Tuesday’s Tops

FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM

1. Claustrophobia. Contributor David Brown reports, “Here is what we know about the man identified as Santa Claus. He operates under several aliases, to include Father Christmas, St. Nicholas, and Kris Kringle. His outfit is reportedly based out of the North Pole, though reconnaissance platforms have yet to capture his base of operations. His surveillance network is peerless, invasive, and worldwide. He spearheads a single annual clandestine mission. We know he’s coming to town, and we know when, and yet he has eluded capture for two centuries.”

2. Career enhancement. Editor Lindy Kyzer offers, “You keep track of the stats in the game but how do you score yourself in your career? Whether you’re an active job seeker or a happily employed professional, it’s a good idea to know how you rank. And not just in terms of your own office, but in your overall career progression. A career scorecard can help give you an idea of both your abilities and value. It’s great to have on-hand as you head into an interview or salary negotiation. . . .”

THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT

1. Failure to cope: our National Security Policy. NationalDefenseMagazine.Org’s Sandra I. Erwin reports, “The United States does not have a credible strategy to combat enemies like Islamic extremist groups and needs to rethink its entire national security decision-making process, a new military-funded study suggests. ‘I don’t think we understand completely the fight we are in,’ said Lt. Gen. Charles Cleveland, commanding general of U.S. Army Special Operations Command. Despite 13 years of grueling wars, he noted, the national security apparatus has not adapted to changing threats and has not learned to cope with complex challenges.”

2. ISIS’ Human Resource Command. AP’s Eric Tucker and Sadie Gurman report, “[T]he group is targeting its sophisticated propaganda beyond male fighters, seeking to entice not only wives but also professionals such as doctors, accountants and engineers as it pushes to build a new society in a territorial base that has spread across broad swaths of Iraq and Syria. . . . As the Islamic State seeks to expand its footprint, it conscripts children for battle, recruits Westerners for acts of jihad and releases videotaped beheadings.”

3. Afghanistan: A New Hope. Economist.Com reports, “Yet while the Taliban have very clearly not been defeated militarily, politically they have been routed. There was a good turnout in two rounds of the presidential election earlier this year—with nearly two-fifths of the votes cast by women—despite Taliban attempts at intimidation and disruption. The government of national unity which resulted after much wrangling and allegations of fraud is in the view of some a vindication of the West’s intervention, whatever its cost in money and lives.” See also, “Obama: ‘Afghan Combat Mission Ends but Commitment Endures.’

4. Pakistani Taliban: “feel the pain.” Reuters’ Jibran Ahmad reports, “At least 84 children were killed in Pakistan on Tuesday when Taliban gunmen stormed a military-run school in the city of Peshawar, taking hundreds of students and teachers hostage in the bloodiest insurgent attack in the country in years. . . . The hardline Islamist movement immediately claimed responsibility. ‘We selected the army’s school for the attack because the government is targeting our families and females,’ said Taliban spokesman Muhammad Umar Khorasani. ‘We want them to feel the pain.’” See also, “Children among 126 dead in Taliban attack on Pakistan military school.”

5. Ash Carter’s Asia pivot. DefenseOne.Com’s Adam Tiffen reports, “Carter knows the Obama administration’s intentions for the pivot to Asia. . . . Carter also knows Asia. He has been an advocate for the prioritization of Asia since the late 1990s. . . . Few believe Asian countries will ever form their own NATO, but regional players willing to check China’s military growth must work through historical differences and disagreements with the United States as an honest broker and strong leader.”

CONTRACT WATCH

1. JLTV: the next mile. BreakingDefense.Com’s Sydney Freedberg Jr. reports, “The race to replace the iconic Humvee has entered its final stretch. Today, the Army gave competing contractors AM General, Oshkosh, and Lockheed Martin the final Request For Proposal for production of the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. The competitors have until February 5 to ask the government questions and must submit their proposals by Feb. 10.” See also, “Army Opens Competition to Build Humvee Replacement.”

2. $62 million supercomputing push. DefenseSystems.Com reports, “The Defense Department is continuing its year-long push to bulk up its supercomputing muscle with two recently awarded contracts under the High Performance Computing Modernization Program. The Army Corps of Engineers’ Engineer . . . awarded two contracts, each for $30.75 million, to Silicon Graphics Federal and Cray under the far-reaching program, which was started in 1993 to upgrade DOD’s supercomputing infrastructure and use technological advances to support DOD operations. The contract awarded to Silicon Graphics calls for the acquisition of supercomputing systems to perform complex calculations at DOD’s Supercomputing Resource Center for Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.”

TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY

1. Sense and avoid: drones’ ground-based sense-and-avoid (GBSAA) systems. Janes.Com’s Marina Malenic reports, “The US Army has begun installing ground-based sense-and-avoid (GBSAA) systems that prevent unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) collisions, with the first radar delivered to Fort Hood in Texas . . . . Fort Hood is home to two companies of General Atomics MQ-1C Gray Eagles, the largest UAVs operated by the army. The Texas installation is one of five due to acquire the system . . . . The other four facilities are Fort Riley in Kansas, Fort Stewart in Georgia, Fort Campbell in Kentucky, and Fort Drum in New York. The GBSAA system now being fielded by the army is to be used across the military beginning in fiscal year 2015 (FY 2015) . . . .”

2. Cyberthreats top the list: FBI’s most wanted. HomelandSecurityNewsWire.Com reports, “FBI director James Comey said combatting cybercrime and other cyber threats are now top FBI priority. ‘It (the Internet) is transforming human relationships in ways we’ve never seen in human history before,’ Comey said. ‘I see a whole lot of hacktivists, I see a whole lot of international criminal gangs, very sophisticated thieves,’ he added. ‘I see people hurting kids, tons of pedophiles, an explosion of child pornography.’”

3. Excessive access: “inevitable disaster.” SecurityWeek.Com’s Brian Prince reports, “According to a survey of 2,276 employees (1,166 IT pros and 1,110 end users) from organizations in the U.S., U.K., France and Germany, 71 percent of end users said they had access to data they should not see, and more than half (54 percent) said this access is either frequent or very frequent. Some 80 percent of the IT pros said their organization does not enforce a strict least-privilege data model, and only 47 percent of the 1,166 IT professionals said end users in their organizations are taking appropriate steps to protect company data accessed by them. . . . ‘Unnecessary access combined with a lack of auditing capability adds up to inevitable disaster’ . . . .”

POTOMAC TWO-STEP

1. Thanks, Ted: “The Senate’s confirmation of Vivek Murthy to surgeon general on Monday gave Democrats a chance to troll GOP firebrand Ted Cruz on twitter. Implying the Republican senator paved the way for a vote after over 500 days without a surgeon general, the leadership staff of Senate Democrats, David Axelrod and the communications director for Sen. Harry Reid were among those who ‘thanked’ Cruz.” See also, “Senate confirms surgeon general despite opposition of National Rifle Association.”

2. In the pot: “Hopefully, Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) wasn’t aiming to get his bike fixed near his office anytime soon. A Capitol Hill bike shop has put up a sign bearing Harris’s smiling face and the words ‘Not Welcome’ in opposition to Harris’s role in pushing legislation to halt the implementation of marijuana legalization in the District of Columbia. The sign is from a Tumblr page devoted to helping businesses ‘blacklist’ Harris and his aides, from his chief of staff to his staff assistants. Only his interns appeared to have been spared.”

OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS

1. “A Middle East ripe for vision.” Christian Science Monitor’s Editorial Board argues, “The region . . . should not be written off or abandoned despite a media focus on war (Syria), oppression (Egypt), and terror (IS). In fact, more people should rise above the smoke of battle to see the big picture and demand a vision for the entire Middle East. As management guru Peter Drucker once said, ‘The best way to predict the future is to create it.’”

2. “Fearmongering in Sydney.” Aljazeera.Com contributor Tom Burns argues, “Whatever the outcome of the full investigation, one thing remains clear: This was a tragic learning experience for the Australian media, public, and politicians. Keep calm and carry on, though pay a thought or two to how we ought to respond to events like these in the future.”

3. “Cops scan social media to help assess your ‘threat rating.’Reuters’ Brent Skorup opines, “Police need guidance about under which circumstances these sophisticated databases can be used. An inaccurate threat level for a residence, after all, can change how police approach a situation. Failure to update who lives at a particular residence, for example, could transform a green rating into a red rating—turning a midday knock on the front door into a nighttime SWAT raid.”

THE FUNNIES

1. A long way to Tipperary.

2. Dazed and confused.

3. Christmas wish.

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Ed Ledford enjoys the most challenging, complex, and high stakes communications requirements. His portfolio includes everything from policy and strategy to poetry. A native of Asheville, N.C., and retired Army Aviator, Ed’s currently writing speeches in D.C. and working other writing projects from his office in Rockville, MD. He loves baseball and enjoys hiking, camping, and exploring anything. Follow Ed on Twitter @ECLedford.