FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
Millennial moment. Contributor Peter Suciu reports, “Younger faces could make up a greater percentage of the workforce, including those in the security clearance community, in 2016. As the already-cleared population shrinks thanks to downsizing and clearance reductions, cleared employers may need to look to veterans and recent graduates to help fill in the gaps. Employment of millennials could grow from 35 percent of the workforce to 46 percent by 2020.”
Status check. Editor Lindy Kyzer advises, “If you’re not currently employed, the process of ascertaining your security clearance status becomes a bit trickier. If you’re on friendly terms with your last employer or security officer, you can make an inquiry of them. Alternatively, you can request your security clearance status, including a full copy of your security clearance investigation, through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request through your sponsoring agency.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
Votel to CENTCOM. Washington Post’s Gregg Jaffe and Missy Ryan report, “The White House will nominate a veteran Special Operations commander to lead U.S. Central Command, underscoring the Obama administration’s affinity for using secretive elite military forces in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. Senior officials this week approved Army Gen. Joseph L. Votel, who has headed U.S. Special Operations Command since Aug. 2014, as the White House nominee to command Centcom . . . .” See also, “The swift, quiet rise of Lt. Gen. Joseph Votel.”
ISIS expansion in Libya. Vice News’ John Dyer reports, “Islamic State (IS) militants and Libyan forces were engaged in a pitched battle on Wednesday for coastal oil terminals that experts said hold the key to the extremists establishing control of the country and turning it into a base for future attacks in Africa and Europe. . . . Libya is also adjacent to Tunisia, a rare democratic country in the Arab world, and to Egypt, the most populous Arab country, which is ruled by a relatively stable military government.” See also, “Pentagon’s lesson learned from Ramadi: patience” and “ISIS can now use decommissioned shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles.”
Growing instability. Reuters’ Bozorgmehr Sharafedin reports, “The deputy head of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) told Saudi Arabia on Thursday it would ‘collapse’ in coming years if it kept pursuing what he called its sectarian policies in the region. . . . Tensions between Shi’ite Muslim power Iran and the conservative Sunni kingdom have spiralled since Saudi Arabia on Saturday executed cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, an opponent of the ruling dynasty who demanded greater rights for Saudi Arabia’s marginalized Shi’ite minority.” See also, “Iraq offers to mediate between Saudi and Iran” and “US Joint Chiefs Head in Ankara to Discuss ISIS, Sectarian Tensions.”
Arming South Korea. Reuters’ Ju-Min Park and Se Young Lee report, “South Korea is in talks with the United States to deploy U.S. strategic weapons on the Korean peninsula . . . a day after North Korea said it successfully tested a hydrogen nuclear device. South Korea also said it would resume propaganda broadcasts by loudspeaker into North Korea from Friday, which is likely to infuriate its isolated rival, in response to its fourth nuclear test. The United States and weapons experts voiced doubts the device North Korea tested on Wednesday was a hydrogen bomb, but calls mounted for more sanctions against it for its rogue nuclear program.” See also, “S. Korea announces start of anti-North propaganda” and “North Korean bomb test a setback for arms control.”
CONTRACT WATCH
Global Mid Infrared growth. SBWire reports, “Mid Infrared (IR) sensors markets at $509 million market worldwide in 2011 is anticipated to increase tenfold to $5 billion by 2018. This strong growth is anticipated to come as units are less expensive and more effective in the same amount of space. Wireless sensor networks are useful almost everywhere, creating the opportunity to implement controls and mange every aspect of human activity in ways that have not even been imagined . . . .”
Securing the Internet of Things. Federal Times’ Aaron Boyd reports, “The Department of Homeland Security wants Silicon Valley’s help defending the nation from cyber threats and issued the first call for help: securing the Internet of Things. Using the more flexible Other Transaction Solicitation funding method, DHS released the first request for proposals in its Silicon Valley Office Innovation Program asking vendors to chime in on new ideas to secure the ever-expanding list of devices and appliances connected to the Internet and the critical systems they’re being connected to.”
Bi-directional power conversion. Military & Aerospace Electronics Editor John Keller reports, “U.S. Navy shipboard electronics experts needed experimental power-conversion modules and energy-storage components for advanced shipboard electrical shipboard power systems. . . . Officials of the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington announced a $12.4 million contract Wednesday to RCT Power Systems for research and developmental testing and manufacturing of bi-directional power conversion modules to support a 4160-volt AC 60 Hz shipboard electrical architectures.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
Nuclear forensics. Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reports, “Shortly after North Korea claimed it had tested a hydrogen bomb — a weapon potentially hundreds of times more powerful than the fission bombs the country had already set off — seismologists at the United States Geological Survey, or USGS, went to work trying to understand the event. Their early findings suggest that a nuclear bomb test did occur but that it wasn’t a hydrogen bomb. So how do you tell the difference?”
Cybersecurity education online. Homeland Security News Wire reports, “Education provider Kaplan announced Wednesday that it has created a 12-person spin-off, split from a separate sister company called Cybervista, to offer Web-based cybersecurity courses. The creation of this new cybersecurity unit is an indication that the private sector is aware of, and trying to benefit from, the shortage of qualified security employees.”
End of crypto-wars. Wired’s Andy Greenberg reports, “[David] Chaum plans to present for the first time a new encryption scheme he calls PrivaTegrity. Like other tools Chaum has spent his long career developing, PrivaTegrity is designed to allow fully secret, anonymous communications that no eavesdropper can crack, whether a hacker or an intelligence agency. But PrivaTegrity . . . is meant to be both more secure than existing online anonymity systems like Tor or I2P and also more efficient; he claims it will be fast enough to work as a smartphone app with no perceptible delay.”
Virtual cyberwarfare. FierceGovernmentIT’s Molly Bernhart Walker reports, “The Air Force issued a request Monday for research and product information on a virtualized system that could help the service rehearse combat scenarios in the cyberspace domain. . . . The Defense Department has recognized cyberspace as the fifth combat domain – along with land, sea, air and space – for more than five years, but a focus on training and simulation in preparation for cyber conflict has been gaining momentum across the military.”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
War powers. “As House members begin a new round of talks on Thursday to formally authorize the war campaign against the Islamic State that has stretched on for almost a year and a half, differences of opinion remain among lawmakers on the use of U.S. combat troops. The House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold its first listening session to give Republican members a chance to say what they’d like to see in an Islamic State-specific war authorization.”
That’s productive. “The House on Wednesday passed legislation that would repeal much of ObamaCare and defund Planned Parenthood for one year, sending the measure to President Obama’s desk. The bill passed by a vote of 240 to 181. Rep. Collin Peterson (Minn.), who opposes abortion, was the only Democrat to vote for the measure. Reps. Bob Dold (Ill.), Richard Hanna (N.Y.) and John Katko (R-N.Y.), who all hail from swing districts, were the only Republicans to vote against it.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
“A Bold New Baltic Strategy for NATO.” National Interest contributor Wess Mitchell argues, “The goal should be to instill a healthy sense of fear in Russia of the penalties for aggression. Doing this now, while Russia is mulling its regional options, will be a far cheaper policy in the long run than waiting for deterrence by punishment to fail and then trying to regain lost ground through coercion.”
“North Korea can’t be dismissed as a wannabe nuclear power.” The Christian Science Monitor’s Peter Grier argues, “North Korea’s Wednesday nuclear test – whatever the power or nature of the device involved – is but the latest reminder that the secretive Pyongyang regime continues to defy international attempts to curtail its atomic ambitions, and should not be dismissed as a wannabe-nuke state that can’t quite get the hang of difficult nuclear and missile technology.”
“Another North Korean nuclear test isn’t a game changer.” Reuters contributor Andray Abrahamian argues, “Ultimately, except in technical terms, this nuclear test is largely a status-quo event. Kim Jong Un’s domestic position is cemented further. Beijing continues to be frustrated by its ally, Seoul by its lack of influence. Washington’s options are also limited, but its response is the most unknown: will it extend its own sanctions regime just a little or push more broadly than it has before?”
