Who is Alive because the French President Attended the Soccer Game

It is apparent from CNN coverage of the November 13, 2015, events in Paris that

1. there was no security checking at the concert
2. there was at the stadium.

Commentators observed that the terrorists "had done their homework", e.g., had gone through dry runs to check out the security practices.

Given this, the perpetrators had checked out the stadium and found it to be a "soft" target.

Someone challenged a bomber.  That person or persons saved more than one (the President's) life.

That person was almost certainly a casualty.

 

I Remember When

Questions at a Presidential News Conference were short.

Scouring vs Scrubbing

Communication is a process described by Parsons and Perry in the 1960s.  I will address that some other place or time.

An United States Air Force Colonel gets credit in online command and control literature for the OODA process.

I heard reports yesterday that the FBI was "scrubbing the database" for information on the Charlie Hebdo terrorists.

Scouring their database would mean they are looking at it intensely.  Scrubbing a database used to mean purging it of bad data.

Wolf Blitzer used reasonable terminology on the Situation Room yesterday.  Barbara Starr and all others I heard did not.

Does the Department of Defense translator for French to English know how to do his/her job?

I can imagine a language specialist not knowing the the implications of translating a request from the French to intensely search our databases.

Inteeroperability is still a problem.

Is the United States of America Responsible?

Probably.

Shouldn't it be CINC Obama rather than the FBI

The Huffingpost is reporting that the FBI is accusing North Korea of the Sony attack.

Shouldn't it be CINC Obama?

 

Several years ago I learned that a way to combat terrorism was to punish a worthy to be punished party for one of these international incidents.

 

If you punished the wrong party, there were two parties that knew you were wrong:

 

1) the one you punished (you should pick a worthy one)

2) the guilty party.

 

If the guilty party speaks up (convincingly), you punish them.

 

Nearly all people can believe that the guilty party has been punished after step 1.  In the past, we have had a tremendous advantage in terms of identification and verification sources.

 

I can now see how this can be applied to police work.

 

1)  Round up the usual suspect

2)  Punish someone worthy of punishment

 

Johnny Cash has a song about man being executed for a murder that he didn't do.  His mother knew that he was innocent of the murder because he was robbing a train that day.  I think the character had killed a number of people.

 

The crime and punishment were justified.  They were associated with the wrong victim. 

 

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel Fired

Vice President Joe Biden is the Obama Administration's Counter-Terrorism (CT) rather than Counter-Insurgency (COIN) advocate.

POTUS can't fire VPOTUS.

Secretary Hagel was the first enlisted man to serve as Secretary of Defense.  He was a far cry from Secretary Donald Rumsfelt.

Michelle Obama is the right person to replace Hagel.

She probably has more clout than Joe Biden.

Comments on Julia Pierson's Resignation

I built on a "saying" that it takes new PhDs two years to do anything useful to "observe" that it takes about 2 years to be productive in a new job.

A US Army Colonel commented once that he always did his old job for 2 years.  He served with the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group (WSEG) which was co-located with the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) which was known as DoD's "think tank".

The US Army had the Research Analyses Corporation (RAC), the US Navy had the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), and the US Air Force had RAND which made all the others necessary.

I worked with the Army Colonel on a project for the newly established US Army Operational Test and Evaluation Agency (OTEA) while I was employed by BDM (bought TRW except automotive part) which is now Northrop-Grumman.

My model became it takes good people about a year to notice that the new job is different and about a year to "work on" the new job.  I thought "new PhDs" could probably do this.  [All particle physicists at the time were probably "bright enough" to do it.]

Charles J. DiBona, who became (former Governor of Colorado) John Love's deputy when they created the first version of the Department of Energy.  Mr. Di Bona was of the McNamara whiz kid variety who had resigned his commission in the US Navy (as a Lieutenant Commander) to become President of the CNA while I was there.

One benefit of leaving high energy physics as a profession I expected was that things could be completed in less than 5 years.

It is very difficult to see significant change in 5 years.  The easiest changes to observe are related to related to wars or terrorist acts.

Eliot Richardson was a Republican with a fabulous resume during the Nixon era but he was never anywhere long enough to do any good (or harm).

Julia Pierson accepted a very challenging job.  A change of culture is difficult and usually takes the most time.

It is difficult (but not impossible) to get Governmental action related to meeting “urgent combat needs”.  Anything else may (and should?) take a generation or more in which to observe a change.

 

Would we really want the world to know all the recent failures that have involved the Secret Service?

 

President Obama, James Clapper, and Susan Rice should resign because of obvious inability to do their respective jobs. 

 

 

 

 

Technical Reference Models

Today’s Thoughts

Interoperability is greatly facilitated by a shared Technical Reference Model.  The US Department of Defense developed these as a part of the Corporate Information Management (CIM) Initiative.  A current TRM is available at http://ce.sharif.edu/courses/87-88/1/ce448/resources/root/EIAP-methodologies-references-models/DOD_TRM_V0.4_10Aug.pdf.

Satellite Communications is shown in context in Figure 6 on page 17 in the above reference.

The OSI Technical Reference Model describes a seven-layer protocol stack.

See http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc977591.aspx.

 

 

MH370 Fact and Hypotheses

MH370 Facts

The plan took off nearly on time.

Things were normal throughout the first controller’s tenure.

The InMarSat data has been accurate and reliable.

The range of the flight has been uncertain.

Hypotheses:

The P-3 dropped sonobouy detected Tireless.

US Assets added nothing to the realization that the aircraft was on the Southern Arc.

US National Authorities wish they had assets capable of contributing.

MH370 Flight Path

Without knowing the uncertainty in the altitude values for the military radar, we really do not know that it forces deviation from the otherwise determined flight path.

The maximum likelihood fit to the data is that the plane went down on the southern arc of the circle.

An Act of Terrorism

Leon Panetta seems to be the point person now.  The Algerian BP Hostage incident IS an act of terrorism.  The perpetrator was booted out of Al Quade (no honor among thieves) but this was an act of terrorism.

Only a few months ago, Joe Biden gave us the Bumper Sticker slogan: “General Motors is Alive and Osama Bin Laden is Dead”.

What has that intellectual guru Dick Cheney got to say about all this?  Create it and they will abuse it.

Back to Basics

In the midst of cultural conflict, it seems logical that it would be good to go “back to basics” periodically.

I associate “back to basics” with the attitude often attributed to Vince Lombardi while he was the head coach of the Green Bay Packers and the approach used by physicists to derive results from “first principles.”

During my “mid-life crisis,” I decided that my core values were:   Liberty, Justice, and Compassion.  I did not develop a definition for each term.  Liberty was what our Founders Fought for.  My Justice was not blind.  My Justice was, like God, all seeing.  My Compassion was compassionate.  It should be obvious that these values are frequently in conflict.  For years, I considered “conflict” to be bad and we should try to avoid it.

An article on the back page of an old physics newsletter about Quakers and conflict was enlightening.  I’ve forgotten how Quakers address conflict but they sort of consider it good.

Why are Best Republican Candidates Generals?

Defense is a legitimate role of the Federal Government.

Covert Operations Should Be Covert

I Remember Floyd

Hurricane Floyd http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Floyd for me was a many-hour trip from Melbourne, FL, to my wife’s nephew’s home in Georgia, a little north of Plains. The traffic was so slow that we got off I-4 at an interchange, filled up with gas, used the one working restroom, and got back on I-4 three cars ahead of where we were in the traffic when we got off.

Later, when threatened by Hurricane Francis and Hurricane Jeanne, we remained in our home in Melbourne. My neighbor to the East lost several shingles. During Francis, one broke our bedroom window. Being at home, we were able to stuff things into garbage bags and place the bag in the window. We also put car floor mats in the window. We secured the inside of the window by nailing pegboard over the whole window on the inside. For Jeanne, we put plywood over the outside of the windows in the exposed areas.

An episode of the TV series JAG used the line “Remember Floyd” to caution against over reacting.

The Wikipedia entry includes a visual comparison of Floyd and Andrew “while at similar positions and nearly identical intensities”. Floyd has a diameter which is two to three times that of Andrew. A hint of Floyd’s future path may be given by its lack of symmetry with respect to its eye. Andrew is small but symmetric.

Ordering a mandatory evacuation is the easy part. Hurricane Irene highlighted the need for plans to evacuate/care for the elderly and the critically ill. The current “First Responders” have gotten too much influence, if not power, in part due to the Patriot Act. We need Comprehensive Homeland Security Reform to plan for natural events other than War and Terrorism. We should also reassess how much Homeland Security we can afford and then assign resources appropriately. Isn’t a Mandatory Evacuation Order currently an Unfunded Mandate?

(DR)2H

Needed: Comprehensive Command and Control Reform

David Gergen and I saw need for improvement in the Obama administration’s response to the BP oil well disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. LTG Russell Honore, USA, (ret.) described a command and control structure for addressing the crisis during multiple interviews on CNN. I decided that Colin Powell was “the answer.” Woodward decided that Colin Powell would be the “right” person to replace Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense.

Joplin is 60 miles west of here. In less than 12 hours, Joplin had been declared a state emergency and a Federal Disaster area. Initial reports on CNN seemed to discourage local people helping out and leaving the situation to the “professional” first responders. This is counter to the local culture.

Early news coverage included statements by the Governor of Missouri, Jay Nixon, and a MG from the Missouri National Guard saying they were here to support the local authorities. By May 25, 2011, CNN was reporting that it seemed like no one was in charge. However, two parents had been kept out of the morgue for 3 days. “This is a Federal Disaster. We have to be 100% certain.”

George W. Bush was the Decider. Barack Obama is the Sage. Barack Obama is also the Commander in Chief (CINC). Since Donald Rumsfeld “transformed” our forces, CINC Obama is the only CINC. We need to UNTRANSFORM some of our forces so that we have full functional capability in general purpose command and control. We may not need to have (m)any Field Armies but we do need to have comprehensive (full functional) command and control capability.

Any task force that responds to a general disaster needs to have full functional capability.

Joplin does not have a functional integrated C3 system to include a disaster recover database.

Somebody in the system has the set of formal addresses as recognized by the USPS. Junk mailers can get access to the addresses. We have just completed a census. Sounds like what’s needed to be able to identify within 10% how many people are missing.

Joplin needs communication for cell phones and computers. The devastation is only a mile or less wide so water is accessible locally.

I have heard only one person mention on TV that search and recovery operations need to extend Eastward, perhaps to Springfield.

Joplin needs UNTRANSFORMED general purpose command and control. CINC Obama is expected Sunday.

We have spent 10 years "investing" in homeland security until we have the "Top Secret America" described in a Washington Post series a few months ago. We are heavy on the Intel. We need to reestablish an Ops capability.

The concept is simple - a rapid reaction deployable CCIS node for disaster recovery. In the GAMO and JINTACCS communities, this would be the JTF headquaters node. In WWMCCS, it would include R2DC3, DWC4, and FORWARD TALK. In NATO, it would be the MWHQ initiative of Task Force 6 (C3).

(DR)2H