summary and paraphrasing for a broader audience, particular as it relates the application of soft power toward countering insurgencies. These observations are:

1.“Do not try to do too much with your own hands.”

2. Act quickly, because every Army of liberation has a half-life.

3. Money is ammunition.

4. Increasing the number of stakeholders is critical to success.

5. Analyze “costs and benefits” before each operation.

6. Intelligence is the key to success.

7. Everyone must do nation-building.

8. Help build institutions, not just units.

9. Cultural awareness is a force multiplier.

10. Success in a counterinsurgency requires more than just military operations.

11. Ultimate success depends on local leaders.

12. Remember the strategic corporals and strategic lieutenants.

13. There is no substitute for flexible, adaptable leaders.

14. A leader’s most important task is to set the right tone.

Observations 7 through 11 are particular important for our understanding of how the Iraq conflict will (if ever) be resolved, because they emphasize the non-military, soft power dimensions of any successful counterinsurgency strategy. Indeed, his observation number 10, that success in a counterinsurgency requires more than just military operations, raises critical questions about why the military continues to bear the overwhelming brunt of the current counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq. The Departments of States, Agriculture, Education, Energy—all the arms of the federal government should be heavily engaged in the reconstruction process, through financial and human resource commitments. In their absence, military officers and their soldiers are tasked with the broadest array of civil affairs, construction, and development projects imaginable, projects which

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are absolutely necessary for rebuilding a nation torn apart by decades of corrupt dictatorship and, more recently, war and sectarian violence.

According to Joseph Nye, a former dean of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, the term soft power encompasses the realm of economics as well as the nuanced world of negotiated relationships among nations and transnational actors (like multinational corporations, non-governmental organizations, and multinational regimes like NATO, the European Union, and OPEC). It also accounts for the non-warfighting, nation-building activities that our soldiers and officers conduct on a daily basis (but which almost never receive coverage in the media). Under Petraeus, these types of activities became a responsibility of everyone, not just the Civil Affairs units. For example, he tells the story (in his Military Review article) of how reopening the University of Mosul demonstrates the importance of soft power. After assessing the extent of the damage and looting, he organized a combination of civil affairs and aviation brigade personnel (individuals who clearly did not have “Rebuild Foreign Academic Institutions” in their mission essential task list), and put them to work repairing and reopen this symbol of considerable national pride, with over 75 buildings, some 4,500 staff and faculty, and approximately 30-35,000 students.

LTG Petraeus also sent his Signal Battalion to help reestablish the local telecommunications structure. Their work including assisting the Ministry of Telecommunications element in northern Iraq with a deal that brought a satellite downlink to the central switch and linked Mosul with the international phone system. Other components of his division were assigned similar tasks. The Chaplain and his team linked with the Ministry of Religious Affairs, the Engineer Battalion with the Ministry of Public Works, the Division Support Command with the Ministry of Youth and Sports, the Corps Support Group with the Ministry of Education, the Military Police Battalion with the Ministry of Interior (Police), the Surgeon and his team with the Ministry of Health, the Staff Judge Advocate with Ministry of Justice officials, the Fire Support Element with the Ministry of Oil, and so on. At the end of the day, everyone and every element, not just Civil Affairs units, was engaged in nation-building. The results among the community were palpable—Mosul remained one of the most peaceful areas in Iraq throughout Petraeus’ command.

According to Petraeus, counterinsurgency strategies must include “above all, efforts to establish a political environment that helps reduce support for the insurgents and undermines the attraction of whatever ideology they may espouse. In certain Sunni Arab regions of Iraq, establishing such a political environment is likely of greater importance than military operations, since the right political initiatives might undermine the sanctuary and assistance provided to the insurgents. Beyond the political arena, other important factors are economic recovery (which reduces unemployment, a serious challenge in Iraq that leads some out-of-work Iraqis to be guns for hire), education (which opens up employment possibilities and access to information from outside one’s normal circles), diplomatic initiatives (in particular, working with neighboring states through which foreign fighters transit), improvement in the provision of basic services, and so on. In fact, the campaign plan developed in 2005 by the Multinational Force-Iraq and the U.S. Embassy with Iraqi and Coalition leaders addresses each of these issues.” (Of course, an immediate question that his observation reveals is why there was no comparable plan to address these issues before the original invasion of Iraq in March 2003.)

In his Military Review article, Petraeus describes how his team saw beyond the need to develop Iraqi Army and Police units, and began working as well to rebuild the institutions that support these units in the field—the ministries, the administrative and logistical support units, the professional military education systems, admin policies and procedures, and the training organizations. “A lack of ministry capability and capacity,” he notes, “can undermine the development of the battalions, brigades, and divisions, if the ministries, for example, don’t pay the soldiers or police on time, use political rather than professional criteria in picking leaders, or fail to pay contractors as required for services provided.”

In addition, he notes, understanding key cultural aspects—the viewpoints of various ethnic groups, tribes, religious elements, political parties, and other social groupings; the relationships among the various groups; governmental structures and processes; local and regional history; and, of course, local and national leaders—is essential if one is to help the people build stable political, social, and economic institutions. Beyond the intellectual need for the specific knowledge about the

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environment in which one is working, it is also clear that people, in general, are more likely to cooperate if those who have power over them respect the culture that gives them a sense of identity and self-worth. These observations reflect the sort of understanding about human behavior and commitment to cultural awareness that have provided (and will continue to provide) an important beacon for guiding his subordinates toward success in Iraq.

Finally, he emphasizes the critical importance of local leadership in forging a successful future in Iraq. “Success in Iraq is, as time passes, increasingly dependent on Iraqi leaders—at four levels:

– Leaders at the national level working together, reaching across party and sectarian lines to keep the country unified, rejecting short-term expedient solutions such as the use of militias, and pursuing initiatives to give more of a stake in the success of the new Iraq to those who feel left out;

– Leaders in the ministries building the capability and capacity necessary to use the tremendous resources Iraq has efficiently, transparently, honestly, and effectively;

– Leaders at the province level resisting temptations to pursue winner-take-all politics and resisting the urge to politicize the local police and other security forces, and;

– Leaders in the Security Forces staying out of politics, providing courageous, competent leadership to their units, implementing policies that are fair to all members of their forces, and fostering loyalty to their Army or Police band of brothers rather than to specific tribes, ethnic groups, political parties, or local militias.

Iraqi leaders are, in short, the real key to the new Iraq, and we thus need to continue to do all that we can to enable them.”

This last point—enabling the Iraqi people to take control of their country and build a prosperous democracy—is an oft-cited mantra of the current administration, and yet highlights the debate about sending more troops to Iraq to quell the violence. The Bush administration has (perhaps belatedly) recognized that before soft power can be applied to build a stable democracy, absolute security must be provided, and this requires a greater force presence than initially approved. However, critics are loathe to see the U.S. bear the brunt of the responsibility for providing this security. A professional Iraqi military and police force, whose members are loyal only to the nation’s constitution and laws (and willing to abandon their historical ethnic or tribal influences), is paramount to the security of the country. To the degree that this proposed surge in troop strength can enable such developments, it is a good thing, but it remains to be seen—despite the huge sacrifices being made every day by the men and women (many of them fathers and mothers) of the American armed forces—whether the Iraqi people will rise to the occasion. This may very well be their last, best chance to prove the critics and skeptics wrong.

Overall, LTG David Petraeus—a graduate of West Point who happens to hold a M.P.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton University—has a profound understanding that the military is not the solution to an insurgency. He, perhaps more than most senior officers and civilian leaders in this administration, has demonstrated his grasp of the global conflict of ideologies, and seems to offer a pragmatic, comprehensive response to the Iraqi stage on which the conflict is being played out. We will undoubtedly give him our full support. So should the people of Iraq.Acknowledgements

The views expressed are those of the author and not of the Department of the Army, the U.S. Military Academy, or any other agency of the U.S. Government.

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Camp Lemonier Soldier Recalls Heart-Warming Experience In KenyaBy U.S. Army Sgt. Eric Hayes, CJTF – HOA Civic Action Team, 28 Jan 07

LAMU DISTRICT, Kenya – During my tour as a civil affairs specialist on a civic action team for Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa, I worked on several Medical and Veterinary Civic Action Programs, better known as MEDCAPS and VETCAPS. I shared the excitement of being a wandering explorer with a driving focus to accomplish a specific task. The brightly-colored kikois and collared shirts contrasted with a landscape alien to me. The smell of roasted curried goat, unfamiliar to me, permeated the air.

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For a MEDCAP in the Lamu District in Kenya from July 8-24, our team arrived with plans in hand to help as many people as possible. The first barriers for us to cross were language and culture. It was difficult at first, but by learning a few words and using an interpreter, we were able to build a relationship unlike any I’ve experienced before. This was the connection between two cultures that makes civil affairs successful and awe-inspiring.

During a MEDCAP in the Lamu District in Kenya, I discovered many things about the people in that area. Getting to know some of the locals, I witnessed the respect family members showed each other and how these families often traveled together. When people were too sick to travel to the MEDCAP, they would often send their children in their place, walking barefoot for miles on wild dirt paths hoping to pick up some medicine to treat their family members.

The Kenyan volunteers working with us were some of the friendliest people I had ever met. They were quick to greet us, to chat with us and to make us feel welcome. As they got to know us better, the Kenyans were as curious about American culture as we were about Kenyan culture.

One of the greatest challenges we faced during the MEDCAP was getting medical treatment to the most people in an effective manner. When villagers heard that a MEDCAP was taking place nearby, they showed up expecting some form of treatment for their ailments.

Facing these expectations, we worked tirelessly, seeing as many patients as possible. It was frustrating at times trying to help people when we struggled to understand what they were trying to tell us.

However, through the long hours of toil, the rewards were priceless. Watching complete strangers leave your sight smiling, walking down a dusty path with an arm full of medicine and vitamins, sure that the treatments would make their families healthier and happier, made our efforts worth while

Making new friends and improving the lives of other people for the sake of peace has been the most gratifying experience I could ever have.Table of Contents

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