Hump Day Already? & De-constructing the 747
FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. C.I.A. Operations—a job worth doing. Editor Lindy Kyzer reports, “Ops Center officers provide around-the-clock alert and warning communication to the CIA director and Agency leadership on international crises and priority matters of national security. They also facilitate timely communication to senior Agency and Intelligence Community leaders, as well as President’s Daily Brief (PDB) briefers and the White House. While many CIA officers become subject matter experts on specific topics, Ops Center officers address world-wide political, military and economic issues daily, and they use a wide range of analytic and operational knowledge to support the Agency’s mission at home and abroad.”
2. Beyond experience in the cleared world. Contributor Tranette Ledford explains, “If you have an active clearance and just earned a college degree, you don’t necessarily need a long work history on your resume to land second cleared careers. A new study by the University of California recently compiled a list of hot careers for new graduates. Among the top 10 career fields, four are stand-outs for security clearance requirements. . . . For new veterans who are also new graduates, these cleared careers are in demand throughout government and among government contractors.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. Missile duty—“nuclear hell.” AP’s Robert Burns reports from Berthold, North Dakota, “On both counts – the possibility of firing weapons that could kill millions, and the subterranean confinement – a missileer lives with pressures few others know. It’s not active combat, although the Air Force calls them combat crew members. Yet no one can exclude the possibility, remote as it may be, that one day a president will deliver the gut-wrenching order that would compel a missileer to unleash nuclear hell.”
2. Gaza escalation. Aljazeera.Com leads off, “The Israeli army carried out 160 airstrikes in Gaza overnight, escalating a bombardment that has killed at least 27 Palestinians and wounded more than 100. . . . The Israeli cabinet has authorised the army to call up 40,000 reservists. Only a fraction of them have so far been mobilised, though officials hinted at a lengthy campaign in Gaza. ‘We are preparing for a battle against Hamas which will not end within a few days,’ defence minister, Moshe Yaalon, said on Tuesday.” Reuters leads off, “Militants in Gaza fired more rockets at Tel Aviv on Wednesday, targeting Israel’s heartland after Israeli attacks in the enclave that Palestinian officials said have killed at least 27 people. No casualties were reported in the rocket barrages, on the second day of an intensified Israeli offensive in the Hamas-dominated Gaza Strip. Missiles from Israel’s Iron Dome defence system shot into the sky to intercept the projectiles.”
3. Afghanistan elections—do it right, or lose support. Khaama.Com reports, “The NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said that a transparent and credible election is vital for continued international support to Afghanistan. . . . He stressed that ‘the electoral process in Afghanistan must run its course to a transparent and credible conclusion. This is vital for the future of Afghanistan and for continued international support.’” See also from Reuters, “Afghan war inflicting devastating toll on civilians.”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. GSA’s 18F program—lean procurement. FederalTimes.Com’s interview with GSA’s Lena Trudeau, GSA’s Associate Commissioner for Strategic Innovation, and Kathy Conrad, Principal Deputy Associate Administrator of GSA for the Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies: “In December, the General Services Administration launched the 18F program, a lean and agile software development office that, in its first few months, created a flurry of digital services designed to help people better navigate government, whether they are feds or citizens.”
2. BAE death throes, perhaps. AviationWeek.Com’s Antoine Gelain explains, “Like any other business, it must choose between two strategic postures: ride an existing wave or create its own. So far, BAE’s strategy has consisted of riding successive waves. It rode the Airbus wave until the winds started to shift, then it moved on to the ‘U.S. defense bonanza’ and became a ‘pure play’ U.S.-centric defense player, then it jumped onto the security wave, rebranding itself as a ‘defense and security’ company for a while. The proposed 2012 merger with EADS was an attempt at remounting the commercial aerospace wave. Today, there is no obvious wave to catch and the company is at loose ends. Therefore, the only way forward is for BAE to create its own waves.”
3. Decline of Pentagon competitive contracting. DefenseOne.Com’s Katherine McIntire Peters reports, “Unfortunately, the Defense Department has been losing ground for the last six years in the percentage of contracted work being let competitively each year. In 2008, 64 percent of Defense contract dollars were spent through competitive awards; by 2013, that rate had fallen to 57 percent.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. White House gone digital. Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin explains, “The White House has long lagged behind the outside world in its technological capabilities, relying in large part on face-to-face meetings and mountains of paper to conduct business. But the future finally seems to have arrived, at least in part, redefining the way many staffers do their jobs and recalibrating the balance of power within 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. . . . many staffers still prefer face-to-face contact for the key discussions.”
2. Hacker vs. Spy. Wired.Com’s Andy Greenberg tells the story: “First Look and Marquis-Boire aren’t saying much about exactly what he’ll do at the closely-watched new media startup. But Marquis-Boire says he was convinced early in their recruitment meetings that First Look will treat security as a central tenet. . . . The job also presents a challenge worthy of leaving his high profile position at Google: Protecting the communications between non-technical reporters and their highly-sensitive sources in a post-WikiLeaks and -Snowden era where they’re both increasingly targeted by spooks.”
3. Spying in (and on) Germany. Christian Science Monitor’s Sara Miller Llana reports, “Ms. Merkel has worked tirelessly to ease tensions with the United States since Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, revealed that Americans snooped on her cellphone and established a listening post atop the US embassy in Berlin. Merkel has been blamed at home for being soft on the US; though she has tried to get a ‘no spy’ deal with the US, she has failed.”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Hot in Cleveland: “Cleveland will host the 2016 Republican National Convention after beating out Dallas for the final nod, putting the party’s nomination festivities in a key presidential battleground . . . . In choosing Cleveland, party organizers opted for a Democratic enclave in the pivotal battleground state of Ohio over the wealthier and more conservative Dallas area for their convention, which officials say could take place in late June or mid-July of 2016. . . . Some Republican donors privately said Texas, where the Republican Party recently made strong stands in its platform against gay rights and endorsing ‘reparative therapy’ for gays, would send the wrong message at a time when the GOP needs to expand its base.”
2. The Enabler: “President Obama has succeeded in abusing his power more than Richard Nixon thanks to the support and enabling of Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and his team who ‘roll over and acquiesce’ to every White House whim, charged Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. ‘Harry Reid right now is Barack Obama’s most important protector. Harry Reid shuts down the Senate, prevents any meaningful oversight, which means Harry Reid is the president’s enabler . . . . When the president ignores the law and ignores the Constitution, Harry Reid and Senate Democrats stand up and cheer and that is profoundly dangerous to our liberty . . . .”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. “Rethinking Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points.” Washington Post’s David Ignatius argues, “The only positive aspect of the Islamic State is that the jihadists, by declaring their caliphate, have given their neighbors (and the world’s counterterrorism forces) an address. Any state that makes itself a safe haven for terrorism becomes a target. In that sense, the Islamic State was born with a suicide pill in its mouth.”
2. “Rebellion against the invisible tyrant: The internet.” Aljazeera.Com contributor John Bell argues, “Einstein feared the day that technology would surpass human interaction, because the world would then have a generation of idiots. Nevertheless, a revolt against this pervasive and invisible tyrant may come from an unexpected place: from the very youth that we believe are sunk by the ballasts on our minds. It may be their rebellion against the grand automation that may end up saving us.”
3. “How the GOP Can Beat Hillary Clinton.” USNews.Com contributor argues, “The only way to do it is through ideas, through thoughtful proposals to reform the tax code, grow the economy, transform the education system so it turns out students ready to compete in a 21st century, Internet-based global economy, plan for a strong national defense against threats coming from all fronts—including Islamic-based terrorism—and to meaningfully shrink the size and scope of the federal government. Benghazi may be interesting (and it is important that America eventually learn the truth about what happened there), but it’s no substitute for a persuasive agenda around which a winning presidential coalition can be built.”
THE FUNNIES
2. Act of protest.
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