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01/17/2021 News & Commentry – National Security

  |  
01.17.2021 at 11:40pm

News and Commentary by Dave Maxwell. Edited and Published by Riley Murray.

 

1. The latest on Biden’s inauguration and security threats

2. Biden fills out State Department team with Obama veterans

3. Bumble removed its political filter after people used it to lure conservatives who were at the Capitol riot into sending incriminating evidence

4. ‘I’m facing a prison sentence’: US Capitol rioters plead with Trump for pardons

5. Chinese Survey Ship Caught ‘Running Dark’ Give Clues to Underwater Drone Operations

6. Attack on Capitol was the beginning of an American insurgency, counterterrorism experts warn

7. The U.S. Capitol Riot Was Years in the Making. Here’s Why America Is So Divided

8. Philippine air force helicopter crash kills all seven aboard

9. The Hacker Who Archived Parler Explains How She Did It (and What Comes Next)

10. General McChrystal compares MAGA riot to the evolution of Al-Qaeda

11. Former DOD Head: The US Needs a New Plan to Beat China on AI

12. Off-duty police were part of the Capitol mob. Now police are turning in their own.

13. Seeing the CCP Clearly

14. Fringe right plots new attacks out of sight

15. Australia admits to committing war crimes in Afghanistan

16. An unusual mission in Afghanistan, and the troops who suffered to carry it out (Book Review)

17. The Georgia Dad Who Said That He Wanted to Kill Nancy Pelosi

18. QAnon reshaped Trump’s party and radicalized believers. The Capitol siege may just be the start.

 

1. The latest on Biden’s inauguration and security threats

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/biden-inauguration-dc-capitol-news-01-16-21/index.html

If I were advising the domestic political opposition (or a foreign adversary working to conduct an indirect attack of the US) in the US (i.e. those who seek to undermine our political system through subversion in the misguided attempt to return to a bygone era of political life that really never existed) I would recommend the following:  Create a threat in the capitol that causes an overreaction by security forces in order to turn the population against the government. Conduct a comprehensive deception information campaign (one line of effort through “internet chatter”) to support the intelligence analysis that there will be massive violence at the inauguration.  Force the government to implement draconian population and resources control measures to lock down the capitol as an authoritarian state would do.  Force the government to threaten or even attack civil liberties in the name of security.  Then on January 20th, do nothing.  Make sure there are no violent actions (which may be difficult because the chatter likely will inspire “true believers” in the great lie and they will to continue to act on their own to the “#stopthesteal”).  If no violence occurs it will set the stage for a long-term psychological warfare and supervision campaign to undermine the new administration and accuse it of taking on fascist characteristics in its (unproven) pursuit of a socialist agenda. It will undermine the credibility of the law enforcement, intelligence, and security services

And if the domestic political opposition or foreign adversaries cannot control the outbreak of violence they will be able to adjust their campaign to still undermine the new administration by focusing on the likely violent response in order to further undermine the trust and support of the population.  This will harden the resolve of the general supporters of the political opposition against the new administration. 

There are only a number of things the government can do: deny access to sanctuary for the leaders and small group of agitators, deny access to resources, deny the ability to move, and separate the agitators from the general supporters of #stopthesteal (by exposing their lies and true intent).  It is the separation of the population (general supporters) from the agitators that is the most complex and difficult task.  It begins by not vilifying the general supporters and recognizing they have been duped by the agitators.  The problem is many of these supporters have become true believers who are easily manipulated by the agitators. This is a long term task and cannot be accomplished overnight because it requires rebuilding trust in the American political system and the US Constitution. It is imperative the government act in a Constitutionally defensible manner in every action it takes.  If the new administration acts in ways that are perceived as unconstitutional it will harden the resolve not only of agitators but of the general supporters as well.

I offer all of the above in the spirit of Sun Tzu, “What is of supreme importance is to attack the enemy’s strategy.”  We must first understand and then expose their strategy in order to effectively attack it and the attack must primarily be conducted in the information and political domains.

Lastly, I will say that as I view the photos and reports coming from our capitol, I am saddened and ashamed of what people are doing to harm our great federal democratic republic.

 

2. Biden fills out State Department team with Obama veterans

AP · by Matthew Lee · January 16, 2021

 

3. Bumble removed its political filter after people used it to lure conservatives who were at the Capitol riot into sending incriminating evidence

Business Insider · by Ashley Collman

Some things just make you go hmmm….. Social media will be the downfall for many of these people. Interesting way to “crowd source” intelligence and law enforcement activities.

 

4. ‘I’m facing a prison sentence’: US Capitol rioters plead with Trump for pardons

The Guardian · by Oliver Milman · January 16, 2021

Will there be pardons?

 

5. Chinese Survey Ship Caught ‘Running Dark’ Give Clues to Underwater Drone Operations

news.usni.org · by H. I. Sutton · January 16, 2021

Excerpts:

The interception comes after a Chinese made Sea Wing UUV was discovered in Indonesian waters in late December. It was the latest of at least four Sea Wing gilder UUVs discovered in the region. Gilders are commonly used to gather data about currents, acoustics and the maritime environment. They use forward momentum created by repeatedly sinking and then rising in a method called variable-buoyancy propulsion. Many countries operate underwater gliders. The main U.S. equivalent is the Slocum G3, which the US.. Navy has deployed as the LBS-G (Littoral Battlespace Sensing-Glider).

Whether Xiang Yang Hong 03’s activities are directly related to submarine activity, other naval intelligence, or legitimate scientific research is difficult to prove but are raising question about Chinese intentions in the region.

“These discoveries in Indonesian waters suggest we should be paying a lot more attention to what the Chinese are doing and why,” Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) analyst Malcom Davis told Asia Times.

 

6. Attack on Capitol was the beginning of an American insurgency, counterterrorism experts warn

aol.com · by AOL Staff

Hyperbole or accurate analysis.  This requires deep reflection.

 

7. The U.S. Capitol Riot Was Years in the Making. Here’s Why America Is So Divided

TIME – by Ian Bremmer

Excerpts:

Compared to countries in Europe where tech platforms face more severe government regulation and must take more responsibility for content posted, the U.S. has a particular problem given its inclination to go lighter on private sector regulation. But the U.S. government won’t be able to sit on the sidelines much longer given recent developments-while plenty cheered at Twitter and Facebook’s decision to de-platform Trump in the wake of the Capitol riot, it opens serious questions about who has the democratic right to limit others’ speech. U.S. politicians will have to wade in lest they effectively cede that power to unelected tech CEOs, a recipe for a disaster of a whole other sort.

There are other contributing factors to today’s U.S. political divisions, but for me, these three are the most structural, and the most crucial. Even more worrying, no matter what happens with recent impeachment efforts, all three of these trends are set to grow stronger over the near-term. Absent more earnest efforts across the political spectrum to deal with these issues-and make the political compromises necessary to truly address them-these are problems that will grow worse.

 

8. Philippine air force helicopter crash kills all seven aboard

Stars and Stripes – 16 January 2021

I am sorry to hear of this.  I knew some great AFP pilots. I have flown on AFP helicopters many times.  They were all Vietnam era Hueys and often we could still see the Budweiser beer cans that had been applied on the interior to patch up bullet holes.

 

9. The Hacker Who Archived Parler Explains How She Did It (and What Comes Next)

Vice – by Leland Nally

Nothing on the internet can (or should) be considered secure.

 

10. General McChrystal compares MAGA riot to the evolution of Al-Qaeda

Daily Mail · by Rachel Sharp For Dailymail.com · January 16, 2021

This is sure to stir the wrath of many communities.  Is his analysis valid?  Is this the way we should be describing threats in the US?

 

11. Former DOD Head: The US Needs a New Plan to Beat China on AI

Wired · by Nicholas Thompson

 

12. Off-duty police were part of the Capitol mob. Now police are turning in their own.

The Washington Post – Kimberly Kindy, Kim Bellware, and Mark Berman – January 16, 2021

 

13. Seeing the CCP Clearly

The New York Review of Books · by Perry Link

Excerpts:

Especially galling to Liu was the claim of Western intellectuals to be speaking, through Mao, for ordinary people-the downtrodden, the underdogs, “the masses.” In fact, they were doing the very opposite: they were siding with the oppressors. In 1989, when the Soviet empire collapsed, the West heaved a sigh that “the cold war is over.” Over? What about China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba? Why does the West not see some parts of the world?

US policy has not just overlooked dictatorship in China; it has aided the growth of CCP power. Within days of the Tiananmen massacre, despite international sanctions on Beijing, President Bush secretly sent emissaries to assure CCP leaders that he wanted to maintain good relations. While Congress was extracting its annual human rights concessions from Beijing in return for “most favored nation” trade terms in the early 1990s, President Clinton, under pressure from Wall Street, abruptly “de-linked” trade and human rights in 1994. US capital and technology (some of it purloined) began to drive a boom in Chinese manufacturing for export.

With US support, China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001 and secured billions in World Bank loans, helping its economy to take another leap. In 2005 Robert Zoellick, a US deputy secretary of state, gave a widely reported speech in which he said that the CCP might become a “responsible stakeholder” in the world system. To Chinese dissidents, the speech revealed more about American naiveté than about what could be expected of the CCP.

Unfortunately, Zoellick was not unusual among westerners. In capitals on both sides of the Atlantic, a faith grew that “they will come to be like us.” At the spectacular Beijing Olympics in 2008, Joshua Ramo of the consulting firm Kissinger Associates, which was long a proponent of “engagement” with the CCP, predicted that China was “a nation about to put a match to the fuse of a rocket.” He made no mention of the hundreds of thousands of ordinary people who had been forced from their homes to assure that the great Olympic salute to the CCP looked as perfect as possible. Barack Obama, whose image among Chinese dissidents was generally good, said publicly in 2015 that the CCP’s antipoverty program was “one of the most remarkable achievements in human history.” He did not acknowledge that the Great Leap agricultural disaster of 1959-1962, which thrust hundreds of millions of people into dire poverty (and killed at least 30 million), was a direct result of CCP policies as well as the most direct cause of the poverty that later needed to be alleviated.

 

14. Fringe right plots new attacks out of sight

Axios · by Sara Fischer, Kyle Daly

If they develop good OPSEC techniques and perfect their subversion skills we are going to face significant challenges. 

 

15. Australia admits to committing war crimes in Afghanistan

presstories.com · by Cory Weinberg · January 17, 2021

 

16.  An unusual mission in Afghanistan, and the troops who suffered to carry it out (Book Review)

The Washington Post – by Greg Jaffe – January 14, 2021

 

17. The Georgia Dad Who Said That He Wanted to Kill Nancy Pelosi

The New Yorker · by Charles Bethea · January 15, 2021

Troubling.  But perhaps provides some insights.

 

18.  QAnon reshaped Trump’s party and radicalized believers. The Capitol siege may just be the start.

The Washington Post – By Drew Harwell, Isaac Stanley-Becker, Razzan Nakhlawi, and Craig Timberg – January 13, 2021

 

 

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

– The Preamble to the US Constitution

 

“The President may indeed in one respect resemble the commander of an army in peace, but in another and more essential sense he resembles the commander of a ship at sea. He must have a helm to grasp, a course to steer, a port to seek.”

– Henry Brooks Adams

 

“The president we get is the country we get. With each new president the nation is conformed spiritually.”

– E.L. Doctorow

 

Subversion: The undermining of the power and authority of an established system or institution.

As in: “the ruthless subversion of democracy”

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