A glimpse of a future naval (and network) special operations mission: Google edition

The jesters and the futurists have long featured offshore structures as the future of human activities. Reality continues to bear out these predictions. We have previously discussed large scale offshore habitation structures and their potential impact for future intelligence and unconventional warfare problems. This time around, it is the concept of the maritime data center – previously discussed as a moored vessel – recast as an offshore terminal type platform.

We are enthused by the possibility of seeing a real life data haven come into its own – and run by a professional multinational entity (rather than the sad sort of anarchist disgrace that was Sealand). But one can easily see the fascinating potential for convergence of a whole range of threats directed against such facilities, involving both naval and network conflicts.

Once again, our froggy friends will no doubt be forced to ponder such actions. And while there are no doubt legions of would-be hackers just waiting to strap on a wetsuit to live out their own episode of the Rock against a network contagion, they are apt to be disappointed. One suspects that the signals intelligence folks will be far more likely to have to come to terms with what the widespread proliferation of such offshore datacenter platforms will mean in an environment where bandwidth and storage are nearly infinite and entirely cheap, and may be rented from the cloud through a complex and shift network of shell companies, taking advantage of low staffing levels and limited oversight incentives. The Russian Business Network’s latter day successors will no doubt be wet.

h/t Futurismic

No greater love…

There have been too few honours accorded those who walk furthest in harm’s way, and face nearly unendurable hardships and danger in the service of this Long War. Too often their sacrifices have been denigrated, or wrapped tight behind the cloak of secrecy.

But on rare occasion, the magnitude of a man’s actions may speak louder than the silent profession. The example set by such a man rises far above the fleeting fashions of the chattering classes, and demonstrates the truth of a warrior’s lasting legacy.

Michael Monsoor is such a man. And in him see all those who served in the shadows, to suffer for their comrades in arms without a word of any faint praise. In him know the willing choice to bear the full brunt of war’s energies so that others might fight through to victory. He was among the best of them all.

In the words of that oldest of warrior's poetry:
Here dwell I no longer, for Destiny calleth me! Bid thou my warriors after my funeral pyre.

Remember him.

h/t Haft of the Spear

A glimpse of a future naval special operations mission

Thanks to the jesters at the futurist court’s table over at io9, we note a most interesting concept in circulation for new urban development project – at sea. The environment will be a tailored cross between luxury resort, cruise ship, and a small city. Throw in a casino and conventional center, and you have an interesting playground for what the designers presumably hope will be the rich and famous.

Should such a vessel ever be constructed, however, one can imagine its prominence as a target for maritime terrorism and piracy. And while authoring that threat assessment would be quite interesting, we are not sure we would want to be in the company directors’ shoes when briefing those results to an insurer such as Lloyds of London.

More interestingly yet, this inevitable threat raises the distinct possibility that a future naval special operations mission would be required to respond to a potential incident aboard. With anywhere between 20,000 to 50,000 souls on board, and what will likely be an internal architecture quite different from other maritime vessels, such a mission would no doubt be taxing in the extreme for even the most capable unit. Even the barge-like hull structure and high rise type construction envisioned by the ship’s builders would impose its own complications on such an operation.

While the concept itself looks slick enough, it is far from certain whether it would ever be ready for primetime. However, the idea does provide interesting fodder for intelligence professionals seeking to explore future scenarios for unconventional warfare and counterterrorism. And one cannot beat that back to the 80’s feel of the whole endeavor, even if one should include the more modern elements of Somali pirates and radical Islamist terrorist actors in the scenario itself. After all, it has been some time since considering the response to a vessel hijacking incident has been new enough to occasion comment.

For those future operators which may one day be tasked with this kind of mission, at least there is some solace to know that it will likely occur in a pleasant climate. After all, the rich do not generally favour less hospitable weather – which makes this a far cry from the typical oil rig takedown.

Riding the coffin

We have been taken to task recently by several of our close friends on the sharper side of the profession for focusing too much as of late on the analytical and privatized segments of the field. While we are the first to note that it is far harder to write in the public forum regarding the darker aspects of the intelligence professional’s world, we have indeed been less focused on those rare opportunities which might serve to inspire discussion and debate regarding the history and future of the operational house.

Thus we are pleased to note, via Aviation Week’s Ares blog, the following glimpse of the future of covert insertion techniques that would no doubt make even an OSS or SOE veteran wince. It enters the public sphere tucked away in a longer discussion of future warfighting concepts.

“The spookily labeled Coffin In The Sky (CITS) concept was a result of Northrop Grumman's engineers talking to SOF operators. The bomber would carry up to 12 modified Conventional Air Launched Cruise Missile (CALCM) weapons, each fitted with a pressurized life-support container for one person. After launch, the missiles would fly deep into hostile territory, pop the containers open and release the operators for a HAHO (high altitude, high opening) parachute descent.”

Any piece of equipment named the “coffin” does not exactly inspire confidence, and reminds us of the old expression from the first days of discussing the probabilities of success of early orbital recovery systems – “NASA odds”.

What amazes us is not that the oddity of the concept, but rather the fact that is now a rational part of military futures exercises. This was once the stuff of pure science fiction – and as always, the jester’s at the table forecast it more accurately than the think tanks. The concept joins a rapidly growing list of successful predictions by author Bruce Sterling – who foresaw something very closely akin to the technique, including the consequences of a failed landing, in his short story Taklamakan. (Among his many other insights were the use of armed UAV’s for selective assassination and the rise of Islamic insurgency as a defining problem in Africa – envisioned in the 1980s’, no less.)

We have in our time done a lot of dangerous - and some might even say, foolish - things on the way into, and out of, some very bad places in the world. While we are not eager to repeat them unless absolutely required in pursuit of the mission, this new concept sounds at least as safe as riding in a taxi in some parts of the disconnected Gap, and certainly about as comfortable as the Fulton skyhook….

They also serve, who only stand and wait

We have noted that there are a good many fine analysts and officers who come into this latest contremps rather late in the game. Most are in the process of proving themselves, daily and quietly, in a dozen different areas of the community. But many remember St. Crispin’s Day speech – especially on the occasion of our own national holidays, and count themselves less a part of the enterprise of the Long War than their companions who have seen it through since the dark days of September, and in harm’s way on strange foreign shores.

To this we hope our collective experiences in combat and in crisis will weigh enough to carry our admonition against such thoughts. We spare no words for those who have not had the stomach for the fight – who turned away when their chance came to step forward, or who deliberately chose the coward’s path. But for those whose skills and abilities lie in the vaults far to the rear in reachback, or those who have sought deployments but been given lonely outposts far from the core of the current conflict, we would extend our hope that they find stillness. Their hour may well yet come.

We recall the World War II story of a briefer for the Special Operations Executive, whose responsibility it was to instruct deploying officers and agents in the use of their assigned communications and code techniques. This was typically the final briefing given before clandestine insertion into enemy territory. On this particular day, he was assigned to give an extremely unusual group presentation to a large body of men, who would be tasked to direct action missions in support of SOE’s mandate to “set Europe ablaze”(a mission also shared by their sister service, the American Office of Strategic Services, who had contributed men to the group.) These men had been in training for what seemed an eternity, and were eager to join the fight. They had seen others come and gone from the schoolhouse – to unknown fates in Occupied Europe, or to return: harrowed, but covered in the glory of deeds of unimaginable courage and effect.

Their briefer gave them the final line of this poem as his own admonishment, in order that they might not hold their service so cheaply. They would go on to become among the most successful group of paramilitary operations officers in history, under the codename Jedburgh. And they would always remember their briefer, whose contributions to their survival were no less important than the men with whom they fought on those dark nights in the deep woods and mountains of France.

We would offer the same final line today, for the same reasons. There are future Jeds out there, and before this Long War is over we will need them most.


When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait

Milton (On His Blindness)

Combat stress and society’s (manufactured) reaction

Combat stress is a real thing. There are robust programs in place in DOD and elsewhere to help handle the effects of that stress on the human being, for war is a distinctly unnatural state of affairs and prolonged participation in it can do things to the health of one’s mind. Unconventional units, particularly those engaged in the delicate business of intelligence in support of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism, suffer combat stress more than most. So we, like many in our profession, are greatly cognizant of the hazard – and to a great extent, much of the community’s culture evolved to help place such stress in a larger context, and share it among those whom one trusts – especially those parts of the culture which have been so roundly criticized by those seeking political correctness and sterility.

The most important lesson we ever learned was that combat stress is driven primarily by one’s own reaction to society’s reaction regarding the stress events. The lesson came from the law enforcement realm, where the exposure to serious trauma and emotional tension was far more routine, and far more frequent, over the course of careers often spanning decades. These lessons have been validated time and again in the wars we have seen. It is not merely that one saw terrible things, or carried out difficult deeds during a period of time in a bad place. It is the cultural, political, and interpersonal context of what those things mean back in the World that can settle the restless nightmares or spur the haunting demons that lurk in a man’s mind.

There are outlets for this kind of stress, and means by which it may be handled. There are avenues available that those who need help may turn to. There is no shame in it.

Every man reacts differently to the stress. Physiological symptoms, psychological conditions, and triggering factors all vary. But there is no more sure means to convince a man that he is suffering than a relentless media campaign that tells him he should be. The propaganda in this case creates a reality. And this is a direct and grievous wound to those who should be offered instead support, care, and a greater context into which they might place the burdens of their days and thus see them lightened.

It is for these reasons that we view the recent Washington Post (and other media outlets’) attempts to stir up the ghosts of conflicts past to destroy support for the Long War as contemptible beyond measure. The media manufactured Vietnam-era PTSD coverage has proven over the careful examination of history to be driven by frauds and liars, who sought to cover their inadequacies in the stolen glories of others, and in failing sought to discredit entirely the idea of heroism, and bravery, and valour. (One of the best works documenting these false claims, and the media profiteering on the backs of such lies, was written by B.G. Burkett.) It is with this firmly in mind that we note the troubling similarities with current media accounts.

We view this most damnable of frauds as arising from an impulse that the Bard identified long ago in one of his more stirring military scenes:

And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.