I am a United States Army general, and I lost the “global war on terror.” It’s like Alcoholics Anonymous; step one is admitting you have a problem. Well, I have a problem. So do my peers. And thanks to our problem, now all of America has a problem… two lost campaigns and a war gone […]
“Environmental Security” integral to “National Security”: This week we highlight the Synthesis Report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the recently published “This Changes Everything”, described by the NY Times as “the most momentous and contentious environmental book since ‘Silent Spring.’”
A week that was… Iran and P5+1 nuclear talks, world oil prices continue to fall, Putin talks Russian policy, Mideast politics, a flare up of words between the U.S. and Israel against backdrop of U.S. Congressional elections, Palestinian recognition, regional war update, petropolitics, China, energy policies, costs and alternatives, digital rights, and the Pope speaks […]
A week that was… Intel and Google, Hersh, father and son, Turks & Kurds, ISIS by any name, Israel & Palestine, the P5+1 negotiations with Iran, Facebook, China, Russia & oil, India & Pakistan, the Internet, surveillance and privacy, Ebola fears
As the U.S. and other national space agencies have initiated a range of contemporaneous Earth Science programs to monitor the State of the Earth, a new field of security study is developing integrally connected to national defenses and sustainable security. NASA has labeled a number of its programs as focusing on Earth’s “vital signs” and […]
A week that was… China, Russia, U.S., Iraq, Kurdistan, Turkey, Syria, Afghanistan, airstrikes, international mobilization, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Europe and U.K., nuclear issues, climate “threat multipliers”, Ebola…
Consider these facts regarding the U.S. Department of Defense: · U.S. military operations represent the largest consumer of all forms of energy globally… · U.S. troops in Afghanistan pay the equivalent of $400 per gallon of fossil fuel when security, transportation and mortality costs are tallied up…
CITIZENFOUR February 22, 2015 Citizenfour wins Oscar at the Academy Awards Acceptance Speech Why Citizenfour deserved its Oscar / New Yorker Feb 23, 2015 – Reddit AMA / Citizenfour–Snowden-Greenwald-Poitras -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- October 2014 “Most people think… it won’t happen to me… and I have nothing to hide… It’s always the same argument.” Premiere Oct 10 Trailer […]
Snapshots of conflict and war, policy options, opinion-makers, analyses from experts and non-experts, from the left and the right, mainstream and alternative, independent perspective of Strategic Demands…
Strategic Demands weekly series focusing on growth of the global Internet and the repercussions and consequences of surveillance state operations … StratDem looks at the Deep Net and myriad Intranets, the Mobile/Wireless Net, the tools/devices connecting to the Net, all impacted by ubiquitous surveillance, and we consider the Digital Rights and Open Data movement.
Environmental Security… National Security… “National Security” demands an expanded definition going forward into the 21st century as a result of changing environmental conditions, the dynamics of interactive networks, and new means and open methods of sharing critical environmental information.
Without U.S. Congressional debate and with minimum public discourse and near absence of media notice or news, headlines or editorials, op/ed columns or speeches, the longest ongoing war in U.S. history has just been memorialized by agreement/treaty to continue another ten years.
The consequences of tactical warfare rarely (if ever) take into account the “blowback”, the mid- and long-term consequences of war. Preponderance of power can deliver shock and awe, devastation, body counts — but collateral damage, the struggle for hearts and minds, the wages of political war are not considered as the drums of war beat […]
#OccupyCentral? It seems the U.S. Occupy has been exported to China. The Chinese government reacts by banning Instagram (having already banned Twitter, Facebook, Google, et al.) StratDem: In the mid- and long-term, the technology of open data and social media is delivering a global political challenge. All governments now face a tech-enabled open gov movement […]
Strategic Demands adds a visual element as we track security, war and peace developments — http://bit.ly/1yrh9X6 — http://bit.ly/1mUvA0S — September 22, 2014 — war commences in Syria — 25 years of war in the region expands with escalation across borders…
“It will take time… there are challenges ahead”… Army Lt. Gen. William C. Mayville Jr., director of operations for the Joint Staff at the Pentagon, says the objectives set for the US-led war in Iraq and now Syria could take years to complete — the pieces on the board are moving in multiple, unpredictable dimensions.
400,000 march in NYC before UN Climate Summit. Few observers of negotiations expect diplomatic breakthrough. Impasse prevails. Substantive outcome unlikely. UN struggles to find international consensus and to approve action agenda…
