Damocles

Hello readers,

I know some of you are patiently anticipating my next writing installment.  Over the past few weeks I came across a great story around which I am developing a much longer piece of work. I am writing a novel of historical fiction, rather than another one-off piece.  This project will be released by chapters over the next year as I complete each in-turn.  I cherish every scrap of feedback I receive and look forward to a complete novel at the end of the process.  Please help me develop this book and let me know what you think of it as I release it.

Now, about the book.

The title is "Damocles", and it is a story of an empire at the height of its power.  To give you a little foretaste, here is a brief snippet of the Foreword:

By August of 1945 Allied forces had pushed the Japanese back across the Pacific Ocean, to the doorstep of the Japanese home islands.  Japan was losing the war.  An invasion of the home islands was planned for later in the year, while firebombing raids over Japanese cities continued relentlessly through the long-hot summer.  Each raid resulted in immense damage to Japan’s cities because they were built primarily from wood and paper. The Japanese were desperate to stop the bombings. The huge Allied bombers were flying from the island of Tinian in the Mariana Island Chain.  Therefore, Tinian became a primary target of Japanese forces. Unbeknownst to the Japanese, on July 26, 1945 the U.S.S. Indianapolis, a heavy cruiser, delivered parts of the enriched uranium for the atomic bomb Little Boy to Tinian. 

The March

Here is a short story of the 1938 meeting between Hitler and Mussolini told from the perspective of one of the over 50,000 Fascist youth who attended.

The March

Tank Vs. Battleship

Here is the latest piece of writing I've posted to Scribd. It is entitled Tank Vs. Battleship and is a short piece of historical fiction from a very unique point of view.

Flatcar

I just finished writing a short story of a young boy evacuating ahead of the advancing Soviet army during the winter of 1945. I look forward to everyone's comments!

Enemy Honor

Check out my latest piece of writing: Enemy Honor is a short story about an Italian Frog Men attack against British warships during World War II and the surprising friendship it engenders.  I look forward to any comments.

Every Morning

Darkness still blankets the world when my tired eyes reluctantly open.

Pulsating spherical stabbing emanating from my right hip ends the edge of slumber I cling to despite knowing it is over.

Toiling through the night, each quarter hour flipping, turning, rolling to find that perfect position.

Each quarter hour realizing that perfect position still needs to be found.

Eventually, the internal stabbing becomes too strong to force sleep upon my mind.

Consciousness, instilled with every insecurity I possess, floods my mind.

 This quiet time before Joshua and Jan wake is mine alone.

The bed is no longer comfortable.

My mind is no longer safe.

Rise

Start the day

Drowned the pain and quiet the mind through activity.

Mindless and without feeling I greet the world.

Stimulus: Good for me, not for you

I'm not surprised by the articles in today's Wall Street Journal about how the market sell-off of the past few days is due to the Federal Reserve claiming that it may start to wind down the QE(n's) of over $80 Billion a month it has been pursuing to keep interest rates down.  What is disconcerting to me is that the same folks selling off their holdings because they fear the Fed will no longer provide a stimulus, are those who complained about the government providing a stimulus during the heart of the financial crisis in 2008-9.  It is disingenuous of these Wall Street types to want stimulus for the financial markets, but not for Main Street America.  It's disingenuous, but wholly unsurprising.  I look forward to a return to as close to a market economy (without stimulus) as we can get when the Fed finally does wind down the QE's.  Until then, let the Wall Street folks lose a few bucks as their stimulus is withdrawn so they may join the rest of Americans who have been suffering for the past 5 years.

Mahan was wrong, at least in this case. . .

Since the mid 19th century proponents of Naval Power have pointed to Alfred Thayer Mahan’s seminal work The Influence of Sea Power on History to point to the need for countries to build naval forces in order to protect their interests. Most industrialized, and even other, countries since that time spent lavishly on large naval vessels, including Battleships, Cruisers, Aircraft Carriers, and Destroyers.  Yet, one country that spent this money, building up a formidable fleet for its time, may have been poorly served, and even defeated in large part because of this expense. That country is France, and the time period is between World War I and World War II.

In the inter-War years, France built the fourth largest naval force in the world.  Targeted against its main rival, Italy, the French Navy was an expensive burden for the country, but one deemed essential for its survival by Admiral Darlan, the man most responsible for its construction. Despite being limited by size and scale with adherence to The Washington Treaty of 1922, the French found creative ways to develop and deploy large surface and sub-surface combatants. Here is a list of the major French combat craft in May-June of 1940:^[14]

• -         Modern Battleships: 3
• -       Old Dreadnought Battleships: 5
• -       Aircraft Carriers: 1
• -       Seaplane Carriers: 1
• -       Heavy Cruisers: 10
• -       Light Cruisers: 10
• -       Heavy Destroyers: 32
• -       Destroyers: 38
• -       Submarines: 80
• -       Sloops: 65

Despite the effort put forth to field this powerful fleet, the French Navy never engaged the Italian fleet in battle during World War II.  Most of the French naval vessels sat out the war after the Fall of France, eventually succumbing to destruction at the hands of their allies or by their own crews in order for the ships not to fall into German hands. This is where my proposition on why Mahan may have been wrong in this example comes to the fore.  If one considers the energy and resources put forward in the development of the French fleet, and the opportunity-cost associated with its construction, it is easy to wonder how else those resources could have been actually used in the war.

France perceived its primary opponent at sea to be Italy. Yet, France was not existentially at risk at sea the way it was by land.  I understand this is Monday morning quarterbacking, but imagine for a moment that France had used the steel from most of those ships, particularly the Capital ships, to extend the Maginot Line across the Benelux frontier, not just across from the German border.  Or, had they listened to some of their more attune to military tactics commanders, and built more tanks and developed proper use of land warfare doctrine. If France had not had a massive part of its industrial base focused on a non-existential threat, but rather focused that industry and manpower toward the land wolf across its border, it may have been able to counter the smaller army that Germany used to crush it in 1940.

The French saw themselves as a great power.  A great power, according to Mahan, must have a Navy. Yet, in France’s strategic decision making, a navy was marginal, while an army was essential.  France did have a large army, but not one designed or built to fight the war that France experienced. Had France made a different strategic calculation about its external threats, it may have avoided conquest by Germany.

I do not feel that this is the only case of countries misallocating resources to potential conflicts that are not the wars they will actually face.  Please let me know if you know of other examples of this kind of misallocation, or if you have any comments on this brief assessment of France’s development of a large navy before World War II.   

Bond Holding: You know You’re Taking a Risk, Right?

My mind is boggled by the idea that for the past six years, at least, so much energy by central banks and politicians has been put toward saving bond holders in currencies and companies.  Buying a bond is an investment in debt.  Whether it is the debt of a country or a company, the buyer is assuming that the entity in which he is putting money will be able to pay off that debt at the rate of return expected.  This assumption includes the risk that the entity will fail to pay that debt.  Buying a bond assumes the risk of default, which is why there is a premium (interest rate) for the bond.  Any investor in bonds who is not prepared to lose the investment should not have invested in the bond.  Let’s stop saving the bond holders.  They knew the risk, they took it, they have to pay when the risk pans out.

State Sponsored Cyber Conflict: Politics By Other Means Requires Political as well as Technical Solutions

Vats of newspaper ink have been spilled about what are generally accepted to have been State Sponsored Cyber-attacks against companies and governments around the world.  Some of these attacks include the DDoS attacks against the U.S. Banking System; attacks against Japanese Banks and other companies operating in China; the attack against the Saudi Aramco computer system; the infiltration of the networks of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post by China; Stuxnet; and the regular reporting of advanced persistent threats achieved by multiple countries into other country’s cyber networks. These events demonstrate a gap between current cyber security practice of addressing symptoms such as an attack or infiltration, and the actual chronic problem confronting the entire cyber domain: State Sponsored activity in cyber is an attempt to achieve a political outcome. Cyber Security is a component of National Security and must be addressed as such rather than in isolation.

The problem is not simply a technical problem resolvable with a technical solution.  No matter how many firewalls, NetFlow tools, network infiltration reports, trainings on how not to click on spear fishing attacks, and attempts to stop social engineering take place, the problem will continue to exist.  Every effort at countering the problem through these technical approaches will continue to meet with at best mediocre temporal success with diminishing returns over time. Cyber-attacks by State Sponsors may be slowed, but will not be stopped technically. These events represent political initiatives by the state sponsor, and thus are a political problem that will only be overcome through all levers of politics. 

Although Cyber is a relatively new domain for warfare, it is still just another way to achieve politics by other means. Looking at each of the cases mentioned above one can draw a direct link between a political objective by the state actor sponsoring the cyber event to the event itself.  For the DDoS attacks against the U.S. banks this was a way for (presumably) Iran to inflict harm on the United States economy in a tangential enough way to counter the sanctions on Iran without suffering a kinetic response. The attacks on Japanese banks and other companies operating in China was due to an ongoing territorial dispute and very negative history between China and Japan over the Daiyu/Senkaku islands. The attack against Saudi Aramco was an attempt by (presumably) Iran to do economic harm to Saudi Arabia due to Saudi support of the rebels in Syria who are fighting against an Iranian supported regime. The infiltration of major U.S. newspapers (which most likely did not stop at the ones listed here, or even in the U.S.) was an attempt to both find sources for information that could discredit Communist Party leaders in China, and to potentially blackmail the newspapers into refraining from reporting negatively on China in exchange for continuing their operations. Stuxnet, as has been widely reported, was an attempt to stall the Iranian nuclear program. The list goes on, but the point should be clear.  Each cyber event was an attempt at achieving a particular political outcome.  These attempts were likely not the only means by which the state sponsor chose to attempt that outcome, but simply one of possibly several domains in which actions were taken to achieve the desired results.

There is a parallel in history that demonstrates the point I am making very well.  Before World War II much ink was spilled discussing the threat that bombers posed to countries.  The experience of World War I showed that aircraft could have a devastating effect on a country.  The inter-war years brought out new technology and capabilities to the point where most public opinion was that the new threat posed by the Bomber was unprecedented and that war should be avoided out of fear of the destruction that bombers would cause.  What was missed in these calculations, especially for France in its preparations for World War II, was that bombers were a tool used in a new domain of warfare (the air), but that the strategic objectives of the country (a stable Europe) far outweighed the threat of this one tool. France and the United Kingdom surrendered Czechoslovakia for fear of a war, driven by a fear of German bombers. When war did come, and the German bombers were dropping their payloads over France and the United Kingdom, they caused extensive damage, but a funny thing happened.  Yes, they were somewhat effective, but they did not destroy the country or its ability to fight.  Even the allied 24hour bombing of Germany later in the war did not destroy that country, or even reduce its production capability to support the war effort until 1945 when the country was occupied by ground troops.  The fear instilled in this one new domain had been proven to be far beyond the value that domain had as compared to the other domains of achieving strategic political outcomes.  Today the bomber is a component of the nuclear triad for several countries, but a fading one as new means by which to achieve the same or better results are available.

What this says is that addressing cyber through technical means, although very important on a tactical basis, is not an answer at the operational or strategic level.  Operationally, companies and countries need to at least understand who is interested in them and why; opening this situational awareness far beyond the cyber network into every aspect of the organization’s or country’s operations wherever these take place.  Strategically, organizations and countries need to focus on the outcomes they desire to achieve.  The means by which they achieve those outcomes will include the cyber domain from here on out. Yet, there are multiple other domains, to include: Public Affairs, Diplomacy, Defense, Disaster Response, Development, Track 1.5 and Track 2 interactions. Addressing political differences through all of these domains at the same time, depending on which set is most effective for that particular issue and time, will be a far more effective approach to solving cyber security problems in the long-term than any technical only approach.

It is only through integrating the technical approach tactical solutions available with the operational and strategic level perspectives of achieving desired outcomes through all means available, can an organization or country truly attain security; with the cyber component playing a contributing, but not exclusive, role.

Protecting Borders Requires Holistic Intelligence

My first job out of graduate school was as the Program Manager for the Export Control and Related Border Security (EXBS) Program of the U.S. Department of State.  This program’s objective was to prevent the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) by empowering countries around the world to create effective export control laws and implementing regulations while at the same time develop or improve their capabilities of monitoring and stopping illicit material crossing international borders.  A key component of this program was intelligence on who was attempting to smuggle these items, how they were attempting this smuggling, and the motivations of these actors.  Without this intelligence, all we would have been doing was responding to events that happened to be noticed at the borders. Intelligence empowered an effective defense against smuggling, in this case, of the most deadly weapons in the world.

This can be a metaphor for cyber security.  Current practices in cyber security are often focused internally.  They look for indicators of compromise, the existence of malware, or the presence of advanced persistent threats.  Very few organizations are looking beyond the border of their own networks. Only a few organizations have even contemplated or are attempting to understand who is on the other side of these threats.  Every cyber event has a human element to it.  Yet very little research has been done on who these actors are and their motivations.  Tactics, tools and procedures (TTP’s) are better understood, but often these are not correlated with the threat actor themselves, but just generalized to the cyber threat ether.

Any effective program meant to stop the proliferation of items must have intelligence on who wants to conduct that proliferation, why they want to do so, and how they intend to do so.  This is true for WMD and it is true in the Cyber domain.   Otherwise, all anyone can do is respond to what they happen to notice.  What kind of defense is that?