New Challenges (Day 2 -- International Security Forum)

Related Posts:
Live-blogging The ISF
BBC Monitoring
Towards An Unruly World: Ideas Of Interest

After a quick trip to the Routledge booth to talk about books past and future, I trotted off to a full day of seminars on various topics tied to the parade of horribles from yesterday.

There are four time slots today with six panels in each slot. This means that you can see no more than one-sixth of what the conference has to offer. Since I am presenting in one of those time slots, that limits my participation even more. I am not a big fan of this type of conference format as it really limits your exposure to new ideas. It also explains some of the hit and miss quality of this post. Still, I managed to pick up some new stuff of interest today as well.

(Note: In case you are new to this series of blog posts, this conference is being held under the Chatham House Rule which does not limit my use of the ideas that come out of the conference but does prohibit my use of the names or affiliations of the people speaking about those ideas. The ideas mentioned below, then, are not my own. In some cases, I don't even agree with them. I am reporting them merely because I found these ideas interesting.)

When can NGOs do better with non state actors than states or international organizations? When the non-state actor wants to be seen like a state (i.e. has political ambitions, needs international attention, leadership under pressure to deliver something to the people, etc.). This condition often occurs late in the game -- when the non-state actor has tried other avenues. Likewise, because of the timing and the purpose, states typically do not want the NGO to succeed.

The legal framework is an important factor in cyberwar. The lack of an adequate legal framework actually impeded efforts to respond effectively to the series of cyber attacks in Estonia 2 years ago. There has been some good thinking on this issue but it is not widely known and has not yet been incorporated into legal systems. This results in a continuing exploitable weakness in the system despite efforts to more directly address the cyberwar threat.

Russia. The current sabre rattling over Georgia is likely just that. The next major crunch point with Russia is likely in Ukraine and will revolve around the status of the Black Sea Fleet currently stationed in Sevastopol. Russia's ability to act has not been hurt as much as some people think by the recent sharp decline in gas and oil prices or by the economic meltdown generally.

Secrecy is a force divisor in asymmetric warfare. Asymmetric warfare is anti-Clausewitz. It focuses on weaknesses in the system rather than on the center of mass. Fighting an asymmetric war, then, requires more knowledge than force ("all the force you need to deal with most terrorists is a cop with a gun"). Secrecy is an impediment to the system effectively applying its collective knowledge, ergo, secrecy reduces the efficacy of force.

The Intelligence Cycle can be thought of as an out of date operating system. Dealing with modern intelligence problems using the framework of the intel cycle is like trying to get Windows 95 to run Vista programs.

Another Russia-Georgia Conflict Brewing? (Multiple Sources)

The Russians are objecting to a series of low-scale NATO Exercises scheduled to begin in early May at an airbase outside of Tbilisi, Georgia.

Such diplomatic maneuvering would be within normal limits if it weren't for the disturbing news regarding the forward deployment of troops, tanks and artillery reported yesterday by Reuters and the sortie of the Black Sea Fleet from Sevastopol reported yesterday by the armchair admirals over at the Information Dissemination blog.

Add to this the possibility of Russian funding for the protests against Georgian President Saakashvili that began last week and a worrisome pattern begins to emerge. In fact, the Jamestown Foundation puts these exact pieces together in a recent report while the Caucasus Analytic Digest claims that NATO doesn't have the stomach for a fight in Georgia.

Georgia's Foreign Minister, on the other hand, thinks nothing will happen and even decided to poke the bear a bit: "...Russia would be afraid to undertake a new military aggression against Georgia because it would be entering in confrontation with the rest of the civilized world." (Hey, buddy, are we talking about the same Russia?)

Yoikes!

I don't have a background in this area and so am unqualified to comment on the news or the reliability of the sources. On the off-chance that this region of the world is going to heat up in the next couple of weeks, though, I thought I would put together some good open sources to help new analysts get started:

History/Future of the Conflict:
Wikipedia on the 2008 South Ossetia War. Very detailed, comprehensively sourced with a truly outstanding map.
NATO After the Georgian Conflict. A recent Polish Institute Of International Affairs Study (in English).

The Black Sea Fleet and the Russian Military:
The unofficial Black Sea Fleet Website. Good pictures, info and history.
Wikipedia on the Black Sea Fleet. Amazingly comprehensive site.
Warfare.RU. I did not spend much time on this site but I found what I did see to be pretty good stuff on the Russian military. Tons of pictures. The guys who write this site are also referenced in Google Earth through the Google Earth Community (all of the "i's" in the image of the Sevastopol navy base to the left).

News and Other General Information Sources
Information Dissemination. These guys are watching the naval part of this and will likely have some good armchair analysis if it progresses.
UN Observer Mission In Georgia. Probably the best one stop shopping place for current, detailed news in English from inside Georgia.
EU Monitoring Mission In Georgia. Not as current as the UN site but has some good maps and background data.
ReliefWeb on Georgia. ReliefWeb is a UN effort of consolidate news and info from a number of sources into a single place for NGOs. It usually has the best, most current open source maps available as well.
Reuters AlertNet. Reuters has done a good job of consolidating news and background info into a single site.
The Institute Of War And Peace Reporting, the International Crisis Group and the International Relations and Security Network. All three organizations maintain special sections on the crisis in Georgia.

Do you have another source of interest? Drop it in the comments...

OSINT Product On Russian Hackers And The Georgia Crisis Out Tomorrow! (Intelfusion)

The Grey Goose is about to fly! Nope, this is not an obscure quote from a numbers station; its a real product.

About 2 months ago, Jeff Carr over at Intelfusion set out to put together an OSINT team to take a look at Russian hackers and how they supported (or not) the Russian war effort in Georgia. Specifically, they sought to conduct "analysis of Russian hacker blogs in an effort to uncover connections that may not be readily apparent."

Jeff releases his initial round of results tomorrow. If you are interested in a copy, check out his post here for the instructions.

North Caucasus Insurgency -- Strategic Estimate (Original Research)

Last year one of my strategic intelligence teams took a look at the insurgency in the north Caucasus. You can see their final product on the Mercyhurst Caucasus Insurgency Analysis Team wiki. Their analysis was only designed to look out to the Russian presidential election but having reviewed some of the findings, methods and final products once again, I think it is worth sharing, particularly given the recent crisis in Georgia.

The team did not look directly at Georgian/Russian relations but there is still some interesting grist for the mill here. They have built a very good link chart of the insurgency leadership (you can download the PowerPoint here or see the full report with videos here) and the resources page has a wide variety of mapping and other resources listed. The violence database contains an ethnographic map of the region along with a brilliant use of the online mapping service CommunityWalk to map out all of the incidents prior to November, 2007 (when they completed the project). The final estimates, as mentioned, are out of date, but may include some items of interest, particularly relating to perceived Russian capabilities in November 2007. As with all of the wiki-based products (referenced below), there is much to be gained by looking at the methods and process used as well.

Related Posts:
Russia And Georgia Analysis: Its All About Timing
Security Sector Reform In Sub-Saharan Africa
Jihadist Use Of YouTube, SecondLife
Non-State Actors In Sub-Saharan Africa

Russia And Georgia Analysis: It’s All About Timing (19th Hole)

A new blog, The 19th Hole, by a Mercyhurst graduate, Robert Williams, shares some interesting insights into the current crisis in Georgia. Robert studied the Caucasus (along with the rest of the team) fairly extensively during a strategic intel project last year. As a result, he speaks from a position of some background and knowledge. While I am not an expert, his logic makes sense and it seems to echo with recent articles elsewhere.

Robert is a Ransome Scholar and will be studying for his masters at St Andrews (hence the name of the blog, though I think the profs there might have different ideas for his free time...). His intent as I understand it is "to talk about more 'big picture” topics'." Definitely a blog worth watching!

Background Brief And Prediction Market Combo Makes For Interesting Intel (Playthenewsgame.com)

Impact Games (the makers of the award winning serious game, Peacemaker) has launched a new service that combines an interactive background briefing on a topic of current news interest with a prediction market engine allowing the user to "Play The News".

Each of the Play The News "games" follows the same pattern. The background briefing (done using a flash-based interface) lays out the essential details of the story and the identifies the stakeholders in the story. Next, there is a short current news video and the game frames the essential question(s) for the player to answer. In an interesting twist, the players can often pick which side of the story they want to play. For example, in the game embedded below, players can choose to play either the Russian side or the Georgian side.



Once the briefings are over and the player chooses a side, the game then asks the player one or more questions about the future of the current situation. Again, the game adds an interesting twist, asking the player both what should happen and what will likely happen (Note: The prediction feature is only available to registered users but registration is painless). The game then shows the player the aggregated results from all other players. Finally, the company drops you an email to let you know if you were correct or not when the results are finally known.

I was particularly impressed by the choice of news stories covered. Most of the games focused on world news and many of those on stories that receive scant coverage elsewhere. In all, I found it to be an extremely engaging way to get personally involved in a current news event.