“Small Miscalculations Are Magnified Very Quickly.”

A war game organized by Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institute's Saban Center for Middle East Policy was conducted to examine the reactions of both the United States and Iran during escalated events concerning Iran's nuclear program and the United States' reactions to attacks by Iran, as reported by David Ignatius of the Washington Post.  

                                             Lessons from an Iranian war game

 Of interest, and what Mr Ignatius pointed out is that 

             "The game showed how easy it was for each side to misread the other’s 

               signals. And these players were separated by a mere corridor in a 

              Washington think tank, rather than half a  world away. 

This highlights one of the greatest problems we currently face in dealing with not only Iran, but other countries within the Middle East and Asia: A mere vague grasp on how our perceptions and personal biases can distort the intentions and actions of state actors. While we usually tend to embrace the idea of cultural awareness on a superficial level, this game highlights (in some what exaggerated terms) the inability for hypothetical leaders to interpret actions of our opponents correctly. 

These "small miscalculations" ended a scenario in a likely war outcome, which could have been avoided had more diplomatic interactions possibly occurred. It begs to question then how much political face leaders in the US would attempt to preserve in a real world situation like this, and attempt to publicly retaliate against Iran, versus attempting to identify the problem and tackle it in diplomatic channels.  

There needs to be more scenarios like this, more dry runs, more rehearsals, not only with actual government participants, but with other countries as well. This scenario provided an in depth lesson, one that could be used to prevent us from making rash and damaging decisions in a real world scenario.

Predicting Revolutions: How the Intelligence Community Can Parse Social Media to Predict Global Unrest

“Open Source provides a critical lens into understanding the world around us.” (NPR)

There is no question that the United States’ intelligence community has been marred by questions of validity and effectiveness over the past thirty years. While attempts at seeking new methods in predictive analysis have continued to evolve throughout the decades, the intelligence community seems to fall short in incorporating widely available technology to predict events. Advances in communication, data collection, and social interaction have created access to a multitude of untapped resources, and yet the grasp on this widely available technology is not being used at echelons capable of elevating threat levels. Technologies now exist that allow intelligence agencies to determine the future of state actors and its’ citizens. How feasible is integrating this technology in U.S. Intelligence collection methods, and more specifically, how is the U.S. Intelligence community able to systematically predict the social unrest of a region through open source tools?

The Arab Spring uprisings, and most recently the Islam protests have caused a significant fervor in their respective regions and have shifted the focus of the world to the actions of local populace. The U.S. Intelligence community had an incredible opportunity to monitor open source channels such as Google Trends, Twitter, and facebook groups to track the progress and political climate of major population centers in the respective regions, yet it failed to do so. The indications in hindsight of these events, and the reporting of second, third, and fourth order protests were announced via governments, but there appeared to be no anticipation to the initial outbreak of these coordinated, and simultaneous protests. While failing once (2011) was a wake up, to miss the outbreak of more protests and prevent the increase of force protection is near negligence. 

           Understandably, the Intel Community has already received its’ fair share of criticism. This isn’t about bashing them, but instead, driving home the point that these faults have repeatedly been identified, and even defense experts at West Point's Combating Terrorism Center identified the feasibility of using Social media to see what people are connecting to and searching for online, and have opened the door to the possibility of exploiting it (2011. Morning Edition). In the DoDs attempt at Cyber Warfare, there needs to be a parallel focus on incorporating experts who are able to exploit existing databases for collection purposes, not just attack and defensive cyber warfare. These experts in the civilian sector can assist those fluent in database parsing in the Intel Community to construct a framework that would allow them to determine where, and when, major protests will occur in other regions. This will not only assists agencies in determining the size and strength of a movement, but also allows analysts to assess the capabilities of the organizations conducting the mobilization, and determine the host nation's response to the uprisings. 

The actual process of parsing (searching through vast databases for information) through social media has been somewhat of an obsession by computer programmers and web designers for a while now. The application of such searches and pattern recognition has been utilized effectively by corporations to either determine what their competitor’s marketing strategy is, and also to determine the buying power of consumers and possible clients. While the applicable research  is spread out amongst various disciplines, a legitimate discussion between Intelligence and Computer experts can find a way to bridge commonalities. With some creative insight and a flexible endstate, we can assimilate it effectively to establish how the U.S. Intelligence community can extrapolate patterns from open source technologies, and use the social web to identify when and where a social uprising will occur.

Some Events from 20 September 2012

Israel War Drills in Golan Heights 

Nationwide Strike begins in India

Pakistan Protesters Attempt US Embassy Siege 

Iran ships arms, personnel to Syria via Iraq

Is Al Shabab Leaving?

Photoshop Being Used in Syrian Revolution

Are We Winning in Afghanistan? Thoughts on General Allen's Interview

 

Are We Winning In Afghanistan (Link)

These incidents need to be analyzed further as Gen. Allen stated. In the

wake of the Arab Spring, the idea of organic revolts springing up across the

land is romantic, but in reality I'd have to agree with David Young that

they are most likely disconnected attempts at solving security at the

Tribal/village level. Villages and tribes that make this attempt to solve

problems on their own are not being satiated by the Afghan Government, and

that presents a huge rift (one that is pretty widely identified already)

with the GIRoA's inability to reach out to lower levels to solve problems

(security, education, resources, etc).

These revolts "against" the Taliban are not particularly revolts against the

Taliban, but the attempt to find a solution that works best for that

village. How the ANSF is categorizing these (threat, political actions,

tribal business, or an extension of their security plan) will be important

for us to have situational awareness on. Afghanistan is re-growing from
the root level, and connecting GIRoA and the villages would be an ideal
solution, but it's already (and has been for a while) shaping up to be local politics
vs big government. It is imperative that as the politicking is worked out, that ISAF

make an effort to broaden the perspective of our ANSF partners so that they

keep 2nd, 3rd, 4th orders of effect prior to making rash decisions. For

example, is a local militia member who assumes security of a village in

Ziruk a threat to ANSF or an ally, and have the military leadership had a

dialogue weighing cost/benefit prior to attempting to intervene or not

intervene.

With the death of Badruddin Haqqani, the current wave of protests sweeping

throughout the world, more talk of "leaving Afghanistan", and increasing hostility
towards Pakistan in the global diplomatic sphere, it is a pretty certain assumption

that next year's fighting season will be challenging and rigorous. Advising

is going to be a challenge as the ANSF are tested while still getting their

systems functional. With the integration of their fires enablers, a possibly

more robust logistical network, and an increase in Soldier levels, they have

some means to maintain momentum, but it will be a continual challenge

troubleshoot issues in their processes.