The John Batchelor Show

Thursday 22 March 2018

Air Date: 
March 22, 2018

Photo: 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents
 
Hour One
Thursday 22 March 2018 / Hour 1, Block A: Sebastian Gorka, Fox news, in re:  John Bolton has been invited to be the National Security Advisor, starting in early April. Denuclearization in DPRK, confrontations in Syria and Ukraine; relations with Moscow.   Those of us who voted for Trump as a positive disruptor are very happy. The swamp is tearing its hair out, The conservatives who fall in the trap of  painting John Bolton as being a mindless neocon: highly not true See Amb Bolton’s fist interview today, on Fox: he demonstrated what Gen McMaster never understood – at the end of the day, it’s the resident who was chosen by the American people. We’ll have there a man who knows how to get things done, which is exactly what the president wants in the Natl Security Council. The problem the swamp is having was clearly expressed: “The problem with you , John Bolton, is not that you’re incompetent but that you’re too competent.” John Kerry, Pres Obama, Xi Jinping, all are worried. 
HPSCI [House Intell Committee] report: not a shred of evidence that the Trump organization any improper connections to Russia — but there is evidence that the threat to democracy was that the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton, herself, were willing to corrupt our democracy by telling lies.
The collusion we do know of was a former intell agt, Christopher Steele, who was desperate to see that Mrs Clinton became president; concocted a fantastic dossier and used it as truth. That scandal eclipses all the others. We’re only beginning to dig out the full truth on all this.
Andrew McCabe, fired last week, said: “I did not leak to the media without permission.” Only Comey had authority to permit  it. Goodlatte is investigating, since Mr Comey had sworen under oath that he’d never given permission to leak. These two do not work together.  The OPR —Ofc of Professional Responsibility – is responsible for ethics in the FBI.  Mr McCabe appears to have committed crimes.  Surprising statements by Brennan and Power defending him within hours of his sacking. 
Thursday 22 March 2018 / Hour 1, Block B: Sebastian Gorka, Fox news, in re:   US and Russian chiefs of staff have recently spoken  How does Moscow hear the news of John Bolton’s appointment?  No doubt Moscow would have preferred someone “more flexible,” to quote someone.
Bolton at the UN: We will act in the interests of the United States. “  Russia is an anti-status quo actor.   Beijing: Need to prepare for military exchange in the Taiwan Strait.  Issued just after Pres Trump signed a deal with Taiwan. Beijing needs to hear very very clearly that the years of their intimidating “the near abroad” are over.  The notion that he one belt/One Road will be implemented in that mode will not occur.  Pyongyang: at he end of the day, it's a dictatorship and you can;t take their words as gospel, but for the first time in 65 years we have a possible path.
..  ..  .. 
Russia  For the second time in less than two weeks, the U.S. and Russia's top military officers spoke by phone, CNN reported Wednesday. Conversations between the two men aren't common; prior to these chats, nearly two months had passed with neither U.S. Gen. Joseph Dunford or Russia's Gen. Valery Gerasimov speaking to one another.
Why now? That's private, said Dunford's spox, U.S. Air Force Col. Patrick Ryder. But the two generals did discuss "Syria and other issues of mutual concern," in case you were wondering.
One of the more sensitive flashpoints between the two nations' militaries is in eastern Syria, the scene of an ill-fated attack by pro-Syrian fighters on U.S. and its Syrian partnered forces' location at a Conoco oil field southeast of Deir ez-Zor. That prompted a deadly U.S. counterattack on Feb. 7, which killed hundreds from the assaulting forces.
Why this matters still: CNN reports that Wednesday's "high-level calls come as the US-led coalition fighting ISIS has observed pro-Syrian regime forces, including Russian private military contractors, once again conducting a slow build-up east of the Euphrates River near where US troops are presently advising local allies."
FWIW: Dunford's counterpart also phoned up NATO's top officer, U.S. Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, on Wednesday, according to Moscow's Defense Ministry. But very little useful came out of that, even from CNN's reporting.
North Korea   Preliminary talks between the U.S. and the Koreas are a wrap in Finland, the Associated Press reported Wednesday from Estonia. "Eighteen delegates, six from each country, plus observers from the United Nations and Europe attended the secretive two-day talks at a 19th-century manor house just outside Helsinki."
There were few details from the meeting, since "Media were largely kept in the dark about the identities of the delegates and issues on the table," AP writes.
One thing we have been told: "denuclearization wasn't on the agenda," Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini said Tuesday. A bit more here.
Taiwan    China should prepare for military action in Taiwan, Reuters reports this morning from Beijing, citing the widely-read state-run newspaper, Global Times.
The advice: "The mainland must also prepare itself for a direct military clash in the Taiwan Straits. It needs to make clear that escalation of U.S.-Taiwan official exchanges will bring serious consequences to Taiwan," said the paper, which is published by the ruling Communist Party's official People's Daily.
Backdrop: "Beijing was infuriated after U.S. President Donald Trump signed legislation last week that encourages the United States to send senior officials to Taiwan to meet Taiwanese counterparts and vice versa... Sticks matter more than flowers on the path to peaceful reunification." More, here.
Thursday 22 March 2018 / Hour 1, Block C:  Conrad Black, Baron Black of Crossharbour, KSG, Canadian-born British former newspaper publisher, and convicted felon; also author:  Donald Trump: A president like no other (publ May 2018). He is a non-affiliated life peer; in re: White House: The Anti-Trump Effort Backfires*** Don’t try to impeach your opponent without legal cause.
There’s a great deal to discover abt the conduct of Mssrs McCabe and Comey during 2016. Points to bad actors from the Obama Adm.   Txt exchanges between Strzock and Ms Page show their sentiments, and they apparently broke the law, confident nothing wd be done about it as they were confident the Trump candidacy would vanish into the aether.
Anent Mr Mueller: My guess is that its unlikely Pres Trump will fire Mueller – the last stand of the loopy Brennan and Maxine Waters, who should be in bath chairs quietly watching— but will Trump answer questions? Does Mueller have the ability to compel the president to answer questions?
History of impeachment in the Twentieth Century; Nixon; Reagan’s near-impeachment; Clinton’s impeachment, an overstep by the House.  An ungainly process.  Jerry Nadler makes no secret of his wish to impeach – “We have the verdict, we’ll get the evidence later.”  The Red Queen.  Criminalization of policy differences.  Nixon had just won the greatest plurality in the history of the country.   . . .
*** No one following the Russian-collusion and related dramas should be in any doubt about the steady flow of the balance of damaging evidence away from Trump and on to his accusers. It is clear that the hierarchy of the FBI and analogues in the Justice Department and intelligence services, horrified at the thought of a Trump victory though confident it would not occur, took liberties — in the soft treatment of Hillary Clinton’s email and uranium problems, and in abetting the Clinton campaign’s effort to smear Trump with the Russian-collusion argument.
As the parallel investigations and diluvian leaking have unfolded, the anti-Trump Resistance has received a series of gradually suppurating mortal wounds. The Steele dossier was commissioned and paid for by the Clinton campaign; over a hundred FBI agents and Justice Department lawyers expected Hillary Clinton to be charged criminally, and President Trump was correct in saying conversations by his campaign officials had been tapped, a claim that was much ridiculed at the time. Deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe testified that the Steele dossier was essential to obtaining a FISA warrant on a junior Trump aide (Carter Page), and McCabe and former director James Comey’s rabidly partisan helper Peter Strzok, and his FBI girlfriend Lisa Page, texted suggestions for influencing the FISA judge in the case. The judge recused himself, voluntarily or otherwise, after granting the warrant. Mueller set up his “dream team” of entirely partisan Democrats; McCabe failed to identify to the Bureau his wife as a member and beneficiary of the Clinton entourage and political candidate in Virginia; and the fourth person in the Justice Department, Bruce Ohr, met with Steele, and Mrs. Ohr helped compose the Steele dossier.  . . .
Thursday 22 March 2018 / Hour 1, Block D: Paul Roderick Gregory, professor of economics at the University of Houston, Texas; research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and research Fellow at the German Institute for Economic Research; author in Defining Ideas; in re:   https://www.hoover.org/research/my-war-russian-trolls **
. . .  Other trolls, such as “Andrey,” wrote sometimes incomprehensible English: “Dear PAUL, can we badly know English language, but only one thing I want to say, YOU understand—Fack You.” (Russians have no English “u” sound in their alphabet.) Such “Andreys” were subsequently replaced by experienced trolls, such as “Jeff” and “RussM,” with an occasional guest rant by “Aij,” whose favorite topic was “filthy Jewish bankers.” My most prolific troll, “Jeff,” posted at times almost fifty comments per column. One troll appeared in person to pester me at a panel discussion in the Bay area. One volunteered that I am a fictional person. Another offered to drop by my office for a personal chat. For obvious reasons, I did not accept.
“Gregory’s inane, badly written propaganda articles never had one original thought, just parroting what he could grab on the Internet. Gregory is a pitiful Nazi moron.” -- “John,” pretending to be an American citizen, an “ex-Marine,” who happens to be in St Petersburg at the notorious IRA [mil?] propaganda building (on Nevsky Prospekt). Usually when I write on Russia or Putin, the attacks are ad hominem. Usually, I’m a tool of Forbes. These trolls are often young people with a distant relation to English.
Their news version: everything goes well in Russia, which beautifully managed by Mr Putin. Elsewhere, there’s unemployment, and police gun down Blacks, and everything is run by Silicon Valley and Hollywood. The goal of the Putin trolls was always to portray US politics in a bad light – American democracy in the darkest-possible way. Have largely succeeded in the Russian population as it emanates from national Russian TV.  Not succeeded abroad.  Is pretty much the same message as the Soviet Union used. “Russia is well run; you're fortunate to be here.”
Meanwhile, there are serious commentators in the US who fear that Russia is taking over the US; this makes the St Petersburg trolls (30 young men and women in the US division) extremely happy; as though these 30  young people and the expenditure of $3 million would tear apart the American system.   The trolls are thrilled and no doubt Mr Putin is over the moon.  Any damage to the American system is self-inflicted.
Good morning, Petersburg!
          ** Vladimir Putin’s propaganda machine has two overarching goals.   First, the Russian people must believe the Kremlin version of domestic and world events. In this regard, the agents of Russian “information technology” have succeeded. Polls show that Russians believe that Russia is a super power in a hostile world; that there are no Russian troops in Ukraine; that Crimea voluntarily joined Russia; and that a Ukrainian fighter shot down Malaysian Airlines flight MH17.
Second, Kremlin propaganda must discredit Western democracy as dysfunctional and inferior to Russia’s managed “democracy.” Kremlin propaganda has largely failed in this regard. Russians consider their government corrupt, remote from the people, interested in preserving power rather than performing its duties, and lying about the true state of affairs. Nevertheless, Putin’s approval ratings remain high in the absence of rivals, who have fled the country, been indicted, or murdered.
Putin, in fact, bases his legitimacy on high approval ratings. To counter the Russian people’s sense that they have no say in how they are governed, Kremlin propagandists must sell the story that Western democracies have it worse. Downtrodden Americans, they say, face poverty, hunger, racial and ethnic discrimination, unemployment, and they are governed by corrupt, inept, greedy, dysfunctional, and feuding politicians who sell out to the highest bidder on Wall Street or in Silicon Valley.
This brings us to how the ballyhooed Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election has given Putin a gift that keeps on giving—a paralyzed federal government, incapable of compromise, in which a significant portion of the governing class questions the legitimacy of a new president.
Russia routinely meddles in the politics of other countries. Despite denials, the Kremlin contributes to pro-Russian political parties throughout the world, gathers compromising information, hacks into email accounts, offers lucrative contracts to foreign businesses, and circulates false news. Given this history, U.S. authorities should not have been surprised by Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential race.
To date, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has indicted thirteen Russian “internet trolls,” who sowed discord on social media by posting inflammatory, distorted, slanted, and false information promoting the Russian narrative of a deeply divided electorate and a discredited American electoral system. Mueller’s indictment identifies the Internet Research Agency (IRA) of St. Petersburg as the nerve center of Russia’s trolling operations. Although putatively owned by a private Russian oligarch close to Putin, there is little doubt that the IRA is a mouthpiece of the Kremlin. The existence and activities of the IRA have been known since 2014. It employs hundreds of hackers and writers divided into geographical sections. It is not the sole source of Russian trolling, but it is the most important.
Those American politicians and pundits, like Congressman Jerry Nagler and columnist Thomas Friedman, who label Russian intervention an act of warfare on par with Pearl Harbor or 9/11must attribute supernatural powers to Putin’s trolls. After all, the Mueller investigation revealed that Russia spent no more than a few million dollars on its election-meddling versus the over two billion dollars spent by the presidential candidates alone. The IRA’s St. Petersburg America desk constituted some 90 persons. Their social media posts accounted for an infinitesimal portion of social media political traffic and much of this came after the election.
Despite such evidence, Gerald F. Seib, a columnist for the Wall Street Journaldeclares himself “frightened” by Russia’s “sophisticated and sustained effort to use technology, social media manipulation, and traditional covert measures to disrupt America’s political system.”
But a closer look at such trolls reveals a different picture. Over the past five years, Russian trolls have regularly attacked my articles at Forbes.com. Given the number of attacks and their organized nature, I suspect most came directly from the IRA.  The Kremlin clearly has not liked my posts on Russian domestic politics, the country’s faltering petro-economypolitical assassinations, and foreign military intervention. What I encountered in the comments section of my pieces was an army of scripted trolls engaging in primitive invective and heavy doses of ad hominem blasts. These amateurs did not seem up to the monumental task for which they are now credited—of changing the course of American political history.
My trolls used the same clandestine social media techniques as those identified by Mueller in his indictments. They posted through leased servers with moving IP addresses. They assumed Anglo-Saxon (Jeff, RussM, Dave, John), exotic (Sadr Ewr, Er Ren), and computer generated (Hweits, Aij) monikers. Those with Anglo-Saxon names asserted they were Americans, even ex-Marines. They used provably false identities: One “Stanley Ford,” identifying himself as a graduate student at Stanford, expressed his dismay at my “shallow” Stanford economics seminar. But there is no such graduate student at Stanford and I had given no such seminar.
Other trolls, such as “Andrey,” wrote sometimes incomprehensible English: “Dear PAUL, can we badly know English language, but only one thing I want to say, YOU understand—Fack You.” (Russians have no English “u” sound in their alphabet.) Such “Andreys” were subsequently replaced by experienced trolls, such as “Jeff” and “RussM,” with an occasional guest rant by “Aij,” whose favorite topic was “filthy Jewish bankers.” My most prolific troll, “Jeff,” posted at times almost fifty comments per column. One troll appeared in person to pester me at a panel discussion in the Bay area. One volunteered that I am a fictional person. Another offered to drop by my office for a personal chat. For obvious reasons, I did not accept.
Troll “John’s” tirade is a classic ad hominem smear: “Gregory’s inane, badly written propaganda articles never had one original thought, just parroting what he could grab on the Internet. Gregory is a pitiful Nazi moron.”
My trolls made heavy use of moral equivalence. Did the U.S. not attack Iraq and did its police not gun down black teenagers in Missouri? Yes, Russia may be aiding the rebels in Syria and Ukraine, but are not American troops and CIA operatives swarming all over Ukraine? Yes, the shooting down of MH17 was a tragedy, but did not the United States down an Iranian passenger jet in 1988?
The “denying the obvious” technique is illustrated by three videos circulated by Russian trolls on the Internet and Russian TV. Each featured a wounded man lying in an east Ukrainian hospital bed. In one video, he claimed to be a heroic surgeon. In the second, he was a disillusioned neo-fascist financier. In the third video, the bandaged man declared himself an innocent bystander. The problem, I pointed out, was that each video featured the same Russian actor but in different roles. Unfazed, my trolls “saw no contradictions” until one of Russia’s main TV channels (NTV) declared that the versatile actor was mentally ill. When it comes to Ukraine, the official IRA line has been that the Russian tanks, radar, missile launchers, and the like were purchased at used weapon shops by the “patriots” fighting the neo-Nazis and extremists sent from Kiev. When I pointed out the inanity of this proposition, one troll’s unedited response read: “everything he (Gregory) says at the beginning is nothing BUT LIES! russia did not give the east ANYTHING.”
In a botched false-flag operation, trolls claimed that “Ukrainian” extremists fled in panic after firing on a separatist checkpoint, conveniently leaving behind a vast cache of Nazi regalia (plus “snipers’ diapers”). The video of the Nazi cache, however, is dated to the day before the alleged attack, according to the camera time code. My expose of the snipers’ diapers incident brought forth reinforcement from new trolls, who wanted to debate time zones and now to impute the time of day from the length of shadows.
My clashes with IRA trolls over Ukraine can seem at times comical, but they are dead serious. The trolls are pushing a strictly coordinated narrative both to the Russian people and to foreign audiences that Ukraine is an illegitimate state and that the United States and NATO are the aggressors.
Indeed, that Western democracies, American democracy especially, are rotten, corrupt, and hapless is a cornerstone of the Kremlin narrative. As the Mueller indictment concludes: The stated goal of the Russian operation was “spreading distrust towards candidates and the political system in general.” The Russian trolls, according to the Mueller indictment, used a number of techniques to achieve this end. They encouraged fringe candidates. They tried to ally with disaffected religious, ethnic, and nationalist groups. They discredited the candidate they thought most likely to win. Once the winner was known, they immediately moved to discredit him.
As noted above, the Russian people are largely on board with the IRA’s narrative. Why? The average Russian family gets its news from the major state networks, which offer topflight entertainment before and after news of the day. Russia’s trolls stand ready to swat down any unfavorable social media. Alternative messages have little hope of penetrating the Russian heartland.
Although the trolls are succeeding at home, Russian propaganda has had little effect on foreign audiences. Public opinion worldwide shows a negative opinion of Russia and Putin, according to Pew Research. But if Russian trolls cannot sway Western public opinion, how could they have influenced the outcome of the biggest game of all—a U.S. presidential election? The dozen ill-informed operatives indicted by Mueller held poorly attended rallies, had to be educated about red and blue states, and spent their limited funds in uncontested states. It would be almost crazy to believe that such Russian intervention could have made a difference.
Why, then, do so many Americans believe that Russia was instrumental in throwing the election to Donald Trump? It may be that some of the President’s opponents actually believe this narrative. But there’s another explanation, too: Russian intervention provides opportunistic politicians and pundits a useful excuse for paralyzing the incoming government of a gutter-fighter President from a show business and construction background with no political experience. In their view, such a person should not be allowed to govern. Hence the paralysis, dysfunction, and chaos of American democracy—long claimed by Russian propagandists—is on its way to becoming reality. What a windfall for Putin and his oligarchs. 
 
Hour Two
Thursday 22 March 2018 / Hour 2, Block A:  Tony Badran, FDD, in re: Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah as it relates to Syria. John Bolton, former ambassador to the UN from the US, is named to be Natl Security Advisor in days.  He used to join our program one evening every week; a trustworthy and reliable authority on American [well-being].  Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang, Teheran, and Ramallah are all [squirming]. All-star line-up: Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, and John Bolton.
Israel recently acknowledged having bombed the North Korean-built nuclear reactor in eastern Syria. 
My article quoted the Natl Defense Strategy: no longer counterterrorism, which has become extremely dangerous (in Syrian desert, chemical weapons, nonstate actors) has moved to interstate
Syria: Russia, Iran, Assad. A tripod; if you attack  one, you affect the entire structure. (Russia needs Iranian troops; Iran needs Russia air power; Assad needs everything).  In a post-Assad world, Iran’s position would be very weak.  Trying to build independent structures – Hezbollah, which has massively expanded into Syrian territory; Shi’a militias—but if you target the physical  infrastructure, Iran is flat out of luck.
·          https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/15/lebanon-conflict-americans-war-217640
·          http://www.defenddemocracy.org/media-hit/badran-tony-why-offense-is-the-best-defense-against-russia-and-iran-in-syria/
·          http://www.defenddemocracy.org/media-hit/badran-tony-the-us-shouldnt-be-funding-hezbollah/
·         https://www.newsmax.com/adamturner/hezbollah-united-states-lebanon-rex-tillerson/2018/03/14/id/848616/
Tony Badran is a research Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where he focusses on Lebanon, Hezbollah, Syria, and the geopolitics of the Levant.  Born and raised in Lebanon, Tony has testified to the House of Representatives on several occasions regarding U.S. policy toward Iran and Syria. His writings have appeared in publications including The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, and The Weekly Standard.
Thursday 22 March 2018 / Hour 2, Block B:  Patrick Clawson, Washington Institute, in re: Saudi Arabia.    The Crown Prince arrives in the Washington with a large entourage of prices, to California and return. Want to sell Saudi Arabia as a place that’s changing, not only a source of oil.  Also, a charm offensive. Qatar and Yemen?  Salman wants to talk about Iran and Iraq, as does Trump. Can they work out something on Qatar? I doubt it, or not much.
Patrick is at a dinner attended by the Crown Prince and his colleagues for DC intellectuals. In background, protestors against the Saudi non-democracy. The idea that the Saudis would stop their war in Yemen if the US quit selling weapons, is an error. What the Saudis want is PGM (precision-guided missiles). What the Trump Adm hopes to achieve from this is largely economic and f/b/o the US. When the Crown Prince gets home, he’ll be in  a stronger position, having worked well with the Trump Adm, which will gain him respect in the region.
Among changes: a civilian aircraft was permitted to fly over Saudi Arabia on its way to Israel. 
 ·         http://www.defenddemocracy.org/media-hit/behnam-ben-taleblu-the-saudi-crown-prince-is-in-washington-and-has-iran-on-his-mind/
·         https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-to-greet-visiting-saudi-prince-with-a-crowded-agenda-1521561403
·         http://nationalinterest.org/feature/why-investors-should-not-fret-about-saudi-arabias-approach-24981
·         https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/03/20/saudis_young_leader_arrives_to_a_washington_divided_over_yemen_113229.html
·         https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/us/politics/saudi-crown-prince-arrives-at-white-house-to-meet-with-trump.html
Patrick Clawson is Morningstar senior Fellow and director of research at the Washington Institute, where he directs the Iran Security Initiative. Widely consulted as an analyst and media commentator, he has authored more than 150 articles about the Middle East and international economics and is the author or editor of eighteen books or studies on Iran. Dr. Clawson appears frequently on television and radio, and has published op-ed articles in major newspapers including the New York TimesWall Street Journal, and Washington Post. He has also testified before congressional committees more than twenty times and has served as an expert witness in more than thirty federal cases against Iran. Prior to joining The Washington Institute, he was a senior research professor at the National Defense University's Institute for National Strategic Studies, a senior economist at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and a research scholar at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
Thursday 22 March 2018 / Hour 2, Block C:  Blaise Misztal, BPC, in re:  Syria & Turkey.  . . . Iran has basically extended its borders to Israel and is not content to stay there; viz., the drone that flew over northern Israel, which will not take it lying down. Note May 12 deadline set by Pres Trump. 
·         http://www.inss.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/No.-1037.pdf
·         http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/After-a-decade-Israel-admits-We-bombed-Syria-nuclear-reactor-in-2007-546573?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
·         https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-no-longer-a-secret-how-israel-destroyed-syria-s-nuclear-reactor-1.5914407
·         https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/20/inside-israels-secret-raid-on-syrias-nuclear-reactor-217663
·         http://www.aei.org/publication/yes-turkey-has-definitely-become-a-rogue-regime/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTVRWaE1tUTRaR1V6TVRneCIsInQiOiJ2QldmekFoVEcyZkhESHVKaGlkd1lIeUhKYkRJbEJYM1o4R3VLNThjXC80UnNTUFJLeVI4eVZnMVNBQUEwczVjb2U0UEtUN1NnS3o4MnBOXC95VGlBa09rYUFQdFVzRmdpbFhiaDZzWWpPaUp4dkNaM0xpaFRRZm1jOTB1YmtKQzNWIn0%3D
 Blaise Misztal is the director of BPC’s national security program. He previously served as the project’s associate director and senior policy analyst. At BPC, Misztal has researched a variety national security issues, including Iran and its nuclear program, Turkey, cybersecurity, stabilizing fragile states, and public diplomacy in the 21st century. Prior to joining BPC, Misztal spent a year as a Nuffield Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford University. He was selected as a future leader by the Foreign Policy Initiative in 2010 and named as a national security Fellow by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in 2011. Misztal is currently completing his Ph.D. in political science at Yale University, where his research focusses on the relationship between democracy, liberalism, and social stability. He holds an M.Phil. in political science from Yale and an A.B. with honors from the University of Chicago.
Thursday 22 March 2018 / Hour 2, Block D:  Commander Ziv Fox, Israeli Military Medicine Academy and training base; recently, paramedic, 77th armored battalion; and Major Efi Ribner, in re: Operation Good Neighbor, humanitarian aid to persons on the other side of the northern border during the current humanitarian crisis.  The Golan Heights are a beautiful, agricultural area that a few feet across the border becomes he Syrian civil war.  Therefore, we offer our services, predominantly medical, to those afflicted by the war.  Israel has sent 360 tons of food and thousands of pkgs of diapers, a and massive support, across the border. When we began, the populations were very suspicious, having been told that Israel was a s pawn of Satan; now, after years of assistance, they see us as the only stable nation in the region.  When they fear for their lives, they come over; in the beginning, they arrived terrified of us, actually shaking; now, they very much appreciate us.  Mostly Sunni, local population, with no where else to turn,. Civilians stuck in a civil war with nowhere else to go. Over 5,000 have come in to Israel, with more than 1,00 being children. A clinic built with US help has treated 3,500.
Iranian-backed forces – Shi’a militia and Hezbollah -  . . . have not affected our humanitarian aid. 
Has news of this amazing operation got out into the larger Arab world? Initially no, as we were afraid that if it were known people would be afraid to come; now, it’s not much of a secret.  What maladies or afflictions mostly? Mostly war injuries – bombings, gunshots, shrapnel. Horrifying. 
·         https://www.timesofisrael.com/operation-good-neighbor-israels-massive-humanitarian-aid-to-syria-revealed/
·         http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Operation-Good-Neighbor-540359
·         https://www.idf.il/en/minisites/operation-good-neighbor/operation-good-neighbor-inside-the-idf-s-effort-to-provide-aid-to-syria/
Major Efi Ribner: serving in a combat unit for over ten years, Major Efi Ribner serves today as the commanding officer of the Golan Israeli Liaison Office. He’s responsible for coordinating all of the international activity along the Israeli-Syrian border. He serves as the liaison officer to the UN forces and to the Jordanian Armed forces in the tri-border area.
Commander Ziv Fox: In 2018, Commander, Israeli Military Medicine Academy and training base. In 2017, paramedic, 77th armored battalion.
 
Hour Three
Thursday 22 March 2018 / Hour 3, Block A: Major Efi Ribner: serving in a combat unit for over ten years, serves today as the commanding officer of the Golan Israeli Liaison Office. He’s responsible for coordinating all of the international activity along the Israeli-Syrian border. He serves as the liaison officer to the UN forces and to the Jordanian Armed forces in the tri-border area; in re: Israel’s Northern border. Facing us are global jihad forces – ISIS and al Nusrah.  Syrian forces have been relatively successful over the last months, being backed up by multiple forces.  We hear fighting almost daily between [rebel] forces in villages and Assad’s forces.  . . .  Iranians pushed a drone across the border to which the IAF responded vigorously.  If they continue to provoke us and bring in more forces to the Golan Heights, we’ll have to defend our civilians.  SAM batteries?  Not sure where they are, but we swiftly took significant action against it. 
Bekaa: we see continuous activity along the Lebanese border, in preparation for a next war.  We had a report that there were 29 foreign bases in Syria, with Iran predominant; expanding? Underground bunkers? Don't know.  But we follow carefully and respond clearly.
JB: This is the front line of peace on Earth.
·         http://www.defenddemocracy.org/media-hit/senior-fellow-the-syrian-great-game-reuel-marc-gerecht/
·         http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/trumps-north-korea-talks-need-to-address-syrian-and-iranian-proliferation
Thursday 22 March 2018 / Hour 3, Block B:  Malcolm Hoenlein, in re: Palestinian Authority.  Abu Mazen made an ignorant remark about the US ambassador, making him unwelcome, MH happened to be with Amb Friedman when Abbas tweeted, calling him. “a son of a dog.”   As Palestinians plan a large march up to the fence, Israel has created a way of firing tear gas if necessary. Goal of the march is to gain attention, since they’re out of money, and the number of aid trucks Israel sends in is decreasing.    Taylor Force Law: PA spending hundreds of millions to reward murderers. US bill will pass the Senate: of $200 mil sent by the US, $120 mil will be cut until the PA quits providing massive amounts money to killers. MBS will talk about Iran; about proxy wars (Russia); and Turkey; and war in Yemen.  Does MBS’s success here change his status in the Middle East? He’ll be seen as more mature; has a serious agenda. The fact that he’s coming to listen is unusual.
Were extremely delighted at the naming of John Bolton as National Security Advisor. A dream come true. 
MBS (Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia) in his embassy to the US. Later, leader of Qatar will visit.
Thursday 22 March 2018 / Hour 3, Block C:  Patrick Tucker, DefenseOne, in re: Cambridge Analytica “harvests profiles of millions of US voters” – disaster for Facebook.
An affiliate of Cambridge Analytica, Strategic Communications Laboratories, worked for Obama under its Global Engagement Center. Suspended from FB, but still has a contract ($500 K) with US State Dept. SCL group was the means by which a potentially illicit activity occurred.
Global Engagement Center, stood up in 2016 by common agreement of both sides of the aisle; was conceived as a way to attract, communicate with, and bring in those vulnerable to ISIS messaging, to bring them [into the light]. Need a nimble, diffracted PR campaign, run by a former Navy SEAL. Mr Lumpkin.    A psychological campaign. Longtime contacts between British intell and US State Department.
Big social networking platforms use our data as oil and currency.  Using info that’s available in order better to target messaging. (Twitter wd like to provide this if it could figure it out.) 
However, in the most recent instance, Cambridge Analytica was using data it appropriated in violation of rules; also, tactics in ways that hid from Facebook and hid from the law.
Strange, fraught relations we’ll have with the wizards of these platforms.
Thursday 22 March 2018 / Hour 3, Block D:  Patrick Tucker, DefenseOne, in re:  DARPA and AI.  DARPA is looking at Compass, a new program: the other side of the little green men we saw in Ukraine, the Russians posing as Ukrainians. Apply AI and game theory to a difficult problem for the mil: gray zone warfare Think of Ukraine and Crimea in spring 2014: a  lot of Russian govt activity not [identified] as such, to destabilize govt in Eastern Ukraine. Taking over bldgs and territory, usually but not always s without violence.  On the precipice of actual conflict.
We’re seeing this right now in the Middle East by Iran.  US mil interested in actions more stealthy and spy-like than picking up a gun. If you can [move in] early, can obtain control before you lose all leverage. As things are going now, Russia stands to control all of Europe by 2025.
Africom, PACOM — many: we’re stretched all over the place.  Look at the Russian border from the Baltics to the Black Sea. Russia claims it they can disconnect from the global Internet and maintain continuity with its forces. Herman Klemenko on RTV: Not only that, but the entire society could use the Russian intranet for all of its domestic an commercial needs.   US can maintain comms with mil by SIPRnet*, but everything else would collapse.  “Patrick has discovered the disconnect gap.”
* The Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet) is "a system of interconnected computer used by the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of State to transmit classified information (up to and including information classified SECRET) by packet switching over the 'completely secure' environment". It also provides services such as hypertext document access and electronic mail. As such, SIPRNet is the DoD's classified version of the civilian Internet.
SIPRNet is the SECRET component of the Defense Information Systems Network. Other components handle communications with other security needs, such as the NIPRNet, which is used for nonsecure communications, and the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System (JWICS) which is used for Top Secret communications.
According to the U.S. Department of State Web Development Handbook, domain structure and naming conventions are the same as for the open internet, except for the addition of a second-level domain, like, e.g., "sgov" between state and gov: openforum.state.sgov.gov.Files originating from SIPRNet are marked by a header tag "SIPDIS" (SIPrnet DIStribution). A corresponding second-level domain smil.mil exists for DoD users.
Access is also available to a "...small pool of trusted allies, including Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and New Zealand..." This group (including the US) is known as the Five Eyes.
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http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2018/03/if-war-comes-russia-could-d...
If War Comes, Russia Could Disconnect from the Internet. Yes, the Entire Country
Robust internal networks will keep the military and government operating, says Putin’s top IT advisor.
A two-year-old effort to allow the Russian military to rely solely on internal networks during wartime has apparently blossomed into support for a digitally isolated government and civil society as well, a top advisor to Vladimir Putin said this week.
“Technically, we are ready for any action now,” Herman Klimenko told Russian television station NTV on March 6. He added that any such move would not be painless.
In 2016, the government began to operate the Closed Data Transfer Segment, an internal intranet for military and other officials. Klimenko seems to have suggested that the Segment could handle traffic for the rest of the country as well.
The Russian government has long worked to reduce dependence on foreign information technology. (Putin has called the Internet a CIA project.) In 2010, Russia launched an effort to create a Linux-based operating system to wean the government from Microsoft products. Five years later, the Russian government mandated that digital data on its citizens be stored on Russian soil, a move perhaps also intended to help keep tabs on the population. Last year, Russia announced that it would build an alternative Domain Name System for use by itself, Brazil, India, China, and South Africa.
Klimenko emphasized that moving to an entirely internal Internet would impose unspecified inconveniences for Russia, and would be “painful.”
That’s understatement, says Samuel Bendett, an associate research analyst at CNA and a fellow in Russia studies at the American Foreign Policy Council. Bendett says that digital isolation is technically possible but not necessarily achievable. For one thing, it would have severe consequences for the Russian economy.
“The key phrase here is that it would be a ‘painful process’ were that to happen in the first place. He is saying that the Russian military and government have their own closed Internet systems,” said Bendett. “But while the military may function with its own JWICS [Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System], isolating the Russian society from the global Internet may be a very difficult, if not impossible, process, considering how much Russian economic and socio-cultural nodes depend on global Internet traffic.”
The announcement follows a series of bellicose statements and moves from the Russian government in recent months. In October of 2017, during the large Zapad military exercise, the Russian government conducted a massive civil defense drill to prepare the population for total war.
Patrick Tucker is technology editor for Defense One. He’s also the author of The Naked Future: What Happens in a World That Anticipates Your Every Move? (Current, 2014). Previously, Tucker was deputy editor for The Futurist for nine years. Tucker has written about emerging technology in Slate, ... FULL BIO
 
Hour Four
Thursday 22 March 2018 / Hour 4, Block A:  Stephen Coll, Directorate S
Thursday 22 March 2018 / Hour 4, Block B:  Stephen Coll, Directorate S
Thursday 22 March 2018 / Hour 4, Block C:  Adrian Goldsworthy, Pax Romana.
Thursday 22 March 2018 / Hour 4, Block D:  Adrian Goldsworthy, Pax Romana.
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