FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. Skills to careers—make them match. Contributor Tranette Ledford explains, “Transitioning veterans who can match their military skills to the growing data analytics job market have the best chance of landing cleared analytics careers. Data Analytics is booming; it’s one of the fastest growing IT fields with a demand that’s spiraling upward. At the current growth rate, the country will need about 2,000,000 more high tech experts than it currently has, in order to fill the number of data analytics jobs projected by 2015.”
2. Attracting corporate recruiters. Also from Tranette Ledford, “Cleared job seekers are in a talent pool all their own. And given the new way corporate recruiters are going about looking for the best job candidates, that’s a good thing. Take a look at the three most innovative things you might not know about how recruiters are finding you, and the tools they’re using to do it. It might affect the ways you go about looking for a second cleared career—and what you’re saying about yourself in the process.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. Bergdahl—AWOL, or what? Christian Science Monitor’s Brad Knickerbocker reports, “There have been no reports that he was captured during direct combat, that the ‘fog of war’ had put him involuntarily in a vulnerable location. At this point in the developing narrative, Sgt. Bergdahl seems to have grown disillusioned with the mission, bitter about the Army and especially higher ranking enlisted men and officers, and simply walked off—gone ‘outside the wire’ or protective base limits—and disappeared.” See also, the video of Bergdahl being released, our “Sacred rule,” “Congress Wants Answers on Bergdahl,” and from Christian Science Monitor, “American paranoia and Bowe Bergdahl.”
2. President al Sisi—hail to the chief. Aljazeera.Com reports, “Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has won Egypt’s presidential elections by a huge majority . . . . He is expected to be sworn in on Sunday before Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court, in front of a large gathering of supporters from across the region. Shortly after the announcement of the final results of the election, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia hailed the day as ‘historic’ and called for the supporters to help the country.”
3. Syria—terrorist training ground. LongWarJournal.Org’s Lisa Lundquist reports, “Syria has become a de rigeur training ground for jihadists worldwide. Over 2,000 European jihadists alone have gone to Syria to fight, according to a recent European Union estimate. The US’ weak attempts to vet, arm, and train purportedly moderate fighting groups have merely fueled an ongoing conflict that shows no signs of abating and is producing a new generation of well-connected foreign fighters who leave the Syrian killing fields to extend the Islamist fight into new battle zones. The result of the continued stalemate between the Assad regime and the rebels is the spawning of a new breed of jihadist cells carrying out a widening array of terrorist activity outside Syria.”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. Contracting flexibility and transparency. FederalTimes.Com’s Andy Medici reports, “The General Services Administration is using its recently-awarded OASIS contract as a template for transparency, industry cooperation and flexibility on its future contracts, according to the agency. . . . Tom Sharpe, commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service, said GSA sees the OASIS contract vehicle as a model for a future of flexible multi-solution contracts.”
2. Lockheed Martin wins $1 billion space fence. CBSNews.Com’s Erik Sherman reports, “Lockheed Martin (LMT) edged out Raytheon (RTN) for a $915 million Pentagon contract to build the Space Fence. The contract, announced by the Defense Department on June 2, is one of the largest space-related military contracts in recent years . . . . Not actually a ‘fence,’ the ground-based radar system is supposed to track debris that clutters in space around the Earth and that threatens satellites and spacecraft. The equipment will be located in Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. Intelligence community evolution. American Forces Press Service’s Claudette Roulo reports, “A tremendous change has taken place in U.S. intelligence capabilities over the past decade, and even bigger changes are underway, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael G. Vickers said . . . . Speaking at a Center for Strategic and International Studies forum, Vickers said the nation faces an assortment of national security challenges, including several permutations of al-Qaida and its affiliates, homegrown violent extremists, unrest in the Middle East and North Africa, Russian revanchism, cyber threats and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.”
2. DARPA’s cybersecurity competition. FierceGovernmentIT.Com’s Dibya Sakar reports, “Thirty-five teams from around the world are competing in what’s billed as a “first-of-its-kind tournament” to develop automated security systems to instantly detect and thwart cyberattacks as soon as they’re launched . . . . DARPA said new security systems are needed because security experts today must identify and repair weaknesses usually after attackers steal data or disrupt systems – a process than can take months after an incident occurs.”
3. Understanding the NET NEUTRALITY issue. The Daily Show’s John Oliver makes the complex, simple, and the boring, interesting.
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Legal limbo: “The White House is providing a detailed defense of its decision to swap Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five senior leaders of the Taliban without notifying Congress first. National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden on Tuesday morning said the administration determined that the federal statute requiring the administration to give Congress 30-days’ notice before transferring a detainee from Guantanamo Bay to a foreign country did not apply to the Bergdahl case because it was a ‘unique set of circumstances.’ Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, acting on behalf of President Obama, determined that notifying Congress ‘could endanger [Bergdahl’s] life.’”
2. The great debate: “The rescue of Bergdahl, the Army sergeant held for five years by the Taliban, has not followed a Hollywood script about the last prisoner of war freed near the close of a war. Instead it has sparked a reckoning about national security, reigniting intense questions about America’s strategic trajectory since 2001. How long can the U.S. keep open its terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay — and what’s to become of those interned there? What is the value of the life of an American soldier? And just what has the U.S. gained from 13 years of war in Afghanistan?”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. “Freedom for Sgt. Bergdahl, at a Price.” New York Times’ Editorial Board argues, “Sergeant Bergdahl’s release raises significant concerns, starting with President Obama’s decision to ignore a law that required him to notify Congress in advance about the bargain that secured the soldier’s freedom, and about how trading five high-value Taliban prisoners from the detention camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, could affect America’s antiterrorism policy.”
2. “Bowe Bergdahl’s court-martial by the press.” Reuters contributor Jack Shafer argues, “You could argue that a fair court-martial, one that reviews all the facts in the Bergdahl case, would further traumatize an already wounded soul to no good end. But by sweeping Bergdahl’s desertion case under the rug and forgiving his conduct with a he’s-already-done-his-time shrug, the Army has denied him the chance to clear—or at least clarify—his name. Bergdahl deserves his day in court to silence the accusations that will otherwise dog him for the rest of his life. If he’s guilty, let him pay his debt and go on with his life.”
3. “Empowering employees.” Christian Science Monitor’s Editorial Board argues, “The goal for employees is to find work that not only pays the bills but is satisfying and meaningful. The bottom line for employers is to find ways to engage workers in a way that makes them fully invested in helping the enterprise succeed. New ways of thinking about work in the 21st century, such as results-only plans, could provide win-win solutions for both workers and employers.”
THE FUNNIES
1. No negotiating.
2. Leading by memo.
3. Slender man?
