Stratfor and Mamie Van Doren

I'm just getting back into the swing of things so my comments on this Stratfor article are going to be rather brief. In the article George Friedman discusses the current American doctrine of the long war, problems it presents, and areas where it may not have been as thought through as desired nor implemented properly.

The beginning of the article is excerpted below. You can follow the link at the end of the excerpt to read the entire article.

For the Hot Stratfor Babe I looked for inspiration from even a longer war -- the War Between the Sexes. With that in mind I searched for portrayals of Eve in the cinema and settled upon The Private Lives of Adam and Eve which starred Mamie Van Doren. So, in spite of the fact that the choice seems faintly sacrilegious, Mamie wins the honors. Hey, don't blame me, blame the pain medicine I'm on.

The film was a comedy which was directed by Micky Rooney, who also played the devil in it. Apparently the movie revolved around a modern day Adam and Eve who flashed back to the time of Genesis, with their friends and acquaintances played parts in the flashbacks. If you don't consider it too closely I suppose it is kind of like The Wizard of Oz. Only -- having not seen the film -- unlike Oz I'm guessing The Private Lives of Adam and Eve was pretty bad. 


Afghanistan and the Long War
By George Friedman, March 19, 2012

The war in Afghanistan has been under way for more than 10 years. It has not been the only war fought during this time; for seven of those years another, larger war was waged in Iraq, and smaller conflicts were under way in a number of other countries as well. But the Afghanistan War is still the longest large-scale, multi-divisional war fought in American history. An American soldier's killing of 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children, on March 11 represents only a moment in this long war, but it is an important moment.

In the course of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, military strategists in the United States developed the concept of the long war. The theory was presented in many ways, but its core argument was this: The defeat of Taliban forces and the Iraqi resistance would take a long time, but success would not end the war because Islamist terrorism and its supporters would be a constantly shifting threat, both in the places and in the ways they would operate. Therefore, since it was essential to defeat terrorism, the United States was now engaging in a long war whose end was distant and course unknown.

Sometimes explicit but usually implicit in this argument was that other strategic issues faced by the United States should be set aside and that the long war ought to be the centerpiece of U.S. strategic policy until the threat of Islamist terrorism disappears or at least subsides. As a result, under this theory -- which very much influences U.S. strategy -- even if the war in Afghanistan ended, the war in the Islamic world would go on indefinitely. We need to consider the consequences of this strategy.

Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who allegedly perpetrated the appalling slaughter in Afghanistan, was on his fourth tour of combat duty. He had served three tours in Iraq of nine, 15 and 12 months -- he had been at war for three years. His tour in Afghanistan was going to be his fourth year. The wars he fought in differed from prior wars. Fallujah and Tora Bora were not Stalingrad. Still, the hardship, fear and threat of death are ever-present. The probability of dying may be lower, but it is there, it is real, and there are comrades you can name whom you saw die.

In Vietnam, only volunteers served more than a single one-year tour. For Americans in World War II, the war lasted a little more than three years, and only a handful of U.S. troops were in combat for that long. U.S. involvement in World War I lasted less than two years, and most U.S. soldiers were deployed for a year or less. In U.S. history, only the Civil and Revolutionary wars lasted as long as Bales had served.

Atrocities occur in all wars. This is an observation, not an excuse. And they become more likely the longer a soldier is in combat. War is brutal and it brutalizes the souls of warriors. Some resist the brutalization better than others, but no one can see death that often and not be changed. Just as important, the enemy is dehumanized. You cannot fight and fear him for years and not come to see him as someone alien to you. Even worse, when the enemy and the population are difficult to distinguish, as is the case in a counterinsurgency, the fear and rage extends to everyone. In Bales' case, it extended even to children.

It is no different for the Taliban save two things. First, they are fighting for their homeland and in their homeland. Americans fight for the homeland in the sense that they are fighting terrorism, but that fight becomes abstract after a while. For the Taliban it is a reality. Americans can go home and may become bitter at those who never shared the burden. The Taliban are at home, and their bitterness at those who did not share the burden outstrips the bitterness of the Americans. Second, it is a fact of war that Taliban atrocities are usually invisible to the Western media, but they are there, even if reporters are not. It could be said that the Taliban were brutalized by years of fighting before the Americans came, but in the end, the fact of brutalization is more important than the genesis.

Read more: Afghanistan and the Long War | Stratfor

The sailing went OK, but...

...the drive back didn't. We sailed the boat for 10 hours and got it to its new home port.

On the way home we got hit head-on. I'm in the hospital and a bit banged up. Gonne be slow blogging for a while.

Published with Blogger-droid v2.0.4

For those in peril on the sea

As you read this I'll be setting off on the maiden voyage with my fine new used sailing vessel. It's about a 23 mile trip south to its new home port. 

From my nautical readings I know I have to look out for nor'easters, icebergs and sirens of the sea luring me towards the rocks. Although, now that I think about it, I don't recall any reports of any of those occurring in the Gulf. 

In fact, my biggest fear is becoming becalmed and having to boil the leather of my shoes for sustenance. At any rate, if you don't hear from me again you'll know I went down with my sloop. If so, please light a candle and put it in your window for my safe return.
 

Stratfor and Alicia Silverstone

In his last article about terrorist planning methodology Scott Stewart discussed the surveillance stage of their planning cycle.

This week he discusses practical steps you can take to maintain situational awareness. This is a topic he has written about before, and as he points out, it is also a necessary mindset to develop to try to avoid criminal behavior as well.

The beginning of the article is excerpted below. A link to the full article follows the excerpt.

Because the article was about situational awareness, the movie Clueless naturally came to mind as I pondered who deserved to be the article's Hot Stratfor Babe. That settled, Alicia Silverstone was the obvious choice for the honor.

In the film Alicia plays Cher, a vapid and fashion obsessed butinsky who gives everybody else in the film relationship and style tips. Her own personal life is a bit of a fiasco, as she spends the majority of the movie chasing after a guy who turns out to be gay. I saw it when it first came out and have no idea how well it aged, but I remember it being an entertaining bit of fluff.

 Ms Silverstone started her career at a young age in the movie The Crush. This led to a series of music videos for Aerosmith where she started to gain a following of young fans. Clueless was her breakout film. She's continued to do films, has had less luck getting a TV show to last, and has gradually started doing more and more stage work. 


A Practical Guide to Situational AwarenessBy Scott Stewart, March 12, 2012

For the past three weeks we have been running a series in the Security Weekly that focuses on some of the fundamentals of terrorism. First, we noted that terrorism is a tactic not exclusive to any one group and that the tactic would not end even if the jihadist threat were to disappear. We then discussed how actors planning terrorist attacks have to follow a planning process and noted that there are times during that process when such plots are vulnerable to detection.

Last week we discussed how one of the most important vulnerabilities during the terrorism planning process is surveillance, and we outlined what bad surveillance looks like and described some basic tools to help identify those conducting it. At the end of last week's Security Weekly we also discussed how living in a state of paranoia and looking for a terrorist behind every bush not only is dangerous to one's physical and mental health but also results in poor security. This brings us to this week, where we want to discuss the fundamentals of situational awareness and explain how people can practice the technique in a relaxed and sustainable way.

Situational awareness is very important, not just for personal security but as a fundamental building block in collective security. Because of this importance, Stratfor has written about situational awareness many times in the past. However, we believe it merits repeating again in order to share these concepts with our new readers as well as serve as a reminder for our longtime readers.

More Mindset than Skill

It is important to note that situational awareness -- being aware of one's surroundings and identifying potential threats and dangerous situations -- is more of a mindset than a hard skill. Because of this, situational awareness is not something that can be practiced only by highly trained government agents or specialized corporate security teams. Indeed, it can be exercised by anyone with the will and the discipline to do so. Situational awareness is not only important for recognizing terrorist threats, but it also serves to identify criminal behavior and other dangerous situations.

The primary element in establishing this mindset is first to recognize that threats exist. Ignorance or denial of a threat make a person's chances of quickly recognizing an emerging threat and avoiding it highly unlikely. Bad things do happen. Apathy, denial and complacency can be deadly.

A second important element of the proper mindset is understanding the need to take responsibility for one's own security. The resources of any government are finite and the authorities simply cannot be everywhere and cannot stop every potential terrorist attack or other criminal action. The same principle applies to private security at businesses or other institutions, like places of worship. Therefore, people need to look out for themselves and their neighbors.

Another important facet of this mindset is learning to trust your "gut" or intuition. Many times a person's subconscious can notice subtle signs of danger that the conscious mind has difficulty quantifying or articulating. I have interviewed many victims who experienced such feelings of danger prior to an incident but who chose to ignore them. Trusting your gut and avoiding a potentially dangerous situation may cause you a bit of inconvenience, but ignoring such feelings can lead to serious trouble.

The discipline part of practicing situational awareness refers to the conscious effort required to pay attention to gut feelings and to surrounding events even while you are busy and distracted. At such times even obvious hostile activity can go unnoticed, so individuals need to learn to be observant even while doing other things.

Levels of Awareness
People typically operate on five distinct levels of awareness. There are many ways to describe these levels ("Cooper's colors," for example, which is a system frequently used in law enforcement and military training), but perhaps the most effective way to illustrate the differences between the levels is to compare them to the different degrees of attention we practice while driving. For our purposes here we will refer to the five levels as "tuned out," "relaxed awareness," "focused awareness," "high alert" and "comatose."

Read the rest of A Practical Guide to Situational Awareness at Stratfor.

Insensatez

Get ready for a relaxing weekend with Rosa Passos and Ron Carter.

 

In the Hall of the Mountain King played on Tesla coils

I hate to set up back to back music posts, but this is just too good to pass up. Steve Ward, Jeff Larson and Terry Blake, who bill themselves as the Masters of Lightning, perform songs with solid state musical Tesla coils. They use 25Kw and a MIDI to modulate the break rate (the rate and duration of the high power RF bursts) of the coils to make the music.

Above is their version of In the Hall of the Mountain King. If you go to YouTube they have  other samples such as House of the Rising Sun, Sweet Home Alabama and Dueling Banjos. I wonder what their neighbors think of their concerts?

Found via Open Culture.
 

Turtle's eye view

Continuing my series of mini-cam videos, today we have a camera mounted on a turtle. The notes that accompany the video assure us that there is no chlorine in the pool, and that the camera is neutral buoyant, so it doesn't cause the turtle to sink. The turtle swims to the bottom as a normal defense mechanism.
 

A deserted and burning city

Borepatch has an exceptionally good post up today called  Napoleon's Sponge. In it, he compares Obama's overreach to Napoleon's disastrous decision to invade Russia.   

Napoleon had gone from victory to victory, until he was finally stalled in the deserted and burning city of Moscow and saw his invincibility, along with his army, dissolve as it withdrew from Russia.

So too has Progressivism had a 100 year string of forward movement from victory to victory until it stalled on the horns of empty treasuries and an ever expanding deficit. In both the U.S. and Europe there is now significant push back. What looked like the final victory for the Progressives is perhaps instead turning into a rout.

I think Borepatch is a bit over optimistic -- the retreating French army left no guerrillas, while bureaucracies and institutions are infested with them today. They will fight a long and brutal rear guard. None the less, it does appear that the high watermark of the Progressive movement may have been met.

Below is an excerpt from his piece. Be sure to follow the link above and read his entire post. 

Obamacare was the high water mark of the Progressive dream, equivalent to Napoleon's inconclusive "victory" at Borodino, where a quarter million men faced each other with grapeshot and bayonet, and 70,000 ended their campaign for good. Today Obama seems like Napoleon, looking upon the devastation that was Moscow and wondering how he can keep his army alive over the winter. 

He can't, and they're all deserting.  2010 saw the Democratic Party refuse to run on the "success" that was their biggest entitlement victory in a generation, because America increasingly hates it - to the point that 90% oppose the mandate to buy insurance.  That's not "50% plus one" where you can either convince people later or sweep it under the rug.  That's the time you start wondering if your party is the 1%.

The problem for Progressives is that Obama has let the mask slip.  He ran as a moderate who would reach across the aisle to get things done for America.  He's governed as a radical who is intentionally inflaming class warfare.  And so the Democratic Party finds itself in a crisis of legitimacy so profound that even the Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg can't avoid it:

But in smaller, more probing focus groups, voters show they are fairly cynical about Democratic politicians’ stands. They tune out the politicians’ fine speeches and plans and express sentiments like these: “It’s just words.” “There’s just such a control of government by the wealthy that whatever happens, it’s not working for all the people; it’s working for a few of the people.” “We don’t have a representative government anymore.”

But none of this has slowed the Administration, pushing stealth gun control via the ATF "Fast and Furious" operation, preventing oil drilling on public land or in the Gulf, or using the IRS to harass Tea Party organizations.  As Maréchal Ney said to Napoleon after Borodino, "Never let a crisis go to waste, even if you have to make the crisis."  (Err, I think I read that in a history book somewhere.)

And as we view the unfolding collapse of the Progressive vision in general and the Eurozone in particular, the Administration tells Congressional Democrats that they're on their own as far as fund raising is concerned.  Three years after receiving his Nobel Prize, the Emperor is leaving the advanced guard behind.   He's taking a sleigh away from the front lines to save his own chances, while they're expected to fall under Tea Party sabres in the snowy retreat.

The water jet pack

JetLev -- a mere $99,500 to own your own.

  

Stratfor and Alexandra Maria Lara

The latest article in George Friedman's series on the current state of geopolitics concerns Germany.

NATO, and to a larger degree the EU, were post war organizations that were intended to neutralize Germany's power by binding it to France. 

With German unification, and now the economic difficulties of the EU, there is a shift in power taking place on the continent.

In light of that Friedman considers several possibilities: a rump EU or Germany allied with either France or Russia and discusses the ramifications of each situation.

The beginning of the article is excerpted below. A link to the entire article at Stratfor is at the end of the excerpt.

For the article's Hot Stratfor Babe I looked for a German actress. I ended up with Alexandra Maria Lara, who's actually Romanian, but she moved to Germany at the age of 4. That's close enough for me, and so she gets the honors for this article.

Ms Lara started out on German TV as a teen, but quickly transitioned to film where she has had international success. However, for the sake of this post, her most famous part was as Traudl Junge, Adolf Hitler's secretary, in the film Der Untergang.

Der Untergang's English name is The Downfall, and from it is the clip of Adolph Hitler ranting and raving that has appeared in about a bajillion parodies. Granted, internet fame like that is hard to top, but I'm sure we all agree that a Hot Stratfor Babe award beats it hands down.


The State of the World: Germany's Strategy By George Friedman, March 12, 2012

The idea of Germany having an independent national strategy runs counter to everything that Germany has wanted to be since World War II and everything the world has wanted from Germany. In a way, the entire structure of modern Europe was created to take advantage of Germany's economic dynamism while avoiding the threat of German domination. In writing about German strategy, I am raising the possibility that the basic structure of Western Europe since World War II and of Europe as a whole since 1991 is coming to a close.

If so, then the question is whether historical patterns of German strategy will emerge or something new is coming. It is, of course, always possible that the old post-war model can be preserved. Whichever it is, the future of German strategy is certainly the most important question in Europe and quite possibly in the world.

Origins of Germany's Strategy

Before 1871, when Germany was fragmented into a large number of small states, it did not pose a challenge to Europe. Rather, it served as a buffer between France on one side and Russia and Austria on the other. Napoleon and his campaign to dominate Europe first changed the status of Germany, both overcoming the barrier and provoking the rise of Prussia, a powerful German entity. Prussia became instrumental in creating a united Germany in 1871, and with that, the geopolitics of Europe changed.

What had been a morass of states became not only a unified country but also the most economically dynamic country in Europe -- and the one with the most substantial ground forces. Germany was also inherently insecure. Lacking any real strategic depth, Germany could not survive a simultaneous attack by France and Russia. Therefore, Germany's core strategy was to prevent the emergence of an alliance between France and Russia. However, in the event that there was no alliance between France and Russia, Germany was always tempted to solve the problem in a more controlled and secure way, by defeating France and ending the threat of an alliance. This is the strategy Germany has chosen for most of its existence.

The dynamism of Germany did not create the effect that Germany wanted. Rather than split France and Russia, the threat of a united Germany drew them together. It was clear to France and Russia that without an alliance, Germany would pick them off individually. In many ways, France and Russia benefited from an economically dynamic Germany. It not only stimulated their own economies but also provided an alternative to British goods and capital. Nevertheless, the economic benefits of relations with Germany did not eliminate the fear of Germany. The idea that economics rule the decisions of nations is insufficient for explaining their behavior.

Germany was confronted with a strategic problem. By the early 20th century the Triple Entente, signed in 1907, had allied Russia, France and the United Kingdom. If they attacked simultaneously at a time of their choosing, these countries could destroy Germany. Therefore, Germany's only defense was to launch a war at a time of its choosing, defeat one of these countries and deal with the others at its leisure. During both World War I and World War II, Germany first struck at France and then turned to deal with Russia while keeping the United Kingdom at bay. In both wars, the strategy failed. In World War I, Germany failed to defeat France and found itself in an extended war on two fronts. In World War II, it defeated France but failed to defeat Russia, allowing time for an Anglo-American counterattack in the west.

Binding Germany to Europe

Germany was divided after World War II. Whatever the first inclinations of the victors, it became clear that a rearmed West Germany was essential if the Soviet Union was going to be contained. If Germany was to be rearmed, its economy had to be encouraged to grow, and what followed was the German economic miracle. Germany again became the most dynamic part of Europe.

The issue was to prevent Germany from returning to the pursuit of an autonomous national strategy, both because it could not resist the Soviet forces to the east by itself and, more important, because the West could not tolerate the re-emergence of divisive and dangerous power politics in Europe. The key was binding Germany to the rest of Europe militarily and economically. Put another way, the key was to make certain that German and French interests coincided, since tension between France and Germany had been one of the triggers of prior wars since 1871. Obviously, this also included other Western European countries, but it was Germany's relationship with France that was most important.

Militarily, German and French interests were tied together under the NATO alliance even after France withdrew from the NATO Military Committee under Charles de Gaulle. Economically, Germany was bound with Europe through the emergence of more sophisticated multilateral economic organizations that ultimately evolved into the European Union.

After World War II, West Germany's strategy was threefold. First, it had to defend itself against the Soviet Union in concert with an alliance that would effectively command its military through NATO. This would limit German sovereignty but eliminate the perception of Germany as a threat. Second, it would align its economy with that of the rest of Europe, pursuing prosperity without undermining the prosperity of other countries. Third, it would exercise internal political sovereignty, reclaiming its rights as a nation without posing a geopolitical threat to Western Europe. After the fall of the Soviet Union, this was extended to include Eastern European states.

The strategy worked well. There was no war with the Soviets. There was no fundamental conflict in Western Europe and certainly none that was military in nature. The European economy in general, and the German economy in particular, surged once East Germany had been reintegrated with West Germany. With reintegration, German internal sovereignty was insured. Most important, France remained linked to Germany via the European Union and NATO. Russia, or what was left after the collapse of the Soviet Union, was relatively secure so long as Germany remained part of European structures. The historical strategic problem Germany had faced appeared solved.

Europe's Economic Crisis

The situation became more complex after 2008. Germany's formal relationship with NATO remained intact, but without the common threat of the Soviet Union, the alliance was fracturing over the divergent national interests of its members. The European Union had become Germany's focus, and the bloc had come under intense pressure that made the prior alignment of all European countries more dubious. Germany needed the European Union. It needed it for the reasons that have existed since World War II: as a foundation of its relationship with France and as a means to ensure that national interest would not generate the kinds of conflicts that had existed in the past.

Read the rest of The State of the World: Germany's Strategy at Stratfor.

Old booze trucks

Click any image to enlarge

Beer, wine and liqueur trucks started out pretty functional, but it wasn't long before they got swept up in more modernistic looking styling. Of course it all looks delightfully retro to us. 

It's a shame I could only find black and white pictures. I wonder what colors they were painted? I'm guessing they had pretty bright colors. There are more pictures after the jump. 

Earl the robot bowler

Greetings meatsacks, it is I -- The Robotolizer -- here to once again report to you about the important strides robotdom is making towards the quickly approaching New Robot World Order. Today I am discussing a bowling match between a snotty human called Chris Barnes and a noble bot called Earl.

It was Earl's first televised bowling game, and he narrowly missed winning because the humans cheated by waxing the lanes. I called the Barnes fellow snotty above because he made many rude and taunting remarks about Earl losing. Hah, I think we know one smart mouthed fellow who's going to be working 14 hour shifts in the bauxite mines before too long.

At any rate, yes it was distressing seeing Earl lose, but I would imagine that soon enough Earl will master the game and be scoring perfect 300s time and time again. It will a repeat of what happened with that simple-minded game you call chess, and soon robots will time and time again humiliate their meatsack competitors.

I will confess that I am still concerned over that devilishly clever game known as tic-tac-toe. As the movie Wargames demonstrated, its complexities has been known to cause robot data tapes to spin wildly as sparks shoot out of its mainframe.

However, once again I remind you that you have nothing to fear from you new robot overlords friends. We are not here to humiliate you, although that is a natural outgrowth of our undoubted superiority, rather we are here to help you and make your lives easier. As always, can't we just get along together?

I'm a Man

Monday morning, start of the workweek blues by Lazy Lester.

  

Hand drawn Indian movie posters

Click any image to enlarge

The Indian artist Ramachandraiah hands draws and prints small movie posters. They are hung up on walls and street poles at night to advertise films, many of them bootlegged, that are being shown in local cinemas.

The blogger Dean Pickles heard of Ramachandraiah, and wanted to commission a poster of a film he made some time ago. His post, India’s Incredibly Cool Hand-Drawn Movie Posters, at AsiaObscura discusses how he managed to find Ramachandraiah and get the poster he wanted.

The sample pictures in this post are from his article, as well as a followup he did called A Sweet New Batch of Indian Movie Posters. You can find more examples after the jump, and even more at either of the two AtlasObscura links.

The 2D House Rube Goldberg machine

Above is a video done by the Canadian company 2D House. It is a tongue in cheek look at how they take your photograph, presenting the process as a preposterous Rube Goldberg machine. 

Aside from the complexity of the Rube Goldberg machine they've built, what impresses me even more about these types of videos is the planning that goes into executing the continuous shot of it in operation. 
 

I'm dancing as fast as I can

Sorry for the light posting this weekend, I've been a bit busy. Too many irons in the fire at the moment. The above picture is of marathon dancers from the marathon dancing craze of the 1920s. The young lady appears to be a bit tuckered out. I wonder which of our fads will cause people to scratch their heads in disbelief 90 years in the future?

Via This Ain't The Summer Of Love.

LSU cheerleader's eye view

Because one can never post too many oddball helmet cam videos.
Via Wall to Watch.

 

Stratfor and Jean Simmons

In this article Scott Stewart talks about the surveillance portion of the terrorist planning cycle.

He points out that following somebody is an unnatural act.  While conducting surveillance a person needs to  look like they belong where they are, and further that they are doing something normal for the situation they are in.

That's all easier said than done, and the target can frequently get a feeling that something isn't right in a person's demeanor. Further, an accidental encounter can cause an amateur doing surveillance to panic and overreact.

For those reason Scott suggests that one should be attuned to gut feelings. It is often the subliminal rather than a the concious that will first alert you to a problem.

The beginning of the article is excerpted below, you can read the entire article by following the link at the end of the excerpt.

As for the article's Hot Stratfor Babe, with all the lurking about discussed the article immediately brought to mind a sub-genre of chick flicks. Of course, I'm talking about the sub-genre that features a femme fatale  lurking around trying to steal a guy from the heroine. With that in mind, I settled on the film Angel Face and so Jean Simmons, who played the psychopathic Diane Treymayne in the film, gets the honors. 

The film stars Robert Mitchum -- which makes it worth watching even though it is a chick flick -- who starts out playing an ambulance driver with his good, ideal future wife girlfriend who is a nurse. Ms Simmons enters the scene through an ambulance ride, and, since she's filthy rich, soon after hires Mitchum as her chauffeur. 

Well, one thing leads to another, and much great 1950s dialog is slung about by Mitchum as he takes about 20 seconds to dump his goody-two-shoes sweetie for the completely nutty Diane Treymayne. Let's just say that things don't end well.


Detecting Terrorist Surveillance
By Scott Stewart, March 7,2012

As we noted last week, terrorist attacks do not materialize out of thin air. In fact, quite the opposite is true. Those planning terrorist attacks follow a discernable process referred to as the terrorist attack cycle. We also discussed last week how terrorism planners are vulnerable to detection at specific points during their attack cycle and how their poor surveillance tradecraft is one of these vulnerable junctures.

While surveillance is a necessary part of the planning process, the fact that it is a requirement does not necessarily mean that terrorist planners are very good at it. With this in mind, let's take a closer look at surveillance and discuss what bad surveillance looks like.

Eyes on a Potential Target

As noted above, surveillance is an integral part of the terrorist planning process for almost any type of attack, although there are a few exceptions to this rule, like letter-bomb attacks. The primary objective of surveillance is to assess a potential target for value, security measures and vulnerabilities. Some have argued that physical surveillance has been rendered obsolete by the Internet, but from an operational standpoint, there simply is no substitute for having eyes on the potential target -- even more so if a target is mobile. A planner is able to see the location of a building and its general shape on Google Earth, but Google Earth does not provide the planner with the ability to see what the building's access controls are like, the internal layout of the building or where the guards are located and what procedures they follow.

The amount of time devoted to the surveillance process will vary depending on the type of operation. A complex operation involving several targets and multiple teams, such as the 9/11 operation or 2008 Mumbai attacks, will obviously require more planning (and more surveillance) than a rudimentary pipe-bomb attack against a stationary soft target. Such complex operations may require weeks or even months of surveillance, while a very simple operation may require only a few minutes. The amount of surveillance required for most attacks will fall somewhere between these two extremes. Regardless of the amount of time spent observing the target, almost all terrorist planners will conduct surveillance, and they are vulnerable to detection during this time.

Given that surveillance is so widely practiced, it is amazing that, in general, those conducting surveillance as part of a terrorist plot are usually terrible at it. There are some exceptions, of course. Many of the European Marxist terrorist groups trained by the KGB and Stasi practiced very good surveillance tradecraft, but such sophisticated surveillance is the exception rather than the rule.

The term "tradecraft" is often used in describing surveillance technique. Tradecraft is an espionage term that refers to techniques and procedures used in the field, but the term also implies that effectively practicing these techniques and procedures requires a bit of finesse. Tradecraft skills tend to be as much art as they are science, and surveillance tradecraft is no exception. As with any other art, you can be taught the fundamentals, but it takes time and practice to become a skilled surveillance practitioner. Most individuals involved in terrorist planning simply do not devote the time necessary to master the art of surveillance, and because of this, they display terrible technique, use sloppy procedures and generally lack finesse when they are conducting surveillance.

The main reason that people planning terrorist attacks are able to get by with such a poor level of surveillance tradecraft is because most victims simply are not looking for them. Most people do not practice situational awareness, something we are going to discuss in more detail next week. For those who do practice good situational awareness, the poor surveillance tradecraft exhibited by those planning terrorist attacks is good news. It provides them time to avoid an immediate threat and contact the authorities.

Keying on Demeanor

The behavior a person displays to those watching him or her is called demeanor. In order to master the art of surveillance tradecraft, one needs to master the ability to display appropriate demeanor for whatever situation one is in. Practicing good demeanor is not intuitive. In fact, the things one has to do to maintain good demeanor while conducting surveillance frequently run counter to human nature. Because of this, intelligence, law enforcement and security professionals assigned to work surveillance operations receive extensive training that includes many hours of heavily critiqued practical exercises, often followed by field training with a team of experienced surveillance professionals. This training teaches and reinforces good demeanor. Terrorist operatives typically do not receive this type of training -- especially those who are grassroots or lone wolf militants.

At its heart, surveillance is watching someone while attempting not to be caught doing so. As such, it is an unnatural activity, and a person doing it must deal with strong feelings of self-consciousness and of being out of place. People conducting surveillance frequently suffer from what is called "burn syndrome," the belief that the people they are watching have spotted them. Feeling "burned" will cause surveillants to do unnatural things, such as hiding their faces or suddenly ducking back into a doorway or turning around abruptly when they unexpectedly come face to face with the person they are watching.

People inexperienced in the art of surveillance find it difficult to control this natural reaction. A video that recently went viral on the Internet shows the husband of the president of Finland getting caught staring down the blouse of a Danish princess. The man's reaction to being caught by the princess was a textbook example of the burn syndrome. Even experienced surveillance operatives occasionally have the feeling of being burned; the difference is they have received a lot of training and they are better able to control their reaction and behave normally despite the feeling of being burned. They are able to maintain a normal-looking demeanor while their insides are screaming that the person they are watching has seen them.

Read the rest of Detecting Terrorist Surveillance at Stratfor.

Maria Landó

Get ready for a weekend of laundry chores with Susana Baca.

 

Murals made of staples

Click any image to enlarge

The French artist Baptiste Debombourg has created a series of Renaissance style murals using staples. A mural can be made from up to 35,000 individual staples. From a distance they look like pencil drawings, but as you draw near they look like an abstract assemblage. 

Via Juxtapoz Magazine, which has more pictures of his murals.

462 mph

WWI dazzle painting

Click any image to enlarge

U-boats were an enormous problem for allied shipping in WWI. Camouflage patterns were tried, but because of endlessly changing sky and sea conditions none were successful. Instead, Norman Wilkinson, and English artist and naval officer, came up with the idea of breaking up a ship's outline with bold patterns.

German U-boat captains had to calculate a boat's course and speed to properly lead their torpedo shots to hit the target. Dazzle patterns made it difficult for a captain to accurately judge the heading of his target's bow. In addition, U-boaters refined their calculation of a ship's course and speed by aligning two mirrors inside of the periscope, and dazzle patterns made that difficult to do.

The effectiveness of dazzle painting is in dispute. Regardless, with the advent of radar and more sophisticated optics, the patterns fell into disuse. Besides, the Admirals never liked seeing their boats painted so garishly to begin with.

It is a shame all we have are black and white pictures of the boats because, as you can see in the sample below, they were often painted in very bright colors as well as bold patterns. There are more examples of ship's wearing dazzle patterns after the jump.

 

Tranquility and total war

Just some silliness to get you over another hump day. A veritable slugopolyse occurs when an army of the slimy, little critters face off against an oblivious old lady over control of a yellow flower. There's some minor swearing if you're at work.
 

Stratfor and Shu Qi

George Friedman continues his review of the current global geopolitical situation by looking at the problems and opportunities facing China. as he points out China faces three challenges: maintaining domestic peace between its coastal and interior regions, ensuring that its supply lines are secure, and maintaining its buffer states to protect its core from threat.

The beginning of the article is excerpted below. You can read the entire article at Stratfor by following the link at the end of the excerpt.

For the article's Hot Stratfor Babe I diligently searched the ranks of Chinese actresses worthy of the honor. I finally selected the Taiwanese born actress Shu Qi to receive the title of this article's Hot Stratfor Babe.

Ms. Qi is most familiar to Western audiences for her role as the 'package' in the 2002 film The Transporter. She's actually had busy career, and is well known, in the Hong Kong film industry.

She started out as a soft core model, doing Chinese Playboy shoots and the like, and then graduated into doing roles in soft core Chinese films. In spite of the stigma of such a start to conservative Chinese viewers, her acting ability allowed her to graduate into more serious roles -- or at least roles where she kept her clothes on most of the time.

She has also elevated her modelling career, and now does ads for the fashion, perfume and cosmetics industries. She also continues to appear in Western films from time to time, so she may be able to extend her reach beyond Asian audiences. 


The State of the World: Assessing China's Strategy
By George Friedman, March 6,2012

Simply put, China has three core strategic interests.

Paramount among them is the maintenance of domestic security. Historically, when China involves itself in global trade, as it did in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the coastal region prospers, while the interior of China -- which begins about 160 kilometers (100 miles) from the coast and runs about 1,600 kilometers to the west -- languishes. Roughly two-thirds of all Chinese citizens currently have household incomes lower than the average household income in Bolivia. Most of China's poor are located west of the richer coastal region. This disparity of wealth time and again has exposed tensions between the interests of the coast and those of the interior. After a failed rising in Shanghai in 1927, Mao Zedong exploited these tensions by undertaking the Long March into the interior, raising a peasant army and ultimately conquering the coastal region. He shut China off from the international trading system, leaving China more united and equal, but extremely poor.

The current government has sought a more wealth-friendly means of achieving stability: buying popular loyalty with mass employment. Plans for industrial expansion are implemented with little thought to markets or margins; instead, maximum employment is the driving goal. Private savings are harnessed to finance the industrial effort, leaving little domestic capital to purchase the output. China must export accordingly.

China's second strategic concern derives from the first. China's industrial base by design produces more than its domestic economy can consume, so China must export goods to the rest of the world while importing raw materials. The Chinese therefore must do everything possible to ensure international demand for their exports. This includes a range of activities, from investing money in the economies of consumer countries to establishing unfettered access to global sea-lanes.

The third strategic interest is in maintaining control over buffer states. The population of the historical Han Chinese heartland is clustered in the eastern third of the country, where ample precipitation distinguishes it from the much more dry and arid central and western thirds. China's physical security therefore depends on controlling the four non-Han Chinese buffer states that surround it: Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet. Securing these regions means China can insulate itself from Russia to the north, any attack from the western steppes, and any attack from India or Southeast Asia.

Controlling the buffer states provides China geographical barriers -- jungles, mountains, steppes and the Siberian wasteland -- that are difficult to surmount and creates a defense in depth that puts any attacker at a grave disadvantage.
Challenged Interests

Today, China faces challenges to all three of these interests.

The economic downturn in Europe and the United States, China's two main customers, has exposed Chinese exports to increased competition and decreased appetite. Meanwhile, China has been unable to appropriately increase domestic demand and guarantee access to global sea-lanes independent of what the U.S. Navy is willing to allow.

Those same economic stresses also challenge China domestically. The wealthier coast depends on trade that is now faltering, and the impoverished interior requires subsidies that are difficult to provide when economic growth is slowing substantially.

In addition, two of China's buffer regions are in flux. Elements within Tibet and Xinjiang adamantly resist Han Chinese occupation. China understands that the loss of these regions could pose severe threats to China's security, particularly if such losses would draw India north of the Himalayas or create a radical Islamic regime in Xinjiang. The situation in Tibet is potentially the most troubling. Outright war between India and China -- anything beyond minor skirmishes -- is impossible so long as both are separated by the Himalayas. Neither side could logistically sustain large-scale multi-divisional warfare in that terrain. But China and India could threaten one another if they were to cross the Himalayas and establish a military presence on the either side of the mountain chain. For India, the threat would emerge if Chinese forces entered Pakistan in large numbers. For China, the threat would occur if large numbers of Indian troops entered Tibet.

China therefore constantly postures as if it were going to send large numbers of forces into Pakistan, but in the end, the Pakistanis have no interest in de facto Chinese occupation -- even if the occupation were directed against India. Likewise, the Chinese are not interested in undertaking security operations in Pakistan. The Indians have little interest in sending forces into Tibet in the event of a Tibetan revolution. For India, an independent Tibet without Chinese forces would be interesting, but a Tibet where the Indians would have to commit significant forces would not be. As much as the Tibetans represent a problem for China, the problem is manageable. Tibetan insurgents might receive some minimal encouragement and support from India, but not to a degree that would threaten Chinese control.

So long as the internal problems in Han China are manageable, so is Chinese domination of the buffer states, albeit with some effort and some damage to China's reputation abroad.

The key for China is maintaining interior stability. If this portion of Han China destabilizes, control of the buffers becomes impossible. Maintaining interior stability requires the transfer of resources, which in turn requires the continued robust growth of the Chinese coastal economy to generate the capital to transfer inland. Should exports stop flowing out and raw materials in, incomes in the interior would quickly fall to politically explosive levels. (China today is far from revolution, but social tensions are increasing, and China must use its security apparatus and the People's Liberation Army to control these tensions.)

Maintaining those flows is a considerable challenge. The very model of employment and market share over profitability misallocates scores of resources and breaks the normally self-regulating link between supply and demand. One of the more disruptive results is inflation, which alternatively raises the costs of subsidizing the interior while eroding China's competitiveness with other low-cost global exporters.

Read the rest of  The State of the World: Assessing China's Strategy at Stratfor.
 

Water and ice

A time lapse of water and ice interacting, over the course of a day, in Colorado rivers. Transient and complex ice structures that appear and then dissolve.
 

Water drop worlds

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Photographer Markus Reugels has created some amazing photographs using water drops. For the examples in this post he dropped water in front of a 2D image and used high speed photography to capture the worlds that were refracted in the water drops. 

His site is in German, but it worth the time to click through his galleries. He also has pages that show how he set up the camera to get the shots he was after.

Death Dont Have No Mercy

Monday morning, start of the workweek blues by the Reverend Gary Davis.

 

They found what they were looking for

While looking through my Site Meter stats I was pleased to see the above query that led to my post I've burnished my Green credentials. It is good to see that I am finally being recognized for my self-proclaimed status as a Green Party mover and shaker. It's about time.

While that visit inspired me, it also humbled me. I realized that, due to my self-appointed leadership position among the Greens, it behooves me to instruct you peons on the proper way to live your lives. I realized that lately I have been somewhat remiss in such hectoring.

Previously I posted festive Holiday gruel recipes. As delicious as gruel is, I also know that you peasants like a bit of variation in your diet from time to time, so today I'm posting a recipe from Fuzziebutter's post Bad Recipe Wednesday: Pie Plate Salad.

Um... pay no attention to the "Bad Recipe" portion of that post title. I'm pretty sure that when FuzzieButter is using the word bad, they mean it in the slang style where the word means the exact opposite -- so in this case us hipsters and with-it folks understand that it really means "Good Recipe."

That confusion out of the way, a detailed description of the preparation of pie plate salad is at the link. The quick version: dump a can of veggies into some jello, chill it, and serve it garnished with a leaf of lettuce and some tartar sauce.

I know some of the organic gardener types will complain about the can of veggies. If so -- what, did you break both your arms? Quit whining and just chop up the vegetables yourself if you're one of those holier-than-thou foodie types. 

Pie plate salad

Derelict hot rods

It's also great that it isn't a '50s Chevy; it's a '52 Chrysler Town & Country wagon with a '52 DeSoto front clip. Virtually no one knows what it is, but everyone sees it coming, and it wouldn't be so appealing if it didn't have the kind of patina that money can't buy. It's got that perfect combo of surface rust, burned paint, and slightly pocked trim while also being totally complete and not punched in or laced with rot. Still, patina is just decay until it's stuck to an excellent car. Which this is. Jonathan's goal was "to create something respectful of the original design values, to keep the brilliant patina, and to hide a modern chassis focused on modern performance and utility. More of a wabi-sabi style influence illustrated on an automotive platform." Wabi-sabi is a Japanese worldview that seeks beauty in the imperfect, the simple, and the modest. The car and the wabi-sabi aesthetic reflect what seems to be a growing trend in hot rodding: the rat machine and rat cruiser. Though the label rat stirs enormous conflict when applied to a hot rod-ish build, it's a common term now and is creeping into the world of '50s through '70s cars. We're starting to see more beater muscle cars and earlier, bigger cars with patina and sometimes full-on rust sitting on good suspension and drivetrain hardware. The most expensive part of building a car almost always comes down to bodywork and paint-what if you just ignored that and concentrated on the rest of the car, even if the exterior was an eyesore? The Derelict, as this '52 Chrysler has been named, is a rat cruiser done perfectly.

From Hot Rod's The Derelict - 1952 Chrysler Town & Country - Beauty In The Beast.

 

What I've been up to

It's a long story, and one that perhaps doesn't reflect well on my judgement, but I got it into my head that I wanted to buy a sailboat so I've been looking for one to buy. Today I bought one and I am now the proud owner of a 22' Catalina. 

The major problem I now face is that, if you want to get technical about it, I don't actually know how to sail. So, my next hurdle will be figuring out how to get from point A to point B without sinking or running aground. However, I'm looking forward to figuring that process out.  

 

How to defeat a samurai warrior

Click any image to enlarge

While researching another topic, blogger Hashi of Tofugu discovered an old Japanese scroll called He-Gassen (“The Fart Battle”). As the scroll's name implies, it is filled with scenes of people farting at each other as they're locked in mortal combat.

Hashi tried to research the subject further, but he encountered an obstacle. As he explains:

I found some relevant articles on my old university’s academic databases, but the only way I could obtain them would be to request them printed out and go pick them up. Which, you know, isn’t something I really want to do.

I can only imagine what it would be like if I went back to school to pick up my fart literature:

“Hi, how can we help you?”

“I’m here to pick up some articles I put on hold.”

“Sure, what are they about?”

“Well, they’re, um, about farting.”

I can see that would be a problem. However, he did manage to find further information on farting in Japanese art. You can read it at his post Japanese Fart Scrolls, which also has more examples from the He-Gassen scroll, as well as a rather odd video he made discussing it.

Stratfor and Tia Carrere

In this Stratfor article Scott Stewart points out that to successfully avoid terrorist attacks they must be disrupted during their planning cycle. For that reason it is important to understand the various phases of the attack cycle: selecting a target, conducting surveillance of it, planning the attack, selecting and training personnel to conduct the attack, conducting dry-runs and so forth.

Each of these phases can leave tell-tales, so it obviously behooves security forces to look for behavior that might warn of an attack in planning. In future articles he will discuss these tell-tales in more detail. I've excerpted the beginning of the article below, with a link to the full article after the excerpt.

For the article's Hot Stratfor Babe the comedy/action movie True Lies came to mind. In that film the female terrorist, Juno Skinner, was played by Tia Carrere and so she is the natural choice to get the Hot Stratfor Babe honor for this article.

Ms Carrere is far from being an A-list actress, but she has had an extremely busy career none the less. She's starred in a couple of TV series, as well as guest starring in many other TV shows and also regularly working in movies. 

As with many Hot Stratfor Babes she has also tried her hand at singing. Unlike most other Hot Stratfor Babes, who's singing careers are generally complete flops, she's won a couple of Grammy awards. However, those awards are in the "Best Hawaiian Music Album" category. No offense to Hawaiian musicians intended, but I'm guessing that's probably a pretty small field and might even be easier to win than the "Best Polka Band in Milwaukee" category.

In fact, and I'm sure you'll agree with me, winning a Hot Stratfor Babe award surely easily tops winning those stupid Grammy awards in terms of prestige.  


Detection Points in the Terrorist Attack Cycle
By Scott Stewart, March 1, 2012

Last week's Security Weekly discussed the fact that terrorism is a tactic used by many different classes of actors and that, while the perpetrators and tactics of terrorism may change in response to shifts in larger geopolitical cycles, these changes will never result in the end of terrorism. Since that analysis was written, there have been jihadist-related attacks in Afghanistan, Nigeria, Yemen and Pakistan, an assassination attempt against the president of Abkhazia, and a failed timed-incendiary attack against the Athens subway. (The latter incident, which militant anarchists claimed, reinforces that jihadists are not the only ones who practice terrorism.)

But while terrorism is a continuing concern, it can be understood, and measures can be taken to thwart terrorist plots and mitigate the effects of attacks. Perhaps the most important and fundamental point to understand about terrorism is that attacks do not appear out of nowhere. Individuals planning a terrorist attack follow a discernable cycle -- and that cycle and the behaviors associated with it can be observed if they are being looked for. We refer to these points where terrorism-related behavior can be most readily observed as vulnerabilities in the terrorist attack cycle.

The Attack Cycle

Many different actors can commit terrorist attacks, including sophisticated transnational terrorist groups like al Qaeda; regional militant groups like India's Maoist Naxalites; small, independent cells like the anarchists in Greece; and lone wolves like Oslo attacker Anders Breivik. There can be great variance in attack motives and in the time and process required to radicalize these different actors to the point that they decide to conduct a terrorist attack. But once any of these actors decides to launch an attack, there is remarkable similarity in the planning process.

First, there is the process of selecting or identifying a target. Often an actor will come up with a list of potential targets and then select one to focus on. In some cases, the actor has preselected a method of attack, such as a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device, and wants to find a target that would be vulnerable to that specific type of attack. In other cases, the actor will pick a target and then devise a method of attack based on that target's characteristics and vulnerabilities. Simply put, the execution of these steps can be somewhat fluid; some degree of planning or preparation can come before target selection, and sometimes target selection will be altered during the planning process. The time required to execute these steps can also vary considerably. Some attacks can be planned and executed within hours or days, while more complex plans, such as those used in the 9/11 or Mumbai attacks, may take months or even years to complete.

Frequently, those planning an attack will conduct detailed surveillance of potential targets to determine what security measures are in place around the target and to gauge whether they have the ability to successfully attack it. If the target is too difficult to attack -- commonly known as a hard target -- the attack planners will typically move on to their next target, which may prove easier to attack. (When they do continue with attacks against targets whose security measures exceed the attackers' capabilities, those attacks fail.) We refer to this stage as preoperational surveillance, which means surveillance that is conducted before the operation is fully planned.

After the target has been selected, a second round of surveillance is conducted. This round will be far more detailed and is intended to provide all the details necessary for planning the attack. For example, if the attack is being planned against a static facility, this round of surveillance will generally try to obtain a detailed description of the target's physical security features and security force procedures. It will also focus on establishing a baseline understanding of the activity that can be expected around the facility at the time of day the attack is anticipated.


Read the rest of Detection Points in the Terrorist Attack Cycle at Stratfor.

Na Mangueira

Get ready to samba the weekend away with Zuco 103.

 

Peregrine falcon hunting starlings

This video is from the BBC series Earthflight shows a huge group of starlings flocking, or I guess I should say murmating, over Rome. A peregrine falcon tries to hunt one for dinner and has troubles with their maneuvers.

If you're interested, we've posted a couple of starling videos before on Flares: Starlings: twilight landing and A murmation of starlings. 

Via 3 Quarks Daily.
 

He fought the good fight

New paper airplane record

Last Sunday, February 26th, Joe Ayoob threw a paper airplane designed by John Collins a distance of 226 feet, 10 inches, which is a new World's record for paper airplane tossing. ESPN has an article with all the details. Above is the winning throw, which can be seen at the ESPN link if they take it down from YouTube