Feral Jundi

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Maritime Security: All-Arab Red Sea Anti-piracy Force Proposed in Riyadh

Filed under: Maritime Security,Saudi Arabia — Tags: , , , , — Matt @ 9:07 PM

    Interesting. I have no clue about the possible contracting opportunities associated with this, but I am sure we will see some training type gigs if anything.  Maybe Vinnell Arabia type programs will pop up for this stuff?-Matt

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All-Arab Red Sea anti-piracy force proposed in Riyadh

By Paul Handley

June 30, 2009

RIYADH (AFP) — Arab states of the Gulf and Red Sea said on Monday that they are planning a joint anti-piracy force, insisting defence of the crucial Red Sea waterway was the “primary responsibility” of littoral states.

Saying it was necessary to prevent the spread of piracy to the Red Sea or the Gulf, 11 regional states agreed to set up an all-Arab Navy Task Force, to be led at the outset by the Saudis, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

The delegates to the conference in the Saudi capital stressed the “importance of the exclusion of the Red Sea from any international arrangements, especially the fight against sea piracy.”

Royal Saudi Navy commander Lieutenant General Prince Fahd bin Abdullah told journalists: “This subject is now under negotiation and we are hoping to reach an agreement to form this force.”

Joining the talks were representatives from Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

Fahd said part of the effort would be to design ways of cooperating with the flotillas from some 20 foreign countries now patrolling sea lanes in the Gulf of Aden and off the Horn of Africa to stop pirate attacks.

“One of the objectives of the meeting is to discuss joint Arab coordination with multinational forces operating in the region to combat piracy and to agree on the mechanisms of the Arab contribution” to these efforts, he said.

He said that the Gulf states were involved in the proposed task force because of the danger posed to their shipping, particularly vital oil and gas exports which pass via the Red Sea to the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean.

A joint statement said the Saudi navy will coordinate efforts by the other Arab naval commands on the Red Sea and Gulf for a period of one year and then review the results.

Another meeting on the issue will be scheduled in two months, it said.

More than 70 vessels, including a fully-laden Saudi oil supertanker, have been hijacked for ransom by Somali pirates in the past two years. Despite patrols by a raft of foreign navies, attacks are still frequently reported.

Saudi Arabia has said in recent months that it has stepped up its high-seas patrols for pirates.

The International Maritime Bureau has reported a handful of attempted pirate attacks, none successful, at the southern end of the Red Sea this year, mostly in the strategically important Bab al-Mandab strait linking to the Gulf of Aden.

The bureau recorded no attacks in the Red Sea last year.

But the Saudi push for an all-Arab naval task force could also be related to what diplomats say are Riyadh’s growing worries over the security not only of Red Sea shipping but also of its essential infrastructure in the area, including oil facilities, power generation and desalinisation plants.

Story here.

 

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Afghanistan: Could PMC’s Be Used in the ‘Hold’ Phase of This New Strategy?

Filed under: Afghanistan,Industry Talk — Tags: , , , , , — Matt @ 9:27 PM

John Nagl, a counterinsurgency expert who was appointed last week to the defence policy board at the Pentagon, said: “We do not have enough troops to hold what we have cleared in Helmand. The additional American troops are a help, but they are insufficient.

“We have more fighting in Afghanistan in front of us than we have fighting behind us, full stop. This is going to be a harder fight than Iraq. Afghanistan needs [to create its own] national army of 250,000 to enable the allies to depart.”

At present the Afghan national army has about 92,000 troops, while the police force numbers 83,000. More US troops are needed to fill the gap, but first they would have to be diverted from Iraq. 

   Ok, I know this post is going to tweak a few people out there, because it is just ‘too crazy’ or ridiculous.  How could we possibly use PMC’s or PSC’s to ‘hold’ villages?

    Well, it’s easy, we first rework what PMC’s can or cannot do in the war (like give them the necessary tools and authorization to defend villages and AO’s) and we open the flood gates of contracts for such a thing.  Then we insure the necessary architecture is in place to insure that the company in place is in fact doing good things and following the contract for that village.  But none of this is new in the realm of how we set these things up, we just have to do it.

   Here is another way to look at this.  Take a good look at what the ‘holding’ troops are actually doing in these villages, and logically look at what jobs a company could conceivably perform during that holding operation.  Contractors have been used in the defense on US bases, in disaster zones, and for protecting remote civilian camps in places like Iraq, the next progression to me, is using contractors to defend villages.  If our goal is to protect people in Afghanistan from the Taliban, and we do not have enough troops to do that, then why not use contractors?

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Friday, July 3, 2009

Building Snowmobiles: In Search of Innovation

Filed under: Building Snowmobiles — Tags: , , — Matt @ 7:50 AM

   I read this article and instantly thought that this belonged in the building snowmobiles category.  Innovation is such an important aspect of a company’s future and welfare, and that includes our industry.  So for those in the companies looking for some inspiration on how to get there, here you go.  Enjoy. –Matt

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In Search of Innovation

JUNE 22, 2009

When companies try to come up with new ideas, they too often look only where they always look. That won’t get them anywhere.

By JOHN BESSANT, KATHRIN MöSLEIN And BETTINA VON STAMM

If you want to understand why some companies lack innovative ideas, think about the man who can’t find his car keys.

His friend asks him why he’s looking for the keys under the lamppost when he dropped them over on the lawn. “Because there’s more light over here,” the man explains.

For too many companies, that describes their search for new ideas, and it pretty much guarantees they won’t go anywhere fast. While such a company can marginally improve what it’s already good at, it misses out on the breakthroughs—those eureka moments when a new concept pops up, as if from nowhere, and changes a company’s fortunes forever.

Those ideas, however, don’t really come from nowhere. Instead, they are typically at the edge of a company’s radar screen, and sometimes a bit beyond: trends in peripheral industries, unserved needs in foreign markets, activities that aren’t part of the company’s core business. To be truly innovative, companies sometimes have to change their frames of reference, extend their search space. New ways of thinking and organization can be required as well.

In other words, they have to look away from the lamppost.

None of this is easy to do. But companies that succeed may just recognize the next great opportunity, or looming threat, before their competitors do. And that’s important in tumultuous economic times with rapidly changing technologies. Indeed, every once in a while, that blip on the horizon turns out to be a tsunami.

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Thursday, July 2, 2009

Podcasts: ‘Long, Hot Summer’ Ahead For U.S. Troops In Iraq

Filed under: Industry Talk,Iraq,Podcasts — Tags: , , , , , , , — Matt @ 11:00 AM

   We’ll see how it goes.  I think it is important to note our continuing work, which continues to be ignored by the main stream media, and that we will be impacted by the drawdown as well.  Supplies will still need to be brought in to the camps, and even more security contractors will be needed to haul equipment out along with those standard logistics runs.  And as U.S. troops are shuffled around, the civilian camp security elements will become more important to ‘buffer’ these movements. Oh, and don’t forget the fact that all the facility maintenance is highly dependent on civilian contractors, and without these folks.  These guys are really important when AC units or generators breakdown, or god forbid, any internet networks break down.

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Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Industry Talk: Security Firms Lobby for Tougher Rules

Filed under: Industry Talk — Tags: , , , , — Matt @ 4:36 AM

   You know, I give Doug and the IPOA a lot of credit for the hard work they have done to get this industry on the right foot.  I certainly hope congress is listening, because if they can provide the teeth to a set of standards, then things like the Code of Conduct that the IPOA has been promoting all these years could be something that could be respected.

   I have also noticed all the companies that have signed on with the ISO 9000 stuff in recent years.  That is great that they are getting that kind of certification, but I always look to the results of such things.  What really matters in all of this, is customer satisfaction and service.  That and taking care of your people–which I think is vital if you want your customers satisfied. (pissed off employees and contractors tend to pay it forward on to the customer in lots of poisonous ways) Together with happy employees and happy customers, and an application of Kaizen to your company, and the contracts will continue to come in.

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