Information Operations Newsletter

Compiled by: Mr. Jeff Harley US Army Space and Missile Defense Command Army Forces Strategic Command G39, Information Operations Division

The articles and information appearing herein are intended for educational and non-commercial purposes to promote discussion of research in the public interest. The views, opinions, and/or findings and recommendations contained in this summary are those of the original authors and should not be construed as an official position, policy, or decision of the United States Government, U.S. Department of the Army, or U.S. Army Strategic Command.

Table of Contents

Page 1 ARSTRAT IO Newsletter on OSS.net

Page 2 Table of Contents

Vol. 11, no. 03 (15 February – 13 March 2011)

1. Eighth Annual US Army Global Information Operations Conference 2. Influence as a Measure of Success 3. Another Runaway General: Army Deploys Psy-Ops on U.S. Senators 4. DOD Wants Common Cyber Picture 5. Holmes, Caldwell, Psy-Ops and the Smith-Mundt Act 6. Mind Games 7. Reforming Smith-Mundt: Making American Public Diplomacy Safe for Americans 8. The Second Battle of Hastings 9. Army Cyber Unit Expands As Fast As It Can 10. Balloons from South Korea Inform North of Middle East Uprisings 11. China's SBSM to Review Legitimacy of Online Mapping Services 12. N. Korea Trains up Hacker Squad 13. Information Warfare 14. Rethinking the Afghan Engagement - An Interview With Johan Freckhaus 15. ‘Be Prepared For the Cyber War After The Physical War’ – Commander Of The Army 16. BBG: Middle East Unrests Means Interference, Cyber Attack 17. U.S. Central Command 'Friending' the Enemy in Psychological War 18. Space and Cyberspace Forces Train For the Fight 19. Red Flag Cyber Operations: Part II - Cyber Operators Stand against Red Team 'Aggressors' 20. N. Korea Jammed GPS Signal in S. Korea, Say Reports 21. Glossy 'Jihad Cosmo' Combines Beauty Tips with Suicide Bombing Advice 22. Task Force Targets Human Network Behind IEDs 23. GPS Chaos: How a $30 Box Can Jam Your Life

Page 3 Eighth Annual US Army Global Information Operations Conference US Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command (USASMDC/ARSTRAT) will host its annual Global Army IO Conference from 4-8 April 2011 in Colorado Springs. The purpose of the conference is to bring the Army IO Community together to discuss and capture thoughts on how the Army can operationally support Combatant Commands, and successfully plan and support information operations, inform and influence activities, and military support information operations. The theme for this year’s conference is “Information and Mission Command.” Registration is open on SIPRNET at http://portal.smdc.army.smil.mil/C19/CVTI/default.aspx. Attendees must have a top secret clearance and be currently SCI indoctrinated with SI and TK. For additional information please contact Mr. Scott Janzen, 719- 554-6241 ([email protected]; [email protected]) or Mr. Jose Carrington, 719- 554-8880 ([email protected]; [email protected]). Table of Contents

Influence as a Measure of Success By Major Andrew J. Knight, U.S. Army, Military Review, Jan-Feb 2011 Throughout the fall of 2009, politicians and military strategists debated the situation in Afghanistan to determine the probability of success for the NATO mission. While the accuracy of their conclusions is not yet known, the process they used to determine the probability is very informative. This method is not dissimilar to the decision making process used by tactical military commanders. Both the strategic analysts and the tactical commanders choose data points that allow them to measure the effectiveness of their respective plans. However, they choose these data points in different ways, and for different reasons. The primary difference between the strategic assessment conducted by the NATO heads of state and tactical assessments made by commanders on the ground is that tactical commanders determine probability for success on a recurring basis, and normally without the benefit of an assessment tool that intertwines military capabilities with critical data points within the Afghan culture. However, reliance on militarily important data does not fully depict the success or progress of the Afghan counterinsurgency. The number of attacks, enemy killed or captured, and total dollars spent does not fully illustrate whether our counterinsurgency approach is successful on the ground. The true measure of success in Afghanistan, and one that is not uniformly evaluated, is the amount of “influence” that the government holds over the population. My definition of influence in Afghanistan is the capacity or power of persons or entities to be a compelling force on the actions, behavior, beliefs, and opinions of the population.1 The simplest approach to estimating influence is for a commander to conduct a subjective assessment based on population interaction, intelligence reporting, and his operational experience in an area. Unfortunately, this is problematic because subjective measures of influence do not translate well between units and generally fail to create a homogenous assessment. Lack of an objective influence-measurement tool hampers our ability to recognize whether our actions and the actions of the Afghan government are having a positive or negative effect. If we are going to be successful in Afghanistan, we must be able to quickly and accurately determine where and when we need to reinforce success or revamp our strategy. Therefore, we need an objective method to identify influence over the population, measure it, and recognize methods for increasing influence it. A Precondition for Success: Access to the Population David Galula defines an insurgency as “a protracted struggle conducted methodically, step by step, in order to attain specific intermediate objectives leading finally to the overthrow of the existing order.”2 This definition of insurgency implies that the government is competing to maintain the existing order, but in actuality the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) is competing for recognition as the legitimate authority. In Afghanistan, this competition ultimately comes down to local preferences in underdeveloped locations because the government cannot forcibly control society and offers little in terms of government services. The population remains indifferent to the conflict, waiting for informal leaders to determine the likely victor so they can cast their lot with the winning side. Making the GIRoA appear as the probable victor is difficult, but the task is much easier when influence exists with the community leaders. This leads us to one of the key preconditions for success in Afghanistan: the GIRoA must find a way to create sustained influence with the informal (tribal) leaders to guarantee it access to the Afghan population. To govern Afghanistan, the legitimate government does not necessarily have to obtain direct access to each individual person. The informal leaders can act as effective representatives of the government as long as they

Page 4 maintain an open dialogue with it. The informal leadership structure is based on tribal affiliation and geographic location, and the government should view it as a viable means to forge an enduring connection with the population. Each village has a select group of informal leaders who normally inherit the leadership role through their family’s status. These elders combine with other elders at the tribe and district level to form a shura. The shura normally contains representatives from all the different tribal groups within an area. The district shura sends representatives to the provincial shura, and provincial representatives participate in the national shura. The GIRoA recognizes these informal groups as the traditional way of governing the tribal people, but does not give the informal groups any official legal authority. Also important to the Afghan leadership hierarchy are the religious scholars that form a separate religious shura. Although the religious shura is a powerful body within the community, it is still subordinate to the elders. However, the religious leaders are often the mouthpiece to the population and their power lies in the cultural respect they receive for preaching. Simultaneously building influence in both the GIRoA and elder groups is a necessary practice for counterinsurgent forces if they are to eventually merge the separate groups to create access to the population for the GIRoA. The Importance of the Traditional Informal Leaders A survival code exists among the Pashtun tribes to protect the populace from external forces. This system of values traditionally governs the Pashtun culture and has several different tenets that dictate members’ conduct. This code, called Pashtunwali, pre-dates any form of government in the Pashtun lands of modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan and is the cornerstone of the Pashtun identity. One of the critical tenets of Pashtunwali is nang, or honor, which a Pashtun values more than life. Afghans will go to unimaginable lengths to preserve their honor and the honor of their family, and actively seek ways to appear more honorable. Two additional tenets that directly demonstrate an individual’s honor are melmastia and nanawati, hospitality and protection. These tenets direct that any visitor must be provided sustenance and secure sanctuary by his host, and that the host cannot refuse a request for either. Understanding cultural norms is crucial to examining certain behaviors and associations between the population and visitors. Individual and family honor depend on taking care of strangers regardless of the visitor’s intentions. Even in villages heavily influenced by insurgents, the informal leaders must still offer hospitality to GIRoA affiliated visitors lest they violate their code of conduct. Because this code binds the culture of the Pashtun tribes, the enforcer of the code is society itself. By violating Pashtunwali, the offender risks his honor, and when honor is challenged a dispute will most likely arise. Disputes are common in all societies and knowing the methods for conflict resolution is crucial to understanding the culture. Afghan conflicts, whether they involve land, resources, or personal honor, provide an opportunity to demonstrate the importance of the informal leader system of authority. An informal leader will mediate the dispute so that it does not become violent and turn into a matter of badal, meaning blood feud or revenge. The informal leader who can resolve a dispute peacefully is highly respected within the community because he is able to prevent violence and maintain the status quo. This status quo is kept until external forces disrupt the Pashtun lifestyle to the point that peaceful means are not sufficient, casting the informal leaders to the fore to restore order by whatever means are necessary. Prior to the establishment of official government, the Pashtun tribes depended on Pashtunwali for survival, and it still greatly influences their lives. Much of Afghanistan is still governed by this system, keeping the informal leaders heavily involved in making decisions for the population. This traditional system presents both a distinct opportunity and a threat to the counterinsurgent campaign in Afghanistan. Whoever—GIRoA or insurgent— becomes an influence on these local leaders gains a significant advantage over the other in the war in Afghanistan. To convince the elders to support the GIRoA, the counterinsurgent must continually assess assessment methodology unveiled in Afghanistan is the Tactical Conflict Assessment and Planning Framework (TCAPF). The United States Agency for International Development is the proprietor of TCAPF and describes it as a means to “identify, prioritize, and mitigate the causes of instability in an area of operations.” The purpose of the assessment is to clarify the true causes of instability in a region instead of basing counterinsurgency efforts on assumptions. There are four basic questions used to gather data, with further investigative questioning available to determine the reasons for each answer given. The four questions are: ●Have there been changes in the village population in the last year? Why? ●What are the most important problems facing the village? Why? ●Who do you believe can solve your problems? Why? ●What should be done first to help the village? Why?

Page 5 The Tactical Conflict Assessment and Planning Framework is supposed to create data that immediately focuses efforts toward developing effective programs to create stability. This system seems valuable but has not yet been tested on a broad scale. It structures data collection to determine local problems, but lacks an implementation mechanism. Due to the social structure of Afghan society, correcting a source of instability is not as simple as implementing a logical solution grounded in Western thought. The local power brokers must approve of the actions or they will undermine any attempt by the government to stabilize their area. In essence, TCAPF is great for identifying problems in an area, but not in correcting them. The ability to influence local power brokers is the true key to enacting change and bringing the people to the side of the government. Competing for Influence The government in Afghanistan is competing with insurgents to be seen as a viable, dependable, and legitimate option for governance. Having influence with the local leaders is important to both competitors. Historically, the people of Afghanistan have fought against any external attempt at directly controlling them, most recently by defeating the Soviet Union. This natural resistance to occupation is the reason influence of the Afghan government is the predominant factor that will contribute to the overall success of the current mission in Afghanistan. A system for measuring influence derived from data collected by patrols and population surveys would provide the ability to evaluate influence throughout the entire country. To make this assessment system transferrable between units and different geographic areas, it must be standardized yet flexible enough to take into account regional cultural differences. The physical interruption of Afghan lives creates discontent within the population. This discontent then becomes an opportunity for whichever side is best postured to capitalize on the situation. GIRoA or the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) are often unwilling or unable to exploit these opportunities because they are either not aggressive enough or, more commonly, fail to recognize the potential to shift influence toward the government. Failing to recognize the importance of shifting influence toward the government is also a possible problem, but one that is most likely specific to ISAF. The insurgents, on the other hand, are more culturally attuned to popular sentiment and will seize all opportunities to expand their hold over the population. Because ISAF will never be able to compete with the insurgents’ innate knowledge and cultural understanding of the population, it must have a tool that measures overall friendly and enemy influence to identify opportunities for expansion of friendly influence and support. The Afghan informal leader decision making process is the most basic principle to understand when attempting to sway elders’ decisions. With roots in Pashtunwali, the Afghan makes decisions based on benefit to self, family, village, and tribe. During times of conflict, the informal leaders will make decisions for their people, which is the primary reason why the GIRoA needs to influence informal leaders to gain popular support. If a need is identified, the population must support the solution, and that support must be built through village and tribal leaders. The local leader will only champion a cause in his village if it provides personal social or economic benefit, directly contributing to his power base among family, village, and tribe. If the elder is not convinced that it is of at least neutral impact to his personal nang, then he withholds his support. It is frustrating when an elder refuses to endorse a program that better irrigates crops, but further investigation might determine that he currently controls the irrigation system. Unless the elder is convinced that the new irrigation method will not decrease his social standing, it will not win his support regardless of the benefit it provides to the people. Understanding the decision making process of the informal Afghan leader is critical to enhancing support for government operations and increasing government authority in that area. It is necessary to understand the motivation of individual villages that resist their government. While the hard-core insurgent leadership may wage war for theocratic reasons, the population mostly supports the insurgency for individual financial gain. The most highly contested areas in Afghanistan are usually the places where the insurgency has the most to lose through enduring symbols of GIRoA presence, such as the implementation of taxation, regulation, or law enforcement. The ensuing instability tends to draw financial resources because it brings additional security forces to counter the threat. As both friendly and enemy forces engage in conflict, a market is created that allows supporters of both sides to prosper. Examples of this include GIRoA infringement on the timber market in the northeast and the narcotics market in the south. People in Kunar and Helmand provinces resist the GIRoA because they lose timber or opium revenues; they benefit from the absence of GIRoA regulation. The elders will only intervene on the side of the government when an influx of security or reconstruction dollars presents an economic opportunity. The areas that resist GIRoA or ISAF presence based on the tenets of Pashtunwali commonly feel violated by some previous transgression and have rationalized the existence of a blood feud because the informal leaders gained no benefit from resolving the conflict. This type of cultural dispute is not uncommon, and an antagonist can easily expand a seam because of the limited contact that the general population has with government

Page 6 security forces. The similarity between economically and culturally disputed areas is that the informal leaders insert themselves in the resolution process only when they gain an advantage. Offer an alternative benefit that outperforms the current arrangement, and the informal leaders will effectively lead the population in whichever direction reflects favorably upon them. Utilizing the TCAPF program makes it easier to identify the reasons for resisting the government, but combating those reasons will depend on the ability to convince the informal leaders that they benefit most from cooperating with GIRoA and ISAF. The enemies of Afghanistan utilize influence and, when necessary, coercion and direct control to achieve their goals. For the enemy, influence starts at the social, religious, and cultural levels to recruit people and prevent GIRoA hegemony. Ideology is the strongest and most blatantly exploited tool of the insurgents to create influence because it provides an excuse for average Afghans to rebel. The commonality of religious background, and to a greater degree, the Pashtun culture, brings insurgents instant credibility. The insurgents harness this ethnic authority to capitalize on the Pashtunwali tenet of hospitality so they can live with and draw support from the people. Once the insurgents demonstrate the benefits they bring to the area (financial gain, community safety, or eternal salvation), the influence is strong enough for them to remain until a better alternative is available. There must be a tangible benefit. Otherwise, the people would turn the insurgents away due to the economic strain of supporting non-contributing guests, or insurgent intimidation in the area once a legitimate government force is present. After the insurgent has settled into an area, he can obtain almost everything he needs to continue fighting. Additional manpower is easy to coerce because the population is mostly agrarian, giving them idle time between planting and harvesting crops. Insurgents can win influence easily because most Afghans live well below the poverty line, which increases the desire for financial gain. With small amounts of money, the insurgent can hire local farmers to conduct low-risk harassment attacks against ISAF and the GIRoA. Unless the government or ISAF can influence the area, there is no cultural stigma associated with earning the extra money, especially when the economic benefit is combined with cultural and religious ideologies. When elements friendly to the GIRoA gain an influence foothold, an effective information campaign can defeat the cultural and religious undertones, but only effective military operations will increase the cost of harassment attacks. Fighting against the insurgent forces is necessary to demonstrate military dominance, which increases the cost of fighting for the insurgency. An increased cost to the population reduces its desire to participate in the fighting and also reduces the counterinsurgent’s need to kill part-time fighters and risk a blood feud. As the situation continues to evolve, the population may start to see a larger economic opportunity (increased employment and educational opportunities) in siding with the government. When security forces find an enemy safe-haven, they will often increase their presence in the area. The insurgents cannot overtly display their identity in front of security forces. The insurgent relies on anonymity, so he must wait for the security forces to leave. His influence must be strong enough that it prevents the population from giving intelligence to the security forces about him, or even turning him in. The first few times that security forces visit the village, it is relatively easy for the insurgent to maintain influence because he can exploit the temporary nature of the government’s presence. Any person that mentions discussing possible improvements offered by the GIRoA is intimidated or killed to demonstrate insurgent dominance and impending victory. As GIRoA-sanctioned visits continue, so will the intimidation and violence. The insurgent propaganda campaign usually comes across as “It was secure here until the government forces arrived.” If the security forces are able to stay in the area and speak with the informal leaders daily, then the insurgent loses his influence and will have to leave the area to establish a stronger base of support. Allegiance will continue to shift to maximize the benefits to the informal leaders as they ally themselves with whoever remains dominant once the conflict is over. Initial efforts at establishing influence must use the “carrot and stick” approach to population engagement. The tactical commander reaches several different decision points that will present opportunities for both. Americans tend to use only the carrot, wanting to remain positive toward the people and not hear complaints from the informal leaders. While this can go a long way toward establishing initial inroads, continuing to provide “rewards” for a population that does not deserve them makes the contributor appear foolish and not worthy of respect. The commander must recognize when progress ends and use the “stick,” which can be merely a situation that puts the informal leaders in an uncomfortable position with their population. Commanders don’t have to intimidate the informal leaders with overwhelming force, but simply challenge their influence. In implementing the carrot and stick approach, it is imperative to ensure that the coercive measures in place are easily removed. An enemy disinformation campaign can quickly undermine friendly influence measures by claiming that an undesirable change is permanent, so the counterinsurgent must remain flexible enough to take immediate action against any attempt to increase insurgent influence. A valuable example of creating influence in Afghanistan was an operation conducted from August to November 2009 by 3rd Squadron, 71st Calvary Regiment, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Gukeisen. The operation was a multi-phased population engagement that rewarded those areas that cooperated with the

Page 7 GIRoA through immediate village-level improvements. Several small-scale projects took place in a short amount of time, but that is not what made the operation a success. Gukeisen and his unit structured the project nomination process to start with the elder shura and require the approval of the district sub-governors. This forced the informal and formal leaders to work together to achieve progress. The rapid implementation provided visible evidence that the population could identify. Because the scale of the projects remained below specific thresholds, the unit kept the majority of the development money inside the local economy to increase the economic benefits of siding with the government. This operation benefited all parties. Government leaders were involved in the provision of resources, the local elders were able to harness the power of the government to help their people, and ISAF connected the people to the GIRoA in demonstrable ways. The International Security Assistance Force targeted cultural and religious centers for improvement, and the insurgent lost credibility, thereby weakening his influence. The Measurement of Influence Assessing influence over the population is a valuable tool if used to differentiate between areas that require military operations and areas that are ripe for programs such as the example given above. There is currently no objective assessment tool available with the detail required at the tactical level. Each commander defines influence in different terms and internalizes the assessments of his subordinate commanders to create a personal view of the effects achieved in his area of responsibility. An objective way of measuring influence gives a framework that is transferrable not only between separate tactical elements, but across unit boundaries and to follow-on forces. A common metric that standardizes an assessment for operational and strategic planning purposes would also create a common picture for brigade and higher commands. Several hundred possible questions and observable attributes define influence. To make an influence analysis system that produces accurate information, one must use a basic approach that does not overburden the data collectors. Questions and data collected should resonate with the indigenous population as well as the military operators and analysts, but remain flexible enough to accommodate regional differences. Much of the data that we already collect can apply to the study of influence, but some additional data must augment it to enhance understanding of a particular area. The primary collector is the individual soldier and small-unit leader who interact daily with the people as part of a comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign. Emphasis on pre-deployment cultural training and basic engagement strategy are imperatives to fully understanding the influence factors at work. By teaching soldiers and leaders what to look for, the unit can draw the majority of the required information for analysis from a standard patrol report, if it elicits the relevant data points about influence. The following are examples of influence indicators for both enemy and friendly forces: Signs that indicate enemy influence in an area: ●The population states they are being intimidated. ●The enemy resides within the population. ●The population provides logistical support to the insurgent. ●The population allows attacks to occur from within the village. ●No reporting of insurgent movements. ●The population asks legitimate security forces to vacate the area. ●The population rejects assistance from the GIRoA or ISAF. ●The informal leaders do not readily identify themselves. ●Kids throw rocks at security forces in the presence of adults who do not stop them. ●The population propagates insurgent rhetoric during face-to-face interactions. Signs that indicate friendly influence in an area: ●There is a permanent presence of security forces in the area. ●The population has family members in the Afghan National Security Forces. ●The population provides information to the GIRoA or ISAF about insurgent activity. ●The population seeks the established government to resolve conflicts. ●The population sends informal leaders to voice grievances to the GIRoA. ●The population welcomes ISAF personnel into their homes. ●The population offers tea to GIRoA or ISAF personnel. ●When ISAF personnel arrive in a village, the informal leader immediately greets them. ●The population requests jobs from the GIRoA or ISAF.

Page 8 Identifying points of friction for the people is a sound method for checking the accuracy of an assessment after estimating the extent of friendly and enemy influence. When one side has an obvious influence advantage, there most likely will not be an overt amount of stress on the population. The point at which the population will feel the most pressure occurs when friendly and enemy forces are simultaneously struggling to gain influence in an area. The insurgent will often turn to intimidation that can range from posting night letters in the bazaar to conducting public executions. The middle ground for insurgent action in a conflict area may be kidnapping locals for questioning, but even that has degrees of seriousness based on the fate of the kidnap victim. Instances of intimidation are embarrassing for the elders because the population may hold them responsible. The Way Forward Defeating the insurgency in Afghanistan requires the GIRoA and ISAF to establish influence with the population. That influence must be uniformly measured to depict progress. Evaluating the success or failure of the mission in Afghanistan by metrics such as number of attacks, enemy killed, or dollars spent does not begin to define the complex problems associated with fighting against the Afghan insurgency. The counterinsurgent can rarely gather enough information to understand a tribal dispute, much less predict and evaluate the second- and third-order effects of ISAF actions. The proper metric for understanding success at the tactical level is the influence that the GIRoA and ISAF have over the population. Greater control of the population would benefit the counterinsurgency, but the cultural resistance to such control is far too entrenched. In lieu of such control, holding influence over the informal power structure can achieve the same effect. Once the requisite amount of influence is achieved in an area, the population will generally maintain a level of obedience that is acceptable to the government. Objectively measuring influence to depict progress accurately is vital as units move in and out of Afghanistan. Numerous assessment models have been utilized in Afghanistan in over nine years of war, and none have proven effective at defining the problem and measuring progress. The proposed metrics for friendly and enemy influence above may not be the best, but that does not decrease the importance of establishing influence in a country that cannot be effectively controlled by the government. Having spent over two years in Afghanistan, and having dealt with the population on an almost daily basis, I recognize the logic behind their decisions, but that logic is not always apparent to foreigners. By following cultural norms learned during pre-deployment training and adding a thorough understanding of Pashtunwali, foreigners can unravel the seemingly erratic behavior. Quickly identifying the informal leaders expedites the transition to an environment hospitable to the government and foreign security forces. Increasing friendly influence while reducing insurgent influence is progress toward improving stability and dialogue between the population and the GIRoA, an unavoidable requirement for successful accomplishment of the NATO mission. Notes 1. Random House Dictionary, “influence,” (14 October 2009). 2. David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (London: Pall Mall Press, 1964), 2. Table of Contents

Another Runaway General: Army Deploys Psy-Ops on U.S. Senators By Michael Hastings, Rolling Stone, February 23, 2011 The U.S. Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in "psychological operations" to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war, Rolling Stone has learned – and when an officer tried to stop the operation, he was railroaded by military investigators. The orders came from the command of Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, a three-star general in charge of training Afghan troops – the linchpin of U.S. strategy in the war. Over a four-month period last year, a military cell devoted to what is known as "information operations" at Camp Eggers in Kabul was repeatedly pressured to target visiting senators and other VIPs who met with Caldwell. When the unit resisted the order, arguing that it violated U.S. laws prohibiting the use of propaganda against American citizens, it was subjected to a campaign of retaliation. "My job in psy-ops is to play with people’s heads, to get the enemy to behave the way we want them to behave," says Lt. Colonel Michael Holmes, the leader of the IO unit, who received an official reprimand after bucking orders. "I’m prohibited from doing that to our own people. When you ask me to try to use these skills on senators and congressman, you’re crossing a line." The list of targeted visitors was long, according to interviews with members of the IO team and internal documents obtained by Rolling Stone. Those singled out in the campaign included senators John McCain, Joe

Page 9 Lieberman, Jack Reed, Al Franken and Carl Levin; Rep. Steve Israel of the House Appropriations Committee; Adm. Mike Mullen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Czech ambassador to Afghanistan; the German interior minister, and a host of influential think-tank analysts. The incident offers an indication of just how desperate the U.S. command in Afghanistan is to spin American civilian leaders into supporting an increasingly unpopular war. According to the Defense Department’s own definition, psy-ops – the use of propaganda and psychological tactics to influence emotions and behaviors – are supposed to be used exclusively on "hostile foreign groups." Federal law forbids the military from practicing psy-ops on Americans, and each defense authorization bill comes with a "propaganda rider" that also prohibits such manipulation. "Everyone in the psy-ops, intel, and IO community knows you’re not supposed to target Americans," says a veteran member of another psy-ops team who has run operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. "It’s what you learn on day one." When Holmes and his four-man team arrived in Afghanistan in November 2009, their mission was to assess the effects of U.S. propaganda on the Taliban and the local Afghan population. But the following month, Holmes began receiving orders from Caldwell’s staff to direct his expertise on a new target: visiting Americans. At first, the orders were administered verbally. According to Holmes, who attended at least a dozen meetings with Caldwell to discuss the operation, the general wanted the IO unit to do the kind of seemingly innocuous work usually delegated to the two dozen members of his public affairs staff: compiling detailed profiles of the VIPs, including their voting records, their likes and dislikes, and their "hot-button issues." In one email to Holmes, Caldwell’s staff also wanted to know how to shape the general’s presentations to the visiting dignitaries, and how best to "refine our messaging." Congressional delegations – known in military jargon as CODELs – are no strangers to spin. U.S. lawmakers routinely take trips to the frontlines in Iraq and Afghanistan, where they receive carefully orchestrated briefings and visit local markets before posing for souvenir photos in helmets and flak jackets. Informally, the trips are a way for generals to lobby congressmen and provide first-hand updates on the war. But what Caldwell was looking for was more than the usual background briefings on senators. According to Holmes, the general wanted the IO team to provide a "deeper analysis of pressure points we could use to leverage the delegation for more funds." The general’s chief of staff also asked Holmes how Caldwell could secretly manipulate the U.S. lawmakers without their knowledge. "How do we get these guys to give us more people?" he demanded. "What do I have to plant inside their heads?" According to experts on intelligence policy, asking a psy-ops team to direct its expertise against visiting dignitaries would be like the president asking the CIA to put together background dossiers on congressional opponents. Holmes was even expected to sit in on Caldwell’s meetings with the senators and take notes, without divulging his background. "Putting your propaganda people in a room with senators doesn’t look good," says John Pike, a leading military analyst. "It doesn’t pass the smell test. Any decent propaganda operator would tell you that." At a minimum, the use of the IO team against U.S. senators was a misue of vital resources designed to combat the enemy; it cost American taxpayers roughly $6 million to deploy Holmes and his team in Afghanistan for a year. But Caldwell seemed more eager to advance his own career than to defeat the Taliban. "We called it Operation Fourth Star," says Holmes. "Caldwell seemed far more focused on the Americans and the funding stream than he was on the Afghans. We were there to teach and train the Afghans. But for the first four months it was all about the U.S. Later he even started talking about targeting the NATO populations." At one point, according to Holmes, Caldwell wanted to break up the IO team and give each general on his staff their own personal spokesperson with psy-ops training. It wasn’t the first time that Caldwell had tried to tear down the wall that has historically separated public affairs and psy-ops – the distinction the military is supposed to maintain between "informing" and "influencing." After a stint as the top U.S. spokesperson in Iraq, the general pushed aggressively to expand the military’s use of information operations. During his time as a commander at Ft. Leavenworth, Caldwell argued for exploiting new technologies like blogging and Wikipedia – a move that would widen the military’s ability to influence the public, both foreign and domestic. According to sources close to the general, he also tried to rewrite the official doctrine on information operations, though that effort ultimately failed. (In recent months, the Pentagon has quietly dropped the nefarious-sounding moniker "psy-ops" in favor of the more neutral "MISO" – short for Military Information Support Operations.) Under duress, Holmes and his team provided Caldwell with background assessments on the visiting senators, and helped prep the general for his high-profile encounters. But according to members of his unit, Holmes did his best to resist the orders. Holmes believed that using his team to target American civilians violated the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which was passed by Congress to prevent the State Department from using Soviet- style propaganda techniques on U.S. citizens. But when Holmes brought his concerns to Col. Gregory Breazile,

Page 10 the spokesperson for the Afghan training mission run by Caldwell, the discussion ended in a screaming match. "It’s not illegal if I say it isn’t!" Holmes recalls Breazile shouting. In March 2010, Breazile issued a written order that "directly tasked" Holmes to conduct an IO campaign against "all DV visits" – short for "distinguished visitor." The team was also instructed to "prepare the context and develop the prep package for each visit." In case the order wasn’t clear enough, Breazile added that the new instructions were to "take priority over all other duties." Instead of fighting the Taliban, Holmes and his team were now responsible for using their training to win the hearts and minds of John McCain and Al Franken. On March 23rd, Holmes emailed the JAG lawyer who handled information operations, saying that the order made him "nervous." The lawyer, Capt. John Scott, agreed with Holmes. "The short answer is that IO doesn’t do that," Scott replied in an email. "[Public affairs] works on the hearts and minds of our own citizens and IO works on the hearts and minds of the citizens of other nations. While the twain do occasionally intersect, such intersections, like violent contact during a soccer game, should be unintentional." In another email, Scott advised Holmes to seek his own defense counsel. "Using IO to influence our own folks is a bad idea," the lawyer wrote, "and contrary to IO policy." In a statement to Rolling Stone, a spokesman for Caldwell "categorically denies the assertion that the command used an Information Operations Cell to influence Distinguished Visitors." But after Scott offered his legal opinion, the order was rewritten to stipulate that the IO unit should only use publicly available records to create profiles of U.S. visitors. Based on the narrower definition of the order, Holmes and his team believed the incident was behind them. Three weeks after the exchange, however, Holmes learned that he was the subject of an investigation, called an AR 15-6. The investigation had been ordered by Col. Joe Buche, Caldwell’s chief of staff. The 22-page report, obtained by Rolling Stone, reads like something put together by Kenneth Starr. The investigator accuses Holmes of going off base in civilian clothes without permission, improperly using his position to start a private business, consuming alcohol, using Facebook too much, and having an "inappropriate" relationship with one of his subordinates, Maj. Laural Levine. The investigator also noted a joking comment that Holmes made on his Facebook wall, in response to a jibe about Afghan men wanting to hold his hand. "Hey! I’ve been here almost five months now!" Holmes wrote. "Gimmee a break a man has needs you know." "LTC Holmes’ comments about his sexual needs," the report concluded, "are even more distasteful in light of his status as a married man." Both Holmes and Levine maintain that there was nothing inappropriate about their relationship, and said they were waiting until after they left Afghanistan to start their own business. They and other members of the team also say that they had been given permission to go off post in civilian clothes. As for Facebook, Caldwell’s command had aggressively encouraged its officers to the use the site as part of a social-networking initiative – and Holmes ranked only 15th among the biggest users. Nor was Holmes the only one who wrote silly things online. Col. Breazile’s Facebook page, for example, is spotted with similar kinds of nonsense, including multiple references to drinking alcohol, and a photo of a warning inside a Port-o-John mocking Afghans – "In case any of you forgot that you are supposed to sit on the toilet and not stand on it and squat. It’s a safety issue. We don’t want you to fall in or miss your target." Breazile now serves at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, where he works in the office dedicated to waging a global information war for the Pentagon. Following the investigation, both Holmes and Levine were formally reprimanded. Holmes, believing that he was being targeted for questioning the legality of waging an IO campaign against U.S. visitors, complained to the Defense Department’s inspector general. Three months later, he was informed that he was not entitled to protection as a whistleblower, because the JAG lawyer he consulted was not "designated to receive such communications." Levine, who has a spotless record and 19 service awards after 16 years in the military, including a tour of duty in Kuwait and Iraq, fears that she has become "the collateral damage" in the military’s effort to retaliate against Holmes. "It will probably end my career," she says. "My father was an officer, and I believed officers would never act like this. I was devastated. I’ve lost my faith in the military, and I couldn’t in good conscience recommend anyone joining right now." After being reprimanded, Holmes and his team were essentially ignored for the rest of their tours in Afghanistan. But on June 15th, the entire Afghan training mission received a surprising memo from Col. Buche, Caldwell’s chief of staff. "Effective immediately," the memo read, "the engagement in information operations by personnel assigned to the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan and Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan is strictly prohibited." From now on, the memo added, the "information operation cell"

Page 11 would be referred to as the "Information Engagement cell." The IE’s mission? "This cell will engage in activities for the sole purpose of informing and educating U.S., Afghan and international audiences…." The memo declared, in short, that those who had trained in psy-ops and other forms of propaganda would now officially be working as public relations experts – targeting a worldwide audience. As for the operation targeting U.S. senators, there is no way to tell what, if any, influence it had on American policy. What is clear is that in January 2011, Caldwell’s command asked the Obama administration for another $2 billion to train an additional 70,000 Afghan troops – an initiative that will already cost U.S. taxpayers more than $11 billion this year. Among the biggest boosters in Washington to give Caldwell the additional money? Sen. Carl Levin, one of the senators whom Holmes had been ordered to target. Table of Contents

DOD Wants Common Cyber Picture By Meg Beasley, Federal News Radio, February 24, 2011 The U.S. Cyber Command may be operational, but it's lacking a crucial component - situational awareness. Brig. Gen. John Davis, director of current operations for the Defense Department's Cyber Command, said situational awareness has been his number one challenge from the start. DoD launched Cyber Command in November. With components in each organization, it is responsible for shielding 15,000 military networks. Davis spoke Wednesday at a forum of industry leaders during a conference sponsored by the Armed Forces Communication and Electronics Association. He said while situational awareness isn't fully operational, Cyber Command does have some pieces in place and have put a lot of thought into the type of system needed to complete the project. "In terms of where we're headed, we've outlined some effects-based operational requirements that we think are our near-term priorities," Davis said. "So these are going to drive us. And we always translate it back to our operational requirements to drive where we're headed with situational awareness." Davis said even though he focuses on Cyber Command - specific requirements, there are common threads between government and private sectors when it comes to cybersecurity concerns and needs. "We all share the same infrastructure," Davis said. "Ninety percent of what I use to do military missions across DoD rides on the commercial infrastructure. You can't separate this stuff out - it's all interconnected. So there should be a lot of common threads that run throughout what I need as a military commander and what you all are seeing." When it comes to Cyber Command's priorities, Davis said situational awareness should form the foundation of DoD's Common Operating Picture (COP). He said it must also incorporate relevant blue, red and white/grey information. "Blue is our own networks, the DoD networks," Davis explained. "We need to understand our own networks to the point where we really understand what is critical about those networks - knowing what the key cyber terrain is. Because we know we can't defend everything everywhere - money is going to be an issue." He said the red piece is threats, both current and future, cyber and physical. The white/grey refers to everything outside of DoD's blue space - the commercial and private sector. "We don't want to just see a good picture inside of our wire," Davis said. "We want to see what's happening outside so that we can understand in real time what's happening and posture ourselves to be able to defeat or mitigate threats that might be coming our way proactively rather that reacting to it after its already something that's inside for us to deal with." Data overload? Davis said DoD must balance that broad informational need with a way to analyze all the data the technology brings back to the military. He said too much data without a way to separate the wheat from the chaff actually makes his job harder. Davis said it is important to leverage data from all sensors and capabilities, from the boundary of DoD's networks all the way up to the top. But, he said, that is a lot of information, and, again, agencies need a means by which to sort through it.

Page 12 "It's not enough to just get bombarded with data of different types," Davis said. "Embedded in the architecture has to be the ability to analyze that data so that it is focused on our operational priorities and key terrain." Davis said Cyber Command is looking for a platform that supports its three lines of operations - directing the operations of the networks, defending networks and leveraging the capabilities to provide offensive options. He said the system must balance the three rather than overly focus on one objective. Davis said the platform must also support alerts and alarms in a subscriber-fashion. He said it's not good enough for Cyber Command to have situational awareness - the information is almost meaningless if it can't be delivered down the DoD architecture to individual agencies. Davis said with all of these pieces, Cyber Command is working to operate at near real time. "The threats, both human and mother nature, occur very rapidly in this battle space," Davis said. "Our decision making process has to be enabled by situational awareness so that we can rapidly react and make decisions and prioritize assets and resources and deal with what we see." Eyes wide open Davis said another key to achieving situational awareness will be avoiding cyber blinders. He said they need to monitor the cyber and physical battlefields. He said threats emerge from both places, and decisions made in one domain effect the other. Davis said the right technology will be a start to tackling these challenges, but it won't be enough. "There is a finite amount of human capital associated with the skill set required to do this job," Davis said. "One of the key components of situational awareness is going to be the people who are sorting through all of this data. There is a need for training and education for the skill set needed to do this job effectively - we need to grow the workforce." He said that fully capable cyber personnel are in such high demand that every agency and company is fighting for them. He said that shortage increases the need for good technology that enables organizations to leverage the workforce they do have. Davis said liaisons between organizations can help everyone understand individual agency cybersecurity processes, technological challenges and legal hurdles. He said sharing that information will enable them to find solutions more effectively and efficiently. The government also must collaborate with service providers in order to develop the best solutions. But even in cyberspace, that requires trust. Davis said that human factor has been difficult to overcome, and he's not sure what the best way to grow that virtual trust is. "I'm not sure what the answer to growing trust is," said Davis. "But I think urgency will help get us through this. We need to figure this out quickly, because if we don't we're going to be forced into a situation where we're reacting to it. And I hope it isn't a major incident of national significance that causes us to break down some of these hurdles." Davis said a serious situation will come if agencies and industry don't come together, and it will likely be sooner than most expect. Table of Contents

Holmes, Caldwell, Psy-Ops and the Smith-Mundt Act By Matt Armstrong, MountainRunner blog, February 28, 2011 The recent Rolling Stone article by Michael Hastings has brought to the surface a debate over the difference between "inform," "influence" and the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948. In his article ""Another Runaway General: Army Deploys Psy-Ops on U.S. Senators," Hastings relies heavily - if not entirely - on the statements by Lieutenant Colonel Michael Holmes concerned over his orders while at the NATO Training Mission - Afghanistan. As I noted in my recent article "Mind Games: Why Rolling Stone's article on the military's domestic psy-ops scandal gets it so wrong" (No, I did not come up with either the title or subtitle), what "Another Runaway General" highlights is the deficit in the training, definition, and tactics, techniques and procedures of the informational functional areas in the military. In other words, who does what and why continues to be a confusing mess within the Defense Department. The result is continued confusion and stereotyping both inside and outside the military on the roles, capabilities and expectations that create headlines like "Another Runaway General."

Page 13 "Another Runaway General" also highlights, if briefly, the false yet prevalent view of the Smith-Mundt Act. I want to thank World Politics Review for making my article on Smith-Mundt, "Reforming Smith-Mundt: Making American Public Diplomacy Safe for Americans," available outside of their paywall to support the "Mind Games" article. This post adds additional commentary that could not fit into the ForeignPolicy.com "Mind Games" article. What Holmes unintentionally spotlighted was the military's continuing challenge to come to grips with the modern, transparent, global and hyperactive information environment. Holmes was inadequately prepared and unable to adapt to the demands of the environment, either at NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan or any similar environment. As I noted, Holmes may not entirely be at fault, however. The Defense Department recently restructured and redefined Information Operations (IO) and renamed Psychological Operations (PSYOP) to Military Information Support Operations (MISO). The doctrinal and legal view of the information environment and its practices remain outdated and out-of-sync with modern realities and requirements. For example, this statutory analysis suggests non-US audiences may only be targeted by Psychological Operations. Lieutenant General William Caldwell, IV, is one of the best commanders the United States has in the field today. Between his time in Iraq as spokesperson for MNF-I, commanding the Combined Arms Center (CAC) and Fort Leavenworth where he required officers to engage in social media and oversaw the updating of two important Army Field Manuals: FM 3-0 Operations and FM 3-7 Stability Operations (a rewrite of FM 3-14 Information Operations died an ugly death beyond his control), Caldwell understands the requirements of today's information environment better than most as he tries to push the enterprise to adapt. (As an example of what can be accomplished, the NTM-A website was initially established at a cost of... wait for it... $50.) A key problem that Holmes raises and hangs on and Caldwell and others, like myself, are trying to break, is the utterly false notion that Public Affairs "informs but not influences." This "inform but not influence" paradigm remains endemic despite the reality that any communication influences an audience and shapes opinion. The result is a still-too-pervasive view that causes military public affairs to be reactive, lacking in planning, and ultimately leaving the U.S. ill-prepared - even unarmed - in the enduring struggles for minds and wills that happen globally and outside the operational and tactical theaters in which IO and PSYOP function. Another key problem is that far too many believe PSYOP is only "black" or "gray" covert or less-then-honest information activities. In other words, PSYOP is to many the equivalent of military deception. This is utterly false. There is a lot of "white" PSYOP, or operations/activities that are 100% truthful and 100% attributed but done by professionals that understand techniques of communication and persuasion and audience analysis. So, asking the question again as "what is the difference between Public Affairs and "white" PSYOP? The tactics, techniques and procedures that permit and facilitate proactive engagement to preempt or effectively respond to adversarial actions. Another the other major point in "Mind Games", I note that Holmes's improperly invoked the Smith-Mundt Act as a prophylactic for the American public. This resurrected the public's (including the media's) bad habits of pretending the Smith-Mundt Act is something it is not nor ever intended to be. The result is false assertions like this: The use of information operations resources for the purpose of propagandizing American citizens and political representatives is strictly illegal under the terms of the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948. and this: If Caldwell did order the operation, it could violate a decades-old law called the Smith-Mundt Act, which forbids the government from targeting propaganda at American citizens. ...

"It is a pretty big old red line," says Bob Mackey, a retired Army officer with intelligence experience; Smith-Mundt is supposed to block the military from even using "truthful IO" on Americans. For some additional background and level-setting on the Act, I suggestion you read "Reforming Smith-Mundt: Making American Public Diplomacy Safe for Americans" (931 words) and the post "Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2010." I am completing a 10,000-12,000 word booklet on the history of the legislation that spans 1944- 1948 that is being revised to incorporate the contemporary movement for freedom of information that is not unlike Secretary Clintons Internet Freedom initiative. Regarding Defense Department's lingering, in only a few quarters, like with Holmes, interpretation of Smith- Mundt, neither the Offices of USD(I) nor USD(P), or ASD(PA) for that matter, regard Smith-Mundt as applicable to the Defense Department. In my research, there is only one detailed analysis of the Smith-Mundt

Page 14 Act's applicability to the Defense Department, a 2006 legal review requested by the Defense Policy Analysis Office within the Office of the Secretary of Defense. This review concluded the Act does not apply to the Defense Department but that Zorinsky's statements, along with other legislation, indicate implicit Congressional support of the firewall the Defense Department and other agencies believe is imprudent to ignore. I have made a faxed version of the file available here. Table of Contents

Mind Games Why Rolling Stone's article on the military's domestic psy-ops scandal gets it so wrong. By Matt Armstrong, Foreign Policy, March 1, 2011 Rolling Stone has done it again with another scoop by Michael Hastings showing the U.S. military's manipulation of public opinion and wanton disregard for civilian leadership. The article, "Another Runaway General: Army Deploys Psy-Ops on U.S. Senators," is another example of an officer corps run amok, right? Not so fast. Both stories expose an altogether different problem once you cut through the hyperbole. More... Central to Hastings's article are charges by Lt. Col. Michael Holmes that he was part of a team of "psychological operations soldiers" ordered to use psychological operations techniques to deceive and manipulate the opinion of senators and other dignitaries visiting the NATO training mission in Kabul. This was done, Holmes describes, under the orders of the commanding general, Lt. Gen. William Caldwell IV (above), and his staff. The overstatement in the article, stemming entirely from comments by Holmes, has in turn spurred more of the same focused on alleged "mind tricks" against several senators, including John McCain (R-Ariz.), Carl Levin (D-Mich.), and Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), other members of Congress, think-tank analysts, and foreign dignitaries. Hastings and his supporters are quick to indict the military for allowing another cowboy to go off the reservation to create support for an unpopular conflict people simply want to have disappear. Challenging the narrative by Holmes has been described as a "smear campaign." Others reacting to these criticisms slam the media as trying to take down the military. Both sides have completely missed the point. Holmes is an outstanding American, a reservist who is no doubt dedicated to safeguarding U.S. national security. However, Holmes said his job as a "psy-ops" officer was "to play with people's heads," something that naturally evokes "dark thoughts of orbital mind control lasers, dastardly propaganda, or deception," as one commenter put it. But he was not a member of a PSYOP unit nor trained in PSYOP, an FA37 (Functional Area 37) in the military lexicon. This is not a semantic difference: PSYOP is regulated under U.S. law, and PSYOP activities are restricted to foreign audiences under the same law. He was not a civil affairs officer. And there is no evidence he had training as a public affairs officer. Holmes was an intelligence officer and received training as information operations (IO) officer, or an FA30. Holmes arrived at Caldwell's headquarters as part of an information operations team, but this was no longer a mission of NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan (NTM-A) under Caldwell. He was then put in a position contrary to his expectations: understanding the views, concerns, and requirements of visitors to NTM-A. This ultimately revealed a limited view of his responsibilities and a broader lack of training and understanding of the requirements and limitations of the information environment, as he balked at the order because he believed this would require his IO skills. Holmes either would prefer his commanding officer not be able to anticipate likely questions or concerns or believed he (Holmes) was inherently incapable of dealing with the American public because of his original mission. Holmes should never have been put into this situation (another related reason for the whole affair is that there was "very poor personnel management by Caldwell's senior staff," as FP blogger Thomas E. Ricks put it). In short, he simply did not have the training, and his capabilities did not match the requirements. His statements about PSYOP, both the branch and the practice, reflect this. But Holmes is not solely at fault. His belief that certain tactics are improper, regardless of whether information is completely truthful, complete, and attributed, is endemic in a Defense Department still struggling to come to grips with the requirements of today's information environment. More importantly, how are the professionals trained and supported for this environment? Michael Clauser, a former congressional staffer, noted his frustration that after eight years of irregular warfare in southwest Asia, it took an act of Congress (literally) to sharpen the minds and pencils of the Pentagon to take the problems.

Page 15 Then there is Holmes's invocation of the Smith-Mundt Act, which he believed as prohibiting his "targeting" of Americans. Rolling Stone characterized the 1948 bill as legislation to "prevent the State Department from using Soviet-style propaganda techniques on U.S. citizens." Certainly, late Sen. Edward Zorinsky would agree with this assessment. It is Zorinsky, then a Democrat from Nebraska, who in 1985 said, "The American taxpayer certainly does not need or want his tax dollars used to support U.S. government propaganda directed at him or her," as he compared the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) to a Soviet propaganda agency. But the world then was unrecognizable to the struggle for minds and wills or the 1940s and 1950s or the 21st century. But a huge reality check is required here. The Smith-Mundt Act does not apply to the whole of government, the Defense Department, or even the whole of the State Department. It applies to -- and was only ever intended to apply to -- the part of the State Department that had been the USIA until it was abolished in 1999 and the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the body overseeing the U.S. government's international media efforts. It does not apply to the State Department's office of counterterrorism; Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; or Bureau of Public Affairs and Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs P.J. Crowley. (Crowley once noted from the podium that "I, as the head of public affairs, can communicate both domestically and internationally.") In short, even if the allegations by Holmes are correct, the Smith-Mundt Act would still not apply. There is other legislation that does apply, including "anti-propaganda" language in congressional authorizations and appropriations, Defense Department directives, and in the case of the activities of PSYOP units, explicit prohibition against targeting Americans. The original purpose of the Smith-Mundt Act was to give America a voice in the building war of information around the world. Introduced in Congress in October 1945, the prohibition on domestic dissemination of material intended for foreign audiences by the State Department was to protect the government and the American public from the "drones," "loafers," and "men of strong Soviet leaning" within the department. In other words, it not an anti-propaganda law, but a protective measure against a department of questionable loyalty. If it had been, or currently is, a broad brush law, we would not have had the campy "perils of communism" films or administration officials appearing on Sunday talk shows. It is ironic that a law intended to counter disinformation is subject itself to so much misinformation. This is ultimately another cautionary tale about people doing something they are not trained for and the media commenting on something they know little to nothing about. Both of which must be fixed for the sake of U.S. national security. Table of Contents

Reforming Smith-Mundt: Making American Public Diplomacy Safe for Americans By Matt Armstrong, World Politics Review, 02 Aug 2010 American public diplomacy has been the subject of many reports and much discussion over the past few years. But one rarely examined element is the true impact of the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which for all practical purposes labels U.S. public diplomacy and government broadcasting as propaganda. The law imposes a geographic segregation of audiences between those inside the U.S. and those outside it, based on the fear that content aimed at audiences abroad might "spill over" into the U.S. This not only shows a lack of confidence and understanding of U.S. public diplomacy and international broadcasting, it also ignores the ways in which information and people now move across porous, often non-existent borders with incredible speed and ease, to both create and empower dynamic diasporas. The impact of the "firewall" created by Smith-Mundt between domestic and foreign audiences is profound and often ignored. Ask a citizen of any other democracy what they think about this firewall and you're likely to get a blank, confused stare: Why -- and how -- would such a thing exist? No other country, except perhaps North Korea and China, prevents its own people from knowing what is said and done in their name. But in hiding from the public, Congress, and even the rest of the government what the U.S. government says and does abroad, this imaginary separation between foreign and domestic audiences reduces awareness of the State Department's effectiveness (as well as that of USAID and the Millennium Challenge Corporation), increases the cost of engagement while decreasing overall effectiveness, and limits accountability. Its negative impact on the State Department, in particular, helped propel the militarization of U.S. public diplomacy, as the Defense Department stepped in, clumsily, to fill gaps left by ineffectual or absent civilian efforts. Overall, Smith-Mundt is a lose-lose scenario for the American public and people around the world. To understand how this situation came to be, one must turn to the original law of 1948. At the time, Congress wanted to "lessen the stigma of propaganda" attached to public diplomacy, so it directed the Secretary of State to "provide for the preparation, and dissemination abroad, of information" about the U.S., and to

Page 16 maximize the use of private media for both content and dissemination. The "dissemination abroad" and the reference to private media was not a coincidence: Congress was concerned more with protecting the government from the State Department than with protecting the American people from the government. Congress was vocal with its doubts about the loyalty and competency of a department it described as being "chock full of Reds," "loafers," "drones," "incompetents" -- or simply the "lousiest outfit in town." To put this in perspective, Smith-Mundt's original rationale expressed in today's terms would be the equivalent of Congress suspecting the State Department of being full of inept al-Qaida sympathizers. The 1948 language also gave the media and academics, in addition to Congress, some say in determining what elements of public diplomacy being directed abroad were also fit for American consumption. But in 1985, Sen. Edward Zorinsky declared that even this was too much: Failing to shield Americans from the United States Information Agency would make the U.S. no different than the Soviet Union, "where domestic propaganda is a principal government activity." U.S. public diplomacy was so "dangerous" that it was exempted from the Freedom of Information Act that enforced transparency in government. Congress became the sole arbiter of what the taxpayer could see. Today, any public diplomacy product from the State Department or the Broadcasting Board of Governors may only be made available within the U.S. by an act of Congress. Naturally, these acts take time. For example, requests by NATO, Johns Hopkins and Harvard, among others, to show a 2008 Voice of America documentary film on Afghanistan's poppy harvest were denied because of Smith-Mundt. The process for congressional approval began in early 2009, and as of today, it is still pending. Meanwhile, the video has been available on YouTube since 2008. Congress has no similar concerns when it comes to content produced by foreign governments and their official news agencies. Congress decided in 1994 that "political propaganda" by foreign governments was safe for Americans. On most cable networks, Russia Today is available. China, too, is launching a global news channel that will be widely available in the U.S., and the Chinese government already has a radio station broadcasting continuously from Texas. Of course, there is the classic example of the BBC, which is also widely available in the U.S. on both television and radio. Even terrorist propaganda is freely transmitted under the First Amendment. The Smith-Mundt Act also increases costs and inefficiencies. For a mundane example, the State Department is the world's only major foreign ministry required to maintain separate Web sites for domestic and foreign audiences. While 30 percent of the visitors to the "domestic" Web site, www.State.gov, come from outside the U.S., the site is prohibited from linking to the "foreign" Web site, www.America.gov. It is time the American taxpayer, and anyone in the U.S., be allowed to see, study, and share as they see fit what the government produces with public funds for audiences abroad. Fortunately, Reps. "Mac" Thornberry and Adam Smith recently introduced legislation to modernize Smith-Mundt so as to untie America's hands, as Rep. Thornberry put it, by increasing awareness of public diplomacy and global affairs in a global environment. It will also hopefully empower the State Department to reclaim its rightful place at the forefront of U.S. public diplomacy. It is long past time that this wall, an artifact of the Cold War, falls. Table of Contents

The Second Battle of Hastings By Cliff W. Gilmore, posted on MountainRunner blog, 03 Mar 2011 Michael Hastings' most recent attempt to unseat a U.S. general alleges members of the military illegally used Information Operations (IO) and Psychological Operations (PSYOP) activities to shape the perceptions of elected U.S. officials and senior military leaders. Many respondents quickly addressed a need to clarify lines between various communication activities including Information Operations, Psychological Operations (recently re-named Military Information Support Operations or MISO), Public Affairs (PA) and Strategic Communication (SC). Amidst the resulting smoke and fury both Hastings and his detractors are overlooking a greater underlying problem: Many in the military continue to cling with parochial vigor to self-imposed labels - and the anachronistic paradigms they represent - that defy the very nature of a rapidly evolving communication environment. The allegations highlight two false assumptions that guide the U.S. military's approach to communication in an environment defined not by the volume and control of information but by the speed and ease with which people today communicate with one another. This article identifies these assumptions and recommends several actions to avoid yet another Battle of Hastings by eliminating existing stovepipes rather than strengthening them. The analysis presented here is grounded in two key established Truths.

Page 17 TRUTH ONE: Everything one does communicates something to somebody. That is, it is not possible to not communicate. Consequently physical actions cannot be planned and executed in isolation from communication activities. TRUTH TWO: Those involved in the communication process are influenced in some way. Taken together with Truth One this means it is not possible to not influence those with whom one communicates. More broadly, one cannot not influence those with whom one interacts because "action" itself communicates something to someone. On then to the military's false assumptions and their impact as manifested through the latest Hastings article. Two False Assumptions FALSE ASSUMPTION ONE: With the exception of rare circumstances in which the "target" is tightly controlled and has limited access to an alternate medium, one can create, control and isolate-for- measurement specific and deliberate causal influence outcomes resulting from communication activities. While this may have been possible on battlefields of the past or in controlled academic experiments today, it is not so in the midst of a rapidly evolving communication environment characterized by speed, ubiquity and mobility. The underlying premise of Hastings' accusation is not that the military attempted to "IO" or "PSYOP" someone illegally. These are merely labels created by the community of military communication practitioners that confuse rather than clarify. The premise of the accusation is that the military allegedly attempted to manipulate civilian leaders to achieve a desired outcome. Since, in keeping with Truths One and Two, it is not possible to not influence when communicating and it is likewise not possible in today's environment to create, control and isolate specific measurable causal communication outcomes, the military essentially stands accused of doing the unavoidable (communicating) to achieve the impossible (a controlled outcome) in an unacceptable way (selective presentation of information). Should this accusation against the military prove accurate the result is a violation of the core tenet of U.S. Military subservience to civil government. If the credibility of and public trust in the U.S. Military are eroded by a proven inconsistency between its claim of civil subservience and the reality of its actions it will be increasingly difficult to serve as an exemplar to other nations. The damage from this would likely be deep, subtle and enduring. FALSE ASSUMPTION TWO: IO, PSYOP/MISO, PA and SC are individually discrete but inter-related activities. Information Operations, PSYOPS/MISO, PA and SC are all communication activities - or paradigms - intended to lend rigor to the communication process and achieve a deliberate outcome. Despite steadfast parochial defenders of each paradigm, they are merely different versions of the same activity, espoused differences between them being in the people toward which each is directed and the criteria against which information is sorted and packaged for use in communicating with others. The common assertion that the difference between IO/PSYOP/MISO and PA/SC is the former are targeted at enemy and foreign audiences while the latter are targeted at U.S. citizens amounts to specious self-deception for two reasons. First, how a tool is used does not change the nature of the tool itself. Having fooled itself into thinking IO, PSYOP/MISO, PA and SC are different tools merely because the military uses them to "target" different people does not make them different tools. Second, insisting that a tool can be labeled one way when used to hit one kind of "target" then labeled another way to hit a different kind of "target" represents a near- clinical denial of the fundamental changes in speed, ubiquity and mobility that characterize the rapidly evolving communication environment. At first glance Hastings highlights the obvious problem of the military allegedly attempting to "PSYOP" someone illegally, but the proclivity for self-injury goes much deeper than that. Organizational credibility and public trust are eroded through inefficiency in communication practices and inconsistency between words and deeds. This degradation is exacerbated by recurring failure to adapt to environmental changes and parochial desires to preserve the status quo. While the communication environment continues to evolve into something instant, ubiquitous and mobile, the military - in defiance of established Truths -- remains steadfastly committed to the idea of information control and delivery of messages to discrete target audiences. Public Affairs personnel who according to doctrine exist to help plan and execute an effective communication process are generally occupied escorting journalists, responding to media queries, and reacting to helmet fires like that most recently lit by Hastings. Those hired to do the job PA proved either unable or unwilling to do operate within an SC construct that is ill-defined, inconsistently integrated into operations planning processes and structure, and as yet absent from the doctrinal framework within which the entire Department of Defense functions. Meanwhile those perhaps best trained and experienced to plan and execute an effective communication process -- IO and PSYOP/MISO practitioners -- are legally prohibited from "targeting"

Page 18 Americans, which many sincerely believe they avoid despite the fact that in today's communication environment it is nearly impossible to "target" a discrete group and prevent secondary relay (or "collateral damage" for those who insist on thinking of communication as a process of hitting something rather than interaction with somebody). On occasions when practitioners from the various parochial paradigms come together, which occurs fortuitously rather than through organizational design, their purpose is typically to deconflict activities and avoid crossing lanes. That is, they generally strive to preserve the integrity of their respective stovepipes rather than to collaborate on execution of a holistic and unified communication process that aligns words with deeds. Some may incorrectly suggest the Second Battle of Hastings was in part a result of manpower shortages. They are incorrect. The military is abundant with the people and experience needed to succeed in the modern communication environment, but they are labeled ineffectively, organized into outdated stovepipes, and constrained by rules that quit making sense right about the time the world went on-line and became mobile. These people represent an as-yet untapped wealth of collaborative capacity and capability that can be fully realized through deliberate changes in how they think, how they act and how they are organized. Adaptive Organizational Change The first step to successful adaptive organizational change must come in the way the military thinks about communication. Having accepted Truths One and Two - that it is not possible to not communicate and it is not possible to not influence those with whom one communicates - the military must begin to think of communication as a process of human interaction rather than information control and delivery. This can be facilitated through specific changes to the current lexicon. For example, the word "communication" can generally replace the word "information" throughout doctrine and in practice. People who think in context of a communication environment, communication operations and communication activities will act much differently than those fixated on information, how vast, dangerous and powerful it is, and how to control it. It may also be helpful to stop describing the people with whom the military hopes to communicate as "targets." The second step will be to establish a unified communication process that focuses first on who the military plans to communicate with and what it plans to communicate about rather than what target it plans to hit with a given message. Finally - and most challenging - the military needs to scrap the current structural stovepipes and create a single unified communication function staffed with people who are trained and equipped to ensure a fundamental alignment between what the military says and what it does in an environment characterized by speed, ubiquity, and mobility. This last step may involve locking each and every IO, PSYOP/MISO, PA and SC person in a room, drawing those who understand the evolving communication environment into the new construct, and re-assigning or retiring those who remain married to the past. Without these changes the Second Battle of Hastings will undoubtedly be followed by a third, a fourth... then a fiftieth -- and it is unlikely the military will adapt in time to begin resisting the next major environmental change. Table of Contents

Army Cyber Unit Expands As Fast As It Can By Henry Kenyon, Defense Systems, Feb 25, 2011 The Army’s new Cyber Command is up and running, but it is still a work in progress. Although it achieved full operational status in October 2010, the new command is still in a growth phase, acquiring new personnel and honing its mission to defend the service’s computer networks. The command is also refining and coordinating its operational role with other Army and Defense Department organizations. Army Cyber has facilities and personnel at Fort Belvoir, Va., and Fort Meade, Md. However, the service has not yet determined the final home for the command’s headquarters, said Col. Brian Moore, Army Cyber's chief of staff. When the command was first established, its charter called for a staff of about 500 military and civilian personnel. But when the process of creating Army Cyber was under way, Moore noted that additional missions and functions were added to its list of responsibilities. In turn, the new requirements have increased the number of personnel. The command’s headquarters facility will have a staff of more than 1,000 people when it is complete, but Moore added that subordinate organizations such as the Army Network Enterprise Technology Command (NETCOM), Army Cyber Brigade and First Information Operations Command will bring the total number of personnel to 21,000.

Page 19 To meet its staffing needs, Army Cyber is attracting a mix of active-duty specialists from around the Army and a variety of civilian experts. To attract civilians, Moore said the command is hosting job fairs in the Washington, D.C., area. The USAJobs website is the official online source for job vacancies. Other resources include the Army Civilian Personnel Online website that provides a public-access site focused on civilian jobs throughout the world in dozens of occupational specialty areas. Moore said Army Cyber's public website will soon be operational, and it will be a resource for people interested in working for the command. “There is a venue for anybody interested in jobs to either attend local job fairs or go to these official sites,” he said. Training and doctrine For personnel training and doctrine issues, Army Cyber is using military occupational specialties already established by the Army, said Command Sgt. Maj. Roger Blackwood. He added that these skills are established under the service’s career management field and signals specialist requirements. As the command grows, he said, there will be a need to remain flexible to provide new skills. Army Cyber is not specifically locked into a rigid skills set. Instead, everything is under constant review as the command develops and fine-tunes its tasks, missions and functions, he said. The command’s mix of civilian and military personnel provides it with additional flexibility. Moore said the advantage of Army Cyber’s civilian workforce is that is offers vital skills and expertise. The civilian staff also permits faster organizational change because it allows the military side of the command to identify new skills sets and requirements to transfer and define to a formal military occupation speciality. “The strength of our organization is in the people. Without soldiers, Department of Defense civilians, and our families, that support us as we do our day to day jobs, we can’t come here and focus on defense of the networks and what’s out there in the cyber domain,” Moore said. Army Cyber's command structure consists of three deputy commanding generals who work for Maj. Gen. Rhett Hernandez. They are: Brig. Gen. Jennifer Napper, NETCOM commander, who is deputy commanding general of network operations at Army Cyber. Maj. Gen. Mary Legere, commander of the Army Intelligence and Security Command, who is deputy commanding general for full spectrum cyber operations at Army Cyber. Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Smith, Army Cyber’s deputy commanding general of proponentcy [sic]. Moore added that Smith’s areas of responsibility include establishing the necessary skills sets, doctrine and training, personnel and facilities. The deputy commanders are located across the country. Napper is at Fort Huachuca, Ariz.; Legere is at Fort Belvoir; and Smith is commanding the 5th Signal Command in Germany, but he will be reassigned to Virginia or Maryland this summer to take up his new command. All three deputy commanders have dual responsibilities and answer to two separate command chains, with Army Cyber being one of those two, Moore said. Personnel challenges Building the necessary operational and institutional experience will take some time, said James Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He said all the military services are working on personnel and organizational support problems as they build up their cyber commands. The services still face a shortage of skilled personnel to fill their needs. Cyber operations represent a new type of organizational and force structure, Lewis said. Developing appropriate doctrines will be an important goal for the military. “This is a new domain and activity,” he said. Army Cyber’s mission is to operate and defend all Army networks. “Our main purpose is to stay ahead of the threat and protect what we have,” Moore said. The command is also responsible for supporting Army network services and the authorities and organizations that use that infrastructure. The command also is responsible for defending Army networks as the service transitions to a cloud computing model, said Col. Jeffery Schilling, chief of current operations and head of the Army Cyber Operations Integration Center (ACOIC). The cyber command is partnering with the Defense Information Systems Agency to support the Army’s efforts to provide a centralized e-mail service in the cloud. “We build the defense capabilities and requirements into the service-level agreement,” Schilling said. He said the process is analogous to a contract that outsources a service to a nongovernment organization. In the service-level agreement between Army Cyber and DISA, part of the agreement requires DISA to defend assets in the area of the cloud that belongs to Army Cyber. DISA must also respond to any defensive measures that Army Cyber's ACOIC requests based on detected threats. Schilling described ACOIC as the command’s emergency room responsible for detecting and countering any threats in cyberspace to the network.

Page 20 ACOIC also coordinates with DISA’s Global Incident Management Center, which support’s the agency’s enterprise services. That communication helps to synchronize network defense in the Army’s cloud at an enterprise level, Schilling said. Learning relationship The details of the service-level agreement are a challenge, Schilling said. Because the agreement defines roles and responsibilities, it is critical to clearly specify those issues. “We expect this to be a learning relationship,” he said. As new issues arise that are not covered in the initial service-level agreement, it can be modified to further protect the enterprise, he said. Recent cyber events, such as the Stuxnet worm that targeted the Iranian nuclear industry, are a catalyst for the Army to evaluate its techniques, tactics and procedures, Schilling said. For all major online incidents, he said the command looks at how it operates to adapt to new threats. “It is our method to evaluate all incidents, whether they happen on our networks or on other networks that we find out about,” he said. Schilling said Army Cyber is continuously adapting and changing its network defensive procedures to help spot incidents or improve the network's ability to defend against threats such as specialized attack weapons. But he added that cyberspace is an ever-changing environment to which the Army must constantly adapt. Table of Contents

Balloons from South Korea Inform North of Middle East Uprisings By Mara Gay, AOL News, Feb 25, 2011 South Korea is sending balloon messages into North Korean airspace about the anti-government protests in the Middle East, ramping up the psychological warfare against Kim Jong Il's infamously hermetic regime. The balloons tell of the popular uprisings in Egypt and Libya half a world away from the Korean Peninsula and encourage citizens in North Korea to revolt, Korean lawmakers told The Korea Times. One message reads, "A dictatorial regime is destined to collapse," Song Yong Sun, a South Korean lawmaker and a member of the National Assembly's defense committee, told Bloomberg News. The South has distributed 2.4 million propaganda pamphlets into North Korea since February when the Mideast protests began, along with food, clothes, cold medicine and toothpaste -- basic supplies desperately needed in the impoverished country, military officials told Bloomberg. Song said it was the first such airlift of food to the North in 11 years. The packets of food carried a message that seemed to address the level of paranoia between the two countries, especially in North Korea, where Kim Jong Il's tightly controlled regime has restricted virtually all sources of outside information. "We are the military of the Republic of Korea," the packets read, according to The Korea Times. "This food is safe to eat. If in doubt, feel free to try feeding this to your livestock before eating it yourself." Tensions between the two countries have risen after a series of military provocations by the North believed to be aimed at cementing the succession of Kim Jong Il's son, Kim Jong Un. Table of Contents

China's SBSM to Review Legitimacy of Online Mapping Services From Marbridge Consulting Legal Daily, 3/07/11 A spokesperson for China's State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping (SBSM) said today that its efforts to clean up China's geographical information market have entered the "retrospective" phase, during which it will review online geographical information and mapping services. The spokesperson said that the "retrospective" investigation would require offices around the country to clean up and prosecute any illegal or unauthorized activity involving foreign entities, the military, or state secrets. The cleanup will focus on a thorough investigation of online map data and map services, including whether or not companies providing online map services have the required mapping and surveying and publication authorization for online map services; whether or not the maps carried by the services are provided by providers with authorized map numbers; whether or not the maps provide inaccurate representations of national territory; and whether or not the maps contain state secrets that have been designated as off-limits to the public. According to recent figures from the SBSM, it has prosecuted 1,058 cases of illegal mapping-related activity since January 2009, more than 30 of which were major cases involving foreign entities or military information,

Page 21 and has ordered administrative punishments in 168 cases. It has sought out and investigated 41,670 online map sites, of which it found 3,686 to contain political or other errors; of these, it ordered more than 1,000 to amend their information, and ordered more than 200 to shut down. Editor's Note: Authorized map numbers are issued to digital map publishers such as Mapbar and SBSM's own public geographical information platform "Map World" (www.tianditu.cn), which provide map data to online mapping services such as those offered by Baidu. For more information on this topic, please see "Government Requires License for Online Map Providers," MD 3/30/07 issue. Table of Contents

N. Korea Trains up Hacker Squad From The Chosunilbo, 8 Mar 2011 Concerns about North Korea's cyber warfare squads are resurfacing after Friday's cyber and GPS jamming attacks, which are being blamed on the North. Pyongyang began developing electronic warfare capabilities in 1986 when it founded Mirim University, the present-day Automation University, to train specialists. A defector who graduated from the university recalled that 25 Russian professors were invited from the Frunze Military Academy in the former Soviet Union to give lectures, and some 100 to 110 hackers were trained there every year. Mirim is a five-year college. The Amrokgang College of Military Engineering, the National Defense University, the Air Force Academy and the Naval Academy are also reportedly training electronic warfare specialists. Jang Se-yul of North Korean People's Liberation Front, an organization of former North Korean military officers and servicemen, recalled that when he fled the North in 2007, "I heard that the North Korean military has about 30,000 electronic warfare specialists, including some 1,200 personnel under two electronic warfare brigades." "Each Army corps operates an automation unit, or an electronic warfare unit." Jang used to be an officer of a North Korean electronic warfare command. Material published by the North Korean Army in 2005 quotes leader Kim Jong-il as saying, "Modern war is electronic warfare. Victory or defeat of a modern war depends on how to carry out electronic warfare." In a 2006 report, the South Korean military warned North Korean hackers could paralyze the command post of the U.S. Pacific Command and damage computer systems on the U.S. mainland. Experts believe that the North's 600 or so special hackers are as good as their CIA counterparts. They attempted in August 2008 to hack the computer of a colonel in South Korean Field Army headquarters. In 1999, the U.S. Defense Department said the most frequent visitor to its website was traced to North Korea. Due to economic difficulties since the 1990s, the North Korean regime had a hard time boosting its conventional military capabilities and instead focused on strengthening so-called asymmetric capabilities that would allow it to achieve relatively large effects with small expenses. That includes not only nuclear and biochemical weapons and missiles but also special forces and hackers. Table of Contents

Information Warfare Tony Badran, Now Lebanon, March 10, 2011 While it is a favorite pastime for many Lebanon and Syria watchers to speculate on the magical benefits of a Saudi-Syrian rapprochement, the current upheavals in the Middle East have once again thrown into stark relief the fact that Riyadh and Damascus are ensconced in rival camps, led by the US and Iran respectively, competing over the future of the region and the shape of its strategic alignment. This has been evident in Saudi-Syrian media tensions over the crises in Bahrain and Libya. Syria’s interests in Bahrain and Libya are diametrically opposed to those of Saudi Arabia. As has been the case historically, inter-Arab rivalries play themselves out in the media. For Arab regimes, information warfare is an integral instrument in their arsenals, alongside hard operational tools. The opening salvo came when Bahrain officially complained that Syrian television had aired false reports of a Saudi military intervention in Bahrain to protect the ruling Sunni monarchy against the Shia opposition. This official Bahraini complaint was also carried by the more visible Saudi press.

Page 22 Interestingly, a report in Al-Sharq al-Awsat also mentioned other similar claims made by Iranian satellite stations, which were subsequently carried by websites close to the Bahraini opposition. In other words, the Syrian report went hand-in-hand with an Iranian information operation aimed at the Saudis. The Iranians and the Syrians are fully aware of the value of the turmoil in Bahrain and Yemen in bringing pressure on Saudi Arabia, especially as popular stirrings have begun in the kingdom’s eastern province, which contains a concentration of Saudi’s Shia population. One would be right to point out that the Shia opposition in Bahrain, and its demand for reform, has little or nothing to do with Iran. Nevertheless, Iran’s game is also one of framing narratives and controlling perceptions. In so doing, it aims to stamp its brand on the events in the region in order to further its strategic objectives, even when the drivers of these events are independent of Tehran. However, beyond propaganda, it does seem that the US is concerned about actual operational involvement by Iran in Bahrain. At a recent hearing at the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted that the Iranians were “doing everything they can to influence the outcomes” in places like Bahrain. Importantly, she added, “We know that they are reaching out to the opposition in Bahrain. We know that the Iranians are very much involved in the opposition movements in Yemen.” This public acknowledgment is a year late. The busting of Iranian cells operating in Kuwait and Bahrain was reported in May of last year. Syria too has played an auxiliary role to Iran in its efforts to destabilize Manama. On the eve of the Gaza war of 2008-2009, the Bahraini authorities announced the arrest of a group of Shia militants who had received training in Syria, accusing them of planning terrorist attacks during Bahrain’s national day celebrations. Syria’s role in Libya is more direct, and here too, Saudi media has been involved in exposing Damascus’ involvement. Al-Sharq al-Awsat reported that Libyan rebels had downed two fighter planes piloted by Syrians. It also quoted a statement by a Libyan group charging that Syria had dispatched a number of its pilots and Special Forces to assist the Qaddafi regime in defeating the rebels. Moreover, the report quoted Libyan sources raising questions about the recent trip to Syria by Qaddafi’s cousin, which may have played a role in the Libyan regime’s request for military assistance from Damascus – a longtime ally. In fact, so close has Syrian-Libyan cooperation been over the years, that one Syrian site claimed that Syrian security agents were in Libya to ensure sensitive intelligence files detailing this cooperation, such as in the Lockerbie bombing case, don’t fall in the wrong hands. In addition, Al-Sharq al-Awsat’s editor, Tariq Homayed, penned a column on Tuesday criticizing Syria’s role in targeting Saudi Arabia. Homayed charged that a piece in The Independent, which claimed that the US had tasked Saudi Arabia with arming the Libyan rebels, was fed to the British paper by “some of Iran’s allies” – meaning the Syrians. Homayed concluded that this was an attempt to jab at the Saudis and “to embroil them in the Libyan storm,” ironically wondering why nobody would volunteer to reveal the content of Qaddafi’s recent phone call to “a certain Arab president,” in reference to Bashar al-Assad. What is evident is that this information warfare accompanies and supports a broader regional cold war, which is being fought on several proxy battlefields and involves multiple players. In recent years, it became fashionable again to talk about a supposed “Arab fold” into which Syria ostensibly should be “brought back.” The reality of Arab power politics, however, has always been one of competing blocs aligned with rival external powers. What lies behind the Saudi-Syrian media recriminations is the fact that, all the chatter about rapprochement notwithstanding, the two Arab states continue to fall firmly on opposing sides of the region’s fundamental strategic fault line: the Iranian alliance system on the one hand, and the US- backed order on the other. Table of Contents

Rethinking the Afghan Engagement - An Interview With Johan Freckhaus From Second Line of Defense, 10 Mar 2011 03/10/2011 – It is rare that a voice with so much experience can provide understanding of a possible path to withdrawal from Afghanistan and ending the endless mission. We introduced our readers to this experienced Afghan hand late last year, when our French correspondent Olivier Azpitarte interviewed Johan Freckhaus after a visit to Afghanistan. [1] According to Johan Freckhaus:

Page 23 “The truth is that the centralized and authoritarian system that we have put in place with the help of an emigrant, urban and progressive Afghan elite, is unsuited to the fundamentally rural, conservative and religious country. This system has no chance of survival and, by using force to impose itself, it only creates rejection, as indeed before him Prince Daoud’s “republic” in the ’70s and the Communists’ “democracy” in the 80′s. The more resentment, the less hope and the more Afghans are in the moment, in search of quick profits. Today, there are foreigners and money; it’s time to fill their pockets for the future of the family, the future education of the children, even exile if the Taliban was to be back soon! ” The SLD team interviewed Johan Freckhaus in both Paris and Washington DC to get a better sense of his thinking about the past and the way out of the endless tunnel. How best to shape the future of Afghanistan and the Western engagement? In our interviews with Freckhaus he connects two broad points. First, the light footprint followed by the Bush Administration after 9/11 was the right strategy. The piling on of foreign troops has stirred up a hornets nest of Taliban activity who are using the large scale foreign presence as a recruiting issue. The point simply put is that Afghans distrust foreign motives and the large number of troops. And the foreign troops are backing a centralized government, which is out of sync of broader Afghan national aspirations and objectives. Certainly, recent events in the Middle East suggest that building up the power of the Presidency, as a focus of Western activity might well be counterproductive for political progress. In a recent speech to the Kuwait National Assembly, on 22 February 2011, the UK Prime Minister admitted: “For decades, some have argued that stability required highly controlling regimes (…). [We] faced a choice between our interests and our values. And to be honest, we should acknowledge that sometimes we have made such calculations in the past. But I say that is a false choice.” Johan Freckhaus also suggested an interesting lesson from history that might just work — a Swiss “neutrality” model from the time of Napoleon. His observations in his own words are extremely interesting. The West can work with Russia, Pakistan and others to shape a neutrality treaty and can assist where appropriate in countering foreign fighters like Al Qaeda and the Taliban seeking to penetrate Afghan territory. But the West needs to leave security to the provinces, and work with a much smaller central government tasked with dispensing aid to the provinces, control of the Army and collecting taxes. But the provinces cannot, nor need, manage large police forces. In the earlier interview, Olivier underscored the following remarks by Johan: There is indeed an insurgency in Afghanistan because you have 30 000 or 40 000 rebel fighters – according to allied military intelligence – backed by millions of Afghan civilians, in growing numbers, who feed them, house them, transport them, protect them, give them information and so on. These civilians are doing it foremost to drive foreign troops out of the country and in rejection of the system we are trying to impose, but do not want the return to power of the mullahs either. Withdrawing our troops is therefore the right strategy to effectively drive a wedge between the rebels and their supporters. This famous momentum, this magic moment where the power relationship can be reversed, will come from fair and complete withdrawal of foreign forces, because then the fate of the country will return to its population. Then the Afghan security forces, as they exist today, would very well be capable, with the help of villagers, of chasing away those rebels on motorcycles mainly armed with Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers, whose most lethal know-how is simply to trigger explosives remotely. The strategy of “always more” prevalent until today for the Afghan security forces is a dangerous illusion: more troops, more money, more power to the central government, all of this is counter-productive, it fuels the insurgency! We are building oversized security forces in Afghanistan that the country is far from being able to afford. We imagine a police state, supported from abroad, which would subject the population to the decisions of Kabul. We imagine building in a few years, for one of the poorest countries in the world, an army that could successfully maintain in power a hyper-centralized system. This is not sustainable.” Let’s remember, for the record, that the Afghan government, which now has 140, 000 military and 109, 000 police officers, aims at a 240,000 military and 240,000 police officers force. And that is for a country of about 20 million inhabitants. In comparison, France, for a population three times larger, has fewer than 170,000 military personnel (ground and air) and 265 000 gendarmes and police officers. *** SLD: In your view, why will the current strategy fail? Johan Freckhaus: Because we are part of the problem. The political model is wrong. We need to return to 2002 where we had more limited and realistic objectives in a certain sense. We are seeking to build too large

Page 24 of an army and too large of a police force to support a model of government, which cannot be sustained. By the way, who is going to invade Afghanistan after we leave? We are building unstable equilibrium, not stability. It looks like it could stand but any kind of disturbances tend to bring the system down, and we need to spend a lot of energy – blood, toil, sweat and money – to maintain it. The political model is wrong. We need to return to 2002 where we had more limited and realistic objectives in a certain sense. We are seeking to build too large of an army and too large of a police force to support a model of government, which cannot be sustained. SLD: So, we declare victory. Freckhaus: We should have declared victory in Afghanistan at the end of 2001, after a regime that was oppressing its own people, lying to the world and supporting terrorism collapsed under our joint military action. On the other hand, what was called the “war on terror” goes on and this is not a kind of struggle that ends with a statement. On the Afghan battlefield, better than declaring victory we must acknowledge mistakes. There is a Nation over there with several ethnic groups used to live together on the same land for centuries. The so-called State building went wrong. The central government should be no more than a clearinghouse for development. We should not build up the power of the President to become a dictator for the country. SLD: But we’re focusing on basically provincial police and security. We can call it an American National Guard; the kind of people who belong to the states. Freckhaus: We built the Afghan National Army, but they are dedicated to defend their country against foreign forces. The ANA is reluctant for counterinsurgency, because they are Afghan insurgents. There is no more. Let’s consider insurgency like a part of your own people supporting armed and organized rebellion groups. If you ask the Afghan Army to fight Afghan insurgents, they don’t want to; when you leave, they will stop fighting their own people, I’m sure. They are likely to look for local deals or even recognize another leadership considered as more legitimate than a foreign-backed central government. SLD: Could you discuss your concept about the relevance of the Swiss model and the relevance of bargained neutrality? Freckhaus: We need to enforce neutrality of Afghanistan by making Pakistan become a signatory to an argument and an enforcer of the accord. Making them part of a Western counter-insurgent strategy will not be considered legitimate by the Pakistani military. Pakistan plays against Afghanistan because they don’t want Afghanistan to play with India against them. Iran plays the same dirty game because they don’t want Afghanistan to play with the U.S. against them. And actually, we are there because we don’t want Afghanistan to play again with a terrorist organization against us. That is the great game. But to end it, to neutralize Afghanistan, let’s come back to the old story. There is no sustainable way but make Afghanistan neutral and give up on this idea of “strategic partnership”. No Afghanistan against us or with our enemies; that is all what we need. SLD: Please explain the Swiss model. Freckhaus: The history of Europe can help to understand what happens now in central Asia. If we compare Afghanistan to Switzerland, at the beginning of the 19th century or the end of the 18th century, we can see a way ahead. You have the problem of the cities and the countryside. Switzerland is a rural country at that time, conservative, religious with many proud people living in remote valleys. Like Afghans now are really conservative and religious and rejects the modernizing initiatives of the cities and the central government when it comes to cultural values and morality. In 18th century Switzerland, the cities and urban elites supported the French revolution; the countryside did not. The urban elites even asked the French troops to come in to enforce the revolution, the same way that the Afghan urban elites have heavily solicitated for decades the Soviets and the West to help empowering a new generation for the progress of their own country. The French did an organized Switzerland in a centralized way with appointed governors. This failed. For four years, the French troops occupied Switzerland and enforced centralization. Eventually Napoleon got the point. A group of French senators were sent to Switzerland to see what they could do to do solve the issue there. The group of senators came back to Napoleon, to the emperor, and said okay, we have a problem because the political model is not correct; it’s wrong for this country. We have to come back to what was Switzerland before the centralization and to give back the power for people to sort their problems at the village level, with an arbitrator chosen by themselves, sitting at an upper level, and who can solve most issues without necessarily referring to a central authority. There is a famous speech of Napoleon in 1802, in which he said that it’s not for a wise man to try to change the nature of the

Page 25 country in Switzerland. So, we came back to a more decentralized power in Switzerland. And I think it is reversed, this acknowledgement of mistake from Napoleon at that time, must inspire us for Afghanistan. The model we put in 2002 to have a centralized country, actually, the idea is to control the president who controls the government, to control the governor who is supposed to control the province. This is a flawed organization. The power in Afghanistan is not culturally centralized and people want to be involved in any decision… Of course, we have to think about the structure of the government. Should the district and provincial governors be selected by the president? Or elected by the people? Where is the limit between the people organizing themselves at the local level, and the central leadership? How is it that the experts who say that the solution is political only propose to deal with the enemy? Politics is the way you organize the power and we did it wrongly in Afghanistan. Let’s do real politics before asking the Taliban to sign any paper. How is it that we keep consulting historians of guerilla warfare, experts in counter-insurgency, psychological operations or information warfare, but don’t ask any help from specialists in decentralization, federalism and constitution? How is it that the people who studied at the Kennedy School of Government only rely on West Point graduates to find a solution? I strongly believe that the keys are not in the military toolbox. SLD: Could you discuss the significance of the rural population in your thinking? Freckhaus: Afghanistan is a rural country, it’s a conservative country, and it’s a religious country. But the West is talking with urban or emigrated elites who are not too much religious and does not really represent what their country is. I know many of them who think that a dictatorship is the way to bring progress to the mass of illiterate and ignorant farmers. But you will not find a good dictator in Afghanistan and if you concentrate the power in Kabul you will never have enough seats of power for each community to be represented there. Better to send the money to the provinces – I mean to provide them with a budget – and rely on the people, than to ask all the communities to send representatives for request to the ministries in the capital city. Then, you have the Pashtuns who say they are 65% of the population, the Tajiks say they are 40%, the Hazaras 25%, the Uzbeks 15%, etc. Every community pretends that they are the least advantaged by the government. The relationship between Kabul and the provinces must be reinvented. The central government provides development whereas the provinces should provide security. It is not reconstruction before security or security before reconstruction, it should be an exchange of reconstruction for security and security for reconstruction, from two different entities and not all coming from a foreign supported central government. The relationship between Kabul and the provinces must be reinvented. The central government provides development whereas the provinces should provide security. It is not reconstruction before security or security before reconstruction, it should be an exchange of reconstruction for security and security for reconstruction, from two different entities and not all coming from a foreign supported central government. Like the Soviets and the British, we want to talk with modern elites. We want to change the society to fit our objectives; we want to adapt the people to the system. And we are wrong. We believe that it is a question of commitment, of resources, of time. “It will take one generation”; “it will take time as it takes”. I myself believe that it is not going to work… This idea of change and progress are not understood nor believed by the population. We may have some hidden agenda… And this hidden agenda of the West drives the Afghans into the arms of the Taliban. I thought it was interesting about the communists in Afghanistan was that they were in alliance with the Russians for kind of modernization agenda. Which in a certain sense, we’re doing the same thing. SLD: Could you discuss your views on the light footprint role in 2002? Freckhaus: I was in Afghanistan before 2001: after 9/11, Secretary Rumsfeld organized a strategy, and he came out with a light footprint strategy. It was because there was only a small group of experts on Afghanistan and they told him, well… it is complicated. We must not do what the British or Russians did before. So let’s add very light footprint. And there were two objectives; to destroy Al Qaida, and to neutralize the Taliban. Actually, the first idea was not to remove the Taliban from history but to “attack the military capability of the Taliban regime”, as President Bush said. The first, to destroy Al Qaida could not have been achieved, but the neutralization of the Taliban was completed quite quickly because as we say in French “the fruit was ready”. After 9/11, Secretary Rumsfeld organized a strategy, and he came out with a light footprint strategy. It was because there was only a small group of experts on Afghanistan and they told him, well… it is complicated. We must not do what the British or Russians did before. So let’s add very light footprint. And there were two

Page 26 objectives; to destroy Al Qaida, and to neutralize the Taliban. Actually, the first idea was not to remove the Taliban from history, but to “attack the military capability of the Taliban regime”, as President Bush said. The first, to destroy Al Qaida could not have been achieved, but the neutralization of the Taliban was completed quite quickly because as we say in French “the fruit was ready”. But then, in the months in 2002, we changed; there were many new experts of Afghanistan coming with an experience of Africa, with an experience of the Balkans, with an experience of South-East Asia, etc. All these people came with new ideas, new experiences, and the big machinery… They knew little about the real nature of the country and wanted to make a nation building, state building and organize the country like we would like. So, we lost the main first ideas, and we went to the wrong direction. And because things went badly we just added more resources to deepen our commitment and engagement. So we say okay, we need more. We need more troops; we need more money, we need more commitment. We need more time. And to me, that we are going the wrong way, and we’re going there faster. We cannot reach the point we want to go. SLD: The final thing I just want to go back on one of the things we were talking about, which is the notion of the transition we need to do now. We put the Swiss model on the table; we have a Congress of Vienna, kind of concept of getting folks in the region to accept the neutrality of Afghanistan as the legitimate objective for the country. We can then transition militarily out of this situation. And really, focus on the central government as the development center for the country, not so much the governing and national army kind of focus. Beginning to focus more as a partner for international institutions to build development acceptable to the Afghan people. Underlying that is that you reminded us of the rural/urban divide, in that most Afghans are rural. So, probably the development that they would value would reinforce the rural existence, not impose a new urban existence on them. So, just your final thoughts on that. Freckhaus: I do believe the rural people of Afghanistan can provide the security. They are their own masters in their village and in their house. And if they want to keep the Taliban away, they can do it. But now the Taliban are their guests, and it’s our big problem. They are living with the people, because the people open their door to the Taliban. Doing so, they do what they think has to be done: fighting the foreigners and the hidden agenda. But we cannot get back the people with counter insurgency model. Building the wrong political model, and actually occupying the country with more and more troops. We have to send a very strong message, like we tried to do, actually. I do believe the rural people of Afghanistan can provide the security. They are their own masters in their village and in their house. And if they want to keep the Taliban away, they can do it. But now the Taliban are their guests, and it’s our big problem. They are living with the people, because the people open their door to the Taliban. Doing so, they do what they think has to be done: fighting the foreigners and the hidden agenda. But we cannot get back the people with counter insurgency model. In the last year, there were two messages. One message from the political side, like Secretary Clinton. You hear the diplomats say we are not here to occupy the country. The Afghan people must understand that we are not occupiers. So, this speech and the other one where the military will say we are here as long as necessary. We are very committed, and we have to stay until the job is done. So, the Afghan are faced with these two speeches, and which one do you think they believe is the true one? When he does the surge in Afghanistan, President Obama focuses on counter-insurgency, not constitutional reform. America must acknowledge mistake and focus now on giving back the power to the Afghan people, as well as building the neutrality of the country. One of the consequences is a foreign withdrawal with commitment by the international community to closely monitor the neutrality. Table of Contents

‘Be Prepared For the Cyber War After The Physical War’ – Commander Of The Army From Media Centre for National Security (Sri Lanka), 22 Feb 2011 Lieutenant General Jagath Jayasuriya, Commander of the Army during a Conference on Cyber Warfare - 2011 at Colombo Galadari hotel on Tuesday (22) opined that the whole world is now faced with an emerging threat of a ‘Cyber War’ as cyberspace is the information superhighway across the entire world having made the concept of a ‘global village’ a reality. The keynote address for the ‘Cyber Warfare Workshop - 2011,’ organized by the department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Moratuwa and the Information Technology and Communications Engineering Sectional Committee of the Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka, was delivered by the Commander of the Army Lieutenant General Jagath Jayasuriya on “Strategic Dimensions of Cyber Warfare”.

Page 27 Prof. Ananda Jayawardena, President of the Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka, Dr. Shantha Fernando, University of Moratuwa, Lieutenant Colonel Dr. Chandana Gamage, University of Moratuwa, Dr. Prathiba Mahanamahewa, Mrs Vishaka Nanayakkara, Head of the Computer Science and Engineering Department, University of Moratuwa, Ms. Umashanthi Pavalanathan, University of Moratuwa, Mr. Johann nallathambi, University of Moratuwa, Lieutenant Colonel (Retd) Athula Samarasinghe, University of Moratuwa, Mr Malinda Seneviratne, Freelance Journalist and Ms Piumi Nanayakkara, University of Moratuwa were among other contributing speakers at the workshop. Mr. Nimal Athukorala, Secretary Ministry of Telecommunication and Information Technology also graced the opening ceremony as Guest of Honour. Presentations during the sessions covered related areas of interest such as ‘Self Financed Private Armies of the Internet’, ‘Network Centric Warfare’, ‘Asymmetric Power on the Cyber Front’, The Cyber Sun Tzu’, ‘Stuxnet: The First purpose Built Cyber Weapon’, ‘Lawless on the Cyber Frontier’ and a few other demonstrations. Here is the full text of the Army Commander’s keynote address; Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen. We can define a conflict as a struggle carried on with the use of arms between nations or parties who are having contending wishes by land, sea, or air. This is the physical space which we talk about and we have won the 30 years of physical war in Sri Lanka. But warfare has not come to an end by eliminating terrorists from this country. We and the whole world whether there is any physical war or not are faced with another war which is known as “Cyber War”. You know that after the World War II there was something called Cold War among the nations. The aim of the involved nations was to develop their technology and reach milestones before the opposing nations, having the fear of another World War. This was prominent between US and USSR at that time. Traditionally to win a war the essential components are the Fire Power of the army, Maneuver capability, Protection of men and equipment, Standard of leadership, Status of morale, last but not the least Information and Intelligence where you know about yourself and the enemy. Efforts are made to keep your information as secret as possible while obtaining enemy information as much as possible. As you know, Information is the resource, target and the weapon in Information Warfare. The field of Information and Communication Technology facilitates processing and transferring of information better than any traditional medium. Cyberspace is the Information Superhighway across the entire world. This has given rise to Cyber Warfare which is an emerging threat to the entire world. Cyberspace has made the popular concept of Global Village a reality. There is no need for me to define what cyberspace is as you all are aware of it. In general cyber warfare can be defined as “actions by nations or groups to penetrate another nation's or group’s computers, networks or websites through the Cyberspace for the purposes of causing damage or disruption”. To make it simple it is “a war combated in the medium of Cyberspace other than the traditional mediums of land, water or air”. I do not intend to talk much on theoretical aspects of cyber warfare. You already know that there are several types of cyber attacks such as Virus and worm attacks, Denial of Service attacks (DoS), Web defacements of informational sites and unauthorized intrusions into systems. You must also know that unsolicited emails, bogus websites, chat programs, remote controlling software, web applications, software updates, free software with malicious codes, Trojans and etc. etc. are the main vulnerabilities we have. But when it comes to practical aspects there are many strategic issues which we have to deal with. It is not a secret that 9/11 attack was the eye opener for United States and whole world on Terrorism. United States of America’s image as the “World Superpower” was tarnished with this attack. Since most of you are with some technical background you understand the gravity of cyber warfare. But an ordinary person would never think that a cyber attack can cause more or less a similar sort of damage as of 9/11. Of course a cyber attack might not kill people as in a physical attack. But who knows what future technology is capable of? Let us draw our attention on some case studies to understand this better. WikiLeaks is the most popular name which is talked these days with respect to cyber warfare of 21st- century. WikiLeaks leaked some 250,000 classified State Department information and became a popular rebellion amongst hundreds or thousands of tech-savvy activists. You must have read a lot about WikiLeaks, so I would not talk much about that. Do you know what happened to Estonia in 2007? A number of government and corporate sites in Estonia, including Estonian parliament, banks, ministries, newspapers and broadcasters were hacked and entire Estonian network came to a point that it was

Page 28 useless. Estonian authorities traced those attacks to Russia, and suggested they had been orchestrated by the Kremlin and that charge was denied by Moscow. Some refer to this attack as Cyber War 1. Another good example is Stuxnet computer worm which targeted mainly the industrial equipment. This was first discovered in July 2010 by Virus Blok Ada, a security firm based in Belarus. This worm had the ability to reprogram industrial systems and probable target is said to have been high valued Siemens controlled infrastructures in Iran. You might be surprised to hear that the infestation by this worm said to have damaged Iran's nuclear facilities in Natanz and eventually delayed the start up of Iran's Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant. Siemens initially stated that the worm had not caused any damage, but on November 29, Iran confirmed that its nuclear program had indeed been damaged by Stuxnet. So far I did not mention any physical disasters caused by a cyber attack. In 1982, the CIA showed how a piece of code that changes the workings of a system could cause a physical damage. The agency exploded a Soviet gas pipeline in Siberia without using a missile or bomb, but a string of computer code. This is a classic example to show that even assassinations are possible with cyber attacks in near future. Those are few of the examples from around the world. But don’t forget that during the humanitarian operation our web site also encountered a web defacement attack. Even at present there are continuous efforts been made to hack into our network which we have successfully defended up to now. Ladies and Gentlemen, There is nothing you can name which does not have some connection to the cyberspace. You name anything, all the information is available in the cyberspace. Every organization depends at least to some extent from the cyberspace and sooner or later the dependency would reach to a compelled state. More you depend more you become vulnerable. If we talk about the Sri Lankan context during the civil war, main targets were the three forces, even though civilians and economic institutions were also bombed and attacked. If Sri Lanka is going to be attacked through cyberspace who would be the targets? It would not only be the armed forces or state leaders, it would be you all as well. There are anti-Sri Lankan forces and pro- LTTE activists around the world. The number of pro-LTTE websites launching false propaganda are thousands in numbers and even at this moment there may be hundreds of thousands of people reading them and looking at this country with an awful eye. At this moment I guarantee that no one can launch any physical attack on Sri Lanka. Though they do not have any room in the physical space, they have plenty of room to launch attacks on the cyberspace. We know LTTE as our enemy since they have been our enemy in the physical space for almost 30 years. But the number of enemies who are looking forward to declare war on Sri Lanka through cyberspace may be much more than LTTE. We might never be able to know who they are and what their targets going to be. To damage or destroy a nation it is not compulsory to attack the government and the armed forces of that country. There are various representatives here who are connected to the cyberspace including bank officials. Just assume what would happen if your Servers are attacked and financial information is compromised? Can you recover from such a disaster? How long would it take to recover? How long can your bank be kept closed? If your financial information is manipulated then what would you tell your customers? Are you ready for such situation? If one of your bank goes down for 8 hours then that will affect many other organizations and ultimately the entire country will be in a chaotic situation just like what happened in Estonia. Of course you may be having Firewalls, Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems and all sorts of security systems. But do you maintain them properly? Do you do enough amount of monitoring and do you have sufficient amount of logs. It is easy to have IT Security systems implemented. But you have to make sure that you have the correct configuration in your security systems. You must also continuously monitor those systems internally and externally to ensure that there are no loopholes or vulnerabilities. Think of it like this. When you have guarded all your ports of entries against external threats you may feel that no intruders could come into your systems from outside. But some internal person in your organization, who has some degree of authority, could open a window to outside in a secretive manner. How would you tackle such a situation? If it is a passive attack you may never know that your system has been compromised. Therefore, apart from external attacks you need to prepare yourself against internal attacks as well. Make sure that you have the best user authentication and authorization process implemented in your Information System.

Page 29 In case of an attack, after defusing you should do a postmortem analysis first and identify the loophole which triggered that attack. Secondly, action should be taken to prevent such attack happening in future. Proper documentation should be maintained to record all incidents with respect to cyber security and cyber attacks. Other than an IT Policy, you should have an IT Security Policy as well and it should be a part of the Organization Policy which is enforced on all the employees of your organization. Frequent Internal and External IT Audits, Penetrations tests are compulsory to guarantee that your system is not vulnerable in the cyberspace. The main responsibility of countering the civil war was the responsibility of armed forces. But countering a possible cyber war which would definitely become a true threat for this country very soon is not the responsibility of armed forces alone. It is a responsibility of yours as well. In combating this, all of us, service providers, banking sector, manufacturing sector, government sector together with armed forces must become soldiers and warriors before been victims of it. Cyber or Digital forensic is a very difficult activity. But having high level forensic mechanisms is compulsory in national and organizational level. For this purpose and to ensure cyber security and face cyber wars, this country and your organizations require cyber warriors. On top of all the technological aspects, development of our human resources as cyber soldiers should be the first step towards making a peaceful cyberspace for Sri Lanka. Ladies and Gentlemen, I know that you are very much aware about the technical aspects of cyber warfare. But battling a cyber war is not just a battle of bits and bytes. It is going to be a collective effort of yours and ours. We all should be in the same big picture and we all must be prepared for cyber threats which are imminent in the near future. I hope you understood the strategic points which I tried to emphasize and wish you all be the pioneers of cyber security force in Sri Lanka. Thank You! Table of Contents

BBG: Middle East Unrests Means Interference, Cyber Attack From Radio World, 02.22.2011 As more protests unfold in the Middle East, the overseer of U.S. international broadcasting says its outlets serving that area face increased satellite signal interference as well as a web Domain Name System attack. The Broadcasting Board of Governors oversees U.S. international broadcasting such as the Voice of America and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, including Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa. BBG officials say on Feb. 21, an unknown party hacked the Voice of America’s primary domain name (VOANews.com), along with numerous related domains registered with Network Solutions. Web users were directed to a site claiming to be run by a group called the “Iranian Cyber Army.” “Technology is chipping away at the stranglehold on free and fair information inside Iran,” stated BBG member said Dana Perino, who added that VOA News is committed to “providing the news at it happens in a variety of ways so that every Iranian that can get access to the free media can benefit from our journalists’ reporting.” BBG said the DNS attack directing users away from the VOA site did not compromise VOA servers and no data was lost. It is investigating the event to determine who is responsible. Also, since Feb. 13, there has been intermittent but frequent interference of VOA’s Persian News Network and RFE’s Radio Farda satellite signals with programming in Persian for audiences in Iran, the organization said. As of Feb. 21, that escalated to “a continuous service interruption on one satellite channel carrying VOA’s PNN,” according to BBG. PNN is carried on three other satellite paths as well as online, including a TV satire, “Parazit.” “Millions” of the show’s fans use proxy servers to access the program through social media sites like Facebook and YouTube, according to BBG. In the last month, Facebook recorded more than 20 million impressions on Parazit’s page Table of Contents

Page 30 U.S. Central Command 'Friending' the Enemy in Psychological War By Shaun Waterman, Washington Times, 1 March 2011 The U.S. Central Command is stepping up psychological warfare operations using software that allows it to target social media websites used by terrorists. The Tampa, Fla.-based military command that runs the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan recently bought a special computer program that troops use to create multiple fake identities on the Internet. The military uses the fictitious identities to infiltrate groups and in some cases spread disinformation among extremist organizations such as al Qaeda and the Taliban with the goal of disrupting their operations, according to documents and U.S. officials. The program is aimed at helping troops create and maintain realistic online personalities that will persuade extremists to allow them into chat rooms and bulletin boards by creating the appearance that they are logging on and posting messages or other contributions from anywhere in the world. Information operations generally are carried out by U.S. special-operations forces. The software is used for what the military calls "information operations" that use "classified social media activities outside the United States to counter violent extremist ideology and enemy propaganda," Centcom spokesman Cmdr. Bill Speaks told The Washington Times. Information operations include activities designed "to influence, disrupt, corrupt or usurp adversarial human and automated decision-making while protecting our own," according to Pentagon documents. Such activities include disinformation campaigns, or military deception; computer network operations, or hacking; and what used to be called psychological warfare operations or "psy-ops," but is now referred to as "military information support operations." Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates issued a memo this year directing that military information support operations replace psychological warfare and transferring oversight and management of information operations from defense intelligence officials and to the Pentagon's policymaking directorate. He said the change would enable better coordination of activities across the Pentagon and throughout the U.S. government. Under Mr. Gates' order, U.S. Strategic Command, where the military's new cyberwarfare arm is based, will concentrate on military computer hacking and cyber defenses. The Joint Staffs will take responsibility for deception operations and Special Operations Command will take the lead in military information support operations. Deception operations can be strategic and tactical and can be aimed at supporting U.S. policies or small-scale operations. Former CIA Director and retired Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden said in an interview that information operations like those at Centcom, using social media, are the cutting edge of U.S. military and intelligence activities that often require officials to rapidly determine how long-established rules and limits apply in the borderless world of the Internet. "I think a good word would be developmental," Mr. Hayden said. "Operationally developmental, technologically developmental and legally developmental." Centcom purchased the $2.7 million software from San Diego-based Ntrepid, the same company that markets "Anonymizer," a popular online tool that lets users hide their identities and locations on the Web. The company and its executives did not respond to several requests for comment. According to military procurement documents, the software will "enable an operator to exercise a number of different online persons from the same workstation and without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries." "Personas must be able to appear to originate in nearly any part of the world," the documents stated. Any computer that logs on to the Web generally does so from its unique Internet location, known as an Internet Protocol or IP address. The addresses often can be tracked back to specific corporations or agencies, and sometimes are pinpointed geographically. The software generates false IP addresses that are not linked to the U.S. military, thus making them appear to originate from specified parts of the world, the documents stated. "The service includes a user-friendly application environment to maximize the user's situational awareness by displaying real-time local information," the document said, a reference to information it can generate about the time, weather and local news in the pretend location of the fake persona.

Page 31 The growth of a single global information culture and the growing ubiquity of the Internet pose challenges for U.S. military psy-ops warriors who are barred by law and policy from targeting U.S. audiences. Traditional information operations such as leaflets can be dropped on enemy troops, making it easy to exclude U.S. audiences. "Leaflets don't blow across the world," said Isaac Porsche, a researcher at the Rand Corp. who has written about information operations. "That's not the case" with Internet communications, he added. "Cyberspace doesn't have borders," he said. The issue is further complicated by the most popular social media sites that are owned and operated by U.S. companies that enjoy many of the same rights and protections as citizens under U.S. law. The social networking site Facebook, for example, says that any effort to create false identities is a violation of the terms of service agreement required of all users. "Facebook has always been based on a real-name culture," spokesman Andrew Noyes said. "It's a violation of our policies to use a fake name or operate under a false identity, and we encourage people to report anyone they think is doing this." He said the company had a special team that reviews these reports and "takes action as necessary." Cmdr. Speaks said the Central Command program operates only on overseas social media sites. "We do not target U.S. audiences, and we do not conduct these activities on sites owned by U.S. companies," he said. But restrictions like these placed on information operations are sometimes irksome to the troops carrying them out, Mr. Porsche said. "At the lowest echelon of the actual operators," he said, "there are complaints there that there's too many hoops they have to jump through. ... In a firefight, if you're shot at, you return fire immediately. ... The people who have to do the missions are always the ones who want to move the fastest." But Mr. Porsche said the limitations on "returning fire" in information operations were necessary. "You can't just unleash an operation. It has to be coordinated. "There are a lot of checks and balances," he said. John Delong, an official in charge of overseeing operations at the National Security Agency, the electronic signals intelligence and code-breaking agency, said he could not comment specifically on the Centcom operation. But he said it was a challenge in these emerging and dynamic areas to "play aggressively right up to the line" of what was allowed under law and policy. "Sometimes people think of the rules as these things that are fixed on paper," he said. "They're constantly changing; they interact with each other. There are constantly [new] interpretations coming down both internally and externally." Table of Contents

Space and Cyberspace Forces Train For the Fight By Capt Kinder Blacke, Air Force Space Command Public Affairs, 3/11/2011 3/11/2011 - PETERSON AFB, Colo. -- Air Force Space Command space and cyberspace forces have joined the tactical fight in the realistic combat training exercise, Red Flag that kicked off February 21 at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. This intense training exercise, which runs through March 11, involves the air forces of the United States and its allies in simulated air combat on the vast Nevada Test and Training Range Complex. Over the past four decades, Red Flag has continued to evolve to provide the most realistic training environment possible. Red Flag affords Airmen the opportunity to practice tactics throughout the full spectrum of tactical warfare, which now includes space and cyber warfare more than ever before, and AFSPC professionals are playing an increasingly critical role from the planning stages through execution and debrief. "Red Flag 11-3 is slated to be the largest in years; the exercise will integrate [coalition air, surface, space and cyber] forces operating in a contested electromagnetic spectrum environment," said an Air Combat Command spokesperson. Lieutenant Col. Jeb Bass, director, Distributed Mission Operations Center-Space, has spear-headed efforts to make Red Flag 11-3 a more heavily contested and degraded operational environment than ever before. Armed with a team of professional exercise planners at the DMOC-S, Colonel Bass is tasked by HQ AFSPC to plan and execute space and cyberspace participation in these exercises, including scenario development,

Page 32 exercise control, and ensuring an exercise environment that facilitates achievement of AFSPC-desired learning objectives. "We provide the opportunity for space and cyberspace operators to conduct operations in a realistic training environment," said Colonel Bass. "This allows them to benefit from lessons learned in a secure environment rather than on the battlefield." "Current and future threats require the US Air Force to depart from the traditional 'air-centric' Red Flag model to allow operators to prepare for asymmetric attacks in all warfighting domains," said Colonel Bass. "Integrating AFSPC space and cyberspace operations into Red Flag is a significant step forward to meet and defeat these threats. Our participation in Red Flag instills confidence that AFSPC forces can meet and defeat space and cyberspace threats." For the first time in Red Flag history, space and cyberspace units are being considered a "training audience" rather than merely a "training aid," ensuring other forces' training objectives are met, explained Colonel Bass. "As a training audience HQ AFSPC defines specific desired learning objectives for space and cyberspace units to meet, in addition to aiding the training of air domain participants," he said. "These learning objectives include executing space and cyberspace operations in a contested environment against a 'thinking' adversary, defending operational networks to preserve mission assurance, measuring synchronized space and cyberspace command and control processes in the Air Operations Center environment, and performing cross-domain mission planning to meet theater objectives," Colonel Bass added. Through conducting these space and cyberspace operations, important lessons are learned that facilitate the improvement of tactics, techniques and procedures for future conflicts, he said. Additionally, Red Flag 11-3 is the first large-force exercise to employ the new Non-kinetic Operations Coordination Cell concept at the Combined Air Operations Center. "The NKO Coordination Cell is a command and control construct that integrates airborne electronic warfare, network warfare and space control capabilities with theater kinetic operations," he explained. AFSPC cyber and space operators are leading many of these cells, making them key players in the exercise, he said. And that is far from the only area of the exercise where AFSPC professionals are involved. "Airmen from across the command have contributed to the success of Red Flag from initial planning of the event to execution of the full spectrum of space and cyberspace capabilities," Colonel Bass said. Table of Contents

Red Flag Cyber Operations: Part II - Cyber Operators Stand against Red Team 'Aggressors' By Tech. Sgt. Scott McNabb, 24th Air Force Public Affairs, Air Force Space Command, 3/11/2011 NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. -- It's not supposed to be easy. For the first time in Red Flag exercise history, cyber and space operators are a fully integrated part of the friendly forces "blue team" that defend the interest of the United States and her allies against the aggressors of the "red team." "It's imperative that our operators are faced with difficult scenarios. The intent is that they learn from the high pressure scenarios to rapidly and deliberately integrate their unique skills and capabilities with air and space forces to better prepare them grow as cyber operators and as leaders," said Col. Mark Ware, 24th Air Force director of operations. "When the other Airmen participating in Red Flag see the impact on flying and space operations with and without cyber support, they should better understand what their cyber teammates bring to the fight and how we can all work together to defeat our adversaries." Initial results from the realistic combat training exercise indicate the blue team's cyber operators made it through early struggles to reach mission success and, in some cases, shut down various red team capabilities before they were employed. "The way I see it, in ancient Greek or Roman times, warriors wore 60 to 70 pounds of armor," said 2nd Lt. Louis Murphy, who belongs to the 33rd Network Warfare Squadron, but served as commander for the blue team, working out of the Information Operations range, located at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. "Today in Iraq and Afghanistan, they also wear about 60 to 70 pounds of body armor. It's a lot better armor, but it's never perfect. The same is true for cyber. No matter what program you have, it won't be perfect. You adjust and get better."

Page 33 Red team's cyber aggressors are formidable and push the blue team to their very limits. Elements of Red Flag's cyber red team include: - Detachment 2, 318th Information Operations Group, charged with creating an exercise scenario that will allow for realistic cyber play and integration with standard kinetic operations; - The 57th Information Aggressor Squadron provides the cyber targets for U.S. Air Force cyber warfighters; - The 177th Information Aggressor Squadron, Kansas Air National Guard, is the sister squadron to the 57th IAS. These units along with some individual Reserve Airmen provide a wide breadth of opposition for the blue team to lock horns with. Capt. Christian Fisher, Det. 2 Exercise Flight commander, said he and others worked on scenarios for months to optimize the training experience. "It is important for cyber operations to be included in Red Flag so that members of the cyber community can plan and execute a mission alongside the air and space operations communities," said Captain Fisher. "Without integrating those three, no one outside the cyber community is ever going to know where cyber operations are going to be beneficial because they will have no idea what the cyber community is capable of. In order to make cyber operations as effective as they can be they need to be integrated with air and space operations, and the first step of that integration is participating in large force exercises like Red Flag where non-cyber operators can see what cyber brings to the fight." "Seamless integration of joint operations is the ultimate goal for these new efforts in Red Flag," said Maj. Gen. Richard Webber, 24th Air Force commander. "We are elevating the level of training to new heights, in order to learn how to best employ our operational forces to achieve desired effects for the joint and coalition teams." Captain Fisher said the impact of including cyber operations in Red Flag is that it allows for more solutions to the tactical problems that are presented to the exercise participants. "In some cases cyber operations may allow for a similar but less persistent effect on a target set than dropping a bomb, which may be more beneficial in the long term depending on what the desired end state is," he said. "It's really how Red Flag continues to be a premier training event for the Air Force even as the operational environment changes based on the evolution of technology." Maj. Frank Lyons, 57th IAS team chief, gave an example of a possible scenario his red aggressors would test the blue team with. "We (the red team) set up a cyber café where a terrorist is uploading the latest propaganda video to a server so all his buddies can see it," he said. "The blue forces would do something to either prevent the video from being seen, or to prevent the terrorist from having Internet access." Each cyber aggressor team varies in size according to the mission. For Red Flag 11-3, there are 24 team members operating as the adversary. Maj. Drew Bjerken, 177th IAS Weapons and Tactics Flight commander and overall Red Flag 11-3 red team mission commander, said he looks forward to presenting a cyber adversary that is reactive and in some cases aggressive rather than only providing targets as in years past. The majority of the red team offensive cyber operators come from the 177th IAS while the majority of the red team defenders belong to the 57th IAS. "Allowing red to go offensive presents blue net defenders their first opportunity to integrate so deeply into Red Flag," said Major Bjerken. "This integration is key, as Air and Space Operations Centers commanders know what to do when they are under attack by air or ground forces, but often they are unaware of how to react and what needs to be done when under attack by cyber forces." Chief Master Sgt. Kevin Slater, 24th Air Force command chief, said operations integration may be the most important success story of this exercise. "Cyber's integration into Red Flag is as much about educating our air and space teammates on the critical mission assurance attributes of cyber as it is an opportunity to further our efforts to operationalize the cyber domain and the cyber warriors who operate in it," he explained. Cyber operators taking part in Red Flag didn't happen overnight. Captain Fisher said he, personally, has been integrating cyber operations into U.S. Warfare Center exercises, to include Red Flag, for two years now. He said Det. 2, 318th IOG has been doing this for almost six years. "This was the next logical step as we continue to mature Air Force cyber operations. We are building a "Culture of Cyber" in the Air Force, structuring cyber training in the model of air and space operations training," said General Webber. "Red Flag is the best tactical exercise in the world and adding cyber to the 'fight' made sense because the cyber domain is integral to the Air Force's ability to fly, fight and win. Our

Page 34 operators are getting right alongside their air and space counterparts, testing their abilities in realistic wartime situations. This will make Red Flag more realistic and train our Airmen to make the right decisions when things get tough." Captain Fisher said a successful exercise is one where the participants learn something. He wants cyber operators to walk away from this exercise with a better understanding of operations outside of the cyber community, based on their interaction with everyone else during this exercise. "I think the biggest area for improvement for the cyber community is going to come from the lessons that we learn in running the command and control of cyber operations within the AOC," he said. "Currently there exist a handful of theories on how to best integrate and control cyber operations within the AOC; this will be one of the first exercises where we will be executing operations based on some of those theories. When the exercise is done, we should be able to walk away with a much clearer understanding of where cyber operations fits into the AOC structure and what the best way to C2 cyber operations within the AOC is." The final week of Red Flag 11-3 is underway and cyber inputs will add the crescendo to this unique exercise. General Webber said he looks forward to studying the results of the exercise, and is thankful the men and women in cyber operations will be able to take their experiences back with them. "The red team is truly testing the skills of our blue team members, but the blue team continues to counter the attacks and strengthen the defense," he said. "As tactical cyber involvement grows within Red Flag and more of our operators get the opportunity to take part in the exercises, we will create a more seasoned, battle- ready cyber force. I hope that our cyber, space and air operators all come away from this exercise with an appreciation for each other's missions, and bring back to real-life operations a sense of how to better coordinate and integrate for greater operational results." Table of Contents

N. Korea Jammed GPS Signal in S. Korea, Say Reports From Reuters (via MSNBC), 3/6/2011 SEOUL — North Korea is responsible for the disruption of GPS signals in some part of South Korea's capital region last week that caused malfunctions in mobile phones, media reports quoted officials as saying on Sunday. Communications officials could not say whether the North was behind separate cyber attacks on government websites including that of the presidential Blue House and the Defense Ministry since Friday that slowed or disabled them for hours. If the North were responsible for either or both of the incidents, it could mark an escalation of tension between the rivals already high from two attacks on South Korean territory last year and ensuing exchange of threats of war and retaliation. North Korea was suspected of a massive wave of cyber attacks on U.S. and South Korean government and corporate websites in 2009. Signals intended to disrupt GPS and other wireless communications were detected originating in North Korea's border cities of Kaesong and Haeju on Friday, Yonhap news agency quoted military officials as saying. The signals resulted in the disruption of some mobile phone functions that use GPS signals, such as network- based clocks, electronics devices used by artillery units in the South, and some equipment at commercial organizations, Yonhap quoted the officials as saying. South Korea's Defense Ministry did not comment on the report. The signal-scrambling may have been intended to disrupt the joint military drills by South Korean and U.S. forces that run until March 10, Yonhap said. In a separate attack on personal computers, malicious software have been used in cyber attacks on some government agency Web sites since Friday, but no serious damage has been reported. Telecommunications authorities and the police are working to determine the source of the software. Table of Contents

Page 35 Glossy 'Jihad Cosmo' Combines Beauty Tips with Suicide Bombing Advice From Daily Mail, 13 March 2011 Al-Qaeda has launched a women's magazine that mixes beauty and fashion tips with advice on suicide bombings. Dubbed 'Jihad Cosmo', the glossy magazine's front cover features the barrel of a sub-machine gun next to a picture a woman in a veil. There are exclusive interviews with martyrs' wives, who praise their husbands' decisions to die in suicide attacks. The slick, 31-page Al-Shamikha magazine - meaning The Majestic Woman - has advice for singletons on 'marrying a mujahideen'. Readers are told it is their duty to raise children to be mujahideen ready for jihad. And the 'beauty column' instructs women to stay indoors with their faces covered to keep a 'clear complexion'. They should 'not go out except when necessary' and wear a niqab for 'rewards by complying with the command of Allah Almighty'. A woman called Umm Muhanad hails her husband for his bravery after his suicide bombing in Afghanistan. And another article urges readers to give their lives for the Islamist cause. It advises: 'From martyrdom, the believer will gain security, safety and happiness.' More traditional content for a women's magazine includes features on the merits of honey facemasks, etiquette, first aid and why readers should avoid 'towelling too forcibly'. A trailer for the next issue promises tips on skin care - and how to wage electronic jihad. The first issue's editorial explains that the magazine's goal is to educate women and involve them in the war against the enemies of Islam. It says: Because women constitute half of the population - and one might even say that they are the population since they give birth to the next generation - the enemies of Islam are bent on preventing the Muslim woman from knowing the truth about her religion and her role, since they know all too well what would happen if women entered the field of jihad. 'The nation of Islam needs women who know the truth about their religion and about the battle and its dimensions and know what is expected of them.' The publication is being distributed online by the same Al-Qaeda media wing behind Inspire, a similarly slick magazine that encourages young Muslims in the West to commit terrorist atrocities. James Brandon at anti-extremism think tank Quilliam, said: 'Al-Qaeda see how effective magazines are at pushing the ideals of western culture and want to try the same thing. 'As a result they have come up with a jihadist's version of Cosmopolitan magazine.' Table of Contents

Task Force Targets Human Network Behind IEDs By Donna Miles, American Forces Press Service, 10 Mar 2011 ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md., March 10, 2011 – What started as a super-secret program to protect ground troops in Iraq from roadside bombs has matured into a coveted asset in Afghanistan, where it provides a persistent surveillance capability against enemy threats, an official who provided materiel support for the program reported. Task Force ODIN was established in 2006 to help in countering the improvised explosive devices that were taking a huge toll on U.S. forces in Iraq. ODIN, also the name of a Norse god of war, is an acronym describing the task force’s counter-IED mission: observe, detect, identify and neutralize. Officials recognized early on that simply identifying and defusing IEDs was only part of the solution, Richard Wittstruck, chief engineer for the Army’s Program Executive Office for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors here, told American Forces Press Service. “We can never forget that the device itself is not the threat,” he said. “It’s the tool used by the threat. So we have to address the tool. But if we don’t also address the threat, then they just come up with a different tool.”

Page 36 So ODIN focused on the human network behind the IED threat, from the people who design and deliver them to the ones who cache them and give the detonation orders. “You want to get as far left of the boom as you can,” Wittstruck said. “You want to get past the emplacement cycle back into the transit cycle, back into the connection cycle, all the way back to the planning cycle, if you can. And then you want to cut it off there so that they don’t get the rest of those steps in place. And Task Force ODIN provides that capability.” Wittstruck and his team, along with their colleagues at Army Material Command, were responsible for designing, developing, producing, fielding and sustaining the elements of Task Force ODIN. They include a family of manned and unmanned aerial platforms, their sensors, the communications data links used to transmit the information they collect and the ground-station operations where analysts turn that information into intelligence. The system proved highly successful after being activated in Iraq in 2007. Two years later, Task Force ODIN brought this new capability to Afghanistan to shore up gaps in the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets supporting ground troops there. Army Maj. John Baynard was commander of Bravo Company, 3rd Battalion, 214th Aviation Regiment’s flight company during that first rotation in Afghanistan. Flying King Air 300 medium-altitude reconnaissance system aircraft over sweeping areas of Regional Command East and Regional Command South, his soldiers provided valuable communications and signals intelligence as well as full-motion video of areas of interest. Meanwhile, various unmanned aerial vehicle platforms augmented their efforts. “Utilizing our high technology, Task Force ODIN coordinated with ground forces to neutralize numerous high- value targets,” Baynard said in a PEO-IEW&S video. “Targets ranged from financiers of insurgent activities to kidnappers, money launderers and guys who performed indirect-fire operations on coalition bases.” In addition to taking high-value targets off the battlefield, Baynard said, his company also provided ground forces early warning of enemy activity in their operating areas. It’s “an essential capability for coalition forces against an adaptable enemy,” he said. Since its first deployment, ODIN has matured to the point that it now provides persistent surveillance over vast geographic areas. “They are surveilling across wide areas of real estate, looking for indications of insurgent activity, and then informing a commander in a near-real-time operation of what the threat and situation is so he can be more effective in his maneuvers,” Wittstruck said. ODIN’s overwatch capability makes it possible to tip off maneuver commanders about anything from movement along a specific goat trail to unusual activities that might indicate enemy operations under way or being planned, Wittstruck said. For example, a local marketplace typically is packed at about 3 every afternoon as families shop for their dinners. What does it mean when, for some unexplainable reason, it’s empty one afternoon? “That’s an indicator that maybe somebody on the ground wants to be notified so they can go seek out and find what it is the locals know that we don’t know about that marketplace today, or what is about to happen at that marketplace,” Wittstruck said. One of Task Force ODIN’s biggest triumphs, he said, is the “true sensor-to-shooter connectivity” it provides as it delivers actionable intelligence to ground forces and warns them of unknown threats. ODIN provides that connectivity, he said, saving lives and improving troops’ combat effectiveness. Wittstruck said he’s particularly proud of the speed with which Defense Department officials fast-tracked funding and development processes and introduced the force structure changes and training needed to deliver Task Force ODIN to the combat theater. “This shows that as a country and as a coalition, we can be agile in a time of war to respond to a threat,” he said. “Task Force ODIN is a testament to that.” Table of Contents

GPS Chaos: How a $30 Box Can Jam Your Life By David Hambling, New Scientist Magazine issue 2803, 06 March 2011 It was just after midday in San Diego, California, when the disruption started. In the tower at the airport, air- traffic controllers peered at their monitors only to find that their system for tracking incoming planes was malfunctioning. At the Naval Medical Center, emergency pagers used for summoning doctors stopped working. Chaos threatened in the busy harbour, too, after the traffic-management system used for guiding boats failed.

Page 37 On the streets, people reaching for their cellphones found they had no signal and bank customers trying to withdraw cash from local ATMs were refused. Problems persisted for another 2 hours. It took three days to find an explanation for this mysterious event in January 2007. Two navy ships in the San Diego harbour had been conducting a training exercise. To test procedures when communications were lost, technicians jammed radio signals. Unwittingly, they also blocked radio signals from GPS satellites across a swathe of the city. Why would a GPS outage cause such disruption? These satellite signals now do a lot more than inform your car's satnav. GPS has become an "invisible utility" that we rely on without realising. Cellphone companies use GPS time signals to coordinate how your phone talks to their towers. Energy suppliers turn to GPS for synchronising electricity grids when connecting them together. And banks and stock exchanges use the satellites for time-stamps that prevent fraud. Meanwhile, our societies' reliance on GPS navigation is growing by the year. Some are worried that we are now leaning too heavily on a technology that can all too easily fail – and it doesn't need a freak navy training exercise to cause havoc. Their biggest concern is a GPS jammer – a plastic device that can sit on car dashboards. These can be bought on the internet, and tend to be used by say, truckers who don't want their bosses to know where they are. Their increasing use has already caused problems at airports and blocked cellphone coverage in several cities. One jammer can take out GPS from several kilometres away, if unobstructed. No surprise, then, that researchers across the world are scrambling to find ways to prevent disastrous GPS outages happening. Weak signal GPS works thanks to radio signals from satellites. The dominant provider is still the US military's NavStar network, with at least 24 satellites operating at any given time, positioned so that you can always see four of them from anywhere on the planet's surface. Each satellite continually broadcasts its location and the time as measured by its on-board atomic clock. A GPS receiver compares the time with its own clock, and then calculates how far it must be from each satellite. Once it locks on to at least four satellites and has accounted for errors, it will discover its precise location. Nowadays, many receivers also use GPS for cheap and convenient access to the accurate time given by the satellites' clocks. "The problem is that the GPS signal is very weak. It's like a car headlight 20,000 kilometres away," says consultant David Last, former president of the UK's Royal Institute of Navigation. You can't boost the signal any further because of the limited power supply on a satellite. Last has first-hand experience of how easy it is to block a GPS signal, and the effects it can have on modern technology. In 2010, he conducted an experiment in the North Sea, aboard the THV Galatea, a 500-tonne ship. The Galatea is the pride of its fleet, with all the latest navigation equipment. Last wanted to find out how it would cope without GPS. So he used a simple jamming device that overwhelmed the GPS signal by broadcasting noise on the same frequency as the satellites. When Last activated the jammer, the ship went haywire. According to the electronic display on the ship's bridge, the Galatea was suddenly flying at Mach speeds over northern Europe and Ireland. Then alarms sounded. The ship's navigation backup – its gyrocompass – crashed, because it uses GPS to provide corrections. The radar did the same. Even the ship's satellite communications failed, because GPS points the antenna in the right direction. "The crew were well trained and briefed, so they knew what was going on," says Last. "But, like us, they were surprised." Truck cheats Last deliberately simulated a simple, commercially available jammer. Though illegal to use in the US, UK and many other countries, these low-tech devices can be bought on the internet for as little as $30. Sellers claim they're for protecting privacy. Since they can block devices that record a vehicle's movements, they're popular with truck drivers who don't want an electronic spy in their cabs. They can also block GPS-based road tolls that are levied via an on-board receiver. Some criminals use them to beat trackers inside stolen cargo. "We originally expected that jammers might be assembled by spotty youths in their bedrooms," says Last. "But now they're made in factories in China." Last is worried that jammers could cause as much havoc on land as he discovered on the Galatea, and he's not alone. In November 2010, a NASA-appointed executive committee for "space-based positioning, navigation and timing" warned that jamming devices could cause disaster if activated in cities. It is not known how many are out there, but the panel is concerned that the risk of interference is growing fast. And in future,

Page 38 devices called "spoofers" – which subtly trick GPS receivers into giving false readings – may make the problem even worse (see "Faking it"). An event last year at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey showed that it only takes one jammer to cause disruption. Airport controllers had installed a new GPS-based landing system, so that aircraft could approach in bad visibility. But it was shutting itself down once or twice a day. It took several months to find the culprit: a driver on the nearby New Jersey Turnpike using a portable GPS jammer to avoid paying the highway toll. This trucker was cruising past twice a day, crippling an airport as he went. Future generations of air-traffic control won't work without GPS – nor will train routing. The US Federal Railroad Administration has GPS at the heart of its plan for smart management of rail traffic. GPS is also increasingly relied upon for guiding emergency services to the scene. Invisible utility What's more, a lot more than navigation ability is lost when GPS fails today. "We rely upon GPS without even being aware of it," says Donald Jewell, who helped to establish GPS from its inception in the US air force, and is now editor of GPS World magazine. It is estimated that more than a billion GPS receivers are now in operation, he says, and more than 90 per cent use the signals only for the accurate time provided by the satellites. Cellphones are a key user of this invisible utility. Towers must synchronise with each other to pass calls to other towers as you move – a GPS time signal offers a cheap and accurate way to do this. The timing offset for each tower is also used to identify it. In fact, many wireless communication technologies use GPS timing for synchronisation. That's probably why the harbour traffic control and emergency pagers failed in San Diego in 2007. Time is money GPS timing can time-stamp financial transactions, such as stock-market trading. And ATMs sometimes communicate wirelessly, using a time-based encrypted code that requires synchronisation. Though it is not known why the cash machines stopped working during the San Diego event, this might have something to do with it. Energy suppliers use GPS time to keep alternating current from various power plants in phase across the grid. If frequency cycles are not matched, two supplies will partially cancel each other out, creating inefficiency. A precise time signal allows operators to pinpoint the start of each cycle. The US power grid, for instance, requires synchronisation between the supplies of over 5000 companies. Yet in 2006, a temporary GPS outage due to sunspot activity meant that energy companies were not able to see where the power was going, which resulted in false billing. Blackouts due to GPS failure are not out of the question. Given the potential for disruption, law-enforcers are trying to crack down on GPS jamming. In February, the US Federal Communications Commission announced a new effort to fine jammer sellers and owners. The problem for western authorities is that most sellers are in east Asia and laws tend only to cover the use of a jammer, not its ownership. Safety net That's part of the reason why navigation researchers are calling for a back-up. To discuss what to do next, many of them will gather for a meeting next week at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, UK. Fortunately, there's a backup right under our noses, and the idea been around since the 1940s. Just like GPS, it provides navigation and accurate timing. It's called Enhanced LORAN (eLORAN). Basic LORAN (for long range navigation) is similar to GPS but uses ground-based radio signals rather than from satellites. It doesn't have global coverage, but does beat GPS on some things. LORAN operates at a far longer wavelength than GPS signals and is more powerful. Both of these features make it virtually impossible to jam. A new version, eLORAN, uses more reliable transmitters and features improved caesium atomic clocks. With software modifications, it is accurate to about 10 metres, as well as providing a time signal of similar accuracy to GPS. It would be easy to modify future receivers to switch over to eLORAN without the user even noticing, says Last. In Europe, a team at the UK's General Lighthouse Authorities has been testing eLORAN, and is now recommending that the UK government rolls it out. Across the Atlantic, however, the US government is taking its current LORAN out of service. And it has so far rejected all advice to fund eLORAN: which would cost about $20 million per year – less than it costs to launch one GPS satellite. "We still hold out hope that someone with some foresight and technical know-how in our government will see the light," says Jewell.

Page 39 Happily, a few decades from now a GPS signal might not be required at all for many things. If atomic clocks get cheaper, then they could be built into everything that needs accurate time. And eventually you'll be able to navigate without any external signals, thanks to devices called "inertial measurement units", which track your movements from a known start point. Today, these IMUs use gyroscopes to measure orientation, plus accelerometers to tell how fast it is accelerating. Using this information, plus time, the acceleration is converted into speed and distance to reveal relative location. Today, IMUs drift about 1.5 kilometres per hour of travel, and are large and expensive. Yet the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency plans to improve performance with a microchip-sized atomic clock and an equally diminutive, accurate acceleration sensor. In the meantime, however, a generation is growing up that has never known life without GPS. As jammers proliferate, GPS outages like San Diego are likely to become more common. So next time you lose your cellphone signal, blame the little black box on a car dashboard a few kilometres away. Get there in a flash Your satnav might one day find its route thanks to the faint flashes of distant lightning. Both GPS and LORAN (see main story, above) are navigation techniques that rely on radio signals to pinpoint your location, but these signals can't penetrate underground or deep inside buildings. Now the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is testing the idea of using radio pulses from lightning instead. These natural atmospheric radio sources – or "sferics" – have a very low frequency, so can penetrate deep underground and even underwater. The military is interested because it would improve navigation in caves and tunnels or for submarines. DARPA's S-BUG receivers detect radio waves emitted by lightning thousands of kilometres away – at any given moment there are around 2000 storms active on the planet. Another device feeds the receiver the exact location and emission time of the sferic so that it can calculate how far away it is. Once several sferics are recorded, the receiver can then use this to discover its location. DARPA is still testing S-BUG. But once a lightning receiver network is fully in place, existing GPS users should require nothing more than an antenna and a software upgrade to use the system, says programme manager Stephanie Tomkins. Faking it Todd Humphreys can trick you into thinking you are somewhere else. He uses a "spoofer" device that causes a GPS receiver to give an inaccurate reading. Humphreys, at the University of Texas at Austin, has no mischief in mind, but built the device to demonstrate how straightforward it is to do. Such spoofers are not on the market yet, but when they are, could cause all sorts of havoc. Unlike a GPS jammer, which has fairly obvious effects, the spoofer's impact is slow and subtle. "The victim usually won't realise they're being spoofed," says Humphreys. "It leaves no trace." Humphrey's GPS spoofer looks like a wireless internet router. It picks up genuine GPS signals and synchronises its output to resemble them. Any nearby receiver will treat this output as a genuine signal from a GPS satellite. The spoofer then gradually alters its time output, changing from the true value by, say, 3 nanoseconds per second. Since GPS receivers use the time signature in a signal to find location or as an easily accessible clock, the error builds up. "The biggest risk is probably complicit spoofing, where someone deliberately misleads their own GPS," says Humphreys. For example, unscrupulous fishing boat captains could spoof GPS to fake their location and fish in forbidden waters. "If mass-produced, they could be made for perhaps $400 to $500," says Humphreys. Such a spoofer could push another ship off course, just as ship-wreckers used to lure vessels onto rocks with false lighthouse lights. Criminals could also spoof GPS timing for profit. The US National Association of Securities Dealers requires financial traders to time-stamp transactions with an accuracy of within 3 seconds. "The bad guys would spoof the timing at their preferred site and, watching an upward trend, buy stock a few seconds in arrears," says Humpreys. "Those three seconds could be worth a lot of money." Table of Contents

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