ON THE FIGHT
Israel successfully tested its newest missile defense system Sunday, the military said, a step toward making the third leg of what Israel calls its "multilayer missile defense" operational. The "David’s Sling" system is designed to stop mid-range missiles. It successfully passed its test, shooting down its first missile in a drill Sunday in southern Israel, the military said. The system is designed to intercept projectiles with ranges of up to 300 kilometers (180 miles). Israel has also deployed Arrow systems for longer-range threats from Iran. The Iron Dome protects against short-range rockets fired by militants in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. Iron Dome shot down hundreds of rockets from Gaza in this month’s round of fighting.
David Ignatius, with the latest on the fledgling rebel movement fighting to reform Syria.
Our new defense strategy makes clear that the military must retain, and even build new counterterrorism capabilities for the future. As we reduce the size of the military, we are going to continue to ramp up special operations forces, which have doubled in size from 37,000 on 9/11, to 64,000 today. Special operations forces will grow to 72,000 by 2017. We are expanding our fleet of Predator and Reaper UAVs, over what we have today. These enhanced capabilities will enable us to be more flexible, and agile against a threat that has grown more diffuse. We are also continuing to invest in building partner capacity, including through Section 1206 authority to train and equip foreign military forces. Our new Global Security Contingency Fund has been very helpful in placing new emphasis on cultivating regional expertise in the ranks.
Senior U.S. military officials are considering increasing the American military presence in the Mediterranean because of what they see as growing instability in recent months, CNN has learned. "This is post-Benghazi," one military official told CNN. "We’re looking at instability in Libya, Egypt, Syria and now Israel and Gaza."The official who has direct knowledge of the discussions declined to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the information. The Pentagon is looking at a number of options, according to military officials. The easiest would be to extend deployments of Navy ships passing through the region. The Navy just extended by at least 10 days the tour of three amphibious ships carrying more than 2,000 Marines, Harrier jets, V-22 tilt rotor aircraft and a variety of helicopters, as CNN first reported last week.
Senior officers at the Pentagon are being advised on countering Taliban propaganda by a marketing expert whose company once weeded out reporters who wrote negative stories in Afghanistan and helped the military deceive the enemy in Iraq, according to military documents and interviews. Since 2000, the military has paid the Rendon Group more than $100 million to help shape its communications strategy, analyze media coverage, run its propaganda programs and develop counter-narcotics efforts around the world, Pentagon documents show. Currently, employees of The Rendon Group provide "communications support" to the Pentagon and U.S. embassies, for counter-narcotics programs, according to Lt. Col. James Gregory, a Pentagon spokesman. That support includes tracking local print, radio, television and online reporting and helping countries such as Pakistan and Colombia "conduct effective communications in support of U.S. and partner nation counter-narcotics objectives." Those contracts were worth more than $11 million in 2011 and 2012. Pentagon records also show that since 2009, Rendon has advised the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command when it was under the direction of Gen. Martin Dempsey, who is now the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Office of the Secretary of Defense and a strategic communication exercise called Sovereign Challenge, which is run by the Special Operations Command.
Yemen is an ancient country on the southern heel of the Arabian peninsula, the crucible of many of the peoples and customs we now think of as Arab. But to most Westerners, it is little more than a code word for bizarre terror plots. The branch of al-Qaeda based there has made three efforts to plant bombs on US-bound jetliners, starting with the “crotch bomber” in late 2009, who tried to detonate himself as his flight approached Detroit and succeeded only in burning his own genitals. The plots have grown steadily more sophisticated, and fears of another terror strike originating in Yemen are said to keep President Obama up at night. Yemen is often described in newspaper shorthand as “the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden,” even though his father left there for Saudi Arabia as a very young man.
ON THE FORCE
Airmen of the 70th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing tested their mettle on the same Leadership Reaction Course Marine Corps officer candidates train Oct. 24 at the Marine Corps Officer Candidates School on Marine Corps Base Quantico. This was a first-time opportunity never before open to anyone other than Marine Corps officer candidates and Navy mid-shipmen.
A West Point graduate wants troops to ditch General Order #1, so troops can have sex while deployed in warzones.
Fort Bragg will hold Robin Sage, the exercise serving as a culmination of weeks of grueling Army Special Forces Command training, from Nov. 30 to Dec. 14.
ON TECH
Sacha Dratwa enjoys some very normal things: macchiatos, swimming, vodka, hanging out with friends. You can see it right on his Facebook profile. But unlike most Facebook folks, this guy runs Israel’s Internet propaganda war machine.
While Silicon Valley is an immigrant-friendly place—witness Russian-born Sergey Brin’s triumph at Google or Hungarian-born Andy Grove’s success at Intel—there are signs that immigrants’ influence in the tech mecca may be plateauing. A study released last month by AnnaLee Saxenian of Berkeley and Vivek Wadhwa of Duke found that 43.9 percent of Silicon Valley startups launched in the past seven years had at least one key founder who was an immigrant. That’s a big number, but it’s a drop from 2005, when 52.4 percent of startups were immigrant-founded.
Judges and lawmakers across the country are wrangling over whether and when law enforcement authorities can peer into suspects’ cellphones, and the cornucopia of evidence they provide.
You have a secret that can ruin your life. It’s not a well-kept secret, either. Just a simple string of characters—maybe six of them if you’re careless, 16 if you’re cautious—that can reveal everything about you.
ON SECRECY – OR LACK THEREOF
Internal emails among U.S. military officers indicate that no sailors watched Osama bin Laden’s burial at sea from the USS Carl Vinson and traditional Islamic procedures were followed during the ceremony.
Robert Caruso is a veteran of the United States Navy, and has worked for the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, Business Transformation Agency and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
