Happy Monday (off) & Hijacking himself?
FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. Finding your way with GPS. Contributor D.B. Grady explains, “The story of the Global Positioning System (GPS) is like a walk through the turbulent history of the 20th century. Although today it’s best known for car navigation on family vacations, the system’s accuracy and reliability was perfected as a means to guide nuclear weapons to their grim destinations. GPS receivers now appear in our phones, watches, tablet computers, cameras and cars. Here are a few things you might not know about the global positioning system.”
2. Background checks – update on red tape. Contributor Ashley LaGanga reports, “A new law could counteract clearance investigation fraud – those situations where background investigators report interviews they never conducted, and document records checks they never performed. After it was reported that Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis was granted a clearance despite having lied to investigators about his arrest record and personal debts (among other things), Congress has been scrambling to tighten the investigation process. Surprisingly, a major first-step was merely snipping some administrative red tape.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. Syria – “a tragedy to the world.” AP’s Matthew Lee reports, “U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday accused Syrian President Bashar Assad of stonewalling in peace talks and called on Russia to push its ally to negotiate with opposition leaders. . . . Kerry, who called Syria ‘a tragedy to the world,’ also had harsh words for Assad’s allies in Moscow. ‘Russia needs to be a part of the solution and not be contributing so many more weapons and so much more aid that they are in fact enabling Assad to double down, which is creating an enormous problem’ . . . .” See also, “Free Syrian Army fires military chief” and “Syrian rivals trade blame as peace talks end.”
2. ISIS in Syria – not an Egyptian goddess. CNN’s Arwa Damon and Raja Razek report from Addana, Syria, “Amid the civil war in Syria, another war is taking place — one that pits moderate and Islamist rebels against radicals from ISIS, a group so radical that even al Qaeda has reportedly distanced itself from it. Both groups of fighters are opposed to the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. . . . ISIS beheaded one of the top rebel commanders . . . in broad daylight when the market was packed with people as a warning: anyone who dared oppose them would have the same fate.”
3. Taliban talks of peace. Khaama.Com reports, “The government of Afghanistan welcomed the remarks by a Taliban group leader who emphasized on peace talks as an effective approach to end the ongoing crisis and violence in Afghanistan. A Taliban group leader Mullah Agha Jan Mutasim recently pointed towards the Taliban group’s preference for holding peace talks with the Afghan government.” Also from Khaama.Com, “The Taliban leader Mawlavi Abdul Raqib was reportedly shot dead by unknown gunmen while he was leaving his house. Unconfirmed reports suggest that Mawlavi Abdul Raqib was one of the Taliban leaders who had raised his voice for peace talks with the Afghan government.”
4. Scoping DoD’s nuke review. American Forces Press Service’s Jim Garamone reports, “Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has signed memos for reviews of the military’s nuclear enterprise, and those will proceed apace, Pentagon Press Secretary Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby said [Friday]. During a Pentagon news conference, Kirby said the memos represent no change to the missions of the two panels, but rather lay out the scope of their tasks. Hagel wants the internal review, which is already underway, to examine both the Air Force and Navy nuclear missions . . . . Specifically, he added, he wants the internal panel to look at personnel, training, testing, command oversight, mission performance and investments.”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. Big three contracts on the horizon. WaPo’s Ashley Bergander reports, “The Defense Department, Army and Government Accountability Office are each opening sizeable technology contracting programs for competition later this year. Deltek takes a look at each of the three . . . .”
2. Defense Contracting: if we won’t, IAI will. DefenseMediaNetwork.Com’s Steven Hoarn reports, “Strict limits on the export of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) from the United States has given foreign companies an opportunity to dominate the ever-growing international market. Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is one such company. Its Heron UAV is in operation with 20 countries, including Australia, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, Turkey, and Mexico. Seeking to continue that proliferation, IAI unveiled its Super Heron during a ceremony at its chalet at the 2014 Singapore Air Show on Feb. 11.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. Transforming the shape of flying. AviationWeek.Com’s Graham Warwick reports, “Traditionally, performance drives military-aircraft design decisions and the energy implications of those choices are secondary. But as fuel costs eat into reduced budgets, the balance is shifting. Energy is fast becoming a critical constraint on operations, and the results could reshape aircraft design. . . . Dramatic changes in aircraft design may be required to achieve significant reductions in fuel consumption.”
2. This is the dawning of the age of Artificial Intelligence. TheAtlantic.Com contributors Erik Byrn Jolfsson and Andrew McAfee report, “The advances we’ve seen in the past few years—cars that drive themselves, useful humanoid robots, speech recognition and synthesis systems, 3D printers, Jeopardy!-champion computers—are not the crowning achievements of the computer era. They’re the warm-up acts. As we move deeper into the second machine age we’ll see more and more such wonders, and they’ll become more and more impressive.”
3. The Fusion Race. DefenseOne.Com contributor Patrick Tucker reports, “You could be forgiven for thinking that this puts the U.S. in the lead in the fusion race. In fact, U.S. dominance in fusion research is hardly guaranteed, even after Hurricane’s achievement.”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Pushing the Executive envelope: “President Obama’s aggressive use of administrative power is testing the boundaries of executive authority on several fronts. Obama throughout his presidency has pushed the envelope on recess appointments, prosecutorial discretion and the way his administration executes laws, drawing resistance from the other two branches of government. Experts say Obama’s tactics are not unusual and note that he has issued fewer executive orders than many of his predecessors. But Congressional Republicans counter that it is the content, not the number, of presidential directives that has them up in arms.”
2. Monica who? “Bill Maher slammed Sen. Rand Paul for bringing up Monica Lewinsky to attack Hillary Clinton, saying it will backfire on the GOP and noting the scandal earned the former first lady America’s sympathy. ‘This is supposed to hurt Hillary? As I recall, Hillary was only ever abetted by the fact that her husband cheated on her. It turned her into the, you know, the Jennifer Aniston of America, and Americans only loved her more,’ Maher told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Friday on ‘The Lead.’”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. “Israel and Palestine: Shifting paradigms.” Aljazeera.Com contributor Massoud A. Derhally argues, “It’s time for a real paradigm shift in the way Israelis and Palestinians think about the conflict, their aspirations and a lasting solution. More than being an idealistic aspiration, a one-state solution for two people is the realistic choice.”
2. “Lessons From Libya: America Can’t Lead From Behind.” Time contributor Raphael Cohen and Gabriel Scheinmann argue, “Whether we like it or not, there is no alternative to American leadership. Consequently, as the U.S. considers its future defense budget and global military posture, it faces a far bleaker choice: not whether to trade American global leadership for an equally benevolent European world order, but whether to give up its mantle of leadership and thereby create a void that can be filled by unfriendly, if not overtly hostile, actors. Whatever the Obama Administration might claim, foreign policy, like movies, plays better with a John Wayne than without one.”
3. “Islam, the American way.” Christian Science Monitor’s Lee Lawrence explains that “the perception of Muslim as “other” – and a dangerous or suspicious other, at that – persists, stoked by post-9/11 insecurities. One of the reasons is that most Americans know little about Islam and, in many cases, don’t know a Muslim personally. When they do, stereotypes fall away, revealing a diverse and dynamic population that is doing what Americans have historically done: figuring out how to be themselves.”
