FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
Capturing cleared talent. Editor Lindy Kyzer advises, “There are a lot of similarities between being a nature photographer and being an employer searching for cleared talent. The secret squirrel candidate may be similarly elusive, which means your typical tricks for finding candidates online simply won’t work. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth using all of the tools in your arsenal – it just means you’ve got to tread carefully if you don’t want to scare away the best.”
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THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
Carter taps Goldfein. Washington Post’s Dan Lamothe reports, “Gen. David L. Goldfein has been nominated to become the new top officer in the Air Force, nearly 17 years after he survived being shot down in an F-16C fighter jet while flying a combat mission over Serbia. The decision by Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter was announced Tuesday by the Pentagon. If confirmed by the Senate, Goldfein will replace Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, who is retiring in July after serving as Air Force chief since August 2012.” See also, “Battle-tested general tapped to be next Air Force chief of staff.”
Deep dive into drone training. Fast Company’s Ainsley O’Connell reports, “Base and squadron commanders say the [remotely piloted aircraft] program is on track to become one of the Air Force’s largest divisions. In fact, for the first time ever, drones were responsible for more than half of the weapons dropped by the U.S. on Afghanistan last year. New recruits and pilots transferring to the drone program from other aircraft all pass through Holloman, sooner or later.”
Transregional strategies to defeat extremism. Defense Media Activity’s Jim Garamone reports, “The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff met with British Chief of Defense Staff Gen. Sir Nicholas Houghton and other defense leaders in London yesterday to look at broadening efforts against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and other extremist groups. Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford said he used the meetings to initiate a conversation with partners about a transregional approach to countering violent extremism.”
Security, drugs, and globalization. Vice News’ Keegan Hamilton reports, “Diplomats and top officials from governments around the world gathered last week at United Nations headquarters in New York to discuss what to do about the global drug problem. Over the course of four days and multiple discussions, the assembled dignitaries vowed to take a more comprehensive approach to the issue than in years past — but they also decided to keep waging the war on drugs.”
CONTRACT WATCH
Fingering hackers: DARPA’s Enhanced Attribution program. Tandem NSI’s Michael Hoffman reports, “It’s difficult to identify hackers in cyber attacks making it even harder for the military to quickly respond to attacks without knowing who executed it. DARPA issued the BAA to change that by “providing high-fidelity visibility into all aspects of malicious cyber operator actions” and allow the government to publicly identify the hackers without ‘damaging sources and methods,’ according to the BAA writeup.”
Antenna sharing. Military & Aerospace Electronics Editor John Keller reports, “Twelve U.S. technology companies are carrying out a 5-year potential $800 million U.S. Navy research project to develop new kinds of antennas that communications, radar, and electronic warfare (EW) systems can share. Officials of the Office of Naval Research on Monday chose the 12 companies to participate in the Electromagnetic Command and Control (EMC2) program that seeks close integration of disparate RF system electronics and antennas to reduce costs and RF interference.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
The cyberwar against ISIS. The New York Times’ David E. Sanger reports, “The United States has opened a new line of combat against the Islamic State, directing the military’s six-year-old Cyber Command for the first time to mount computer-network attacks that are now being used alongside more traditional weapons. . . . The goal of the new campaign is to disrupt the ability of the Islamic State to spread its message, attract new adherents, circulate orders from commanders and carry out day-to-day functions, like paying its fighters.” See also, “ISIS foreign recruitment plummets as airstrikes destroy its cash supplies.”
NSA’s ICITE bridges metadata shortfalls. FCW’s Sean Lyngaas reports, “A National Security Agency official hinted that the intelligence community’s adoption of a common IT architecture could compensate for any drop-off in the IC’s metadata capabilities after a key change to NSA’s bulk data collection program last year. . . . NSA’s powers of data correlation have arguably been augmented by the Intelligence Community IT Enterprise, a four-year-old program that allows for easier data sharing among intelligence agencies through common standards and cloud storage.”
Human error cyber failures. FierceGovernmentIT’s Eli Richman reports, “Governments in 2015 lost more data from simple mishandling than from cases of cyber espionage, found security analysts from Verizon, the Homeland Security Department, the Pentagon, and other public and private organizations, in a new report. Researchers discovered many of these accidental loss cases when investigating intentional hacks.” Read the report.
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
Just damned. “The Department of Veterans Affairs appointed four senior leaders at facilities in Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania, though most are transfers and not promotions, the agency said Tuesday. The moves were quickly attacked by lawmakers outraged by the agency’s years of scandals.”
Please, just once. “Paul Ryan has a majority of the majority problem. The new Speaker is pressing his conference to back legislation providing debt relief for Puerto Rico, but it’s not clear the Wisconsin Republican can muster a majority of his members. . . . as deadlines for action slip with no bill materializing, exactly how the Speaker and his leadership team design a measure that calms GOP nerves without driving away Democrats is becoming a major question.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
“What’s Wrong with Obama’s National Security Council?” Defense One contributor Derek Chollet argues, “To be sure, today’s NSC is hardly perfect. Its process works in some areas but is confused in others, raising questions about clear responsibilities, chain of command, unnecessary duplication, lack of strategic focus, and ineffective implementation. . . .”
“The next Chernobyl may be intentional.” Reuters contributor Bennett Ramberg argues, “We should expect that only an intentional Chernobyl incident will get complacent countries to dramatically change their security culture. Here is where international groups if given authority, can do some planning to address the issue. . . .”
“Can The United States and China De-Conflict In Cyberspace?” War on the Rocks contributors Adam Segal & Tang Lan argue, “While it is good that Washington and Beijing have agreed to further the discussion on the norms of cyberspace, the dialogue must be formalized, routinized, and insulated from political point scoring. Without practical progress, cybersecurity could quickly rise to the top of the bilateral agenda and threaten to undermine the U.S.-China relationship again.”
