Monday, October 13, 2008
Human Terrain Teams: Anthropologists lend military insight into customs, values of foreign cultures
The Human Terrain Team (HTT) program, begun in late 2003, is a controversial, experimental counter-insurgency effort of the United States military which embeds anthropologists with combat brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan to help tacticians in the field understand local cultures. "Academic embeds" as the social scientists on teams are known, help troops understand relevant cultural history, engage locals in a way they can appreciate, and incorporate knowledge about tribal traditions in conflict resolution. In interviews, US military officers in Afghanistan have stated that the aim of the program is to improve the performance of local government officials, persuade tribesmen to join the police, ease poverty and protect villagers from the Taliban and criminals.
Operation Khyber
During a 15-day drive in late summer of 2007, 500 Afghan and 500 US soldiers tried to:
* clear an estimated 200 to 250 Taliban insurgents out of much of Paktia Province
* secure southeastern Afghanistan’s most important road
* halt a string of suicide attacks on US troops and local governors.
An HTT anthropologist, Tracy, identified an unusually high concentration of widows in poverty, creating pressure on their sons to join the well-paid insurgents. Citing Tracy’s advice, US officers developed a job training program for the widows. She also interpreted the beheading of a local tribal elder as as an effort to divide and weaken the Zadran, rather than mere intimidation. As a result, Afghan and US officials focused on uniting the Zadran, one of southeastern Afghanistan’s most powerful tribes, thereby hindering the Taliban's operations in the area.
Extracted from Wiki article.
Small teams of social scientists and anthropologists working with American units to map the "human terrain" in Iraq and Afghanistan and use "soft power" to engage local populations have saved lives and are an important tool in nation building, according to military officials.
In today's irregular wars, "battlefields are often civilian neighborhoods" where American troops face an "indistinguishable mix" of enemy fighters and innocent civilians, said Andre van Tilborg, deputy undersecretary of Defense for science and technology, at a hearing on Thursday before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities. Social scientists can help provide the cultural knowledge that could mean the difference between gun battles and peaceful outcomes in troops' daily interaction with foreign cultures, van Tilborg said.
He said the Pentagon intends to spend roughly $150 million this year on social science research to better understand tribal cultures and social networks. The military wants to use part of that money to increase dramatically the number of Human Terrain Teams operating with military units. The proposal is highly controversial in the academic community, which believes it's an ethical violation for social scientists to work hand-in-hand with troops in war zones.
The program is small, with only eight HTTs -- six in Iraq and two in Afghanistan. The 5- to 8-person teams work with country-specific experts located at a Reach-back Research Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.
The largely civilian scientific teams, using laptop computers and human terrain mapping software, conducted village assessments that provide commanders with a detailed data repository on the social groups within tribal communities: their interests, beliefs, motivating factors and leaders. "We learned that the population is the center of gravity, the enemy is hiding among the people and we must understand the culture to win," said Army Col. Martin Schweitzer, who recently returned from a 15-month combat tour in Afghanistan and whose brigade of paratroopers was the first to use an HTT.
He said the teams functioned not just as cultural advisers, but identified the key players within tribal communities whose power structure and patronage networks often confound Western minds. The scientific team questioned the aggressive and firepower-heavy tactics the American troops had used to combat Taliban insurgents in a particular Afghan province, Schweitzer said. That approach was based on a misreading of the local tribes, he pointed out.
The HTT learned that the true power brokers in the area were not the village elders, who were mostly Taliban supporters, but rather the local mullahs, who were Islamic clerics. After redirecting their outreach efforts to the mullahs, Schweitzer said his troops saw a dramatic decrease in Taliban attacks. "For five years, we got nothing from the community," he said. "After meeting the mullahs, we had no more bullets for 28 days, captured 80 Afghan-born Taliban and 32 foreign fighters." The "shadow Taliban" government in the area was eliminated, he said.
Addressing the concerns of the academic community about social scientists working in counterinsurgency operations, Schweitzer said: "The team is not an intelligence tool used to target individuals," and are not qualified or trained to aid in identifying or selecting enemy fighters to be either killed or captured. He said that role is performed by intelligence officers.
The Afghan population is exhausted by the constant fighting and deaths of innocent civilians caught in the crossfire, Schweitzer said, so any combat operation, even those that target the Taliban, can be seen as a "step back." The scientific team's impact was "exponentially powerful" he said, leading to a 60 percent to 70 percent reduction in combat operations in his area. The scientific teams typically work with Provincial Reconstruction Teams, small units made up of civil affairs troops and economic development experts from the Agency for International Development and the State Department, that operate in local communities.
Schweitzer said a PRT commander told him that before the HTT arrived, team members were just "ricocheting around," talking to random people, until they identified the power brokers in each village.
While some military personnel might serve with the HTT's, usually reserve officers, the teams are built around social scientists. Much more important than knowledge or expertise in the local Afghan culture, he said, was their scientific training and experience as anthropologists. That allows them to conduct the human dimension analysis and decipher a local culture's norms and values, Schweitzer said. At least one HTT should accompany each battalion-sized unit, roughly 800 troops, deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, he said.
In a speech last week to the Association of American Universities, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Pentagon must further its understanding of foreign countries and cultures with the help of the social science research community.
Source: Government Executive
Monday, September 29, 2008
Wage Smarter War With Agile Army IT
An interesting article pertaining to military surveillance technology in Iraq and Afghanistan was published in the October, 2008, issue of Wired magazine.
Executive Summary
Name:
Colonel A. T. Ball
Position:
Chief of Staff, US Army, Pacific
Mission:
US forces operate hundreds of aircraft in the skies over Iraq. Yet prior to February 2007, they were spotting only a tiny fraction of the roadside bombs responsible for most US casualties. Then helicopter brigade commander A.T. Ball was put in charge of Task Force ODIN, a group of IT gurus, image analysts, and drone pilots charged with taking back the roads. The networked operation was able to spot bomb planters, transmit the coordinates quickly, and strike.
Results:
When Ball took over, ODIN was facilitating one kill every few weeks. In the final months of his command, it averaged one a day. Altogether, as of January 2008 the unit has helped take out more than 2,400 enemy bombers.
Key Takeaway
Network-centric warfare requires a flexible chain of command. Previous efforts were hampered by rigid hierarchies and top-down decisionmaking. Units could wait days to get a few minutes of surveillance drone time — only to see the craft fly away at a critical moment. Shifting the network to Ball's tactical level gave his forces speed and agility. In the future, small units like Ball's must be able to run their own networks — without waiting for input from generals.
An earlier related Wired article entitled "Drone, Copter Team Kills 2,400 Bombers in Iraq" may be viewed here.
Executive Summary
Name:
Colonel A. T. Ball
Position:
Chief of Staff, US Army, Pacific
Mission:
US forces operate hundreds of aircraft in the skies over Iraq. Yet prior to February 2007, they were spotting only a tiny fraction of the roadside bombs responsible for most US casualties. Then helicopter brigade commander A.T. Ball was put in charge of Task Force ODIN, a group of IT gurus, image analysts, and drone pilots charged with taking back the roads. The networked operation was able to spot bomb planters, transmit the coordinates quickly, and strike.
Results:
When Ball took over, ODIN was facilitating one kill every few weeks. In the final months of his command, it averaged one a day. Altogether, as of January 2008 the unit has helped take out more than 2,400 enemy bombers.
Key Takeaway
Network-centric warfare requires a flexible chain of command. Previous efforts were hampered by rigid hierarchies and top-down decisionmaking. Units could wait days to get a few minutes of surveillance drone time — only to see the craft fly away at a critical moment. Shifting the network to Ball's tactical level gave his forces speed and agility. In the future, small units like Ball's must be able to run their own networks — without waiting for input from generals.
An earlier related Wired article entitled "Drone, Copter Team Kills 2,400 Bombers in Iraq" may be viewed here.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Pentagon's secret weapon
The following article by Lynda Hurst appeared in the Ideas section of The Toronto Star on Saturday, September 13, 2008. The story nicely complements my previous blog dealing with the need for a concerted research effort to improve surveillance technology in Afghanistan.
So what was Bob Woodward talking about?
Some sort of electromagnetic weapon? An invisible death ray? The Voice of God device that (allegedly) makes someone think they're listening to the Almighty?
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's ... well, Woodward knows – as he assured 60 Minutes and Larry King this week – but he's not telling.
The famed investigative journalist and author says a top-secret capability developed by the U.S. military has changed the course of the war in Iraq. Whatever "it" is, it's being used to locate, target and kill key Al Qaeda figures and other insurgents. And he credits it with the dramatic drop in violence otherwise widely attributed to last year's surge of U.S. troops.
Woodward has compared the "thing" to the top-secret Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb, saying, "Some day in history, it will be described to people's amazement." But the details must remain secret for now or it would "get people killed."
That's a confusing remark, given that he also says the terrorists are well aware of the new capability: "The enemy has a heads up because they've been getting wiped out and a lot of them have been killed. It's not news to them."
The rest of us are, however, to take his word for it that the secret is "a wonderful example of American ingenuity solving a problem in war."
It should be noted that Woodward has a new book out, The War Within: Secret White House History 2006-2008, a fact that leaves analysts split on whether he is merely hyping his wares or being (uncharacteristically) naive.
Far from being the historic breakthrough Woodward suggests, the "secret" is likely the semi-covert work being done by the U.S. military's Clandestine Tagging, Tracking and Locating program, known as CTTL.
It's an array of new technologies that, among other things, are designed to track people from long distances or from above, without the targets realizing, thereby reducing risk to the trackers. The cutting-edge devices use nano- and biotechnology to create sensors, tags and thermal, biometric "signatures" of people, including "perfumes and stains," that can be loaded into locating devices.
Problem is – according to a Special Operations Command briefing last year that withheld classified details – the devices were then two years (now one year) away from being finished product.
Woodward's hints "sound like the much-ballyhooed CTTL, but from what I've been told, they're still far off from doing it accurately," says U.S. technology analyst Sharon Weinberger, former editor-in-chief of Defence Technology International.
The Manhattan Project was classified top-secret, she says, "but nuclear fission (the science on which the A-bomb was based) was already out there. There's no evidence of that here. Has there been a tremendous breakthrough in biometrics? I don't think so."
Weinberger says she wonders whether Woodward was shown a PowerPoint presentation or real evidence? And she's intrigued that the U.S. Defence Science Board has said in the past that the war on terrorism "cannot be won without a Manhattan Project-like tagging, tracking and locating program." Interesting that Woodward uses the same language.
The ability to track people has grown exponentially in Iraq, says Weinberger. "Whenever the U.S. is at war, there is a real-world sandbox where lots of money is put into new technologies, things like sensors and unmanned vehicles.
"But has there been a single breakthrough? I don't know what I don't know."
Ah, the return of unknown unknowns.
Wesley Wark, a leading intelligence analyst at the University of Toronto, thinks Woodward is "very starry-eyed about whatever it is. I think he's been sold a solution to the mystery of why the surge in Iraq has worked so well, and he's spinning it."
At most, he could be referring to a new form of "tagging," says Wark. Toward the end of the Cold War, the Soviets developed chemical tagging, whereby a target was touched with an invisible phosphorescent substance that could be picked up by thermal imagery. The U.S. replaced it with laser tags, which require a spotter to identify a target who can then be plucked out by shining a laser beam.
"Maybe there's a new generation of thermal tagging, in which you can remotely tag someone or a new gizmo flying around in the sky," says Wark. "But I doubt it."
The tactic of targeted assassinations isn't new, he says (former president Bill Clinton authorized them against terrorists in 1998) "but the success rate is. Why now?"
Wark thinks the drop in violence is a combination of technology, increased troops on the ground, the "Anbar Awakening" of late 2006 – when tens of thousands of Sunnis turned against Al Qaeda and started cooperating with the U.S. – plus fusion cells.
Fusion cells?
They're the military's fast-reaction teams, comprising intelligence and forensic professionals, political analysts, mapping experts, computer specialists piloting unmanned aircraft, and Special Operations squads.
But they're hardly a secret. Last week, just before excerpting Woodward's book, the Washington Post described how they work:
"The CIA provides intelligence analysts and spycraft with sensors and cameras that can track targets, vehicles or equipment for up to 14 hours. FBI forensic experts dissect data, from cellphone information to the `pocket litter' found on captives. Treasury officials track funds flowing among extremists and from governments. National Security Agency staffers intercept conversations or computer data, and members of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency use high-tech equipment to pinpoint where suspected extremists are using phones or computers."
For example, information gathered in a midnight raid – collected by helmet-mounted cameras that can scan rooms, people, documents and cellphone entries and relay the pictures back to headquarters – often leads to a second or third raid before dawn. Headquartered in Saddam Hussein's old fighter jet hangar, the cells are making 10 to 20 captures a night. Since June, they've killed 10 senior Al Qaeda members
"The capabilities for high-end special joint operations that exist now only existed in Hollywood in 2001," David Kilcullen, a terrorism expert and government adviser, told the Post.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond, the British are claiming a "black ops" outfit called Task Force Black, made up of elite U.S. and U.K. special forces, is responsible for the surge's success. It has taken 3,500 insurgents off the streets of Baghdad and reduced bombings from about 150 a month to just two. The task force uses intelligence gleaned the time-honoured way: via spies and informers.
Defence analyst John Pike, who runs GlobalSecurity.org, flatly rejects Woodward's claims of a top-secret capability: "Our intelligence, surveillance and data fusion has increased to a degree undreamt of 10 years ago. That's it. There is no secret wonder sauce."
If there was? "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof," he says dryly.
As for that Voice of God, a.k.a. Voice of Allah, gizmo: It's a device apparently being worked on by the military that operates at a distance, delivering a message that only a single person can hear, presumably to the effect of "Stop the bloodshed" or a plain "Surrender."
At a recent defence-tech workshop, it was reported that the Voice has been tested in Iraq. It was pointed at one insurgent in a group, who whipped around looking in all directions and began a heated conversation with his colleagues who didn't hear the message.
Whether he called for an end to the violence or an Aspirin is unknown.
So what was Bob Woodward talking about?
Some sort of electromagnetic weapon? An invisible death ray? The Voice of God device that (allegedly) makes someone think they're listening to the Almighty?
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's ... well, Woodward knows – as he assured 60 Minutes and Larry King this week – but he's not telling.
The famed investigative journalist and author says a top-secret capability developed by the U.S. military has changed the course of the war in Iraq. Whatever "it" is, it's being used to locate, target and kill key Al Qaeda figures and other insurgents. And he credits it with the dramatic drop in violence otherwise widely attributed to last year's surge of U.S. troops.
Woodward has compared the "thing" to the top-secret Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb, saying, "Some day in history, it will be described to people's amazement." But the details must remain secret for now or it would "get people killed."
That's a confusing remark, given that he also says the terrorists are well aware of the new capability: "The enemy has a heads up because they've been getting wiped out and a lot of them have been killed. It's not news to them."
The rest of us are, however, to take his word for it that the secret is "a wonderful example of American ingenuity solving a problem in war."
It should be noted that Woodward has a new book out, The War Within: Secret White House History 2006-2008, a fact that leaves analysts split on whether he is merely hyping his wares or being (uncharacteristically) naive.
Far from being the historic breakthrough Woodward suggests, the "secret" is likely the semi-covert work being done by the U.S. military's Clandestine Tagging, Tracking and Locating program, known as CTTL.
It's an array of new technologies that, among other things, are designed to track people from long distances or from above, without the targets realizing, thereby reducing risk to the trackers. The cutting-edge devices use nano- and biotechnology to create sensors, tags and thermal, biometric "signatures" of people, including "perfumes and stains," that can be loaded into locating devices.
Problem is – according to a Special Operations Command briefing last year that withheld classified details – the devices were then two years (now one year) away from being finished product.
Woodward's hints "sound like the much-ballyhooed CTTL, but from what I've been told, they're still far off from doing it accurately," says U.S. technology analyst Sharon Weinberger, former editor-in-chief of Defence Technology International.
The Manhattan Project was classified top-secret, she says, "but nuclear fission (the science on which the A-bomb was based) was already out there. There's no evidence of that here. Has there been a tremendous breakthrough in biometrics? I don't think so."
Weinberger says she wonders whether Woodward was shown a PowerPoint presentation or real evidence? And she's intrigued that the U.S. Defence Science Board has said in the past that the war on terrorism "cannot be won without a Manhattan Project-like tagging, tracking and locating program." Interesting that Woodward uses the same language.
The ability to track people has grown exponentially in Iraq, says Weinberger. "Whenever the U.S. is at war, there is a real-world sandbox where lots of money is put into new technologies, things like sensors and unmanned vehicles.
"But has there been a single breakthrough? I don't know what I don't know."
Ah, the return of unknown unknowns.
Wesley Wark, a leading intelligence analyst at the University of Toronto, thinks Woodward is "very starry-eyed about whatever it is. I think he's been sold a solution to the mystery of why the surge in Iraq has worked so well, and he's spinning it."
At most, he could be referring to a new form of "tagging," says Wark. Toward the end of the Cold War, the Soviets developed chemical tagging, whereby a target was touched with an invisible phosphorescent substance that could be picked up by thermal imagery. The U.S. replaced it with laser tags, which require a spotter to identify a target who can then be plucked out by shining a laser beam.
"Maybe there's a new generation of thermal tagging, in which you can remotely tag someone or a new gizmo flying around in the sky," says Wark. "But I doubt it."
The tactic of targeted assassinations isn't new, he says (former president Bill Clinton authorized them against terrorists in 1998) "but the success rate is. Why now?"
Wark thinks the drop in violence is a combination of technology, increased troops on the ground, the "Anbar Awakening" of late 2006 – when tens of thousands of Sunnis turned against Al Qaeda and started cooperating with the U.S. – plus fusion cells.
Fusion cells?
They're the military's fast-reaction teams, comprising intelligence and forensic professionals, political analysts, mapping experts, computer specialists piloting unmanned aircraft, and Special Operations squads.
But they're hardly a secret. Last week, just before excerpting Woodward's book, the Washington Post described how they work:
"The CIA provides intelligence analysts and spycraft with sensors and cameras that can track targets, vehicles or equipment for up to 14 hours. FBI forensic experts dissect data, from cellphone information to the `pocket litter' found on captives. Treasury officials track funds flowing among extremists and from governments. National Security Agency staffers intercept conversations or computer data, and members of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency use high-tech equipment to pinpoint where suspected extremists are using phones or computers."
For example, information gathered in a midnight raid – collected by helmet-mounted cameras that can scan rooms, people, documents and cellphone entries and relay the pictures back to headquarters – often leads to a second or third raid before dawn. Headquartered in Saddam Hussein's old fighter jet hangar, the cells are making 10 to 20 captures a night. Since June, they've killed 10 senior Al Qaeda members
"The capabilities for high-end special joint operations that exist now only existed in Hollywood in 2001," David Kilcullen, a terrorism expert and government adviser, told the Post.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond, the British are claiming a "black ops" outfit called Task Force Black, made up of elite U.S. and U.K. special forces, is responsible for the surge's success. It has taken 3,500 insurgents off the streets of Baghdad and reduced bombings from about 150 a month to just two. The task force uses intelligence gleaned the time-honoured way: via spies and informers.
Defence analyst John Pike, who runs GlobalSecurity.org, flatly rejects Woodward's claims of a top-secret capability: "Our intelligence, surveillance and data fusion has increased to a degree undreamt of 10 years ago. That's it. There is no secret wonder sauce."
If there was? "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof," he says dryly.
As for that Voice of God, a.k.a. Voice of Allah, gizmo: It's a device apparently being worked on by the military that operates at a distance, delivering a message that only a single person can hear, presumably to the effect of "Stop the bloodshed" or a plain "Surrender."
At a recent defence-tech workshop, it was reported that the Voice has been tested in Iraq. It was pointed at one insurgent in a group, who whipped around looking in all directions and began a heated conversation with his colleagues who didn't hear the message.
Whether he called for an end to the violence or an Aspirin is unknown.
Monday, September 8, 2008
A "Manhattan Project" on Surveillance Systems
It appears to be extremely difficult to infiltrate the Taliban and Al-Qaeda to gather the intelligence necessary to thwart attacks on Canadian and other NATO forces in Afghanistan. It is very frustrating to see our soldiers and others picked off like artificial ducks in a shooting gallery.
It is surely time that Canada and its allies (primarily, of course, the United States) launched another Manhattan Project, but this time around (instead of atomic weapons) the focus should be on the development of a spatially and temporally continuous surveillance system. We appear to already have the basic elements of such a system in the form of Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), atomic magnetometers, reconnaissance satellites, night vision capability, GPS tracking systems, explosive sniffing technology, etc. Indeed the existence of such technologies is an indication of how much effort is already being expended upon improving our surveillance capabilities. Also of concern is the associated collateral damage in the form of invasion of privacy and the possibility of terrorists piggy-backing on the technology, as they do with the Internet.
The loss of our soldiers to IEDs and ambushes, and the recent swarming attack on a prison in Kandahar resulting in the escape of hundreds of captured terrorists/Taliban, underline the need for a concerted and coordinated research effort to develop the surveillance technology which will enable us to tackle what is becoming the major threat to democratic societies in the 21st century. The Taliban and Al-Qaeda are proving more adept than we in adopting networked warfare. Recent successful assaults on Canadian military and humanitarian aid targets seem to indicate a new strategy to focus on a particular nation with a view to undermining morale in that country's population, and so force its government to withdraw its forces and aid programs. We saw that happen in the case of Spain. Other countries, such as Germany, are reluctant to commit their troops to operations in those southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan where the Taliban and its allies are particularly active.
Just as the development of the atomic bomb convinced the Japanese that it was folly to continue its war, so the Taliban and other enemies of freedom-loving countries must be convinced that there is no place to hide. When such enemies are repeatedly caught red-handed when preparing to attack our forces, their numbers may drop dramatically as their support base dwindles.
One downside of such a scenario is pretty obvious: With such a technology in the hands of dictatorships such as China, North Korea and Myanmar (Burma), the chances of their overthrow by local dissidents are greatly reduced. On the other hand, intervention by the UN or NATO may be made easier to sell if the use of surveillance technology proves to be the key to success in Afghanistan and the number of casualties drops.
Probably even more challenging to develop than the technology are the conceptual and software tools to analyze and understand the spatial patterns which are detected. When is a cluster a group of picnickers or an IED planting squad? Or when several clusters are observed, which is the one preparing an ambush? Of course, similar challenges have arisen when trying to pick out a suicide bomber in a crowd. The answers to such questions would be easier to come by if the images were photos rather than blips on a screen.
My suggestion may be asking for the impossible on the scale envisioned. We are after all still waiting for the panacea of fusion energy after over 50 years.
See Wikipedia article on "Surveillance" and a Business Week article on "The State of Surveillance".
It is surely time that Canada and its allies (primarily, of course, the United States) launched another Manhattan Project, but this time around (instead of atomic weapons) the focus should be on the development of a spatially and temporally continuous surveillance system. We appear to already have the basic elements of such a system in the form of Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), atomic magnetometers, reconnaissance satellites, night vision capability, GPS tracking systems, explosive sniffing technology, etc. Indeed the existence of such technologies is an indication of how much effort is already being expended upon improving our surveillance capabilities. Also of concern is the associated collateral damage in the form of invasion of privacy and the possibility of terrorists piggy-backing on the technology, as they do with the Internet.
The loss of our soldiers to IEDs and ambushes, and the recent swarming attack on a prison in Kandahar resulting in the escape of hundreds of captured terrorists/Taliban, underline the need for a concerted and coordinated research effort to develop the surveillance technology which will enable us to tackle what is becoming the major threat to democratic societies in the 21st century. The Taliban and Al-Qaeda are proving more adept than we in adopting networked warfare. Recent successful assaults on Canadian military and humanitarian aid targets seem to indicate a new strategy to focus on a particular nation with a view to undermining morale in that country's population, and so force its government to withdraw its forces and aid programs. We saw that happen in the case of Spain. Other countries, such as Germany, are reluctant to commit their troops to operations in those southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan where the Taliban and its allies are particularly active.
Just as the development of the atomic bomb convinced the Japanese that it was folly to continue its war, so the Taliban and other enemies of freedom-loving countries must be convinced that there is no place to hide. When such enemies are repeatedly caught red-handed when preparing to attack our forces, their numbers may drop dramatically as their support base dwindles.
One downside of such a scenario is pretty obvious: With such a technology in the hands of dictatorships such as China, North Korea and Myanmar (Burma), the chances of their overthrow by local dissidents are greatly reduced. On the other hand, intervention by the UN or NATO may be made easier to sell if the use of surveillance technology proves to be the key to success in Afghanistan and the number of casualties drops.
Probably even more challenging to develop than the technology are the conceptual and software tools to analyze and understand the spatial patterns which are detected. When is a cluster a group of picnickers or an IED planting squad? Or when several clusters are observed, which is the one preparing an ambush? Of course, similar challenges have arisen when trying to pick out a suicide bomber in a crowd. The answers to such questions would be easier to come by if the images were photos rather than blips on a screen.
My suggestion may be asking for the impossible on the scale envisioned. We are after all still waiting for the panacea of fusion energy after over 50 years.
See Wikipedia article on "Surveillance" and a Business Week article on "The State of Surveillance".
Sunday, September 7, 2008
New Defence Shield for US Armed Forces
Defenshield has been awarded contracts by three different branches of the United States military for additional Mobile Defensive Fighting Positions (MDFP) and Barrier Caps.
The equipment is valued at more than $1 million and will be deployed at Camp Fallujah, Iraq, Camp Lejeune, N.C., and Kirkuk Air Base, Iraq, to protect U.S. military personnel fighting the war on terror. Deliveries will begin in late August.
Mobile Defensive Fighting Position (MDFP)
The MDFP is a portable ballistic/blast resistant shield that provides a level of protection that maximizes deterrence and minimizes the chances of attack in terrorist-prone regions of the world.
Over 500 units are currently deployed for force protection and anti-sniper programs in various cities in Iraq, with heavy concentrations in Al Anbar Province.
MDFPs offer protection to the military, anti-terrorism teams, combat groups and observers, infrastructure security guards and others who come under the threat of rifle fire or terrorist attacks. The equipment includes an ATV-style tire option developed especially for use on rough terrain.
Security Forces at Marine Corp Air Station New River in Jacksonville, N.C., ordered 11 DS-191 MDFP units with red brick Camography(tm), Defenshield's method of matching aesthetic or camouflage requirements. These units will be used for hardening base entry control points.
Meanwhile, the Joint Contracting Command - Iraq purchased 60 DS-192 units that will be deployed by the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (IMEF) at Camp Fallujah, Iraq and throughout Anbar Province. These units will have multi-functional roles in anti-sniper, force protection and physical security capacities.
The Defenshield DS-190 series, which will be used in Iraq and North Carolina, is certified to National Institute of Justice (NIJ) Level IV (30-06 armor piercing) standards and designed to protect security forces in locations where the highest level of threat exists.
It is the only ballistic-resistant tool on the market that offers complete coverage and full visibility while the glazing and armor protects against armor piercing rounds.
Earlier this summer, the U.S. Army executed a separate contract with Defenshield through the Army's Rapid Equipping Force (REF). The $3.5 million order sent several hundred MDFPs to high-threat combat zones in the Middle East including Afghanistan, Iraq and Kuwait.
In 2007, the Army's REF deployed 50 units throughout combat zones in Iraq, including Baghdad, Tikrit and Balad where they have proven to be valuable in rapidly establishing anti-sniper and return fire positions. The unique design and mobility of the units make them highly effective in situations where force protection requirements change frequently and without warning.
Within the past year, the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines have all deployed Defenshield MDFPs to reinforce and harden overwatch positions at base entry control points, providing a higher level of protection that maximizes deterrence and minimizes the chances of attack by persons attempting to breach a secure area.
Barrier Caps
In addition to the MDFPs, the Joint Contracting Command - Iraq ordered 10 NIJ Level IV Barrier Caps for the U.S. Air Force Security Forces operating at the Kirkuk Air Base in Kirkuk, Iraq.
The Barrier Cap is an armor and glass system designed to add vertical transparent ballistic and blast protection to concrete barriers.
Ideal for military bases and outposts, as well as critical infrastructure and heavily secured facilities, the Barrier Cap is an effective way to create a secure area that allows for 360-degree visibility. Standard widths are 4 feet and 10 feet, weighing 700 pounds and 2,000 pounds, respectively.
"Defenshield Barrier Caps and MDFPs are proven life-saving tools to harden entry control points and allow return fire from a place of security and safety for our troops," said Collins White, president of Defenshield. "We're proud that our products have saved the lives of dozens of our deployed troops."
Source: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Defenshield_To_Deploy_MDFP_And_Barrier_Caps_To_US_Military_999.html
The equipment is valued at more than $1 million and will be deployed at Camp Fallujah, Iraq, Camp Lejeune, N.C., and Kirkuk Air Base, Iraq, to protect U.S. military personnel fighting the war on terror. Deliveries will begin in late August.
Mobile Defensive Fighting Position (MDFP)
The MDFP is a portable ballistic/blast resistant shield that provides a level of protection that maximizes deterrence and minimizes the chances of attack in terrorist-prone regions of the world.
Over 500 units are currently deployed for force protection and anti-sniper programs in various cities in Iraq, with heavy concentrations in Al Anbar Province.
MDFPs offer protection to the military, anti-terrorism teams, combat groups and observers, infrastructure security guards and others who come under the threat of rifle fire or terrorist attacks. The equipment includes an ATV-style tire option developed especially for use on rough terrain.
Security Forces at Marine Corp Air Station New River in Jacksonville, N.C., ordered 11 DS-191 MDFP units with red brick Camography(tm), Defenshield's method of matching aesthetic or camouflage requirements. These units will be used for hardening base entry control points.
Meanwhile, the Joint Contracting Command - Iraq purchased 60 DS-192 units that will be deployed by the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (IMEF) at Camp Fallujah, Iraq and throughout Anbar Province. These units will have multi-functional roles in anti-sniper, force protection and physical security capacities.
The Defenshield DS-190 series, which will be used in Iraq and North Carolina, is certified to National Institute of Justice (NIJ) Level IV (30-06 armor piercing) standards and designed to protect security forces in locations where the highest level of threat exists.
It is the only ballistic-resistant tool on the market that offers complete coverage and full visibility while the glazing and armor protects against armor piercing rounds.
Earlier this summer, the U.S. Army executed a separate contract with Defenshield through the Army's Rapid Equipping Force (REF). The $3.5 million order sent several hundred MDFPs to high-threat combat zones in the Middle East including Afghanistan, Iraq and Kuwait.
In 2007, the Army's REF deployed 50 units throughout combat zones in Iraq, including Baghdad, Tikrit and Balad where they have proven to be valuable in rapidly establishing anti-sniper and return fire positions. The unique design and mobility of the units make them highly effective in situations where force protection requirements change frequently and without warning.
Within the past year, the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines have all deployed Defenshield MDFPs to reinforce and harden overwatch positions at base entry control points, providing a higher level of protection that maximizes deterrence and minimizes the chances of attack by persons attempting to breach a secure area.
Barrier Caps
In addition to the MDFPs, the Joint Contracting Command - Iraq ordered 10 NIJ Level IV Barrier Caps for the U.S. Air Force Security Forces operating at the Kirkuk Air Base in Kirkuk, Iraq.
The Barrier Cap is an armor and glass system designed to add vertical transparent ballistic and blast protection to concrete barriers.
Ideal for military bases and outposts, as well as critical infrastructure and heavily secured facilities, the Barrier Cap is an effective way to create a secure area that allows for 360-degree visibility. Standard widths are 4 feet and 10 feet, weighing 700 pounds and 2,000 pounds, respectively.
"Defenshield Barrier Caps and MDFPs are proven life-saving tools to harden entry control points and allow return fire from a place of security and safety for our troops," said Collins White, president of Defenshield. "We're proud that our products have saved the lives of dozens of our deployed troops."
Source: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Defenshield_To_Deploy_MDFP_And_Barrier_Caps_To_US_Military_999.html
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Continuous Surveillance in Afghanistan
Aug. 7, 2008 (Reuters) — The U.S. Defense Department plans to spend $2.2 billion on a new fleet of spy planes and unmanned drones for Iraq and Afghanistan that would greatly enhance the ability of U.S. forces to track militants, officials said on Thursday.
The expansion of what military officials call "intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance," or ISR, efforts is part of a push by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to use military force with more precision in the two counterinsurgency campaigns.
Gates believes military operations should be subordinated to economic, political and social-development programs in countries battling Islamist militants.
The plan, which includes 51 C-12 twin-turboprop Huron aircraft equipped with sensors and video cameras, will let U.S. commanders better follow the movements of militant groups and take action against them, a senior defense official said.
The C-12 aircraft was built for years by Waltham, Massachusetts-based Raytheon Co, but the company sold its aircraft unit last year to a private equity group including Goldman Sachs and Onyx.
U.S. forces would also be able to consistently monitor larger swaths of territory, potentially vital for commanders in places like eastern Afghanistan, where militant crossings from Pakistan pose a growing insurgency threat, officials said.
The planned intelligence and surveillance expansion comes as the Bush administration considers the withdrawal of more U.S. troops from Iraq and a buildup of forces in Afghanistan.
The United States currently has about 144,000 troops in Iraq and 34,000 in Afghanistan.
AIR SURVEILLANCE INCREASED
Gates, a former CIA director who took over as defense chief from Donald Rumsfeld in late 2006, has already increased continuous air surveillance patrols in the two war zones. The senior defense official said 30 patrols are due to be operating by October, up from 12 when Gates arrived at the Pentagon.
Now the Pentagon has hundreds of millions of dollars more to pour into the effort.
Congress has approved Gates' request to boost the ISR expansion by $1.2 billion, using money from elsewhere in the defense budget, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters.
The money will go for ISR operations within the Pentagon's command responsible for the Middle East and Central Asia including Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Pentagon plans to seek about $1 billion more in the defense budget for the 2009 fiscal year, which begins October 1, officials said.
This year's money will also increase the use of unmanned surveillance drones, including the Predators said to be used by the CIA for missile attacks against al Qaeda in Pakistan.
"We'll deploy them to where they're most needed," Whitman said when asked how the new resources and equipment would be divided between Iraq and Afghanistan.
Andrew Broom, spokesman for Hawker Beechcraft Corp, the new company created after the sale of the Raytheon unit, declined comment on the value of any future military orders.
Hawker Beechcraft announced the sale of six C-12 aircraft to the Marine Corps in July for $48 million, or $8 million each, including additional equipment. At that price, an order of 51 aircraft would be worth around $400 million to the firm, which is not publicly traded but has issued public bonds.
The expansion of what military officials call "intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance," or ISR, efforts is part of a push by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to use military force with more precision in the two counterinsurgency campaigns.
Gates believes military operations should be subordinated to economic, political and social-development programs in countries battling Islamist militants.
The plan, which includes 51 C-12 twin-turboprop Huron aircraft equipped with sensors and video cameras, will let U.S. commanders better follow the movements of militant groups and take action against them, a senior defense official said.
The C-12 aircraft was built for years by Waltham, Massachusetts-based Raytheon Co, but the company sold its aircraft unit last year to a private equity group including Goldman Sachs and Onyx.
U.S. forces would also be able to consistently monitor larger swaths of territory, potentially vital for commanders in places like eastern Afghanistan, where militant crossings from Pakistan pose a growing insurgency threat, officials said.
The planned intelligence and surveillance expansion comes as the Bush administration considers the withdrawal of more U.S. troops from Iraq and a buildup of forces in Afghanistan.
The United States currently has about 144,000 troops in Iraq and 34,000 in Afghanistan.
AIR SURVEILLANCE INCREASED
Gates, a former CIA director who took over as defense chief from Donald Rumsfeld in late 2006, has already increased continuous air surveillance patrols in the two war zones. The senior defense official said 30 patrols are due to be operating by October, up from 12 when Gates arrived at the Pentagon.
Now the Pentagon has hundreds of millions of dollars more to pour into the effort.
Congress has approved Gates' request to boost the ISR expansion by $1.2 billion, using money from elsewhere in the defense budget, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters.
The money will go for ISR operations within the Pentagon's command responsible for the Middle East and Central Asia including Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Pentagon plans to seek about $1 billion more in the defense budget for the 2009 fiscal year, which begins October 1, officials said.
This year's money will also increase the use of unmanned surveillance drones, including the Predators said to be used by the CIA for missile attacks against al Qaeda in Pakistan.
"We'll deploy them to where they're most needed," Whitman said when asked how the new resources and equipment would be divided between Iraq and Afghanistan.
Andrew Broom, spokesman for Hawker Beechcraft Corp, the new company created after the sale of the Raytheon unit, declined comment on the value of any future military orders.
Hawker Beechcraft announced the sale of six C-12 aircraft to the Marine Corps in July for $48 million, or $8 million each, including additional equipment. At that price, an order of 51 aircraft would be worth around $400 million to the firm, which is not publicly traded but has issued public bonds.
Osama's Internet Connection
The terrorists know that Western intelligence agencies are all over the satellite phone systems. But by using code words, and encrypting the messages, much information can be exchanged without unacceptable risk. Moreover, the phones themselves can be used at a distance from the hideouts, lest the Americans are plotting the location of the phone, and have a missile armed Predator UAV nearby.
The intel people won't comment on this, especially any success they may have breaking the multiple layers of encryption, or doing an analysis of transmission locations. At the same time, such portable Internet set-ups are also useful for Western counter-terrorism forces operating in the back-country. U.S. Army Special Forces often have small teams doing stake outs in the outback, and Internet access is essential for getting and sending information.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Tactical Ground Reporting System (TIGR)
A recent article in MIT's online "Technology Review" describes a new location-based service called the Tactical Ground Reporting System (TIGR) (free subscription required). It marks a significant enhancement in counter-insurgency operations in Iraq and directly incorporates the experiences (combat, IED events, civilian interviews/reports) of soldiers in the field (e.g. patrolling) which may be accessed by clicking on icons positioned where the event occurred.
The following extracts from the article provide some insight into TIGR and its operational relevance:
The following extracts from the article provide some insight into TIGR and its operational relevance:
The new technology--called the Tactical Ground Reporting System, or TIGR--is a map-centric application that junior officers (the young sergeants and lieutenants who command patrols) can study before going on patrol and add to upon returning. By clicking on icons and lists, they can see the locations of key buildings, like mosques, schools, and hospitals, and retrieve information such as location data on past attacks, geotagged photos of houses and other buildings (taken with cameras equipped with Global Positioning System technology), and photos of suspected insurgents and neighborhood leaders. They can even listen to civilian interviews and watch videos of past maneuvers. It is just the kind of information that soldiers need to learn about Iraq and its perils.
A prototype of the system was shown to soldiers for the first time during a training exercise at Fort Hood in April 2006, and in January 2007, it was introduced in Iraq. There, programmers observed how the troops used it; they collected feedback and quickly made changes. Finally--with help from the Rapid Equipping Force, an army unit devoted to quickly moving new gear into the field--the system reached the 1,500 patrol leaders using it now.
Michaelis says such anecdotes are not uncommon. "I can't name the number of times that patrol leaders and company commanders have turned to me and stated [that] their most important tool they have to fight this fight has been TIGR," he wrote. "I've had ... time-sensitive operations that were able to make associations between the target being handed to them and local residents, [allowing the soldiers to find insurgents who otherwise would have escaped]. I've had patrol leaders avoid potential IED hot spots or pass on IED tactics to their fellow patrol leaders."
And the technology is poised to expand. For now, it is accessible only at military bases. The next step, says Maeda, is to install it in Humvees and other military vehicles, allowing soldiers to download and act on new information in real time. Some of these vehicles already have some low-bandwidth connections, and Maeda says DARPA is working on ways to make the software work using these thin pipes. In addition, the system may soon deliver new kinds of information. In the next two to three years, it could offer surveillance pictures from circling unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or other sensor systems. It could store biometric information, so that a soldier could see if a civilian being interviewed was a known insurgent suspect. "There is a whole list of enhancements that users have requested that we want to fill," Maeda says.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Atomic Magnetometers vs IEDs
As noted in my PowerPoint web presentation, Networking Brains and Bullets in the Canadian Forces (Slide 31) micro-sized computers serving as networked sensors may provide the breakthrough needed in counter-IED efforts. An article in the online version of MIT's "Technology Review" discusses how the emergent technology of Atomic Magnetometers may be a major step forward in reaching this goal.
An extract from the article summarizes this view:
An extract from the article summarizes this view:
... the low-power sensors could be set into portable, battery-powered imaging arrays. Such arrays could easily map out the strength and extent of magnetic fields; the more sensors in an array, the more information it can provide about an object's location and shape. Soldiers, for example, could use such arrays to find unexploded bombs and improvised explosive devices more quickly and cheaply.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Re-thinking Net-Centric Warfare
It seems that our view of net-centric war has been too narrow. A recent Wired Magazine article draws attention to how social net-working is being incorporated into the US Army’s psychological operations (psyops) in Iraq. The idea is to expand the concept of net-centric warfare beyond its strictly military emphasis to include the population as the following excerpts suggest:
A Canadian perspective is presented in the article "Psychological operations: The battlefield’s human dimension".
Those men will leave eventually, though, and to sustain the gains they make, (the commander) is supposed to recruit civilians into a kind of neighborhood watch. The idea is to have as many eyes and ears on the streets, around the shops, and in the mosques as possible. In counterinsurgency, it's better to have a lot of nodes in your network, connecting to the population, than just a few. In fact, that's a key tenet of the new US strategy in Iraq — hiring watchmen who've come to be known in other towns as "alligators" for their light-blue Izod shirts. Prior hasn't had much luck in getting folks in Tarmiyah to sign up; even his own soldiers are reluctant to go out in the daytime.
Meanwhile, insurgent forces cherry-pick the best US tech: disposable email addresses, anonymous Internet accounts, the latest radios. They do everything online: recruiting, fundraising, trading bomb-building tips, spreading propaganda, even selling T-shirts. And every American-financed move to reinforce Iraq's civilian infrastructure only makes it easier for the insurgents to operate. Every new Internet café is a center for insurgent operations. Every new cell tower means a hundred new nodes on the insurgent network. And, of course, the insurgents know the language and understand the local culture. Which means they plug into Iraq's larger social web more easily than an American ever could. As John Abizaid, Franks' successor at Central Command, told a conference earlier this year, "This enemy is better networked than we are."
The Army has set aside $41 million to build what it calls Human Terrain Teams: 150 social scientists, software geeks, and experts on local culture, split up and embedded with 26 different military units in Iraq and Afghanistan over the next year. The first six HTTs are already on the ground. The idea, basically, is to give each commander a set of cultural counselors, the way he has soldiers giving him combat advice.
In western Afghanistan, for instance, a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division was being targeted by rockets, over and over, from the vicinity of a nearby village. But no one from the unit had bothered to ask the townspeople why. When the Human Terrain Team finally paid a visit, villagers complained that the Taliban was around only because the Americans didn't provide security. And oh, by the way, they really wanted a volleyball net, too. So a net was acquired. Patrols were started. There hasn't been an attack in two months.
General David Petraeus knows all about these mind games. The man in charge of the American military effort in Iraq helped turn soldiers' training from tank-on-tank battles to taking on insurgents. He oversaw the writing of the new counterinsurgency manual that John Nagl worked on. The book counsels officers to reinforce the local economy and politics and build knowledge of the native culture, "an operational code' that is valid for an entire group of people." And the manual blasts the old, network-centric American approach in Iraq. "If military forces remain in their compounds, they lose touch with the people, appear to be running scared, and cede the initiative to the insurgents," it says.
The fact is, today we rely on our troops to perform all sort of missions that are only loosely connected with traditional combat but are vital to maintaining world security. And it's all happening while the military is becoming less and less likely to exercise its traditional duties of fighting an old-fashioned war. When is that going to happen again? What potential enemy of the US is going to bother amassing, Saddam-style, army tanks and tens of thousands of troops when the insurgent approach obviously works so well? "The real problem with network-centric warfare is that it helps us only destroy. But in the 21st century, that's just a sliver of what we're trying to do," Nagl says. "It solves a problem I don't have — fighting some conventional enemy — and helps only a little with a problem I do have: how to build a society in the face of technology-enabled, super-empowered individuals."
One thing is clear: The Human Terrain Teams will eventually do more than just advise. Soon each team will get a server, a half-dozen laptops, a satellite dish, and software for social-network analysis — to diagram how all of the important players in an area are connected. Digital timelines will mark key cultural and political events. Mapmaking programs will plot out the economic, ethnic, and tribal landscape, just like the command post of the future maps the physical terrain. But those HTT diagrams can never be more than approximations, converting messy analog narratives to binary facts. Warfare will continue to center around networks. But some networks will be social, linking not computers and drones and Humvees but tribes, sects, political parties, even entire cultures. In the end, everything else is just data.
A Canadian perspective is presented in the article "Psychological operations: The battlefield’s human dimension".
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