Last year in Philadelphia, a TSA officer required the 4-year-old disabled son of a local law enforcement officer to remove his leg braces  to pass through screening.  TSA later admitted this was in violation of their regulations, which, by the way, TSA mistakenly posted online some months ago. These regulations, the Screening Management Standard Operating Procedures manual, initially had critical portions blacked-out . Unfortunately, it proved very easy to remove their blockages, giving anyone access to this very sensitive information. The list goes on.

It is time for Secretary Napolitano to take full responsibility for this critically important public contact portion of DHS by assuming the public face of TSA. Bring in the retired U.S. Army major general and let him do what he does best; run an operation efficiently and effectively while the Secretary meets the press and Congress.

After all, the question of whether the TSO’s are permitted to seek collective bargaining really is not a decision of the assistant secretary. It belongs squarely with the Cabinet Secretary, and she is the only one able to give Sen. DeMint the answers he is demanding .

Generals lead by implementing policies set down by their civilian leadership. They are take-charge experts, not politicians. It is long past time we let the professionals do their jobs and expect the politicos to do theirs.

This process is clearly already underway. In January this year, Sec Napolitano traveled to Europe to meet with representatives of the international airline community.  Clearly she sees the need for senior leadership in overseeing aviation security. I will be pleased to see TSA under the operational leadership of Bob Harding while Sec Napolitano takes over as the public persona of the organization.

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There are currently two operable systems: Backscatter Passenger Imaging, which uses low intensity X-ray technology to show items in pockets or concealed on the person; and Millimeter Wave Technology, which projects radio frequency energy over the passenger’s body creating a 3-D image and revealing the smallest concealed item.

Technology adapts rapidly and can prevent potentially embarrassing situations with undressed human forms. Solutions to enhance security through the use of WBI will become more effective when the data is synthesized to produce a depiction of the entire situation on a generic form, enabling real-time interpretation without the distraction of raw data. These diagrams will have icons generated by algorithms detecting suspect items; however, until WBI is deployed on a large scale, there will not be the necessary critical mass to address the social issues and derive the economy of scale. From this, technological solutions to public concerns will be established and the machines will be produced at more affordable prices.

If we take a moment to consider the efficacy of WBI and the invested public and private funds, we are likely to witness a clear example of Moore’s law, which precisely describes a driving force of technological and social change in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The capabilities of digital electronic devices processing speed, sensors, and even the number and size of pixels in digital cameras are all improving at (roughly) exponential rates. This has dramatically increased the usefulness of digital electronics in nearly every segment of the world economy.

All one needs to do is look at the History Channel for WWII stories on the secret new system – RADAR. Compare the raw data display of the radar oscilloscope with today’s synthesized weather depiction on the evening news; you would be hard-pressed to recognize it as the same basic system. The WBI screeners are now working with truly rudimentary raw data, compared to what they will be working with in a short time. When WBI is deployed for use in real-time by a wide array of screeners, it will need the finest synthetic depiction engineers can develop to keep the system functioning and the lines moving.

This is the twenty-first century, and technology is constantly accelerating. Look back just a few years at the then new system of Google Earth and compare it with the infinite number of applications available on that depiction using icons to enable the human brain to absorb information in real-time. A pilot operating an F-16, F-18, F-22 does not look at the raw data of analog instruments with dials and gauges, nor do they use an oscilloscope to interpret their multi-sensor and targeting suite. Rather, they use a synthetic depiction with clearly defined icons. They have the latest in visualization tools to enable real-time human interpretation. This is the same technology advancement that will become the standard for WBI. The human form will be some type of avatar or line diagram with icons depicting the analysis of the system on various objects encountered.

I have worked on building common operating pictures with massive amounts of data incorporated and depicted. Data, technology and intelligence analysis does not become a solution until such time as the information can be conveyed to the human decision maker in near real-time and visualization greatly expedites the process and comprehension. Moore’s law will kick in here shortly, and WBI will become yet another ubiquitous aspect of air travel. Our adversaries will learn of our screening technology, and they will have to devise new avenues to pursue. This will give us time to detect them and offer greater incentives to discontinue their behavior.

(Source: Moore’s Law and Whole Body Imaging: Moving Technology to the Next Level | Security Debrief – a blog of homeland security news and analysis.)

Based on 33 years flying large transport aircraft worldwide for both the US Air Force and a major US airline and concurrently being an aviation security and operations expert, I see the return of many old issues. Following 9/11, the nation came together supporting the concept that intelligence data had not been proactively shared to allow government agencies to meet the threat arrayed against us.

As an established AvSec specialist from well before 9/11, I articulated widely that not only had the intelligence not been shared between government agencies but also with the private sector operators. Had I and my professional colleagues been consulted by the FBI on the data they had acquired, an understanding of airliner flying lessons without the proper background and focused on only flying not landing could only point to one conclusion.

Now an even more prominent indicator and warning has been ignored. In the hilarious 1980 movie Airplane, outlandish aspects and innuendos of airline industry were the satirized. In one vignette responding to the Arabic hijackers of the late 1970s, a young Arabic man is handed his boarding pass as the agent recites his travel data: ‘one-way ticket, cash, no luggage – here is your ticket Mr.….’ In 1980, that was funny; 30 years later it is a sad commentary that both the public and private sector still cannot learn from historic facts.

Next, the universal hew and cry for better technology to find bad things carried by passengers. Items carried by law-abiding people do not automatically make them homicidal. In fact, the 9/11 terrorists did not carry any prohibited items onto the airplanes other then their intent to commit atrocities. Things and items do not kill people, in this case – people kill people.

The focus of our 21st century technology efforts will be better aligned when targeted on detecting questionable people first then ascertaining if bad things are also involved. This does not include profiling racial, religious or ethnic appearances; rather the detection of behavioral traits, and/or analysis of data, which indicates a need for closer surveillance, examination and investigation of individuals. The basic premise is that people who are about to commit a crime will behave differently than someone going for an airplane ride; especially in the case of suicide bombers as they have not previously practiced their crime.

This leaves us with applying technology, behavioral science and intelligence analysis to vet the traveling public. Many travelers today are military members, government employees or federally elected officials who carry US government security clearances well exceeding that of the screeners at the airport.

Most of these folks already have biometric credentials and given proper equipment to read them will positively establish their identity. These known travelers could be directed into a screening-lite line for a much quicker and efficient process. A second group would likely be comprised of the great majority of travelers of whom considerable information is already contained in the reservations computer even if they only travel occasionally. This group gets the current standard screening procedure to include secondary screening should questions be raised. Finally, there will be a small group of whom little is known, points of origin or destination, payment methods, behavioral triggers tripped, or newly integrated watchlist flags. These people need to be thoroughly evaluated, and this is where the best technology comes into play.

Whole Body Imaging (WBI) currently in use and development uses either of two different technologies. Backscatter Passenger Imaging uses low intensity X-ray technology to show items in pockets or concealed on the person. Millimeter Wave Technology involves projecting radio frequency energy over the passenger’s body creating a 3-D image and revealing the smallest concealed item. The images from both systems are rendered unrecognizable, and we certainly have the ability to prevent misuse of the equipment. Indeed both systems have security blocks built in that prevent the recording or storage of an image.

I agree with the President’s remarks of yesterday: ‘we have to do better, we will do better, and we have to do it quickly. American lives are on the line.’

There are aviation security professionals like myself with many years of operational experience. When this expertise is synergized with government intelligence analysts and airline operators, we will find that the sum of the parts truly exceeds that of the individual parts taken separately.

‘Private sector preparedness is not a luxury; it is a cost of doing business in the post-9/11 world. It is ignored at a tremendous potential cost in lives, money, and in national security.’ – 9/11 Commission Final Report”

(Source: Failed Bomber and the Use of Whole Body Imaging | Security Debrief – a blog of homeland security news and analysis.)

Actionable intelligence is real time information that allows security professionals to intervene. It is intelligence that is on hand and available to people who are in a position to do something. Such information is used to prevent incidents like the failed Christmas Day bombing by 23-year-old Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the Christmas day terrorist act was the reality that information was available via Umar’s father, but nothing was done with it. Now and far into the foreseeable future, Americans will need circumspectness from both public servants and private citizens. People will need tools beyond reactionary intelligence.

Reactionary intelligence is in the moment decision-making based on observation. It is important. After all, it’s the brave people of Northwest Flight 253 that took matters into their own hands, averting catastrophe in the process. Citizen defense aboard planes was highlighted during the September 11 attacks when the people aboard United Airlines Flight 93 overcame the hijackers and sacrificed their lives in the process. The resilient passengers of American Airline Flight 63 restrained Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, and saved their lives in the process. Reactionary intelligence was used appropriately in all situations, and lives were saved. But there is a better way.

Discovering actionable intelligence (through techniques that couple statement analysis with various open interview methods) is not as difficult as it may seem. Actionable intelligence is something members of the public can gather on their own with some training. This should be encouraged in a self-directed learning format. If citizens become more skilled in this, they will be able to report things in an unbiased way.

The C.O.N.F.I.R.M model is something Relevant Now has used as a research tool since 1993. Some preparation and study is required before the model can be implemented. Anyone interested in using this approach should follow the basic structure below:

• Become familiar with emerging trends in crime and ask a series of questions: What networks, organizations and lone wolves are likely to emerge? What types of crimes and targets will they select? Study the doctrines and belief systems of the organizations.
• Use personal experience, areas of interest, and expertise when assessing what groups to focus on.
• Use an open ended question format if or when one is fortunate enough to come across someone online or in person who fits a radical or criminal profile. Appear friendly, competent, nonjudgmental, and curious when asking questions.
• Apply the C.O.N.F.I.R.M model to the organizations and individuals under study or observation by asking the following questions in the order below:

Convictions: What are the stated beliefs and intentions of the organization or individual? Is there a history of criminal or terrorist acts?

Orientation: Are the motivations primarily external or internal? (Lone wolf probabilities may be evident for some, while others may appear group dependent.)

Nexus points: Who are they associated with? What are the commonalities between them and similar organizations or individuals?

Functionality: Applied Behavioral Analysis: What do they get from the behavior?

Integration: How connected are they to the group. How does the society/community they are a part of view the group? Do people revere and respect, or despise them?

Relativity: Are mores and rule of law irrelevant to them and secondary to their pursuits? Do they follow a different code of conduct, ethics, and doctrine? If so, what are they?

Mission: How strong is their sense of mission and purpose? Are they willing to die?

The C.O.N.F.I.R.M approach is a simple model that can be effective if people are willing to put the time in and learn. Extremism cannot be contained by government officials and security personnel alone. There is a definite uptick in the activities of radicals and their intent is clear, kill as many as possible. Reporting is essential and mandatory in this conflict. Since citizens are targets, they must become part of the solution. It is time to become educated, empowered and effective in this battle.

By Hakim Hazim and Charles Holmes

In 1995, John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt coined the term “netwar” to describe the Mexican Zapatistas, a local guerrilla group that utilized emerging technologies and globalization to draw foreign human rights groups, non-governmental organizations, and activist groups into their ultimately successful struggle. Four years later, a decentralized collective of networked activists utilizing creative street tactics caught the Seattle police by surprise in the 1999 “Battle of Seattle.” Since then, many have overestimated the power of networked social movements, especially social media-enabled groups struggling against repressive regimes. Arquilla and Ronfeldt understood what some contemporary tech-boosters did not: information-age struggles share many principles of industrial-era action.

To use a military analogy, even Twittering activists still must observe time-honored principles such as mass, main effort, and unity of command. A poorly chosen center of gravity or a lack of sufficient power massed at the decisive point can doom even the most well-organized endeavor. The Mexican Zapatistas, for example, understood that Mexico’s center of gravity was the prestige of the ruling administration, and applied pressure accordingly in the right places. The Iran protests’ center of gravity was political-military regime elites and clerics.  Clerics beginning to tire of the regime’s mismanagement constituted the decisive point. Unfortunately, not enough dissident Iranian clerics rallied to the side of the protesters, allowing the regime to eventually crush the demonstrators.

The chief challenge of any networked organization is to transform information into real-world power. Many take the trite phrase “information is power” as an article of faith, but information alone is insufficient to create material or political power. A green Twitter profile with hundreds of thousands of foreign followers is not the stuff of revolution. Lenin’s dexterous political maneuvering and ruthlessness created the Russian Revolution, not the favorable press of foreign journalists such as John Reed.  Failure to effectively transform information into power enables centralized opponents to gather enough material might together to stall, suffocate, or outright eliminate embryonic social movements. Decentralization can give networked movements an initial tactical advantage against slow-moving centralized forces but it takes discipline, organization, and sequencing to exploit tactical successes. The ephemeral quality of “flash mobs” can work against networked movements as well, as digital assemblages can disintegrate as hastily as they emerge.

Networked social movements are still in a immature stage. But as information campaigners grow more experienced, skilled, and above all else pragmatic the quality of digital campaigns is sure to improve. Perhaps tyrants will come to fear Twitter. But until then we should take a realistic view of networked social movements’ mobilizing power. Social media adds another dimension to political conflicts and activism, but not a necessarily decisive one.

Which makes the story of the ODNI closing the UGOV and BRIDGE collaborative environments, covered by Marc Ambinder in the Atlantic blog, so devastating:

The intelligence community’s innovative uGov e-mail domain, one of its earliest efforts at cross-agency collaboration, will be shut down because of security concerns, government officials said [...]

[This] follows reports that another popular analytic platform called “Bridge,” which allows analysts with security clearances to collaborate with people outside the government who have relevant expertise but no clearances, is being killed . . .

The importance of things like UGOV and BRIDGE cannot be understated. New analysts who use tools like Chirp (the IC’s version of Twitter), A-Space and Intellipedia are always surprised to hear me talk about how back in the day, in addition to walking to work barefoot in the snow and uphill both ways, if you wanted to collaborate with your peers in another agency you had to run a deception operation against your own boss because working with anyone outside your agency was considered disloyal. Working with someone outside the community just wasn’t done (at least not at the functional level in any meaningful way). UGOV gave functionality and (more importantly) legitimacy to the idea of working together, whether driven by your own initiative or real-world events:

ODNI frequently stands up temporary analytical groups that take in analysts from agencies like the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the DIA and the National Security Agency (NSA); the uGov domain made it easy to give all of them a common platform.

“Security concerns” is the excuse being used to take down UGOV, but that doesn’t explain why BRIDGE has to go too unless “security concerns” is code for “we’ve been hacked.” That’s pure speculation on my part, but if you have tracked any of the traffic related to Cyber Command, the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative, or the Cyber Czar, you know that systems like UGOV or BRIDGE would make for attractive targets by myriad adversaries. And while such systems would surely be outfitted with some of the best security mechanisms the IC could provide, if it’s connected to the ‘Net, its hackable. Even a small compromise would be all the excuse needed to get such systems shut down en masse. The “deny all” security mindset that prevails in the community hasn’t prevented our adversaries from compromising us in the past, its really just a convenient way to hate on collaboration.

Collaboration, and the tools that facilitate it, also often run up against the juggernaut of older technologies and those with a vested interest in supporting them. There is still a lot of big iron in the community as well as software designed to support how the intelligence business worked 20 years ago.Converting and/or upgrading is expensive, but in the long run money is cheap: the price we pay for using legacy systems (and bad retrofits) and not an open framework that can address the needs of the mission today and rapidly adapt to future needs cannot be measured in dollars and cents.

There are those who applaud the progress the IC has made since 9/11, but I would argue that while some of the technology being used has indeed improved, and we are on the path to achieving “living intelligence,” the way the community works and is managed remains largely unchanged. It is still an industrial age system that rewards stove-piping. Looking after your agency’s parochial interests is still the fastest and easiest way to get ahead. Buying monster technology solutions from the usual suspects – usually to the detriment of the mission – is easier than going lightweight and cheap (if not free). Working on “joint” projects is still something relegated to ‘those who can be spared’ or those intrepid few who accept that collaboration means disobeying orders.

There is hope:

UGov has been especially popular among the large tranche of analysts who joined the community after 9/11. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) runs the network.

Already, analysts have contributed to a “save uGov” wiki on a community-wide network which, unless you’re got access to the secret network, you can’t access at this url: https://www.intelink.gov/wiki/Save_uGov.

But like so many bottom-up revolutions throughout history, absent powerful, external support, the end result is likely to be more Grant-through-Richmond than Walesa and Solidarity.

For all the great work being done in the IC, imagine what could be done if everyone in the community – especially its leaders – stopped worrying about spending more money and getting more credit, and embraced the idea that “light” and “cheap” are not synonymous with “bad” and that none of us is as smart as all of us?

La Familia Michoacana, burst onto the Mexican national scene by tossing five heads onto the dance floor of a popular club in Uruapan, Michoacán. Several sources including the FRPI stated that there was a message nearby the heads reading: “The family doesn’t kill for money. It doesn’t kill women. It doesn’t kill innocent people, only those who deserve to die. Know that this is divine justice.” Many locals believed the spin. That evening La Familia claimed dual roles: crime fighting and human services for the purposes of protecting and providing for their people. National Public Radio reported that those in attendance, including the owner, supported them because they recognized the heads of the deceased, concluding that they were bad people worthy of their fate. In a short matter of time, La Familia became a skilled and deadly cartel capable of balancing both its war against Mexico’s elite security forces, and the propaganda machine it created in order to draw support.
La Familia’s propaganda extends into the realm of faith. One could argue that it is a religious movement as well. The cartel’s spiritual leader, Nazario “The Maddest One” Moreno, has solidified his status as the people’s preacher. He has produced a gospel of self-help for downtrodden supporters, justified violence for its active members, and evangelical zeal and slogans to maintain a sense of familiarity with the larger faith. La Famalia spreads its messages of hope, salvation and divine justice through various media outlets. In addition they have given gifts to the poor and employ a large number of people at ten times the national average (nearly $2000 a month). By providing things the state has not: services, money, religious identity and social mobility within the group, La Familia is winning big political points in the guise of religion. The pattern is not much different from that of Hamas, Hezbollah or many other terror networks that work to secure the favor of the people and have a religious ideology as a cover for their action. Radical networks are evolving and increasing their efforts to win the hearts and minds of the people. The cartels are operating without constraint as a law unto themselves.

Since Mexico has failed to uphold the rule of law and corruption is rampant and widespread, few Mexicans trust in the ruling political parties ability to make their lives better; they are turning to a parallel structure, the cartels. Cartel leaders have taken advantage of this and are seeking to push the state into a ceasefire. John Sullivan and Adam Elkus outline the means to the cartels’ objectives in their timely piece Mexican Crime Families: “They have engaged in a war of attrition against the Mexican government, killing low-ranking officers and high-ranking federal officials alike. Psychological operations and bribery have also been used to induce military and police to desert their posts and reap the benefits of cartel patronage. The goal? Force the Mexican government to cease its crackdown and let the cartels influence the political arena so they can move their drugs in peace.”

It is important to realize how radical movements can start out at the micro level and later compete with the state or at the very least vie for an audience with large numbers of the populace. Mexico is experiencing this and joining a number of states attempting to contain their radical movements. Don’t get it twisted. People have the right to worship whatever they choose to and that should be upheld. But experts in forensic theology warn of global radical movements taking root and inspiring people to pick up the sword and join them in a campaign against their host nations. Such movements are joining a host of other secular ones with increasing ferocity in a revolt against the authority of the state. Perhaps what is taking place in the hearts and minds of people at the smallest micro level is an innate revolt, a grasping for something to believe in, and/or an identity they can rest in. Let us hope the identity does not pursue bloodletting as a rite of passage.

Internet Sources:
Taking on the Unholy Family
Cult-like Gang Gains Power in Mexico Drug Wars
Drug Dealing for Jesus: Mexico’s Evangelical Narcos

Hakim Hazim is the founder of Relevant Now a nationally recognized security consultancy

The Mumbai operation demonstrates the problem facing tactical counterterrorism response. Multiple elements utilizing swarming tactics and an overarching command and control node overwhelmed a police command overwhelmingly oriented on tactical encounters. Closer to home, cartels and street gangs have posed operational challenges to police throughout Latin America, showing discipline and coordination largely disdained by American gangsters.

Police practice is largely structured around managing individual incidents and cases.  This is often expressed as tactically responding to calls for service or individual SWAT responses. A broader, comprehensive view of the operational space as a whole, and the impact of multiple tactical operations is largely absent.  Concepts such as operational space shaping, intelligence, threat early warning and operational maneuver are largely ignored. This tactical mindset hinders coordination of complex crimes and disasters and degrades interagency cooperation. The closest thing to operational coordination in police operations is the Incident Command System (ICS) and National Incident Management System (NIMS). While NIMS provides the backbone for operational coordination in active incidents, it is mainly logistical and command-oriented. NIMS’ incident-specific nature does not provide a “command concept” for continuing and future operations

Police are understandably wary of appearing to be too militarized, but the near systemic ignorance of operational theory and insights arising from the military counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations will not serve police well if criminal insurgents or terrorists target the domestic space. The trend of “global guerrillas” waging netwar has been observed for twenty years and there is little reason to think that it will cease.  Additionally, there is a convergence between police and military operations abroad that could be a source of insights for police response to potential and emerging high intensity threats.

Perhaps most harmful is the lack of an intellectual forum for doctrinal research and development. Police journals focus overwhelmingly on the tactical or technical level of operations. It is important to make sure that tactical response is pitch-perfect and that use and acquisition of equipment is satisfactory to police needs. These are the building blocks of operational response. But in order for operational innovation to occur law enforcement agents on the local, state, and federal level must be able to share their insights with each other in a scholarly forum. Journals and forums for doctrinal debate, red teaming and strategic futurism would do much to help the growth of operational police doctrine.

What would operational theory for police look like? In military theory operational art occurs at the theater level, the place where strategic objectives are implemented tactically. Yet the operational art is not a collection of tactical engagements. Rather, it is a concept of how to best use organizational resources to implement strategic aims. The operational level of police engagement is much smaller than the military theater level. But on the regional level, particularly in major metropolitan areas like Los Angeles County or New York City, the challenge is just as great. Operational doctrine for police would focus on harmonizing three strategic capabilities: understanding and shaping the operational space, intelligence/investigations, and operational response.

Understanding and shaping the operational space is easily the most important of the three. Gaining advantage over criminal netwarriors and terrorists requires deployment of police resources in flashpoints or trouble spots, understanding the population through community policing, and formation of plans for community resilience.

As response to irregular foes is largely a targeting duel, developing an ability for targeted intelligence and investigations on a “geosocial” level is an important tool. Police already carry out investigations of organized crime and terrorism, but such investigations need to be integrated into a larger capability for net assessment of the operational space as a whole. Police need mechanisms for building a holistic view of the operational space, including open-source intelligence and social scientific survey. These abilities can inform operational concepts for action as well as better guide deep indications and warning (I&W) assessments to head off terrorism, crime, and insurgency.

Operational response must be formulated to deal with swarming. We have outlined such a concept in our papers “Postcard from Mumbai: Modern Urban Siege” and “Preventing Another Mumbai: Building a Police Operational Art.” Police must mobilize quickly to halt attackers in place, isolate their positions, and then neutralize them with heavier follow-on forces. In turn, command and control (C2) functions and doctrine must become agile enough to support police during operational level engagements. The police commander must be able to visualize his forces in space and time.

All of these steps can help build what RAND analyst Carl H. Builder called a “Command Concept.” Command concepts of future operations inform the usage of resources and the nature of information that must flow up and down the chain of command. They enable a more intuitive command and usage of information. Command concepts are indicative of a genuinely operational focus. Tactical focus, however, inevitably leads to a focus on the technical level of operations as a means of supporting tactical missions. In a complex emergency, a tactically and technically-focused commanding element finds themselves a prisoner of their tactical equipment, reacting to rather than guiding events.

Building a command concept for police operations will not be easy. An institutional focus on tactics will be difficult to overcome. Building operational concepts—i.e., an appreciation and application of operational art—is essential to future excellence in the modern operational space.   An understanding of the operational level of maneuver and conflict, as well as the development of doctrine and “network protocols” for operational maneuver is necessary to address the new constellation of challenges and threats facing the modern urban “global city.”

John P. Sullivan is a career police officer. He currently serves as a lieutenant with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department where he is assigned to the Emergency Operations Bureau. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies on Terrorism (CAST). His research focuses on counterinsurgency, intelligence, terrorism, transnational gangs, and urban operations. He is co-editor Countering Terrorism and WMD: Creating a Global Counterterrorism Network (Routledge, 2006).

Adam Elkus is an analyst specializing in foreign policy and security. He is currently Associate Editor at Red Team Journal. His articles have been published in Red Team Journal, Small Wars Journal and other publications. Mr. Elkus blogs at Rethinking Security, Dreaming 5GW, and the Huffington Post. He is currently a contributor to the Center for Threat Awareness’ ThreatsWatch project.

For Additional Reading

John P. Sullivan and Adam Elkus, “Police Operational Art for a Five-Dimensional Operational Space,” Small Wars Journal, July 2009.

John P. Sullivan and Adam Elkus, “Preventing Another Mumbai: Building a Police Operational Art,” CTC Sentinel, June 2009.

John P. Sullivan and Adam Elkus, “Postcard from Mumbai: Modern Urban Siege“, Small Wars Journal, February 2009.

One reason that cyber deterrence is viewed as impossible because unlike the Cold War there is not one monolithic adversary to deter. During the Cold War the United States only had to worry about deterring nation-states and primarily achieved this goal via the threat of a nuclear retaliation. In today’s cyber threat environment there are a number of adversaries including:

• nation-states;
• terrorists;
• patriotic hackers and;
• cyber criminals.

Each of these adversaries have different interests and objectives. Further, some of these adversaries, like terrorists, believe they have nothing to lose and therefore are not threatened by the use of force – digital or physical.

Accordingly, cyber security experts and policy makers believe it is difficult to develop a deterrent strategy to address all of these adversaries. While it is certainly more difficult to develop individual deterrence strategies for the above adversaries rather than the one deterrent strategy needed to counter the Soviet Union during the Cold War, it is by no means impossible. A closer examination of the various adversaries capabilities and intentions reveals the United States can easily develop a credible cyber deterrent strategy for its adversary.

Deterring nation-states is relatively straight forward. The United States still possesses its nuclear deterrent used to counter the Soviet Union during the Cold War. This deterrent capability can still be used to deter nation-state adversaries from launching devastating cyber attacks on critical infrastructure targets.

Deterring terrorists, patriotic hackers, and cyber criminals is a more difficult challenge. Currently, terrorist groups have demonstrated intent but not the capability to launch crippling cyber attacks against critical infrastructure targets. Therefore, in order to successfully deter terrorist from pursuing cyber warfare the United States should focus on improving its cyber security and resiliency. Improved defense may convince terrorist groups that the execution of a successful cyber attack is well beyond its capabilities. Additionally, improved resiliency may convince terrorist groups that even if successful a cyber attack may not have the desired crippling effect. Improved resiliency, via the use of redundant systems, can be designed to prevent devastating and cascading failures in critical systems. A terrorist group may be less likely to waste precious resources attacking a target they perceive to be invulnerable to attack.

Patriotic hackers have demonstrated the capability and intent to launch successful cyber attacks against critical infrastructure targets. For example, Chinese patriotic hackers are believed to be responsible for an ongoing series of cyber espionage attacks against various targets within the Defense Industrial Base sector. According to media reports, untold amounts of valuable intellectual property and military logistics data were lost in these attacks. Given the patriotic hackers de facto connection to a nation-state it is reasonable to treat this adversary as an extension of its patron nation-state. The United States should carefully articulate its belief that attacks carried out by patriotic hackers will be treated as attacks sponsored by the hacker’s patron nation-state. As such, the United States should threaten the patron nation-state with retaliation in an effort to deter attacks launched by patriotic hackers. Ideally, nation-states will find this threat credible and seek to control and limit attacks emanating from patriotic hackers within their borders.

Cyber criminals have also demonstrated the capability and intent to launch cyber attacks against critical infrastructure targets. Cyber criminals have launched successful attacks against various targets in the financial sector. Additionally, CIA analyst Tom Donohoe publicly stated that presumed cyber criminals caused blackouts overseas. Donohoe said, “we have information, from multiple regions outside the United States, of cyber intrusions into utilities, followed by extortion demands. We suspect, but cannot confirm, that some of these attackers had the benefit of inside knowledge. We have information that cyberattacks have been used to disrupt power equipment in several regions outside the United States. In at least one case, the disruption caused a power outage affecting multiple cities. We do not know who executed these attacks or why, but all involved intrusions through the Internet.” Cyber criminals appear to be the most difficult adversary to deter due to their perceived capability to overcome advanced defenses as well as the inability to tie them directly to a patron nation-state. While difficult, the United States can deter cyber criminals by improving its attribution capabilities. Improved technical attribution coupled with effective intelligence gathering and increased information sharing by international law enforcement partners will enable the United States to more accurately identify the sources of a cyber attack. Once identified the United States should use traditional law enforcement strategies to pursue and arrest cyber criminals. Improved attribution and an effective response from law enforcement will likely discourage cyber criminals from launching high profile attacks on critical infrastructure targets like the power grid.

Developing a comprehensive cyber deterrence will by no means be easy to achieve and will take lots of patient work. Just because our Cold War deterrent strategy is no longer applicable and a replacement is not immediately obvious it does not mean we should conclude that cyber deterrence is impossible. After World War II and the introduction of nuclear weapons, policy makers took time to develop the sustainable framework of mutually assured destruction. This strategy was not immediately obviously at the dawn of the Cold War and we should therefore not expect that a cyber deterrent strategy will also be immediately obviously.

It was the first time this information had been aired in the public domain; yet the trial demonstrated only a small slice of the murky world of growing ties between Mexican criminal bosses and street gang foot soldiers doing their bidding north of the border.

The trial solidified what some analysts have argued for years: Connections exist between the Barrio Azteca, an El Paso-based prison gang, and top-level members of the Juarez Cartel drug trafficking organization (DTO) run by the Carrillo Fuentes family.

The six men were tried in a federal court under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. This same legislation was used to dismantle La Cosa Nostra in New York, and has most recently been used by prosecutors in Tennessee and Maryland to break up cliques of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13).

The trial underlined the very real threat that US gangs pose inside the United States as foot soldiers, informants, tax collectors and assassins for Mexican organized crime.

The Barrio Azteca story

The Barrio Azteca prison gang was formed in 1986 when five inmates in an El Paso prison came together to protect one another inside a threatening environment. Within 10 years, the gang had spread to a number of other prisons inside Texas, and had begun relying on a presence on El Paso streets, which grew stronger as some of the original members were released.

By the late 1990s, members of the Barrio Azteca reached out through their connections in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, and began working with members of “El Chapo” Guzman’s DTO, which became known as the Sinaloa Federation after El Chapo aligned with Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Vicente Carrillo Fuentes.

By 2003, the Barrio Azteca had become a major drug trafficking and criminal force in El Paso, attracting the attention of El Paso County Attorney Jose Rodriguez.

“The police department brought to our attention that Barrio Azteca gang members were engaged in a lot of illicit activities, principally drug dealing, but were also intimidating small businesses on the south side, trying to extort money from them…so the police department wanted to do something to curtail their activities,” Rodriguez told ISN Security Watch.

With the help of the El Paso police department, Rodriguez gathered enough information to form the legal basis for a civil injunction against 32 members of the Barrio Azteca. The injunction defined a community safety zone, and specific Barrio Azteca members were not allowed to gather or conduct otherwise legal activities inside the zoned neighborhoods of southern El Paso.

“These members were prohibited from engaging in a number of activities…from using their cell phones, using gang signs, or their cars,” Rodriguez said.

The civil court injunction helped reduce crime in southern El Paso by as much as 13 percent, but it did not stop the gang’s growth on the south side of the border, where it had begun to work closely with the Juarez Cartel.

When El Chapo broke his ties with Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, the leader of the Juarez Cartel, in 2008, members of the Barrio Azteca chose to remain aligned with Carrillo Fuentes, which remained well entrenched in Ciudad Juarez.

This organization also grew close to Los Zetas, and by the beginning of November 2008, proof surfaced that members of the Barrio Azteca were working in Juarez.

On 3 November, Mexican police arrested 10 members of the Barrio Azteca in Juarez in connection to the murder of at least 12 people. When they were arrested, the suspects were armed with assault rifles, side arms and communication radios. According to some analysts, this was a group of hit men preparing for a mission.

This news broke only weeks before the beginning of the Barrio Azteca trial in November 2008. By that time, police in El Paso already knew that members of the Barrio Azteca prison gang were in regular contact with members of Los Zetas and the Juarez Cartel.

The trial

The trial against six Barrio Azteca members was successful in part due to the FBI’s efforts to infiltrate the gang.

Former Barrio Azteca member Josue Aguirre testified that gang members purchased drugs from members of the Carrillo Fuentes DTO at a discounted rate in Juarez, trafficked them across the border, and sold them at wholesale to dealers in El Paso.

These dealers, in turn, had to pay the Barrio Azteca a “tax” for the right to sell drugs at the retail level. Aguirre testified that at one point, the Barrio Azteca collected taxes from at least 47 different street-level dealers in El Paso. Failure to pay the tax resulted in death.

Some of the “tax” money went to pay the mid-level members of the Barrio Azteca who received between $50 and $200 a month. Some of the money was transferred to bank accounts held by the gang’s leaders, and the rest was moved back to Juarez to purchase more drugs.

Testimony also revealed that the Barrio Azteca received discounts from the Juarez Cartel in exchange for helping hide cartel operatives in El Paso, as well as perform the occasional hit against cartel enemies hiding out in Texas.

FBI informant Gustavo “Tavo” Gallardo testified that Barrio Azteca leaders sent him to pick up a man who had cheated the Juarez Cartel out of money. Gallardo kidnapped the man in El Paso and dropped him off at a safe house in another part of the city. Another team soon arrived to take the man, bound with rope and duct tape, from the safe house to a location across the border in Juarez. Gallardo said in court that he assumed the man was killed there.

A related case has proven that the Barrio Azteca managed to infiltrate the Public Defender’s office in El Paso. Ex-paralegal Sandy Valles New acted as a “bridge” to relay coded letters and phone calls between Barrio Azteca members in prison and members on the street in El Paso and Juarez.

According to a 19 March El Paso Times article, prosecutors in the case alleged that New passed along information about FBI investigations into the Barrio Azteca to the gang’s leader in Juarez, Eduardo “Tablas” Ravelo.

Ongoing ties

The trial and resulting life sentences handed to some of the Barrio Azteca members has likely interrupted the gang’s business and communications with the Juarez Cartel. Some analysts in Texas consider that the gang has decided to lay low until the Mexican military leaves Juarez – currently slated for September 2009.

“[The gang] has been fractured, broken up,” one gang investigator in El Paso who asked not to be named told ISN Security Watch.

“But once you take out the leadership, they just bring new leadership in,” he said.

Despite its disruptions, the Barrio Azteca is likely to continue working as a stateside distribution network and tactical support structure for Mexican organized crime. And other gangs such as the Texas Syndicate, the Mara Salvatrucha, the 18th Street, the Latin Kings and the Mexican Mafia have all worked out alliances with one or more organized crime groups.

The trial revealed how the Barrio Azteca has integrated with Mexican organized crime, but, more importantly, it demonstrated how Mexican organized crime relies on gangs inside the US for distribution and support.

Samuel Logan is an investigative journalist and author of This is for the Mara Salvatrucha: Inside the MS-13, America’s Most Violent Gang, forthcoming from Hyperion in summer 2009. He is the Editor of Southern Pulse | Networked Intelligence, and has reported on security, energy, politics, economics, organized crime, terrorism and black markets in Latin America since 1999. He is a senior writer for ISN Security Watch. Reprinted with permission from http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=100084

Non state authoritarian movements answer to no one and are unfortunately increasing in number. For those who pursue the American dream it is hard to grasp the idea of following a charismatic figure to the death; yet, some willingly flock to alternative visions. There are reasons for this servile behavior, and the profiles of the docile sheep are consistent. They find rewards to servility, and the motivations vary from person to person. For some it’s the promise of the hereafter, for others it’s the tangible rewards in this life. Some unfortunate souls have little choice because they are born into such groups or sold to them. Competent, successful people join as well to escape from freedom due to the painful reminders of the poor choices they have made in life, now preferring to forgo decision-making altogether. This is the list of folks authoritarian non state movements can draw from and they know “the harvest is ripe.” Leadership at all levels within these movements is active and immersed with the flock. The networks systematically remove democratic principles by promoting a rational exchange between those who dictate and those who yield. In order for this system to work the individual that joins must engage in a personal innate revolt that requires the renunciation of traditional beliefs, mores, and laws that create a patriotic disposition. The mentors are shrewd, organized and evil.

Mentoring matters, and the bad guys understand, better yet, overstand this. Gangs, cartels, insurgents, terrorists, and cults target young malleable individuals, and over time they win the battle for hearts and minds. Law enforcement in Laredo, Texas recently uncovered the fruits of one network, homegrown assassins. Chilling revelations about three American Teenagers surfaced and thrust two of the surviving members, Rosalio Reta and Gabriel Cardona, into the national spotlight. (The third unnamed individual was stabbed to death in a Mexican prison.) This hit cell operated exclusively under the direction of the Mexican criminal network “Los Zetas” and claimed seven victims over a one year killing spree that began in 2005. The “Zetas” provided mentoring, training, housing, money, and faith in the form of Santisma Muerte to the cell. Reta claims he first killed at age thirteen and added, “I thought I was superman.” Such bravado is not uncommon among an ever increasing pool of young males thirsting for violence due to their participation in gangs, violent sects, wars, and criminal insurgencies. The problem is dire, because there is no shortage of mentors willing to train them as skillful practitioners in the art of violence.

Scholars see an unmistakable uptick in youthful violence globally, and this trend is being fueled by leaders capable of exploiting endemic conditions. Statistics demonstrate that when children or adolescents are involved in violent movements they are not likely to leave the lifestyle due to the “blood in, blood out” commitments required upon entry and the sense of attachment, identity, and security they form within these groups. These networks are surrogate families, and bonding intensifies when they are trained for violent activity. In this seminal work Lt. Col. Dave Grossman details the methods the military uses to break down soldiers’ resistance to kill while simultaneously building up their respect for leaders who engage in violence for the purpose of defending the nation. Authoritarian non state groups have learned how to develop this killer instinct in their followers as well, and go further; they train them to relish the kill. Lt. John Sullivan explores children in warfare through this eye opening piece that explores the global surge of child soldiers. Sullivan states, “Contemporary warfare is no longer the sole domain of adults and state forces. Children are increasingly involved in conflicts waged by nonstate actors: guerillas, terrorists, jihadi bands, gangs, criminals, and warlords.” In this new fracturing world, violence is viewed as necessary, and so the youthful participants perceive it as a normal, acceptable part of daily life. Violence creates a culture, and becomes part of a mindset and viral worldview. Leaders discipline their own, and spread authoritative messages through diverse means to rivals, but everyone gets the point; there are grave penalties for those who reject the communication.

Countering authoritarian non state actors is no small order for America. Many criminal networks are sophisticated and globally connected, even operating and recruiting inside prison walls. For too long much of the burden has been placed on law enforcement agencies. Bluntly put, the nationwide budget decreases cannot support the old approach. This nation has the highest rate of incarceration per capita in the world and recidivism remains extremely high among adult inmates who often become mentors for the younger inmates by providing an education that often further radicalizes or criminalizes the psyches of the newbies. The task at hand is that of formulating successful mentoring strategies and programs nationwide for at risk young people. This is the burden of every interested and responsible adult. We need a national dialogue regarding this, and more importantly a commitment.

Hakim Hazim is the founder of Relevant Now, a nationally recognized security consultancy.

Sources
Fromm, Erich, Escape From Freedom
Sullivan John, Child Soldiers: Despair, Barbarization and Conflict
Grossman, Dave, On Killing

Photo Credit CNN

When electronic warfare planes fried Van Riper’s communications, he used mosques and motorcycle messengers to command his subordinates. At this point, Van Riper claims that the military fixed the outcome in order to avoid an embarrassing loss. The threat from swarming attacks was later vindicated by multiple incidents in the Straits of Hormuz in 2007 and 2008 featuring the use of Iranian fast craft to harry slower-moving ships. For homeland security, Millennium Challenge 2002 is more than just a disputed wargame. MC2002 is a painful reminder of war’s dangerously nonlinear nature and the need to embrace similarly unorthodox measures to counter emerging threats.

An adaptive human mind that frustrates elaborately laid plans is the most dangerous weapon an opponent can employ. If necessity is the mother of invention, danger similarly unlocks flexibility and creativity in some individuals. Unfortunately, many of them are on the other side.  Weaker opponents will rarely ever fight us in a manner that allows us to bring all of our advantages into play. Like Van Riper, asymmetric opponents will counter by targeting weaknesses and employing innovative strategies. We also do ourselves no favors by handicapping ourselves with the erroneous projection of BLUE force strategic culture, doctrine, and decision-making onto an opponent.

Fortunately, there have been many advances in the construction of tactical and operational adaptability. The Terrorism Research Center  (TRC) takes police, military, and other security professionals to specialized training grounds where they consume jihadi literature, learn the adversary’s assassination and ambush techniques, and develop operational plans. The real importance of such learning is to situate the participant outside his or her organizational and cultural context, which can often stifle innovative thinking. Homeland security professionals can also use tactical decision games (TDGs) and free play games developed as part of Major (ret) Donald E. Vandergriff’s Adaptive Leadership Methodology (ALM). These games focus on improving implicit decision-making and creating a common orientation among security professionals. In the purely intellectual realm, analytical red-teaming—the challenge of old concepts or formulation of alternative analysis–also can cover a wide range of outcomes from terrorism to criminal insurgency. The last topic is one of increasing importance, as the bloody cartel conflict against the Mexican government shows signs of crossing the border.

Perhaps the best means of preventing strategic surprise, however, is to look to the future. Futures working groups on seemingly esoteric technological, political, and social subjects can help to anticipate emerging threats and opposing force capabilities. While it’s impossible to create a completely accurate and holistic long-term portrait of the future, the process is more important than the outcome.  Debating, planning, and examining multiple futures and strategic narratives creates a nimble mindset that can deal with divergent change.

We can never prepare for every eventuality. But sustained training and investment in analysis can create the conditions for us to both respond to wild card events and perhaps even anticipate them. For that reason, we need many more Millennium Challenges to expose the gaps in our knowledge and point the way to a means of vitality and growth.

Cartels battle among themselves, the police, and the military, enlisting the support of a variety of local and transnational gangs and criminal enterprises. Corrupt officials fuel the violence, communities cower under the violence, and alternative social structures emerge. Prison gangs—like Eme, the Mexican mafia—transnational street gangs—like MS-13 and !8th Street—and military bands—like Los Zetas and Los Negros —also play pivotal roles in the allocation of force and influence. Collectively, these forces of instability and thuggery are criminal netwarriors.  The plazas are the front lines of Mexico’s drug wars. It is clear that the plazas are the vital terrain of the distributed criminal insurgency battles—and may even constitute certain cartels’ centers of gravity.

Understanding the plazas is an essential component of addressing Mexico’s drug wars.  Police, military, and civilian officials can analyze the plazas as a means of gaming the “geosocial” dynamics of criminal insurgency. Looking at the influences, market imperatives, and factors that drive cartel and gang evolution, as well as the quest for dominance in the plazas helps place the violence encountered in criminal insurgency in context. In this analytical endeavor, red teaming is more than the tactical red cell penetration of vulnerable nodes. It is an adaptive exploration of the criminal enterprises and their interactions within the social and market dynamics of the plazas.

Analysts should also look at the network attributes of gangs and cartels in order to determine indicators for future activity. Which gangs or cartels are emerging in a particular area, what factors will extend their reach? Where are their new markets? What is the interaction between a specific gang or cartel? These intelligence questions can be explored through scenarios and analytical wargames. What factors are key market drivers? Where will new markets emerge? What counter-gang approaches will degrade criminal influences in failed communities? How can legitimate community political and social structures be marshaled to limit criminal reach and influence? By systematically applying adaptive, analytical red teaming, intelligence and law enforcement analysts can explore indicators of gang or cartel evolution, as well as potential courses of action to counter criminal insurgency.

Understanding criminal insurgency and criminal netwarriors is an emerging field of inquiry. Many theoretical and practical questions remain and, if answered, these questions will improve our understanding of how non-state criminal forces interact with each other and fight government power.

Perhaps the biggest question is whether the potential exists for a global insurgency to take root in failed communities in North America and how criminal actors will interface with that insurgency.  To what degree will the criminal insurgency in Mexico spill over into the United States? This is not a purely academic question; nearly all observers agree that the power of criminal organizations in the Americas is rapidly increasing.
Most importantly, how can domestic and foreign intelligence best be integrated to address these potentials? How can we observe the emergence of movements that can morph into insurgent or criminal insurgents within North America? How can the intelligence community work with the law enforcement community to deal with these emerging criminal insurgent security challenges?

Answering these questions is crucial to developing effective means of dealing with the problem of cartels, third generation gangs, and criminal insurgents—and the eventual goal of transforming the plazas from violent venues for criminal exploitation into agoras for legitimate political and social transactions.

John P. Sullivan is a career police officer. He currently serves as a lieutenant with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department where he is assigned to the Emergency Operations Bureau. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies on Terrorism (CAST). His research focuses on counterinsurgency, intelligence, terrorism, and urban operations. He is co-editor of Countering Terrorism and WMD: Creating a Global Counter-Terrorism Network (Routledge, 2006).

Adam Elkus is an analyst specializing in foreign policy and security. He is currently Contributing Editor for Future Military Operations and Homeland Security at Red Team Journal. His articles have been published in Red Team Journal, Small Wars Journal and other publications. Elkus blogs at Rethinking Security, Dreaming 5GW, and the Huffington Post. He is currently a contributor to the Center for Threat Awareness’ ThreatsWatch project.

For Additional Reading:

John P. Sullivan and Adam Elkus, “Red Teaming Criminal Insurgency,” Red Team Journal, 30 January 2009.

John P.  Sullivan, “Criminal Netwarriors in Mexico’s Drug Wars,” GroupIntel Blog, 22 December 2008.

John P. Sullivan, “Outside View: Mexico’s criminal insurgency,” United Press International (UPI), 18 December 2008.

John P. Sullivan and Adam Elkus, “State of Siege: Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency,” Small Wars Journal, August 2008.

Faith can be a good thing, spurring some to good works and upright lives. The same is true of most laws, and this is echoed in scripture, “Knowing this, the law is not for a righteous man but for the lawless…” Criminals have no regard for law; it’s the very reason they flee from justice. But they do want faith. They seek help with their endeavors and seek a different apostle, god or saint if you will. They crave a relationship with someone who will allow them to operate outside of the law while granting protection, forgiving sins, and striking fear into the hearts of their enemies. If I was a criminal this might work for me; I might convert to some form of Santisma Muerte , as long as I can drop a few hexes along the way.

Yet the purpose of this article is not to focus on religious practices or primary loyalties we may not agree with; my purpose is to point out how radicalization is proliferating in many forms. Proliferation often takes place through mentoring. In fact, ideas about faith, ethnicity, culture and identity itself are being captured in diverse forms of indoctrination through questionable mentors who seek to undermine any form of legitimate rule of law. These practices are common with cults, sects, insurgents and revolt leaders. A familiar pattern is forming; criminal soldiers are creating disciples among a disaffected Hispanic population. It’s the latest craze in radicalization. Shrewd criminal networks and gangs are now acting upon the tenets of the Saint of Death in hopes of creating an even stronger bond with their members and solidifying their claims to authority by adding religious identity. Mexico and the state of Texas are the most fertile grounds for an expanding movement toward Santisma Muerte. The new preachers may soon pose a greater threat to international security by promising a holy death to their recruits and filling them with fervor unmatched by typical criminal orgs and gangs.

Recently one of my consultants returned from Juarez, Mexico and El Paso, Texas with firsthand accounts of what she witnessed the few days she was there. The four most important findings are listed below.

1. She resided in the “colonia” area of the city stating it was “… like a very poor subdivision.” Fortunately she stayed with her cousin who was the president of neighborhood relations. Upon arrival her cousin informed the police that she had a relative in town visiting. In response to her request for security the police kept a car nearby because they were aware of the fact that visitors from the U.S are prime targets for assaults and muggings.

2. One of the photos taken on the trip was of the Cross of Nails. The symbolism spelled out what every nail attests to – a female that has been reported missing. Folks in Juarez and El Paso echoed chilling sentiments concerning the alleged abductions; “They were all killed or kidnapped.” She was told that these most of them were rumored to be given to gang members or drug cartels as gifts, especially if they were virgins. The rumor mill insisted that the Mexican police were involved, whether true or not, this belief is wide spread. Many family members have turned to Santisma Muerte as a result of their lack of faith or trust in the police or the protection of traditional saints. Protection is all important in this area and many turn to superstition and red or black magic for peace of mind. Red magic is for the purpose of helping your cause, whereas black is intended to inflict harm on adversaries.

3. The state of the neighborhood was rife with poverty and gangs. The military and police cooperate actively in neighborhoods similar to the barrio she stayed in. Random checkpoints stop passing cars and search for gang members, guns and drugs. Off duty police and even on duty police, are reportedly involved in vigilante executions, which the barrios praise and call “a good thing.”

4. Santa Muerte is spreading and many she spoke to believe in the ancient lady of death. They enthusiastically reflected on her power and spoke convincingly to my consultant. “She gives us miracles and she protects us from violence.” Because of the popularity of this saint, people also feel they need to show others they believe with them, in order to remain in good standing. The ordinary person who follows this also believes in traditional Catholicism, while the hardened criminal opts for only the saint and divests himself from any form of Catholicism whatsoever.

Santisma Muerte is not in and of itself something to be overly concerned about when practiced by ordinary citizens. The cause of concern should be when versions of this faith are being used by criminal organizations, gangs and inmates in order to justify their actions and gain assistance in their pursuits. Such belief fuels criminal activity and emboldens those who feel they can actually get away with their crime because of supernatural aid. Radicalization is prevalent in many terrorist circles and Santisma Muerte is associated with Catholicism by many Mexican believers, in spite of the churches repudiation of the practice. In short, radicalization is a movement not based in any particular faith, it is an innate revolt based in the renunciation of loyalty or devotion to previous beliefs; it is a revolt against previous ideas, mores and customs. Criminals who have an unbridled lust for things will come up with more creative ways to radicalize themselves and their followers. Like termites, they will eat away at the foundations wherever they reside.

Internet Sources:

Patron Saint of Criminals and Drug Cartels
Santa Muerte: The New God in Town
The Dark Religion of Santa Muerte

Hakim Hazim is the founder of Relevant Now a nationally recognized security consultancy.

Photo credit:  Corrections.com

On the other side, a pro-Hamas group with the rather unfortunate moniker “Team Evil” carried out lightning raids against pro-Israeli hacker groups using distributed denial of service attacks. Abroad, anti-Israeli protests are organized through Facebook, Twitter, and other participatory social networks. Nations and sub-state movements are increasingly using the Internet as a means of harnessing and weaponizing the patriotic rage of the common people—a rage that grows with each vitriolic blog post and mySQL hack.

Just as Napoleon channeled the revolutionary fervor of France to form a popular army capable of waging total war, combatants are increasingly creating a cyber levée en masse that mobilizes the power of the people to fight information warfare. Many of the Chinese hackers conducting “cyber-reconnaissance” of American networks are groups of hackers in service to the state as well as military personnel. Likewise, groups of patriotic Russian hackers, not the Kremlin, apparently carried out the massive cyber-attacks on Georgia.

With movements massing force in cyberspace for viral propaganda and debilitating denial of service attacks, Antoine-Henri de Jomini’s long-obsolete theories of mass and concentration have paradoxically been revived in cyberspace. Cyber-mobilization is a process of massing force against decisive points. Above all, cyber-mobilization is a popular form of conflict, not a bunch of elite soldiers typing away in cubicles trying to increase their unit’s Google pagerank. It thrives on public participation and dies without it.

Cyber-mobilization offers state and non-state actors three important advantages: movement-building, reach and discretion. Propagandizing or carrying out crude hacking attacks gives followers unable to pick up a rifle an ability to contribute and further emotionally bonds them to the cause. By incorporating the efforts of many different geographically dispersed users, cyber-mobilization also allows states and movements to multiply the combat effectiveness of their attacks.

And since civilians do all the hacking, states are insulated from retaliation. Should, say, Russia disable a crucial Pentagon network, it could always claim that the actions were carried out by a group of patriot hackers who got a little carried away. Given the dispersed nature of the Internet and the relative ease of anonymity, attributing attacks to specific individuals—and connecting those individuals to groups—will be difficult. Most importantly, there is a lack of consensus as to what constitutes cyberwar to begin with—the biggest barrier to cyber-deterrence.

If cyber-mobilization is a throwback to the era of Jomini, current military thinking about cyberspace is reminiscent of naval theorist Alfred Thayer Mahan. He argued in The Influence of Sea Power Upon History that victory goes to those who control the sea, and the method of controlling the sea is frontal battle with the enemy fleet. It is hard not to see the parallels to cyberspace here, as the ocean and the digital sea have many similarities, as today’s hackers are reminiscent of corsairs of old who raided from secure bases in hidden island atolls.

Like the sea, the digital ocean is a source of commerce, communications, and human connection. It also a launch point for attack. Navies used to carry out coastal raids called “descents” on port towns, and hackers try to use the Internet to launch raids of their own against vulnerable corporate and government servers connected to the global digital sea. Like Mahan, current military thinking focuses on controlling the information commons, achieving “information dominance” through an integrated combination of tactical, operational, and strategic capabilities.

But the concept of information dominance reflects a basic strategic misconception about the nature of cyberspace. As military analyst Robert Bunker writes, cyberspace exists in a different dimensional space than regular warfare. The fluid and dispersed nature of cyberspace makes it impossible for one power to dominate, as power in cyberspace ultimately derives from information and perception–much more malleable variables than traditional military measures of effectiveness. With everyone with an Internet connection theoretically capable of exercising influence over cyberspace, multilateralism is built into the infosphere’s balance of power. While it is possible to mass forces in cyberspace, as hacker militias demonstrate, maintaining mass and momentum is difficult.

Bloggers, hackers, and coders also tend to intensely skeptical of government organizations and have a habit of rebelling against even the slightest attempts at control. Ham-handed attempts to manage information degrade credibility in the infosphere—the currency of exchange for anyone seeking to exercise even the most basic forms of digital influence.  Governments and militaries automatically start on the defensive whenever they engage in cyberspace due to their lack of credibility among users.

Perhaps the best example of the fallacy of information dominance is the idea of “carpet-bombing in cyberspace.” One thinker within the Army seeks to create a military botnet network that can be mobilized as a means of cyber-deterrence, overwhelming an enemy network with massive retaliation. In a narrowly tactical sense a military botnet might be effective. But upon closer reflection the idea collapses when faced with the attribution challenge and the FBI and Interpol’s legal responsibility for cybercrime. Georgia also defeated a botnet attack by simply hosting its government servers in the US, transporting its valuable data to friendly territory. Lastly, the brute force of a military botnet does nothing to win the battle of perception—a key part of information war.

Command and control warfare–military deception, computer network attacks, psychological operations, and electronic warfare–are absolutely essential to maintaining tactical and operational advantages. But an information strategy should not be predicated around destruction, which will be difficult in an era of dispersed, non-attributable hacker groups. Instead, cyberstrategy—like naval, air, and land power—must be integrated into an all-of-power grand strategy to advance American international objectives. This strategy must be one of positive ends.

Nearly a hundred years ago, T.E. Lawrence described the guiding principles of the Arab revolt against the Turks: “[S]uppose we were (as we might be) an influence, an idea, a thing intangible, without front or back, drifting about like a gas? Armies were like plants, immobile, firm-rooted, nourished through long stems to the head. We might be a vapour, blowing where we listed.” To succeed in the infosphere, America must turn away from information dominance and become an influence—a guiding current in the digital sea.

Business hype over wikis, networks, and crowdsourcing has led to some dangerous misconceptions about the nature of network forms in counterterrorism and irregular warfare. While network forms of organization are superior to hierarchies in many ways, their strength has been substantially exaggerated. Emergent intelligences cannot formulate strategy nor sustain momentum beyond the tactical level of conflict, networks are not as invincible as commonly portrayed, and hierarchies have certain advantages worth preserving.

Ants, Clausewitz, and Hackers

The widespread attribution of emergent behavior to human organizations is in itself a herd process. Actors ranging from ranging from social media-organized “smart mobs” to loose groupings of irregular warfighters are routinely labeled as emergent. A related trend is an instinctive loathing of hierarchies and a love of decentralized network forms, a trend that leads security analysts to sometimes overestimate the effectiveness of networks and underestimate the power of hierarchy. We are told over and over again to respect the wisdom of crowds, and in the field of security this means fearing the lethal intelligence of crowds—an intelligence whose power is often exaggerated.

Yes, emergent networks’ speed, mobilization power, and lethal simplicity give them ample ability to create havoc. But in the long run, emergent groups’ fatal weakness is that their hive-mind intelligences are incapable of conceiving or implementing strategy.

Biological hive-minds such as ants (often analogized to human self-organizing networks) have organization, a defined goal (survival), and an implicit order. While they adapt–in a largely mechanical fashion–to obstacles, they are incapable of reflexivity, intentionality, and understanding. The ability to repeat simple processes does not add up to a capability for abstract thought—a quality that philosopher John R. Searle argues is the real criterion of intelligence.

In his Chinese Room thought experiment, Searle imagines a computer whose expert manipulations of Chinese symbols allows it to pass the Turing Test, fooling an observer into thinking it is a human Chinese speaker. Searle then places a human who does not know Chinese at all into the same room that the computer was. The human processes the Chinese symbols according to the instructions of the computer program. Neither, Searle argues, really understand Chinese, they are just following a series of simple rule sets. Likewise, human emergent systems repeat a series of rules that give rise to patterns. But crowds do not think—the most basic perquisite for conceiving strategy.

Formulating strategy, as opposed to tactical or operational plans, is beyond the means of a largely mechanical intelligence that mechanically reacts to environmental stimuli. Strategy, as Peter Paret writes in the introduction to Makers of Modern Strategy, is “the use of armed force to achieve the military objectives, and by extension, the political purpose of war. …[as well as] the development, intellectual mastery, and utilization of all of the state’s resources for the purpose of implementing its policy in war.” Conceptualizing strategy requires calculating political, military, and economic variables of dizzying complexity—as well as dealing with the paradoxical nature of human conflict. In war, glorious victories morph into defeat, stable alliances shatter, and invincible weapons are countered by cheap small arms.

Both Carl Van Clausewitz and Edward Luttwak argue that strategy’s paradoxical nature is a consequence of adaptive human adversaries. Linear solutions and homogeneity, while effective in peacetime, are fatal in conflict. In his book Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace, Luttwak explains this paradox by examining economies of scale. In peacetime, it is more efficient to mass-produce one product rather than a diverse array, as you can train workers and machines to quickly and efficiently turn out one object rather than many different ones. But in wartime, producing all of one weapon allows the enemy to easily counter it. Emergent intelligences can neither conceptualize this abstract level of conflict, nor develop an instrumental means of achieving a positive end state.

Confined to the tactical level, emergent groups often melt away once the tactical action they have formed to accomplish is over. While the anti-Scientology hacker collective Anonymous succeeded in bleeding the Church of Scientology (CoS), they failed to accomplish their stated task of destroying the organization. Anonymous took down some CoS websites, showed up on the streets wearing funny masks, and attracted some media attention. But without any mechanism for exploiting their tactical success, they could not sustain their momentum, making them a purely ephemeral phenomenon. Without the benefit of strategy, all Anonymous could do was cause disorder—but such petty nihilism has rarely accomplished anything of real importance.

Anonymous was kind of cyber-militia, not a band of cyber-soldiers. Galled by what they saw as the CoS’ heavy-handed censorship, they attacked it for a while before retiring back to their usual activities on the 4Chan IRC channel. Americans, ornery and independent by nature, tend to valorize militias and distrust professional militaries. But we often forget that our own militias lacked the means or motivation to battle the British for extended periods of time during the Revolution. Washington found it difficult to make them battle during harvest season, and could not force them to fight far from their homes and families. He required the likes of Baron Von Steuben to mold them into a disciplined and professional fighting force through the usage of repetitive drills and training. Our tech-hype about crowdsourcing is another form of militia worship that may be admirable and egalitarian in spirit but dangerous when it is used to overestimate the strategic abilities of emergent foes.

Network Strategy and Its Discontents

Decentralized insurgent networks—often confused with purely emergent organizations–face similar problems of strategic action. Even the strongest of shared beliefs proves relatively useless when it comes time to translate aspirational goals into strategy. Differing cultures, ideologies, personalities, and objectives among members inevitably clash, distorting the implementation of strategic objectives. Group implementation of a common strategy, however, assumes that all elements of a network participate in co-production of the organization’s strategy—a notion that is questionable at best.
Decentralized insurgent networks have an unhealthy dependence on a common forum for the free exchange of ideas and information. Their geographically diffuse members need a safe place to interact, exchange ideas, and plan. But clandestine groups’ very survival depends on their ability to remain hidden from the prying eyes of police and intelligence agencies. Social networking sites’ connectivity and accessibility make them horrible for security purposes, as counterintelligence operatives can easily access them. How do you know for sure whether the fellow jihadi on Facebook chat isn’t a Fed? After all, you’ve never met him before!

Online jihadist networks tend to be splintered into a dizzying array of password-protected forums and websites whose locations shift on a daily basis. Jihadists also extensively utilize darknets that search engines cannot index. Other times the conversation is taken totally offline in the form of private email lists, text messaging, and steganography. What was once a dynamic conversation splinters into a series of small groupings that are hardly sufficient to formulate a common strategy.

Additionally, autonomy and faster decision-making does not necessarily translate into wise actions, as the example of al-Qaeda in Iraq leader (AQI) Abu Musab al-Zarqawi demonstrates. Al-Qaeda’s leaders grew more and more concerned as Zarqawi’s grotesque massacres of Iraqi civilians began to undercut al-Qaeda’s public image in the Arab world. They wrote to Zarqawi expressing strong disapproval, warning him to stop his counterproductive violence. But without hierarchy, there is no way to exert control or accountability over errant members. Al-Qaeda lacked any means of bringing its errant Iraqi franchise to heel, as Zarqawi had developed his own network independently of al-Qaeda central.  Al-Qaeda soon discovered that normative sanctions are a poor means of exerting operational control over strong-willed men who view killing the innocent as a divinely inspired mission.

Most successful insurgent and terrorist networks are hybrid forms of network and hierarchal organization. As Naval Postgraduate School professor David Tucker details, hierarchy enables organizations to enforce standards, efficiently marshal resources, and formulate strategic goals. Even the most protean “leaderless” organizations often have a strategic class of dominant personalities who create the basis for instrumental action by formulating ideas and punishing deviant behavior. Wikipedia, for example, is commonly cited as an example of the wisdom of crowds. Anyone, after all, can contribute to it. But Wikipedia enforces standards through a class of privileged monitors who scour the online encyclopedia for errors. It is also important to point out that a small group of contributors produce the bulk of entries, in contrast to the casual user who edits a couple of minor details.

Many network organizations also co-opt pre-existing social networks as a source of manpower. Tucker gives the example of the Prophet Mohammed, who was forced to recruit in secret to avoid the predations of his enemies. He tapped groupings that were already available (such as his clan), allowing his movement to grow. While the astonishing growth of Islam had some viral qualities, it was guided by Mohammed’s brilliant strategic insight and charismatic personality. Without his guidance, early Islam wouldn’t have become the powerful, world-spanning religion it is today. Mohammed’s example, Tucker argues, is an inspirational model for militants seeking to generate their own political-religious revolutions. Al-Qaeda itself, despite its numerous franchise networks and spinoffs, has important similarities to an old-fashioned vanguard that seeks to incite revolt among the masses.

Counterterrorism analysts should also take care to avoid regarding all forms of hierarchy as inherently rigid. Even the most brittle hierarchal organizations often contain network forms with elastic lines of command and control. The German military, a highly hierarchal institution, embraced infiltration tactics led by decentralized hunter-killer teams on the tactical level. Successful counterterrorist networks such as the Los Angeles Terrorism Early Warning Group (TEW), have fluid lines of control and a multi-disciplinary focus but still retain defined roles for each individual and a clear unity of command. Most hierarchies do tend to be stodgy and brittle but fixing them involves building resiliency, autonomy, and a capacity for self-correction, rather than wholly deconstructing them and hoping for the best.

Emergence and the Future

While emergent networks may be incapable of strategic thought, their actions sometimes have strategic consequences. Charles Kurtzman argues in The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran that the Iranian revolution was more of an emergent process than an instrumental revolution. The interactions of differing Iranian factions, the common people’s unrest, and the mistakes of the Shah’s regime converged to create a violent shock that caught Western analysts completely by surprise. Yet prior analyses of the Shah’s strength were not completely erroneous. A largely emergent process beyond the control of any foreign generated the momentum for his ouster or domestic actor or faction involved in Iranian politics.

In moments of great change, people rapidly assess and reassess their behavior based on the fragmentary information available to them and the actions of others. This emergent process of assessing the often-ephemeral viability of change produces a kind of viral action that can alter the course of history. Catastrophic global economic crashes are often driven by this herd behavior, as perceptions of economic chaos can often motivate irrational behavior that set in motion systematic destabilization processes. A human event does not have to be the product of an instrumental human action to radically change our lives.

While technology may never enable emergent strategic thought, the increasing sophistication of social media will continue to strengthen the power of decentralized organizations. Trends such as cloud computing, the merging of virtual and material worlds, and the growth of infosphere are lowering the barriers to collaboration. It is possible that such a process may eventually culminate in the realization of cyberpunk dreams of extensive man-machine cognitive interface, providing a mechanism for true emergent co-production of strategy. But to speculate about cyborgs, collective robot intelligences, and the Singularity means entering the realm of science fiction. We should leave these conceptualizations to the likes of dreamers such as William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, and the legions of Japanese science fiction manga writers. If the time ever comes when we find ourselves trapped in the Matrix, our dog-eared copies of Neuromancer and Snow Crash (along with some Ghost in the Shell DVD), will be of more use to us than a paper produced by a counterterrorism analyst.

Additionally, increasing human connectivity and the complexity of the infosphere may strengthen single points of authority instead of the multitude. Edward Bernays, considered the father of modern propaganda, saw propaganda’s hidden influencing process as a solution to problems created by the chaos and complexity of modern life. Americans, Bernays wrote, had too many choices and were not intellectually equipped to make decisions about even a fraction of them. The purpose of propaganda, which Bernays had spent time crafting as a member of a government strategic influence unit during the first World War, was to subtly guide humanity in the right direction. Only then, Bernays argued, could democracy function in a harmonious manner. Were Bernays alive today, the often-vilified P.R. consultant would feel vindicated by the complexity created by the expansion of the infosphere and the beginnings of a genuine information metaverse. He would also sense a valuable opportunity to ply his trade.

The true inheritors of the future may not wisdom-filled crowds but hidden manipulators adept at hiding within the mass of information and guiding gullible human herds. A massively parallel information ecosystem driven by emergent and viral processes can be influenced by a phenomenon futurist Jamais Cascio calls “participatory deception”—the usage of social media tools to create fake viral trends and memes. Smart mobs, participatory networks, and layers of other unwitting proxies could very well be engineered into acting out processes set in motion by the strategic interaction of these manipulators.  This is a problem with special relevance to those engaged in security, counterterrorism, and the “war of ideas.”
Either way, technological changes are unlikely to alter strategy’s basic principles. Individuals, groups, and nations will continue to contest each other with the time-tested mechanisms described by Sun Tzu, Carl Von Clausewitz, and John Boyd. In fact, as blogger Lexington Green observed in an e-mail conversation, Clausewitz would probably be a blogger if he were alive today. The sarcastic Prussian would choose to dash off fragments of his sarcastic dialectics on a social media platform instead of codifying his principles in a massive, unwieldy book that many quote without actually having read.

Adam Elkus is an analyst specializing in foreign policy and security. His articles have been published in Small Wars Journal, Defense and the National Interest, Foreign Policy in Focus, Athena Intelligence, and other publications. His work has been cited in reports by the Center for Security Policy and highlighted by the Arms Control Association and the Project on Defense Alternatives. He blogs at Rethinking Security

Kidnappings, assassinations, beheadings, shoot-outs:  Mexico is gripped by combat between drug cartels, gangs and the police.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon starkly states: “It’s a War.”

The Drug War in Mexico has killed 6,836 people since January 2007. This year drug-related murders have more than doubled to nearly 5,400.  The Mexican state is fighting for its survival with 45,000 troops and 5,000 Federal police deployed to 18 states.  Barbarization and indiscriminate violence are daily occurrences.  The narcocartel—gang nexus is a serious security threat that has the potential to eclipse global terrorism as a threat to the United States.  Mexico is embroiled in a vicious drug war and gangs threaten states throughout Latin America, but the average viewer of cable TV would never know.  Other issues take precedence.

This hidden national security threat poses an enormous challenge to the new administration.   While the public and media are occupied with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the potential conflict with Iran, the downward spiral in Pakistan, and a global economic meltdown, a new rapidly evolving threat—narcocartels and gangs—has been developing in Mexico and Latin America.

Mexico is gripped by a set of inter-locking, networked criminal insurgencies.  Daily mayhem, kidnappings, assassinations of police and government officials, beheadings and shoot-outs are the result of extreme combat between drug cartels, gangs, and the police.  The cartels vying for domination of the lucrative drug trade are seeking both market dominance and freedom from government interference.  Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez, and other border towns are racked with violence.  Mexico City itself is not immune.  An infusion of police and military remains stymied as corrupt officials choose to side with the cartels.

The drug mafias have abandoned subtle co-option of the government to embrace active violence to secure safe havens to ply their trade.  This de facto ‘criminal insurgency’ threatens the stability of the Mexican state, and already has started to reverberate north of the Rio Grande in the US.   As the Los Angeles Times has reported, few regions in the US are immune to the wake of Mexican drug trafficking organizations in these “Borderless drug wars;” 195 US cities have a Mexican cartel presence.

Not satisfied with their feudal outposts in the Mexican interior and along the US-Mexico frontier, the cartels are also starting to migrate southward throughout Central America, and even to the Southern Cone, setting up business in Argentina, and across the South Atlantic to Africa.

The cartels’ links reach beyond the Americas. For example, “Drug Cartels Move Beyond Borders“ at the Americas Society/Council of the Americas describes the expanding reach of Mexican cartels. This influence extends from the highest levels of Mexican government down to local police. But the drug war’s impact has also been felt well beyond Mexico, extending across the Americas to as far away as Australia. Mexican cartel connections with Italy’s ‘Ndrangheta organized criminal clan, allow drugs to be shipped from Colombia through Mexico to the US and on to Italy. From there, the drugs can be distributed throughout Europe.

The 2009 National Threat Assessment published by the National Drug Intelligence Center identifies Mexican drug-trafficking organizations as “the greatest organized crime threat to the United States” based on these developments.   Money fuels global expansion, and transnational organized crime has learned it can thrive in the face of governmental crisis.

The cartels are joined by a variety of gangs in the quest to dominate the global criminal opportunity space.  Third generation gangs—that is, gangs like Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) that have transcended operating on localized turf with a simple market focus to operate across borders and challenge political structures—are both partners and foot soldiers for the dominant cartels.  Gangs and cartels seek profit and are not driven by ideology.  But the ungoverned, lawless zones they leave in their wake provide fertile ground for extremists and terrorists to exploit.

Terrorists, gangs, and organized crime can exist as independent threats, but increasingly, they interact in a number of ways.  Terrorists or insurgents may exploit organized crime; criminal gangs may act as middlemen in small arms, explosives or human trafficking; drugs may finance operations; and actors on both sides of the house may facilitate or conduct attacks for each other.

One component of the terrorist threat stream is the global Islamist jihad—essentially a global networked insurgency.  Islamist movements operate in a cooperative manner among ‘theaters of operation’ where local groups gather intelligence and targeting data and share it across theaters within the global jihadi network, which is a loose confederation of independent movements and networks with varying local, regional, and global roles and reach.

As criminal and extremist movements spread their reach across jurisdictional lines, their activities transcend the traditional boundaries of local, state, Federal, international, and global jurisdictions.  Responding to violence resulting from criminal and terrorist activity demands a high degree of interaction and cooperation among a span of government agencies, but first, the threat must be recognized. Such cooperation involves a range of enforcement, intelligence, and policy issues.

Globalization of economic processes has empowered a new class of transnational criminal actors including terrorists, organized crime, and gangs.  These ‘global criminals’ fuel conflict and stimulate a new security environment—an environment where non-state actors threaten global stability, and policing and law enforcement must become instruments of national power.

David Ronfeldt and John Arquilla call these global criminal actors ‘netwarriors,’ John Robb calls them ‘global guerrillas,’ and Robert Bunker calls them ‘criminal soldiers.’  Whatever we call them, collectively I view them as ‘criminal netwarriors.’ It is valuable to recall Martin van Creveld’s admonition from The Transformation of War:  “In the future, war will not be waged by armies but by groups whom today we call terrorists, guerrillas, bandits and robbers, but who will undoubtedly hit upon more formal titles to describe themselves.”

Containing criminal netwarriors and reinforcing the viability of states worldwide, but especially in the Western Hemisphere, must become a national and global security priority.

John P. Sullivan is a career police officer.  He is currently a lieutenant with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department assigned to the Emergency Operations Bureau with responsibility for tactical planning. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies on Terrorism, co-editor of Countering Terrorism and WMD: Creating a Global Counter-Terrorism Network (Routledge, 2006), and a frequent contributor to Small Wars Journal.

For additional reading:

John P. Sullivan, “Outside View: Mexico’s criminal insurgency,” United Press International (UPI), 18 December 2008.

John P. Sullivan and Adam Elkus, “Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency,” Defense and the National Interest, November 2008.

John P. Sullivan, “Danger Room Debrief: Gang Threat Could Top Al Qaeda, Mr. President-Elect,” Wired Danger Room, November 2008.

John P. Sullivan, ”Forging Improved Government Agency Cooperation to Combat Violence,” National Strategy Forum Review, Fall 2008.

John P. Sullivan and Adam Elkus, “State of Siege: Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency,” Small Wars Journal, August 2008.

John P. Sullivan, “Transnational Gangs: The Impact of Third Generation Gangs in Central America,” Air & Space Power Journal – Spanish Edition, July 2008.

Robert J. Bunker and John P. Sullivan, “Iraq & the Americas: 3 GEN Gangs Lessons and Prospects,”     Small Wars Journal, April 2007.

Security and public safety agencies must address a range of current and emerging  threats. These range from conflicts, strategic crime, terrorism, disease and natural hazards, as well as the confluence of any or all occurring at a given point in time. A range of intelligence disciplines and agencies are needed to address these threats and various phases of operations (i.e., pre-, trans-, and post-event). Intelligence
fusion or the production of intelligence to anticipate and understand these complex threats is essential. This paper will provide an overview of the Transaction Analysis Model, Transaction Analysis Cycle, and Intelligence Preparation for Operations as ways to scan the horizon for indicators, monitor evolving threat potentials (i.e., alternative hypotheses), and forecast risk related to novel and emerging threats.
Warning intelligence, strategic foresight, operational net assessment, and the co- production of intelligence for interdisciplinary response will also be discussed.   Analytical Approaches for Sensing Novel and Emerging Threats (PDF Document)

I don’t get Insight Magazine so I don’t know the full story that goes along with this teaser:

The U.S. intelligence community has assessed that Osama bin Laden has benefited from a secure haven in Pakistan that allows him to plan a major attack on the U.S.

It took all of about an hour after this to hit the Web before various colleagues started to exchange thoughts on the matter, and like a well indoctrinated, NIC-conditioned drone I threw this wrench into the works:

“Define the term ‘bigger’. We’re assuming “bigger” means more spectacular in approach.”

The numerous weaknesses in airline security are well documented. The “security theater” that surrounds most supposed high-value targets/industries/infrastructure means there is less of a chance of a hijacking, but a bomb in the cargo hold – or a gas-filled tanker into city hall – is all too real an option. Hell, ratchet up the poop-to-lettuce ratio and you can send dozens of infidels to the hospital and probably kill a few too.

Bigger defined as more spectacular is an option, but the goal is terrorism, not something suitable for Broadway. As soon as airlines could fly after 9/11 people got on board; when the DC beltway snipers were loose everyone who had to leave their car was OJ Simpson (the Hertz version). There is no reason why the next grand plan might not originate farther down the amazing scale because simple works and if done close to home it hits close to home.

Consider these figures from data I borrowed from the Bookings Institution (PDF):

• IEDs have killed an average of 23 GIs/month since the start of the war.
• October of last year saw a peak of 52 troop deaths via IEDs.

The tactic varies, but generally speaking we’re talking about taking out 3-4 guys at a time in a HMMWV or on a dismounted patrol.

Now, add a little crude homeland-based math:

• A city bus in a major metro area at rush hour might hold 80 people.
• A light rail car might hold more than 100
• A vehicle-borne IED stopped in the middle of a traffic jam might take out a dozen or more people depending on the size of the vehicle and charge.

Coordinated to take place on the same day at the same time (London calling), cells in just the top ten US cities (let’s say a dozen-per – somewhere between the Miami 7 and Toronto 18) it is not inconceivable that a coordinated IED attack could kill significantly more innocents in the US than GIs in Iraq, and three times as many as those killed on 9/11 (80 bus passengers x 12 bombers x 10 cities = 9,600)

Is that “bigger” enough for UBL?

“Tanji, you’re just trying to justify this post.”

Possibly, but if the methodology of our adversary is violence-driven political/religious change, I can’t think of a better way to ride the recent domestic political wave than to focus my attention on the electorate.

Thoughts?

Posted by Mike Tanji

The unavoidable conclusion is that the U.S. government cannot continue to allow a collecting agency to make unilateral originator control determinations regarding the intelligence it collects. … I hope to explain why they are not in position to make the best “need to know” determinations – that decision must be made by an independent body.

I argue that collection agencies should have their analytic capabilities removed for similar reasons. Restrictive classification or handling caveats are more often than not tools to minimize the ability of others to steal your thunder. Of course by seeking institutional glory in this fashion agencies are hindering effective exploitation and analysis of collected data; the agency best suited to use a given piece of information could very well be an agency that doesn’t have “permission” to use it.

Very well done. Research into the security aspects of this problem are instructive for both pros and laymen alike. Reading the many “what could have been” moments in the piece will alternately make you weep or pound the table in fury. There are of course legitimate concerns on this front, but by and large it is pure selfishness. The idea of having a honest broker and not collectors determine NTK is interesting, though care would have to be taken as far as who is chosen for the job (ideally, cleared outsiders who don’t have misguided loyalties to a home office).

My own piece on these issues tackles things from a different angle, which makes the embargo terribly frustrating. Gotta get me a think-tank job. In the mean time, Col Putbrese, drop me a line. ]]> http://www.groupintel.com/2007/02/14/new-intel-sharing-paper/feed/ 0 http://www.groupintel.com/2007/02/14/the-other-marshall-plan/ http://www.groupintel.com/2007/02/14/the-other-marshall-plan/#comments Wed, 14 Feb 2007 15:21:12 +0000 Mike Tanji http://www.groupintel.com/2007/02/14/the-other-marshall-plan/ I used to wax and wane about the need to purge national security functionaries, but I’ve stopped waning, as my latest commentary at ThreatsWatch indicates.

I don’t get Insight Magazine so I don’t know the full story that goes along with this teaser:

The U.S. intelligence community has assessed that Osama bin Laden has benefited from a secure haven in Pakistan that allows him to plan a major attack on the U.S.

It took all of about an hour after this to hit the Web before various colleagues started to exchange thoughts on the matter, and like a well indoctrinated, NIC-conditioned drone I threw this wrench into the works:

“Define the term ‘bigger’. We’re assuming “bigger” means more spectacular in approach.”

The numerous weaknesses in airline security are well documented. The “security theater” that surrounds most supposed high-value targets/industries/infrastructure means there is less of a chance of a hijacking, but a bomb in the cargo hold – or a gas-filled tanker into city hall – is all too real an option. Hell, ratchet up the poop-to-lettuce ratio and you can send dozens of infidels to the hospital and probably kill a few too.

Bigger defined as more spectacular is an option, but the goal is terrorism, not something suitable for Broadway. As soon as airlines could fly after 9/11 people got on board; when the DC beltway snipers were loose everyone who had to leave their car was OJ Simpson (the Hertz version). There is no reason why the next grand plan might not originate farther down the amazing scale because simple works and if done close to home it hits close to home.

Consider these figures from data I borrowed from the Bookings Institution (PDF):

• IEDs have killed an average of 23 GIs/month since the start of the war.
• October of last year saw a peak of 52 troop deaths via IEDs.

The tactic varies, but generally speaking we’re talking about taking out 3-4 guys at a time in a HMMWV or on a dismounted patrol.

Now, add a little crude homeland-based math:

• A city bus in a major metro area at rush hour might hold 80 people.
• A light rail car might hold more than 100
• A vehicle-borne IED stopped in the middle of a traffic jam might take out a dozen or more people depending on the size of the vehicle and charge.

Coordinated to take place on the same day at the same time (London calling), cells in just the top ten US cities (let’s say a dozen-per – somewhere between the Miami 7 and Toronto 18) it is not inconceivable that a coordinated IED attack could kill significantly more innocents in the US than GIs in Iraq, and three times as many as those killed on 9/11 (80 bus passengers x 12 bombers x 10 cities = 9,600)

Is that “bigger” enough for UBL?

“Tanji, you’re just trying to justify this post.”

Possibly, but if the methodology of our adversary is violence-driven political/religious change, I can’t think of a better way to ride the recent domestic political wave than to focus my attention on the electorate.

Thoughts?

I engaged in several conversations about cyber threats this past week and each conversant repeated with certainty a lack of concern over a relationship between terrorists and mobsters in the virtual world. I’d like to think that an unholy alliance of that sort isn’t possible, but . . .

I don’t know that we’re ever going to see “cyber” placed in front of terrorism like “bio” or “nuclear” is today. Not that it won’t be possible, but as a wise man once said, “terrorists like a lot of people watching, not a lot of people dead.” Any T who is savvy enough to look at the Internet and related technologies as a weapons platform is also going to recognize that in the land of The Great Satan ™, more and more people are getting their information via online sources. Shut down the ‘Net and you drastically reduce the number of people watching (and as far as I know past localized outages failed to kill anyone).

The other big Internet boogie man is disruption, which can be a real pain in the rear, but not something people are going to panic over. It’s the war on terror, not the war on inconvenience. The economy would take a hard kick in the groin, but that virtual representation of your bank balance still translates into real money at some point. Now you’d just have to go and see a teller for it (how very 70s).

And money, speaking of which, is the nexus that some of my contemporaries seem to be missing. The reporting (public and private) is legion and it all points to one conclusion: a functioning ‘Net facilitates every non-kinetic terrorism-related activity. As I and others have pointed out, they can use it to recruit, spread propaganda, do pre-op planning, share TTP, and raise funds via legitimate or illegitimate means. That latter part is increasingly being controlled or facilitated (opinions vary) by organized crime.

Why is fund raising important? UBL isn’t cutting quarterly dividend checks to his franchisees. Running a global enterprise – even an illicit one – takes money. You need a lot of money, regularly, quickly, and you don’t care about Johnny Law then the answer is Willie Sutton obvious.

Is OC and AQ going to team up in some sort of bilateral team of super villains? To an extent I think the answer is “yes.”

You can nickel and dime your way to illicit wealth online, or you can make a modest investment and bring home some serious coin. That’s only going to happen if you cut a deal with the guys in shiny suits or “a friend of theirs.” Online crime networks are global, diverse (in the practical and political sense), sophisticated and very equal opportunity: they’ll deal with anyone who has the right data or l33t skillz. Ideologically speaking there is no real tie that would bind, but that whole “Sunis won’t deal with Shias” canard is rotting in the street and “conscience” and “mafiya” aren’t exactly terms that are heard together very often.

The question then becomes: can you help stop or hamstring terrorism by stopping or hindering organized crime (or more specifically online crime)? Again, to an extent the answer is “yes.”

We know what it takes to bust up OC rings, but the LCN of the 70s and 80s isn’t the Russian or Asian mobs of today; we might not be on as solid a tactical footing as we think. Since most of the activity we are trying to fight is carried out virtually and well outside the jurisdiction of US authorities, even if you infiltrate a gang, you will likely never meet face to face and facilitate an arrest (Oh no, look out Ivan, a strongly worded demarche!). Just the sheer scale of events has swamped our best law enforcement efforts; they have not been without success, but the little boy with his fingers in the dike had things well in hand for a while too.

Municipalities across the country are offering broadband wifi to their citizens, people are carrying more and more IP-enabled devices with PII that could be converted into cash, banks are starting to offer mobile-device-enabled banking (with requisite security issues unresolved): the aforementioned problems are only going to get worse. Even some of the more radical solutions (toot-toot) are likely to be limited in effectiveness. This is another non-kinetic way to help fight the war (Iraqi jobs program, IO programs, etc.) but is it worth pursuing? Is there a viable alternative?

As predicted, it turns out that the recently leaked NIE isn’t exactly the scathing indictment of current war/counterterrorism efforts as certain elements would have you believe. In fact just a few snippets of the rest of the story paint a much more interesting picture. Amazing thing context.

Something no one seems to be talking about is the basis for claims about the terrorism problem allegedly getting worse. “Based on what?” is the question that should be asked. Reminds me of the day Rumsfeld’s snowflake came down asking about “metrics” related to our IO efforts. Everyone dutifully marched off to collect and cook numbers, but no one had the guts to say, “Ah, accurate metrics would require that we have baseline numbers collected before the war.” Funny thing math.

So, the real politicization of intelligence continues; pick the bits you like and leak them for a few bonus points during the news cycle and then hope that no one will call you on it.

Update: Leaks – they’re what’s for dinner! Will try to post as often as I can as things develop. Reportedly NIE Key Judgements are destined for release this afternoon. KJs are basically the “executive summary” of the larger report. Highly-distilled meta-view of the larger report.