Archive for category Military News
This is an interesting development. Many folks were speculating that a much higher number of troops would stick around, and then this rumor of 3,000 troops came out and all hell broke loose. lol The article below mentions politics as a driver for this type of decision making….go figure?
The concern here is that if there is too small of a footprint, that these troops will be sitting ducks in Iraq, or Iraq will not be able to deal with their security issues without sufficient troop presence. My concern though is that companies in Iraq that are dependent upon the security services of the current troops, will have to once again re-adjust to the politics of the matter. Planning might have included a certain amount of US troop presence in specific areas, and all of their war fighting tools and capabilities that come with that presence. So if they were planning on a 10,000 troop presence, and now it is 3,000, that can have an impact.
It also can impact the logistics. If contracting companies were planning for a set amount of troops based off the feedback war planners were giving them, then those companies have made their moves and planed for those contracts. So yet again, the back and forth on the troop presence in Iraq has an impact on this industry. Of course companies will flex and adapt, but I am sure this is causing a lot of headaches.
The other aspect of Iraq that needs to be mentioned is the Iranian influence there. As we speak, rockets and mortars continue to fall on the various FOBs and outposts in Iraq. These munitions come from all sorts of sources, but the biggest arms provider is Iran. Their goal is to help along the exit of US Troops and destabilize the region so their pet leaders can rise to the top (like Sadr). So the environment in Iraq is less troops, but tons of contractors, and lots of Iranian weapons and influence pouring into the country to help destabilize it and in the long run control it with puppet leaders.
Iraq is also in dire need of maintenance of weapons and equipment, foreign investment to include oil contracts, training and upkeep of security forces, etc. If Iraq cannot depend upon a US troop presence to help in these areas, then they will probably depend on contractors to fill these needs. Which our industry will fill the need, but yet again we have the wolf called Iran and Al Qaeda still doing their best to do harm.
I contend that private industry can deal with these sets of problems, but private industry does not have the same freedom of war fighting and weapons/hardware that US troops enjoyed. So in essence, private industry will have to accomplish what the military used to do, and yet with one hand tied behind it’s back. If Iraq sinks into Civil War again, or the pace of war and problems pick up, contractors will be right in the middle of that. -Matt
US says no decision on keeping troops in Iraq
By LARA JAKES
September 7, 2011
The Obama administration pushed back Wednesday on reports it has decided to keep a few thousand troops in Iraq next year — a number that will do little to ease security concerns but may be too big for White House advisers who are worried about the slumping U.S. economy and the president’s re-election chances.
In Washington, new Joint Chiefs chairman Army Gen. Martin Dempsey and Undersecretary of State nominee Wendy Sherman separately said there has been no decision on how many troops might stay.
U.S. Ambassador to Iraq James F. Jeffrey went a step further, soundly dismissing as false news reports that about 3,000 troops would remain in Iraq beyond the final Dec. 31 withdrawal deadline.
He said that figure has not been part of ongoing discussions in Baghdad, where both governments have been weighing whether as many as 10,000 U.S. forces should stay.
Til Valhall to those who perished in this incident. You will not be forgotten, and your contribution to the cause in Afghanistan was profound and honorable. My heart also goes out to the friends and family of the fallen, both in Afghanistan and in the US.
As far as what exactly happened is up to the military investigators to reveal. So I will not get into any speculation as to the weapons used by the Taliban, or who to blame for any operational screw ups. It could be that this shot was the Golden BB, or the lucky shot. Or it could be something that was planned and well coordinated using advanced weapons. Who knows, and it is all speculation until the final reports come out as to what exactly happened. -Matt
Hat tip to Thomas Ricks over at Foreign Policy for pointing this one out. Data like this seems to be missed when we discuss the costs of a standing government army, versus the private industry. So stuff like this really points out the differences between public and private.
I have yet to work in a company that had any security contractor retirees. Hell, I would be lucky to have a retirement package offered, and most gigs these days seem to be all independent contractor stuff. That is the reality of today’s ‘disposable workforce’. So for me, I just assemble my own retirement plan and continue put into it from the various contracts I work. Sometimes I was lucky enough to work a contract with a 401K plan, but those were few and far between.
The government seems to be the only industry left that actually has folks that work 20 years or 30 years, and has retirees under that system. It is actually a pretty good deal and many retirees collect pensions and go on to work other jobs.
In the security contracting industry, you see a lot of retired military folks who do exactly that. They collect a nice pension after working 20 years in the military, and then go on to be a private contractor and make even more money. So I could understand why the Pentagon and today’s cash strapped US government is taking a second look at this system. You could also guess the reaction of guys in the military that would construe this study as a threat to their good deal. The question to ask is will the government modify the current military retirement system to match that of the federal government, and get a few more years of service out of their soldiers? Or will they succumb to the politics of the matter, and realize that a ton of military retirees and current soldiers vote.
Who knows, but I do know that the US government is in the process of making some adjustments to the budget and spending. So they are looking at all and any options of cutting costs, and the military is no exception.
The other thing I wanted to mention is that I certainly hope these statistics are factored into future cost benefit analysis between government military forces and private military forces. There are so many costs to consider when maintaining a standing army during times of peace and war. Not to mention that all of these retirees in the military are also drawing healthcare benefits, and the legacy costs of that must be equally as high. I mean if a guy retires at age 40 give or take, and the average life expectancy of a human these days is around 75, then that can add up to a lot of money that tax payers will be paying over the course of that individual’s life.
Here is the report that goes into more detail about military retirement and it’s costs. -Matt
Outstanding news and I am glad to see Dakota be recognized for his actions. I was also interested in his statement about what he has been up to since he has left the Marines. In this video below, he mentioned that he was contracting? Very cool and I certainly hope that whatever company he is working for, is doing a good job at taking care of him and his co-workers? Because if said company has been poorly treating this Marine and his co-workers, you are soon to get a whole bunch of negative attention and press placed on how poorly you treated a national hero. Not that this is the case, but I figured I would mention this just as a reminder of why ‘taking care of your people’ is one of the best business practices out there. Semper Fi. -Matt
Edit: Hey, thanks to Federico on FB for sending me this link. I guess Dakota works at Ausgar Technologies.
Meyer took a job with Ausgar Technologies, a military contractor based in San Diego. He travels from Kentucky to bases across the U.S., spending most of his time training snipers on optics.
Meyer said he sometimes thinks about re-enlisting, but thinks better of it because he has a supportive girlfriend who has read all the investigative reports and saw “the aftermath” of his deployment.
“I don’t know if I’d want to do that to her,” he said. “It’s hard to find a girlfriend who can put up with waking up in the middle of the night the way I do sometimes.”
This is actually pretty interesting if you take a step back and see what has really happened here. The back story is that a Marine named Sgt. Moore originally posted a youtube video to ask actress Mila Kunis to be his date for the Marine Corps Ball. This ball is a celebration of the Marine Corps Birthday that is held every year, and she accepted! Good for Sgt. Moore and Semper Fi.
Now how is this a ‘social coup d’etat’? In reality, Mila Kunis and this Marine would never purposely seek one another out, just because of the vastly different social circumstances of each party. Mila is a celebrity in Hollywood, and Sgt. Moore is serving in Afghanistan. Actresses typically do not go to Afghanistan to specifically date military men. They might go there for a USO tour, but not to find dates. And socially and even economically, both the celebrity and soldier live in some very different worlds. Now of course this date does not mean that they are now connected at the hip and actually interested in one another. But they both are certainly going to be hanging out for one night together at this ball, and that is pretty cool. I could even see Hollywood making some show about the whole thing. Who knows?….
But it is this collision of two very different worlds that grabs my interest, and it is cool to check out the dynamics of how it happened and snowballed. Youtube is a tool that anyone can use, and the potential for a video to go viral or be passed around and seen by a lot of people, is open to anyone with a good idea. I first learned about this video on Facebook, because someone watched it, and passed it around on FB. Guess what, I passed it around as well. The thought of a celebrity going to the Marine Ball with this Marine, was a cool idea and everyone was very supportive of this Marine’s gumption to post such a thing. It is that image of a actress and Marine, going to the ball together, which has created the viral effect of the idea itself.
Once this idea came out, and people agreed with it and celebrated the idea, then guess what? People support what they help to create, and Facebook/Twitter/blogs etc. all allows people to pass around the idea and show their support for it. They also know that the more people they pass around this idea too, will equate to them being rewarded with a ‘thanks’ and a ‘like’ out there in the world of cyber democracies. Passing around a good idea, makes you a ‘good idea’ within your online community. That is the incentive, and everyone wants to be the purveyor of good ideas within their social networks. That is why I passed it around on my Facebook account, and that is why my friends passed it around as well.
It get’s better, because now you have this massive viral video explosion going on in the social networks of the world, and meanwhile, little ol’ Mila Kunis has no idea what is about to hit her. When you watch the video where she found out about this video and invitation, she was shocked and had no idea how to respond until her co-host Justin Timberlake clued into the big picture and said ‘this needs to happen’ wink, wink. She said she would go, and that is what sealed it.
I am sure afterwards she was contacting her PR guy and trying to figure out what happened. They have also clued into the fact that if she does not go, that it would be extremely negative publicity for her. But the main point here is that Sgt. Moore performed a social coup, and was able to get this celebrity elite to go on a date with him to the Marine Ball! A celebrity that would have never had connected with this Marine within the normal societal rules and structures we live in today. Hell, for all we know, Kunis might be an anti-war, thumb her nose at soldiers, Hollywood liberal. But that doesn’t matter if true, because she will be the bad guy now if she doesn’t go.
Finally, this little incident has inspired others (mimicry strategy), because another female Marine named Corporal De Santis has asked Justin Timberlake to accompany her on a date via youtube to the Marine Ball. lol I speculate that he will go, just because if he doesn’t, he will look like a hypocrite for telling Kunis to go and not going himself. Plus, it is all good PR for the movie that Kunis and Timberlake are promoting called Friends With Benefits. The Marines benefit from this PR as well. Stuff like this makes Hollywood happy too if these leads to more revenue and an increase in star power for these two actors. The power of viral videos and social media, continues to amaze me. -Matt
To supplement my cyber lance post, this news, along with the attacks on L3 and Lockheed Martin or the Stuxnet attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, all point to how important and dangerous this stuff really is. I will let the article speak for itself.
Also check out the Morgan Doctrine’s opinion about this story. The MD is a blog that promotes the concept of cyber privateers and tracks the world of cyber warfare and crime. -Matt
Cyber Combat: Act of War
MAY 31, 2011
Pentagon Sets Stage for U.S. to Respond to Computer Sabotage With Military Force
By SIOBHAN GORMAN And JULIAN E. BARNES
WASHINGTON—The Pentagon has concluded that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war, a finding that for the first time opens the door for the U.S. to respond using traditional military force.
WSJ’s Siobhan Gorman has the exclusive story of the Pentagon classifying cyber attacks by foreign nations acts of war. – News Hub
The Pentagon’s first formal cyber strategy, unclassified portions of which are expected to become public next month, represents an early attempt to grapple with a changing world in which a hacker could pose as significant a threat to U.S. nuclear reactors, subways or pipelines as a hostile country’s military.
In part, the Pentagon intends its plan as a warning to potential adversaries of the consequences of attacking the U.S. in this way. “If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks,” said a military official.
In October 2008, Ford Fraker, then the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, called the facilities security force program “probably the single biggest initiative for the U.S.-Saudi relationship” and said the value of contracts associated with the program could reach tens of billions of dollars…..
The special security force is expected to grow to at least 35,000 members, trained and equipped by U.S. personnel as part of a multiagency effort that includes staff from the Justice Department, Energy Department and Pentagon. It is overseen by the U.S. Central Command.
The force’s main mission is to protect vital oil infrastructure, but its scope is wider. A formerly secret State Department cable released by the WikiLeaks website described the mission as protecting “Saudi energy production facilities, desalination plants and future civil nuclear reactors.”
Oh boy. Now everyone was freaking out about the whole R2 contract in the UAE for an 800 man battalion, but a 35,000 man ‘facilities security force’ is way bigger and more valuable. I will say that the Vinnell Arabia contract is a sizable and long term contract and has been a source of employment for the industry for awhile, but this new force could take contracts there to a whole new level.
And that quote up top by U.S. ambassador Ford Fraker is quite significant. He said ‘tens of billions of dollars’ folks! Now you can see exactly what Erik Prince was thinking about when he wanted to create a mega training facility in the desert of the UAE. A 35,000 man force requires a ton of training to start up and maintain over the years, and training providers will be a premium in that part of the world.
It also makes sense why the US is not freaking out about Prince and his plans in the UAE. For a force this large in Saudi Arabia, and with all the competition for trainers and manpower throughout the world in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, you can see that every competent and capable training facility out there will be very popular. Especially facilities that are close, cost effective, and deliver a quality service. Of course the Saudis will also build local facilities for training and housing these forces. But for the really specialized stuff that I am sure R2 will offer, they could easily cater to forces like this.
Let’s not forget about what the national interest is for the US and it’s allies–keep the oil flowing. Saudi Arabia is a key part of our energy policy, and their oil and refinery capability is vital to the US economy. Any threat to that oil, be it from terrorists, internal uprising or Iran, is a threat to US national security. That is the relationship we have right now, and we will continue to have for awhile.
I also think that we cannot afford to see Saudi Arabia collapse via uprisings. Libya or Egypt collapsing was one thing, but losing Saudi Arabia to political collapse would be unacceptable. And in the case of this massive facilities security force, we either train their forces to stand the line, or it could potentially be US troops standing that line if Saudi Arabia were to explode. Contracts like Vinnell Arabia or the future contracts for this current force, are insurance for the west pure and simple. -Matt
……The forging of closer U.S.-Saudi military ties is so sensitive, particularly in Saudi Arabia, that the Pentagon and the State Department declined requests for on-the-record comment and U.S. officials rejected a request for an interview with the two-star Army general, Robert G. Catalanotti, who manages the project to build a “facilities security force” to protect the Saudis’ network of oil installations and other critical infrastructure. The Saudi Embassy in Washington did not respond to two written requests for comment. -Understanding Saudi Stability and Instability: A Very Different Nation, By Anthony H. Cordesman, Feb 26, 2011
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U.S. quietly expanding defense ties with Saudis
By Robert Burns
Thursday May 19, 2011
WASHINGTON — Despite their deepening political divide, the United States and Saudi Arabia are quietly expanding defense ties on a vast scale, led by a little-known project to develop an elite force to protect the kingdom’s oil riches and future nuclear sites.
The U.S. also is in discussions with Saudi Arabia to create an air and missile defense system with far greater capability against the regional rival the Saudis fear most, Iran. And it is with Iran mainly in mind that the Saudis are pressing ahead with a historic $60 billion arms deal that will provide dozens of new U.S.-built F-15 combat aircraft likely to ensure Saudi air superiority over Iran for years.
Together these moves amount to a historic expansion of a 66-year-old relationship that is built on America’s oil appetite, sustained by Saudi reliance on U.S. military reach and deepened by a shared worry about the threat of al-Qaida and the ambitions of Iran.
