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In Mexico, restrictions on U.S. agents signal drug war shift While Americans grumble, many in Mexico say it’s time to rein in U.S. drug agents.

#national security #homeland security #intelligence

Outsourcing Lethality By Micah Zenko

True.

Drone warfare just entered into a new era. For the first time, the combat system has been launched from an aircraft carrier.

Defense Department expected to reduce furloughs to 11 days beginning in June Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel will announce plans Tuesday afternoon to reduce the number of furlough days faced by the department's 800,000 civilian workers from 14 days to 11 days, according to Defense officials.

#test

Russia expels a U.S. diplomat accused of spying In an episode that appears intended to embarrass Washington, the arrest is widely publicized.

#Intelligence #national security

Russian officials said Ryan C. Fogle was an officer of the Central Intelligence Agency who had been caught trying to recruit a Russian to spy for the United States.

#national security intelligence

The organizational consequence of this highly quantitative image of defense decision-making is an independent and high-level office of systems analysis (or program analysis) reporting directly to the secretary. This office, separated from the parochialism of the individual services, commands, and functional offices of the Defense Department, is charged with de novo analysis of the services’ program proposals (and, indeed, with the generation of alternative programs) to assess the relative merits of different potential uses of the same dollars. Its activities culminate in the secretary’s decision on a single coherent set of numerically defined programs. This model imposes a requirement for close interaction between the secretary of defense and the principal program analyst. A suitable person for the job is difficult to obtain without granting him or her direct access to the secretary. This model, therefore, requires that the chief program analyst report directly to the secretary and it inevitably limits the program and budget role of the other chief officials of the OSD, especially the principal policy adviser. The model leaves unresolved how the guidance for the analysis process is to be developed and even how choices are to be made. Analysis is not always made rigorous and objective simply by making it quantitative, and not everything relevant can be quantified. At its extreme, it can degenerate into a system in which objectives become important because they can be quantified, rather than quantification being important because it can illuminate objectives.

Walter B. Slocombe, Former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Quoted in his Article “Organization of the OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense]”. A Chapter in the Book “Making Defense Reform Work”, Edited by James A. Blackwell, Jr. & Barry M. Blechman.

#systems analysis #defense policy

#Current Military Operations #military technology #national security policy

The combination of Afghan and allied troops will become the major focus of the effort in Afghanistan until American troops are withdrawn.

#Current Military Operations

Measured in millimeters, the tiny device was designed to allow drones, missiles and rockets to hit targets without satellite guidance. An advanced version was being developed secretly for the U.S. military by a small company and L-3 Communications, a major defense contractor.

Chinese citizen sentenced in military data-theft case

#project defense

We propose to consider first the single elements of our subject, then each branch of part, and, last of all, the whole in all its relations-therefore to advance from the simple to the complex. But it is necessary for us to commence with a glance at the nature of the whole, because it is particularly necessary that in the consideration of any of the parts their relation to the whole be kept constantly in view. We shall not enter into any of the abstruse definitions of War used by publicists. We shall keep to the element of the thing itself, to a duel. War is nothing but a duel on an extensive scale. If we would conceive as a unit the countless number of duels which make up a War, we shall do so best by supposing to ourselves two wrestlers. Each strives by physical force to compel the other to submit to his will: each endeavors to throw his adversary, and thus render him incapable of further resistance. War therefore is an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will.

Carl Von Clausewitz

Prussian General and Military Theorist/Strategist

Quote from his writings later published as a book "On War."

#military history #military strategy

Great Washington Post Article

Chinese citizen sentenced in military data-theft case

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