Portal to the Islamic State War

The Islamic State is one of the contemporary most serious and novel threats to the transitioning (or not) current world order. The fact that war is part and parcel of the Islamic State and its Caliphate or Khilafah (خلافة) very existence is only one of the many challenges and novelties that most of the rest of the world must face.

The merging of different wars and issues is another mammoth challenge. For example, the wars in Libya, Syria and Iraq merged with the Islamic State war. When it became clear that a new war had started, one key question was to find out is there were different theatres of operations for a theatre of war itself limited to the Middle East and North African Region, or if we should revise the way we apply those strategic concepts, or if the very concept of the theatre of war, understood as an ideal-type of a defined quasi-independent system (Carl Von Clausewitz, On War, Book V, Ch 2) was also in needs of revision because of the Caliphate and its use of the globalised networked world into which we live. These questions are still crucial in May 2017, even though many seem to start believing – a bit early ? – that the war against the Islamic State has been won.

As far as the theatres of operations are concerned, who are those who define them? If we use the American definition of “theatre” – “The geographical area for which a commander of a geographic combatant command has been assigned responsibility. (JP 1-02. SOURCE: JP 1)” – then, again, who defines the geographical area as well as determines when responsibility for command should be attributed? If there is no US or coalition theater, does that mean that there is indeed no theater, for now? But what about the future? Are concepts exclusively defined in geographical terms sufficient? Or might they enhance the probability that we would remain on the defensive, granting the initiative to the enemy?

Those are only samples of the many questions that must asked before we can hope finding proper answers and strategies, not only militarily and across governments but also across societies and actors.

We explore here those concerns and work towards providing actionable strategic foresight and warning on the Islamic State war, building upon and looking for best ways to incorporate the more specific War in Syria, the War in Libya and other current and future issues (and related sections).

Daily monitoring of the war against the Islamic State across social media: The Caliphate War Sigils.

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“Interstellar” – Strategic Warning and Response Alternatives for the Resource Crisis

 “Interstellar”, the 2014 global blockbuster movie by Christopher Nolan is a feat of intellectual and strategic thinking. The movie follows the adventures of three astronauts whose mission is to find a viable planet for humankind, while people on Earth are struggling with the rapid decay of the biosphere and the increasingly dangerous effects of climate change. In fact, this movie addresses the political and existential issues of what is to become of humanity once the climate change crisis, the biodiversity crisis and the energy and minerals crises will have been firmly and clearly interlocked for two dozens years from now. This nexus of “socio-bio-vital crises” is very smartly used by Christopher Nolan to elaborate a vehicle for a new kind of …

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The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly 179 – “I need more money and troops for today’s threats”

Each week our scan collects weak – and less weak – signals… We present below some of the most interesting or relevant features for each section.

World (all matters related to war, international and national security) – An interesting statement by the US Army Chief of Staff sums up well the current situation for many countries: “I need more money and troops for today’s threats”. This points out the complete lack of foresight – and warning – that plague our societies as the now inadequate strategy and budget General Odierno refers too are dated 2012, which is only 2 years past.

This also underlines the conundrum of neo-liberal societies. First, to briefly summarize, they tend to believe that trade and globalisation has ended all wars, if not history, while state spending must be cut. As a result, as with all ideologies as they become biases, proper analysis, proper foresight and proper decisions become impossible. Second, there is the never-ending or returning grinding crisis (see economy section below) that stops growth and thus the automatic increase of resources available to societies to face threats.

These two features combine to make societies unable to stop threats in a timely and proper manner – when they do not contribute to create threats when none previously existed. As other ideologies (read, for example Chris Zappone “A new Cold War ideology…“) and biases, as well as inefficiencies to say nothing about the promotion of mediocrity and incompetency among elite groups (see, for an explanation, material and ideological stakes in an outdated worldview) amalgamate, the threats, in turn, swell. Then, one day or another, resources must imperatively be found, when they are even less available than previously. What are the ways forward? Probably, for a while, the downward spiral will continue, until the system is forced to change to be able to face and answer the new threats, with a hope to win… except that having changed it will have disappeared anyway. But is it not how societies have changed and evolved throughout time?

Technology and armaments – Among others, check the articles about IARPA’s speech recognition challenge, 2014 Defense One Summit and EPA’s key priorities of the revised Capability Development Plan.

Energy and environment security – Besides “Germany plans to withdraw from binding 2020 climate targets”, which signals (again) the lack of real concern of various governments for seriously tackling anthropogenic climate change, and many articles on renewable energies, a rarer reminder about the crucial importance of biodiversity and more specifically bees for food security, as 70 of the 100 crop species that provide 90% food are pollinated by bees.

Science  – A very interesting on using the metrics of resilience, contrasting first the resilience and the risk assessment approaches and then exploring how military doctrine and military-science-based research can help defining proper resilience metrics, that could then be applied across government (and organizations).

Economy (look here for issues related to economic crises, monetary policy, inequality, or budget deficit for example) – Many articles this week are about the bad data for Japan – which were to be expected, considering, notably, the amazing amount of its public deficit, even if the when remained a mystery – as well as the slow down in China. This is most likely to mean a return of the grinding global crisis, assuming it has ever stopped.

Ebola – The good news this week is that the outbreak seems to be stabilizing in Liberia, considering the heavy inflow of means. The continuing absence of contagion outside the region is also positive. The potentially bad news, beyond an absence of improvement notably in Sierra Leone,  and cases in Mali, is the death of a repatriated patient in the US, despite the use of Zdam.  According to the WHO latest situation report, we now have “a total of 15113 confirmed, probable, and suspected cases of EVD and 5406 deaths …reported up to the end of 16 November 2014.”

Read the 20 November scan →

The Weekly is the scan of The Red (Team) Analysis Society and it focuses on national and international security issues. It was started as an experiment with Paper.li as a way to collect ideas, notably through Twitter. Its success and its usefulness led to its continuation.

The information collected (crowdsourced) does not mean endorsement but points to new, emerging, escalating or stabilizing problems and issues.

If you wish to consult the scan after the end of the week period, use the “archives” directly on The Weekly.

Featured image: “C-band Radar-dish Antenna”. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Conflict in Ukraine – The Far-Right (3): Parties and Battalions

After we focused, in our series on the far-right in Ukraine, first on ultra-nationalism then on the new People’s Front ultra-nationalist outlook and related potential impacts, notably regarding war in Eastern Ukraine, this last post will deal with the remaining far-right groups.We shall first look at the way the war in Eastern Ukraine further legitimized not only far-right and nationalist groups but also their paramilitary branches. Then, after presenting a map of the ultra-nationalist and far-right actors on the Ukrainian scene, we shall introduce more in detail those right-wing groups that are both represented in parliament and certified by their participation in the war, before to turn to those that have no parliamentary representation but nevertheless remain legitimized by the war.Legitimizing paramilitary right-wing groupsThe Ministry of Interior …

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Mapping of the far-right actors in Ukraine - Premium content for Platinum members (yearly membership)
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The Red Team Analysis Weekly 178 – Fighting Wars of Narratives, from AQ to IS, Ukraine and Russia

Each week our scan collects weak – and less weak – signals… We present below some of the most interesting or relevant features for each section.

World (all matters related to war, international and national security) –  Note a very interesting and excellent article, part of a “series on strategic communications, narrative, and the Islamic State” for The Bridge (publication stopped) by Lieutenant Colonel Dean Case, a United States Army Information Operations Officer, and Mikhail Grinberg, which, using lessons learned from Iraq makes the case for a strategy to win the “battle of legitimacy” against the Islamic State. Considering this aspect may be all the more important considering the Caliphate “expansion”, in Libya and Egypt.

Notably, Lt Col Case underlines that “One critical element of all of our messaging efforts was the truth. To win the battle of the narrative against AQ, we had to not only tell a better story, we had to prove it.” This is a lesson that must and ought to be remembered as, with the heightening of the tension in Eastern Ukraine, we are back to a very heavy anti-Russian, anti-Putin campaign. Again, nothing is spared, even hyping an insignificant event in China, bordering on slander (the facts being obviously true but the implied slander making us wonder if the story is truly better, or if it does not rather make the side hyping it despicable). Hardly any voice – in the english-speaking social networks’ sphere – disturbs the new doctrine. Even using multi-lingual crowdsourcing, only one article in Spanish looking at what is happening inside Luhansk is identified. It will thus become again extremely difficult finding and elaborating objective analysis. Meanwhile, if policy is based only on biased analyses, then only bad decisions are likely to be taken, which considering the other current challenges would come at the worst moment. Interestingly, The International Red Cross, which has a policy of neutrality, stressed similarly the highly polarized climate that made of Ukraine a highly complex and very difficult crisis for them. But because the ICRC president Peter Maurer expressed those views in an interview with Russian Agency Tass, we should surely discard them as propaganda…

Also of crucial importance we should signal the still difficult yet happening rapprochement between Japan and China, while the evolution over the last months tends to show a Japan that is slowly moving closer to Russia thus becoming less strongly anchored into the American dominated world. Positively, this also shows that even high escalation can be lowered toward stabilization.

Technology and armaments – Besides much on new armaments’ contracts, cybersecurity and big data, the article “The Cyborg Medicine of Tomorrow Is Inside the Veteran of Today” is particularly interesting. We can perceive the issue as not only frightening but also terribly sad, for example when one has seen the last version of the film Robocop (2014, by director José Padilha – a must watch to understand many issues at hand here), or, alternatively, as exhilarating when one believes in technologism, “human enhancement”, and “singularity”. Two different perspectives and narratives on the same problem.

Energy and environment security – A particularly thought-provoking article points out the feedback look existing between the wars being waged in the Middle-East, the related environmental damage and the future potential impact in terms of heightened likelihood for new, continuing or renewed wars. The article focuses notably on aerial bombing, seismic areas and impact on water.

Science  – Unsurprisingly, we have many articles on the “Rosetta mission’s comet landing”. Besides the scientific impacts and feat, it is also a success of the European Space Agency, which might mean that Europe is not yet out of the picture, first, and, second, notably considering the recent catastrophes involving commercial endeavours, that public or state’s efforts are, similarly, neither that inefficient nor defunct, of course when implemented properly with the right people.

Economy (look here for issues related to economic crises, monetary policy, inequality, or budget deficit for example) – A must read article by Pr John Clarke on “imagined economies” allows readers to step back and reflect critically on various possible “economies”, which, in turn brings back “the economy” to its true dimension “a social and political product and thereby open to social and political action”. here again we find the central theme for this week, narratives and the war and battles that may surround them.

Ebola – We again identify the same finding as previously, the Ebola epidemic outbreak hardly interests anyone. The “crowdfeeling” might be right as, according to the WHO latest situation report, there might be some stabilization at work in both Guinea and Liberia, but not in Sierra Leone, while Mali now knows four cases with four deaths. However, it is most likely that the lack of interest is linked to the absence of fatal cases outside West Africa, considering the origin of most sources for crowdsourcing. The danger might be that the efforts to stop the epidemic become impacted.

Access the 13 November 2014 scan

The Weekly is the scan of The Red Team Analysis Society and it focuses on national and international security issues. It was started as an experiment with Paper.li as a way to collect ideas, notably through Twitter. Its success and its usefulness led to its continuation.

The information collected (crowdsourced) does not mean endorsement but points to new, emerging, escalating or stabilizing problems and issues.

If you wish to consult the scan after the end of the week period, use the “archives” directly on The Weekly.

Featured image: “C-band Radar-dish Antenna”. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Conflict in Ukraine – The Far-Right (2): Demise or Metamorphosis?

The 26 October 2014 election’s results show a metamorphosis of ultra-nationalism in Ukraine with potential impact on war in Eastern Ukraine and beyond.

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The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly 177 – The Islamic State’s “Ripple”?!

Each week our scan collects weak – and less weak – signals… We present below some of the most interesting or relevant features for each section.

World (all matters related to war, international and national security) –  This week, the Israel Defence Forces warns – unsurprisingly – about the inevitability of war in Lebanon, while previous suspicions of linkages between Al-Qaeda and Indian Mujahideen seem to be resurfacing, after having been first denied as alarmist. Meanwhile, one article in the New York Times – the start of a new trend or an isolated article? – seems to be trying to develop a new thesis according to which “all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds” because, actually, the Islamic State is not that dangerous and that it is soon to be vanquished, even if it has not only suffered setback, to hardly caricature the argument. Considering the situation on the ground, as relayed by so many articles, we may wonder if this is not plain wishful thinking, or, more worrying, a sign of the incapacity of our (Western) societies to think seriously about war, and the change it will bring.

Ebola – One of the most important indicators to monitor right now is the progress of vaccine and there are so far some good news regarding the ongoing testing in Mali. Also a very interesting – albeit potentially pessimistic – article applying complexity theory to some of the current scientific understanding on quarantine, for example… with interesting implications in terms of policy.

Technology and armaments – The fascinating test of a drone equipped with AI (Artifical Intelligence), developed by DARPA-funded researchers, brings us closer to future types of warfare. Meanwhile in intelligence, UK GCHQ Chief, asks for more support from social networks in fighting notably the Islamic State, which begs very interesting questions in terms of focus on means rather than on causes, on technology and capabilities rather than on intention (or both), on the adaptation of the states and its agencies to contemporary means of communication and, of course, on liberalism during wartimes, among others.

Energy and environment security – Read notably another article questioning the possibility of a continuing US oil boom, notably under conditions of relatively low energy prices. A question that can be applied to all shale projects, notably, for example, in Ukraine.

Science  – Among others, an interesting novel process found by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) to form, as well as blend, nanoparticles.

Economy (look here for issues related to economic crises, monetary policy, inequality, or budget deficit for example) – Note a very interesting note on a research article published by the PNAS showing the impact of increased pollution on Indian crops. Grains yields could have been reduced by half and easy mitigations policies should be implemented.

Read the 6 November scan →

The Weekly is the scan of The Red (Team) Analysis Society and it focuses on national and international security issues. It was started as an experiment with Paper.li as a way to collect ideas, notably through Twitter. Its success and its usefulness led to its continuation.

The information collected (crowdsourced) does not mean endorsement but points to new, emerging, escalating or stabilizing problems and issues.

If you wish to consult the scan after the end of the week period, use the “archives” directly on The Weekly.

Featured image: “C-band Radar-dish Antenna”. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

War in Libya and its Futures: State of Play – Nationalist Forces (1)

With two primary warring alliances and two rival governments, Libya’s civil war is becoming increasingly polarized. The Islamist/Misratan coalition, or Dawn of Libya, which supports the General National Congress (GNC) in Tripoli, is battling General Haftar and the Nationalist coalition, which supports the Council of Representatives in Tobruk. With this in mind, we shall begin the present state of play with the Nationalist coalition. In this post, we shall specifically evaluate the Petroleum Facilities Guard, the Army of Cyrenaica, the Cyrenaica Protection Force, the Libyan military, al-Saiqa (Special Forces), al-Sawaiq Brigade, and al-Qaqa Brigade. The remaining groups – the Libyan National Army, Zintan Brigades, various tribes and regional forces – shall be presented in the next post. The Council of …

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The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly 176 – Europe Unexpected Power Waiting to be Used

Each week our scan collects weak – and less weak – signals… We present below the most interesting or relevant features for each section.

World (all matters related to war, international and national security) –  This week, we can point out, besides many other signals and articles, a must read article on “Putin’s Great Gamble” by Pr Nikolas K. Gvosdev, which not only enlightens understanding of current relations but also is crucial to foresee next moves.

The way the war against the Islamic State impacts Turkey and its relationships to other players, including the U.S., is also of utmost importance for the way the war will be waged in the future by the different actors.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace policy recommendations for a EU Foreign Policy strongly committed to

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Energy, Climate and Military Paradox

A powerful paradox lies at the heart of the current oil and gas global rush (Michael Klare, The Race for what’s left, 2012). On the one hand, the energy global demand necessitates to find and exploit oil and gas deposits, while looking for new ones, even in extreme environmental and political situations, as in the Arctic or the Niger river Delta (Al Jazeera, “Who is stealing Nigerian oil?“, 13 Sept. 2014). On the other hand, 97% of climatologists have developed a consensus in establishing that the current uses of oil and gas are changing the Earth climate (IPCC, fifth report, 2014) at such a speed and rate that basic life conditions could be altered for the whole of the human …

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