Russia’s “Secret” Army in Ukraine - Friday August 28th, 2015 at 1:43 PM

August 28, 2015

Russia’s “Secret” Army in Ukraine
Friday August 28th, 2015 at 1:43 PM

Today the office of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko released via Twitter important details about the organization and structure of Russia’s occupying army in Southeastern Ukraine. The order of battle (ORBAT) information is clearly derived from a lot of intelligence, especially SIGINT (I say this as someone who used to do ORBAT intelligence for a living: this is well done).

Since most of my readers know neither Russian or Ukrainian, I’m passing on what Kyiv has released today in English. The translation isn’t great but it works. I’m providing comments below since most normals are not well acquainted with the nuances of Russian military organization.

Russian Military Command, South-East Ukraine (Novocherkask):

Commanding Officer (CO): GenCol A N. Serdyukov [1]

1st Army Corps (“Donetsk People’s Republic” Military), HQ: Donetsk

CO: GenMaj A.V. Zavizyon [2]

2nd Army Corps (“Luhansk People’s Republic” Military), HQ: Luhansk

CO: GenMaj Y. V. Nikiforov [3]

The organization of the 1st and 2nd Corps, no surprise, corresponds exactly to the standard tables of organization and equipment (TO&E) of Russian Ground Forces. There are several maneuver brigades (“motor rifle” is the Russian term for mechanized in NATO parlance) supported by independent regiments and battalions. As Kyiv has announced, the 35,000 troops belonging to “DNR” and “LNR” forces are bolstered by 9,000 reservists. While some forty percent of the troops are locals, the rest are Russians plus a few mercenaries and foreign volunteers.

The senior command staff are exclusively Russian officers assigned to the 1st and 2nd Corps — officially they are “not there” of course — while the operation is run, logistically and command-wise, from neighboring Russia.

To anybody with a decent memory, this closely resembles the relationship during the 1992-95 Bosnian War, when the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS), while consisting largely of local rank-and-file troops, had most of its command, and nearly all of its financing and logistics, coming from neighboring Serbia and its military — which, in practice treated the VRS as merely as an extension of itself, as in fact it was.

Needless to add, the “DNR” and “LNR” militaries would not last twenty-four hours without constant command and logistical support from Putin’s military. They are an extension of Russian Ground Forces and should be treated as such by the West. It’s time to end, once and for all, any fiction about “rebels” — these are Russian-controlled forces, led by Russian officers, supplied with Russian guns and ammunition, that are waging war inside Ukraine.

Kudos to Kyiv for putting this important information out there as an aid to understanding what’s really going on in their country.

Comments:

1. AKA Sedov; GenCol is a Russian “three-star” rank.

2. AKA Pilen; GenMaj is a Russian “one-star” rank.

3. AKA Morgun; GenMaj is a Russian “one-star” rank.

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Man Admits Killing Elderly Ohio Couple, Gets Life in Prison
Friday August 28th, 2015 at 1:33 PM

ABC News: Top Stories

Man admits killing elderly Ohio pair and setting them on fire, avoids possible death sentence

China’s Vulnerability Is a Test for U.S. Presidential Candidatesby DAVID E. SANGER
Friday August 28th, 2015 at 1:32 PM

NYT > World

The faltering Chinese financial markets pose such a threat to American interests that a strategy of chiding Beijing over human rights or cyberattacks seems risky.

Attack Draws Scrutiny to Railways Linking Europeby webdesk@voanews.com (Associated Press)
Friday August 28th, 2015 at 1:32 PM

Voice Of America

Europe's rail system is at the heart of its open borders, a way for passengers to travel on some of the world's fastest and most sophisticated mass transit with no need for passports or even ID. The man who attacked a high speed train last week paid in cash, allowing him to avoid identifying himself, and boarded in Brussels, the EU capital, and carried a small arsenal of weapons in his bag. The thwarted attack raised pressure to increase security in the 26 countries that allow...

Brazil's Rousseff Faces Growing Impeachment Threatby webdesk@voanews.com (Reuters)
Friday August 28th, 2015 at 1:31 PM

Voice Of America

If the worst economic crisis in a decade, a massive corruption scandal centered on her ruling party and approval ratings in the single digits weren't rough enough for Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, she's now faced with an angry rival who controls the possibility of impeachment proceedings against her. Eduardo Cunha, the powerful speaker of Brazil's lower house of Congress, is Rousseff's sworn enemy and has been charged by her attorney general with taking...

US Teen Jailed for 11 Years for Supporting ISby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
Friday August 28th, 2015 at 1:30 PM

Voice Of America

A teenager in the U.S. state of Virginia has been sentenced to 11 years in prison for conspiring to provide material support and resources to the Islamic State group. A U.S. Justice Department statement Friday described 17-year-old Ali Shukri Amin as "a young American who used social media to provide material support" to IS and said his prison sentence will be followed by a "lifetime of supervised release and monitoring of his Internet activities." “Today’s...

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Radar Detects Object Believed to Be Missing Nazi Gold Trainby webdesk@voanews.com (Associated Press)
Friday August 28th, 2015 at 1:30 PM

Voice Of America

A Polish official said Friday he has seen an image made by ground-penetrating radar that seemed to prove the discovery of an armored Nazi train missing in southwestern Poland since World War II. Local lore says a German train filled with gold, gems and armaments went missing around the city of Walbrzych while it was fleeing the Red Army in the spring of 1945. Fortune-hunters have looked for the so-called “gold train” for decades, and in the communist era, the Polish army and security...

Today's Headlines and Commentary by Quinta Jurecic
Friday August 28th, 2015 at 1:29 PM

Lawfare - Hard National Security Choices

More news has come in on the discovery, made yesterday, of a truck filled with bodies abandoned east of Vienna. Austrian authorities have now counted 71 bodies believed to be refugees seeking asylum in western Europe, likely including some Syrians. The New York Times reports that Austrian and Hungarian officials have arrested three people believed to be members of a vast Bulgarian-Hungarian human trafficking ring. As a flood of migrants has poured into Europe from countries wracked by economic turmoil and violent chaos, Europe has struggled to cope with the migration crisis and the rising levels of human smuggling that have come along with it.

The Wall Street Journal has more on Junaid Hussain, a U.K.-born ISIS hacker killed by a U.S. drone strike. Hussain’s death was an indication of “the extent to which digital warfare has upset the balance of power on the modern battlefield,” with his exploits in hacking and online recruitment apparently posing enough of a threat to lead the United States and United Kingdom to target him for killing by drone.

And speaking of Western-born extremist propagandists killed by drones, remember Anwar al Awlaki?Al Qaeda may have been eclipsed by ISIS, but Scott Shane argues in the New York Times Magazine that the radical preacher’s controversial death still has much to teach us about counterterrorism strategy.

Over at Defense One, Khalid Koser and Amy Cunningham of the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund are ready to help revise that counterterrorism strategy, making the case that a coordinated international institution in countering violent extremism would be a great help in preventing radicalization. “Countering violent extremism,” or CVE, is a promising paradigm for addressing the underlying causes that lead to radicalization, but the lack of a coordinated policy program has proved to be a major deficit.

Meanwhile, Foreign Policy suggests that we may need CVE programs for a long time to come. Top U.S. officials, including General Martin Dempsey of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and outgoing Army Chief of Staff General Ray Odierno, have indicated that the fight against ISIS may be one for the long term.The question is whether the United States is politically and militarily prepared to dig in for a 10- or 20-year campaign.

The two Iraqi generals killed in an ISIS suicide attack near Ramadi yesterday were targeted by car bombs built into U.S.-made Humvees, the Times writes. ISIS presumably captured the Humvees from the Iraqi army. The militant group has benefited greatly from seizures of U.S.-made equipment and ammunition provided to Iraq by the United States, using the materials to gain a tactical advantage over the very army that originally owned them.

According to a report issued by the Iraqi parliament, the military officer responsible for protecting Mosul was on vacation during the period leading up to ISIS’s capture of the city, despite repeated warnings. The Washington Post examines the report’s conclusions, which paint a picture of the Iraqi army as corrupt, disorganized, and not up to the challenge of facing off against highly disciplined ISIS forces.

The AP tells us that U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has recommended the establishment of an independent panel to investigate allegations of chemical weapons use by the Syrian government. The panel would operate with investigative authority to enter the necessary regions of Syria and would have the ability to formally assign blame for the use of chemical weapons. Despite agreeing to give up al chemical weapons under an international agreement two years ago, the government of Syrian President Bashar al Assad has been accused of routinely using chlorine gas in the battle to maintain control of the country.

Clashes between Turkish forces and and PKK militants have lead to the deaths of seven people in southeastern Turkey, Reuters reports. The fragile peace enjoyed by the region for several years has collapsed in the wake of renewed Turkish efforts to crack down on the PKK.

A new IAEA report indicates Iranian compliance with many aspects of the nuclear accords, the APwrites. But while levels of Iranian uranium enrichment and nuclear research and development appear consistent with the deal, the U.N. agency expressed concern over suspicious construction activity currently taking place at the Parchin military site. The latter, which is included within the supplementary IAEA-Iran agreement on investigations of possible locations of past nuclear weapons development, has been at the center of controversy over possible Iranian efforts to sanitize the site prior to investigation. The Journal has more.

Over at the Post, former Treasury officials Juan Zarate and Chip Poncy weigh in on the benefits of using financial power to constrain potential post-deal Iranian aggression. Their suggestion? An “economic constriction campaign” targeting Iranian sponsors of terrorism and other destabilizing activities in the region, in collaboration with the European Union. While nuclear sanctions will be lifted under the terms of the deal, terrorism-related sanctions need not be.

Fresh from seizing the southern port city of Aden, the Yemeni government will soon launch a campaign to retake the capital city Sanaa from Houthi control. Reuters writes that, according to Yemen’s foreign minister, the offensive is set to begin within two months. While the government has recently made some headway in its battle against the Houthis, recent instability in Aden has cast into question the ability of government forces to maintain security and control.

Human Rights Watch has accused the Saudi-led pro-government air campaign of using illegal cluster bombs in northwest Yemen---not the first time that the coalition has been accused of using indiscriminate tactics leading to unacceptable levels of civilian casualties. Yet the coalition’s spokesman denied use of the particular type of cluster bomb in an interview with Al Jazeera.

Protests continue in Beirut over the Lebanese government’s failure to solve the city’s growing garbage crisis. The “You Stink” movement has touched a nerve among Lebanese citizens fed up with a government that many see as dysfunctional and corrupt. The Times has the story.

Less than a day after South Sudanese President Salva Kiir finally signed a peace deal to bring an end to the country’s year-long civil war, both rebels and the South Sudanese army are accusing each other of violating the terms of the permanent ceasefire. Reuters reports on the dispute, which centers on whether rebels or government troops began a firefight in two rebel-held towns.

After reports of a young Ghanaian man’s recruitment by ISIS, Ghana is investigating concerns of ISIS recruiters targeting university students, the BBC tells us. Despite its geographical closeness to Nigeria, which has been battered by the ISIS-affiliated Boko Haram insurgency, Ghana had until now remained distant from the threat of extremism.

The international coalition fighting against ISIS may soon include Uzbekistan, Radio Free Europeindicates. The United States has invited the country to participate in anti-ISIS efforts “in any way it sees fit”---possibly including intelligence gathering and squeezing ISIS finances as well as, or instead of, military operations. Uzbekistan has recently struggled with the rise of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a radical group that has allied itself with ISIS and has crossed the border into Afghanistan.

The U.S. military has launched airstrikes to retake the Afghan district of Musa Qala from Taliban control, CNN reports. Control of the district continues to change hands: long a Taliban stronghold, it fell under government control only to be seized by the Taliban again in recent days. The Afghan military is participating in the efforts. Meanwhile, Afghan forces successfully drove the Taliban out of the northern district of Kohistanat under the leadership of Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum,Pajhwok writes.

For those of you confused over the ongoing Taliban power struggle in the wake of Mullah Omar’s confirmed death, Radio Free Europe has a helpful diagram.

India and Pakistan exchanged fire across their shared border, killing as many as 11 people, including several civilians. Reuters reminds us that the exchange took place on the 50th anniversary of the 1965 war between the two countries over control of Kashmir. On that note, Dawn writes that Pakistani officials have apparently been briefed that India is the only external threat faced by the country.

As tensions between Russia and the West remain high, NATO continues to readjust itself to the new political and military reality in Eastern Europe. Defense One tells us that NATO forces are preparing for what may be the organization’s most complex military drill since the Cold War, involving an “ambitious” range of hybrid combat scenarios. Meanwhile, the Journal reports that NATO has opened a new joint training base in Georgia, a non-NATO member, in what Georgia hopes will deter further Russian aggression and which the Kremlin has already deemed to be a “destabilizing factor.”

With NATO increasing its presence along the Russian border and stepping up its military drills,Russia is also doing its best to display its military might---but the flailing economy has thrown a wrench in the works. President Vladimir Putin’s goals of revitalizing the armed forces and the Russian defense sector aside, government defense and security firms are trying to reduce their expenditures, and a weakened ruble can only stretch so far. The Journal has more.

Bloomberg reports that the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit reversed a lower court's judgment this morning in Obama v. Klayman, though the appeals court allowed the case to go forward. In 2013, a U.S. district court granted a bid by activist Larry Klayman and others for a preliminary injunction, but stayed that relief pending appeal.

German newspaper Die Zeit reports that Germany’s national intelligence agency provided information on German citizens to the NSA in exchange for access to XKEYSCORE, a powerful surveillance software used by the Agency to “query large databases of emails, browsing histories, online chats and webcam photos.” According to the paper, the agreement occurred with little to no political oversight by the German government and may have violated German law. Whether German political channels were involved or not, the revelation will likely add fuel to the growing firestorm surrounding German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s handling of NSA spying in Germany.

The Associated Press filed suit against the U.S. Department of Justice yesterday, objecting to the FBI’s failure to provide records related to the Bureau’s decision to send a fake article to a 15-year-old who was suspected of making bomb threats. The fake story, which impersonated the Associated Press, allowed the FBI to compromise the suspect's computer, revealing his location and Internet address. The AP’s FOIA request aims to determine how many times since 2000 that the Bureau has impersonated a media organization in order to deliver malicious software.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter is expected to announce the next step in his ambitions campaign to harness the power of Silicon Valley for defense sector innovation today, this time providing funding for a new research institute that will be run by Flextech Alliance, a public-private consortium that aims to invent and improve flexible electronics. According to Defense One, the Pentagon will contribute $75 million while 96 private companies and 11 labs and universities will contribute $90 million over the next five years.

Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald reports that, perhaps as a result of ongoing political difficulties,the Obama administration is now considering “building a ‘Guantanamo North’ from scratch” instead of relocating detainees to already existing high-security prisons. Major General Michael Lehnert, the general tasked with construction the detention facility in 2002, told the Herald that while anything is possible, “he simply find[s] it hard to believe there isn’t a prison in this country to incarcerate the bad actors.”

Parting shot: “Guantanamo North” may very well be on the way, but the Onion brings us news thatthe current detention camp has broke ground on a new and potentially needed “geriatric care wing.”

ICYMI: Yesterday, on Lawfare

Nicholas Weaver responded to Ben’s hard questions on encryption with a “Tale of Three Backdoors.”

Wells pondered the future of public-sector cybersecurity standards after the Third Circuit’s decision inFTC v. Wyndham.

Bobby alerted us to a new ISIS material support case involving individuals within the United States.

Email the Roundup Team noteworthy law and security-related articles to include, and follow us onTwitter and Facebook for additional commentary on these issues. Sign up to receive Lawfare in your inbox. Visit our Events Calendar to learn about upcoming national security events, and check out relevant job openings on our Job Board.

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National Security Adviser Meets With Chinese President Before His U.S. Visit by By EDWARD WONG
Friday August 28th, 2015 at 1:29 PM

NYT > United States Defense And Military Forces

Susan E. Rice met with President Xi Jinping and other officials and discussed a number of issues that included areas of tension between the two nations.

U.S. Citizen, Once Held in Egypt’s Crackdown, Becomes Voice for Inmates by By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Friday August 28th, 2015 at 1:29 PM

NYT > Islamic State In Iraq And Syria (ISIS)

Mohamed Soltan, who had been arrested at an Islamist protest, has argued to American officials that Egypt’s mass incarcerations are radicalizing youth and damaging United States interests.

Army Takes Biggest Hit In OPM Hack
Friday August 28th, 2015 at 11:38 AM

Defense One - All Content

Federal agencies have begun submitting proposals for how they will cover the costs of responding to the hack of background investigation data maintained by the Office of Personnel Management, and for some it is coming with a hefty price tag.

Last month, OPM notified agencies it would charge them for their share of the protection services being offered to hack victims, proportional to the number of impacted former and current employees, contractors and applicants connected to each agency. Now that OPM has notified each agency of what they owe for fiscal 2015, agencies must shift funds around to make the required payments.

The Defense Department submitted its reprogramming request to Congress, where it has already received approval from at least the Senate Appropriations Committee’s panel on Defense spending. The plan set aside $132 million to pay for hack victims’ credit and identity monitoring, identity restoration and protection services for dependent children.

More than 40 percent of that sum will come from the Army’s budget, a little more than a quarter from the Air Force and a smaller slice from the Navy. Another 17 percent — about $23 million — will come from Defensewide appropriations.

The Army pointed to reductions in expected cost-of-living adjustments, separation payments and housing allowance payments as the areas from which it will draw funds. The Navy said its money would come from fewer than anticipated reenlistment payments and “successful force shaping efforts” in the Marine Corps, as well as the deferred procurement of 27 robots and other purchases. The Air Force will shift funds away from spending set aside for overseas storm damage. The Defensewide portion of the appropriations will come from a few sources, including the consolidations of several department-run schools.

A House Appropriations Committee aide told Government Executiveother agencies have also submitted their plans, the details of which have not yet been made public.

Many agencies with fewer employees requiring security clearances were less impacted by the breach, and therefore saw smaller charges from OPM. The Veterans Affairs Department, for example, will pay $5.3 million toward the response and will absorb the expense without reprogramming funds.

The initial hack of 4.2 million current and former federal workers’ personnel records came with a $21 million price tag, which OPM absorbed on its own. The second breach, however, affected more than five times as many individuals. That, coupled with the government’s decision to offer a more generous suite of protection services for twice as long — as well as offering services to dependent children whose names were not included in the compromised information — was expected to drive the cost of the second contract far higher.

Naval Sea Systems Command took charge of the hunt for a vendor to provide those services and is expected to announce its selection in the coming days.

Agencies will also be responsible for funding the post-hack services in fiscal years 2016 and 2017, though advanced planning should allow agencies to make those payments without reprogramming funds. They may eventually be on the hook for more funding for the benefits, as the General Services Administration and OPM have said the government could boost the length or quality of the protections it offers.

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Stream Of Refugees Continues Through Serbia
Friday August 28th, 2015 at 11:06 AM

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Thousands of refugees and other migrants were continuing their long journeys through Serbia toward the Hungarian border, where authorities are racing to finish a fence to block further entries.

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Rethinking Work - The New York Times
Friday August 28th, 2015 at 11:04 AM

HOW satisfied are we with our jobs?

Gallup regularly polls workers around the world to find out. Its survey last year found that almost 90 percent of workers were either “not engaged” or “actively disengaged” from their jobs. Think about that: Nine out of 10 workers spend half their waking lives doing things they don’t really want to do in places they don’t particularly want to be.

Why? One possibility is that it’s just human nature to dislike work. This was the view of Adam Smith, the father of industrial capitalism, who felt that people were naturally lazy and would work only for pay. “It is the interest of every man,” he wrote in 1776 in “The Wealth of Nations,” “to live as much at his ease as he can.”

This idea has been enormously influential. About a century later, it helped shape the scientific management movement, which created systems of manufacture that minimized the need for skill and close attention — things that lazy, pay-driven workers could not be expected to have.

Today, in factories, offices and other workplaces, the details may be different but the overall situation is the same: Work is structured on the assumption that we do it only because we have to. The call center employee is monitored to ensure that he ends each call quickly. The office worker’s keystrokes are overseen to guarantee productivity.

I think that this cynical and pessimistic approach to work is entirely backward. It is making us dissatisfied with our jobs — and it is also making us worse at them. For our sakes, and for the sakes of those who employ us, things need to change.

To start with, I don’t think most people recognize themselves in Adam Smith’s description of wage-driven idlers. Of course, we care about our wages, and we wouldn’t work without them. But we care about more than money. We want work that is challenging and engaging, that enables us to exercise some discretion and control over what we do, and that provides us opportunities to learn and grow. We want to work with colleagues we respect and with supervisors who respect us. Most of all, we want work that is meaningful — that makes a difference to other people and thus ennobles us in at least some small way.

We want these things so much that we may even be willing to take home a thinner pay envelope to get them. Lawyers leave white-shoe firms to work with the underclass and underserved. Doctors abandon cushy practices to work in clinics that serve poorer areas. Wall Street analysts move to Washington to work as economic advisers in government.

You might object that those are examples of professionals — people who have the financial security to care about more than just their paychecks and the privilege of working in fields in which it is possible to find meaning and personal satisfaction. What about the janitor? The phone solicitor? The hairdresser? The fast-food worker?

I submit that they, too, are looking for something more than wages. About 15 years ago, the Yale organizational behavior professor Amy Wrzesniewski and colleagues studied custodians in a major academic hospital. Though the custodians’ official job duties never even mentioned other human beings, many of them viewed their work as including doing whatever they could to comfort patients and their families and to assist the professional staff members with patient care. They would joke with patients, calm them down so that nurses could insert IVs, even dance for them. They would help family members of patients find their way around the hospital.

The custodians received no financial compensation for this “extra” work. But this aspect of the job, they said, was what got them out of bed every morning. “I enjoy entertaining the patients,” said one. “That’s what I enjoy the most.”

Similarly, a few years ago the Wharton management professor Adam Grant studied a group of college students who worked as phone solicitors, calling alumni to ask for contributions to their university. As an experiment, Professor Grant arranged for a recent graduate who had attended the university on a scholarship funded by such solicitation efforts to meet the students. The graduate gave a short talk about how the scholarship had affected his life and how grateful he was for their solicitation efforts.

Professor Grant found that the money that the students raised increased 171 percent afterward. Again, there was no added compensation for the harder work — just a deeper sense of purpose.

These are just two examples from a literature of cases demonstrating that when given the chance to make their work meaningful and engaging, employees jump at it, even if it means that they have to work harder. Such cases should serve to remind us there is a human cost to routinizing and depersonalizing work. Too often, instead of being able to take pride in what they do, and derive satisfaction from doing it well, workers have little to show for their efforts aside from their pay.

But perhaps there is an upside to monotonous, routinized work. Is it possible that what we lose in work satisfaction, we gain in efficiency?

This, again, is what Adam Smith thought. In his famous example of the pin factory, he extolled the virtues of the division of labor: “One man draws out the wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head.” Our work experience might be poorer, but we — or at least our bosses — would be richer.

Yet more than 200 years later, there is still little evidence of this satisfaction-efficiency trade-off. In fact, most evidence points in the opposite direction. In his 1998 book, “The Human Equation,” which reviewed numerous studies across dozens of different industries, the Stanford organizational behavior professor Jeffrey Pfeffer found that workplaces that offered employees work that was challenging, engaging and meaningful, and over which they had some discretion, were more profitable than workplaces that treated employees as cogs in a production machine.

For example, he cited a study of 136 companies across many different industries that had initial public offerings in 1988. It found that companies that placed a high value on human resources were almost 20 percent more likely to survive for at least five years than those that did not. Similar differences in success were found in studies that compared the management practices of steel mills. And a study of United States apparel manufacturers found that sales growth was more than 50 percent higher in companies with enlightened management practices than in those that did things the old-fashioned way.

The findings were similar in studies of semiconductor manufacturing, oil refining and various service industries. And comparable findings were documented more recently by the Harvard Business School professor Michael Beer in his 2009 book “High Commitment High Performance.”

You get the distinct impression that if you’re trying to decide where to make an investment, the best place to look is those annual lists of the 100 best places to work. When employees have work that they want to do, they are happier. And when they are happier, their work is better, as is the company’s bottom line.

This is admittedly not news. But that only raises a deeper question: In the face of longstanding evidence that routinization and an overemphasis on pay lead to worse performance in the workplace, why have we continued to tolerate and even embrace that approach to work?

The answer, I think, is that the ideas of Adam Smith have become a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy: They gave rise to a world of work in which his gloomy assumptions about human beings became true. When you take all opportunities for meaning and engagement out of the work that people do, why would they work, except for the wage? What Smith and his descendants failed to realize is that rather than exploiting a fact about human nature, they were creating a fact about human nature.

The transformation I have in mind goes something like this: You enter an occupation with a variety of aspirations aside from receiving your pay. But then you discover that your work is structured so that most of those aspirations will be unmet. Maybe you’re a call center employee who wants to help customers solve their problems — but you find out that all that matters is how quickly you terminate each call. Or you’re a teacher who wants to educate kids — but you discover that only their test scores matter. Or you’re a corporate lawyer who wants to serve his client with care and professionalism — but you learn that racking up billable hours is all that really counts.

Pretty soon, you lose your lofty aspirations. And over time, later generations don’t even develop the lofty aspirations in the first place. Compensation becomes the measure of all that is possible from work. When employees negotiate, they negotiate for improved compensation, since nothing else is on the table. And when this goes on long enough, we become just the kind of creatures that Adam Smith thought we always were. (Even Smith, in one passage, seemed to acknowledge this possibility, noting that mindless, routinized work typically made people “stupid and ignorant.”)

The truth is that we are not money-driven by nature. Studies show that people are less likely to help load a couch into a van when you offer a small payment than when you don’t, because the offer of pay makes their task a commercial transaction rather than a favor to another human being. And people are less likely to agree to have a nuclear waste site in their community when you offer to pay them, because the offer of compensation undermines their sense of civic duty.

If people were always paid to load couches into vans, the notion of a favor would soon vanish. Money does not tap into the essence of human motivation so much as transform it. When money is made the measure of all things, it becomes the measure of all things.

To be sure, people should be adequately compensated for their work. Recent efforts across the country to achieve a significant increase in the minimum wage represent real social progress. But in securing such victories for working people, we should not lose sight of the aspiration to make work the kind of activity people embrace, rather than the kind of activity they shun.

How can we do this? By giving employees more of a say in how they do their jobs. By making sure we offer them opportunities to learn and grow. And by encouraging them to suggest improvements to the work process and listening to what they say.

But most important, we need to emphasize the ways in which an employee’s work makes other people’s lives at least a little bit better (and, of course, to make sure that it actually does make people’s lives a little bit better). The phone solicitor is enabling a deserving student to go to a great school. The hospital janitor is easing the pain and suffering of patients and their families. The fast-food worker is lifting some of the burden from a harried parent.

Work that is adequately compensated is an important social good. But so is work that is worth doing. Half of our waking lives is a terrible thing to waste.

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When ISIS Rapists Win - The New York Times
Friday August 28th, 2015 at 11:03 AM

The ISIS atrocities have descended like distant nightmares upon the numbed conscious of the world. The first beheadings of Americans had the power to shock, but since then there has been a steady barrage of inhumanity: mass executions of Christians and others, throwing gay men from rooftops, the destruction of ancient archaeological treasures, the routine use of poison gas.

Even the recent reports in The Times about the Islamic State’s highly structured rape program have produced shock but barely a ripple of action.

And yet something bigger is going on. It’s as if some secret wormhole into a different historical epoch has been discovered and the knowledge of centuries is being unlearned.

This is happening in the moral sphere. State-sponsored slavery seemed like a thing of the past, but now ISIS is an unapologetic slave state. Yazidi women are carefully cataloged, warehoused and bid upon.

The rapes are theocratized. The rapists pray devoutly before and after the act. The religious leader’shandbook governing the rape program has a handy Frequently Asked Questions section for the young rapists:

“Question 12: May a man kiss the female slave of another, with the owner’s permission?

“A man may not kiss the female slave of another, for kissing [involves] pleasure, and pleasure is prohibited unless [the man] owns [the slave] exclusively.

“Question 13: Is it permissible to have intercourse with a female slave who hasn’t reached puberty?

“It is permissible to have intercourse with the female slave who hasn’t reached puberty if she is fit for intercourse; however, if she is not fit for intercourse it is enough to enjoy her without intercourse.”

This wasn’t supposed to happen in the 21st century. Western experts have stared the thing in the face, trying to figure out the cause and significance of the moral disaster we are witnessing. There was a very fine essay in The New York Review of Books by a veteran Middle East expert who chose to remain anonymous and who more or less threw up his hands.

“The clearest evidence that we do not understand this phenomenon is our consistent inability to predict — still less control — these developments,” the author writes. Every time we think ISIS has appalled the world and sabotaged itself, it holds its own or gains strength.

Writing in The National Interest, Ross Harrison shows how the ISIS wormhole into a different moral epoch is accompanied by a political wormhole designed to take the Middle East into a different geostrategic epoch. For the past many decades the Middle East has been defined by nation- states and the Arab mind has been influenced by nationalism. But these nation-states have been weakened (Egypt) or destroyed (Iraq and Syria). Nationalism no longer mobilizes popular passion or provides a convincing historical narrative.

ISIS has arisen, Harrison argues, to bury nationalism and to destroy the Arab nation-state.

“It is tapping into a belief that the pre-nationalist Islamic era represents the glorious halcyon days for the Arab world, while the later era in which secular nationalism flourished was one of decline and foreign domination,” he writes.

ISIS consistently tries to destroy the borders between nation-states. It undermines, confuses or smashes national identities. It eliminates national and pre-caliphate memories.

Meanwhile, it offers a confident vision of the future: a unified caliphate. It fills the vacuum left by decaying nationalist ideologies. As Harrison puts it, “ISIS has cut off almost all pathways to a future other than its self-proclaimed caliphate. The intent is to use this as a wedge with which to expand beyond its base in Iraq and Syria and weaken secular nationalist bonds in Lebanon, Jordan and in even more innately nationalist countries like Egypt.”

President Obama has said that ISIS stands for nothing but savagery. That’s clearly incorrect. Our military leaders speak of the struggle against ISIS as an attempt to kill as many ISIS leaders and soldiers as possible. But this is a war about a vision of history. ISIS ideas have legitimacy because it controls territory and has a place to enact them.

So far the response to ISIS has been pathetic. The U.S. pledged $500 million to train and equip Syrian moderates, hoping to create 15,000 fighters. After three years we turned out a grand total of 60 fighters, of whom a third were immediately captured.

It’s time to stop underestimating this force as some group of self-discrediting madmen. ISIS is a moral and political threat to the fragile and ugly stability that exists in what’s left in the Middle East. ISIS will thrive and spread its ideas for as long as it has its land.

We are looking into a future with a resurgent Iran, a contagious ISIS and a collapsing state order. If this isn’t a cause for alarm and reappraisal, I don’t know what is.

Read the whole story

· · ·

The Crimes of Palmyra - The New York Times
Friday August 28th, 2015 at 11:03 AM

The Islamic State, the ultrafundamentalist group better known as ISIS, has laid a trail of unspeakable horrors in its march through Syria and Iraq — videotaped beheadings, ritualized rape and all manner of grisly torture and murder of anyone who does not subscribe to its extreme version of Islam.

After yet another such atrocity — the recent public beheading of Khalid al-Asaad, 83, the globally respected keeper of the ancient ruins in the Syrian city of Palmyra, for “crimes” like attending “infidel conferences” and serving as “director of idolatry”— it seems somehow disrespectful to bemoan ISIS’ parallel and systematic destruction of historical sites, as if the two were on a par.

Yet it is impossible to read Sunday’s reports of the demolition of one of the best-preserved and grandest relics in the ancient ruins of Palmyra, the Temple of Baalshamin, and not feel anguish at the loss of another irreplaceable monument of our shared past. True, the temple stood near a Roman amphitheater where ISIS is reported to have executed 25 prisoners last month. But to grieve at the loss of a great work of art does not diminish the horror at the loss of human lives, and in tandem they amount to a unified and barbaric attempt to erase not only whole peoples but also their religions, cultures and histories.

As The Times’s Anne Barnard reported on Monday, the destruction of antiquities in Syria and Iraq “has reached staggering levels,” causing an irreversible loss to world heritage and scholarship and filling curators, archaeologists, other experts and lovers of antiquity with dismay. To ISIS, the destruction of the Palmyra temple, like the destruction of ancient statues and monuments in Nimrud,Hatra and other regions under its control, is of a part with the destruction of “apostates,” the decimation of communities like the Assyrian and Yazidi religious minorities, or the enslaving of women, or the beheading of Western hostages: It is an ethnic, religious and cultural cleansing of anything the zealots deem alien to the pure Islamic state.

Such a totalitarian vision is not unique to ISIS. The Mongols led by Hulagu Khan did much the same when they sacked Baghdad in 1258, and in modern times the Nazis and Bolsheviks wreaked enormous havoc on lives and cultures that stood in the way of their ideological goals. But the Islamic State has launched its all-out assault on civilization in our time, and in a region where local authority has been damaged by civil war, and outside powers, notably the United States, have intervened without success.

However daunting the struggles of the Middle East, ISIS stands out in the threat it poses to humanity. But for all its well-publicized atrocities, it is neither all powerful nor immune to military and economic pressures from the West. It can and must be stopped, and the United States and its allies cannot relent in their efforts toward that end.

Read the whole story

· ·

Zombie Factories Stalk the Sputtering Chinese Economyby MICHAEL SCHUMAN
Friday August 28th, 2015 at 10:59 AM

NYT > World

The government is keeping failing factories on life support in an effort to maintain social stability, but the policy may hinder a return to healthy growth.

Russia Launches First Proton Rocket Since May Accident
Friday August 28th, 2015 at 10:30 AM

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Russia has successfully launched a rocket carrier with a British satellite in the first such launch since an engine failure in May resulted in a commercialsatellite being destroyed.

British Journalists Detained in Turkey
Friday August 28th, 2015 at 10:30 AM

ABC News: Top Stories

British journalists detained, questioned by anti-terrorism police in southeast Turkey

Next Page of Stories

Page 4

Ashley Madison founder steps down
Friday August 28th, 2015 at 10:29 AM

BBC News - World

The founder and CEO of the Ashley Madison extra-marital affair website, Noel Biderman, steps down, Avid Life Media says.

Drone comes as close as 50 metres to passenger aircraft in 'possibly catastrophic' near miss above London City Airport
Friday August 28th, 2015 at 10:29 AM

News | Mail Online

Both the pilot, co-pilot and a passenger on board the twin-engined Dash 8 aircraft (file picture), which can carry up to 78 passengers, spotted the drone near London City Airport in April.

Ukraine Decisions Loom Large Again for EU
Friday August 28th, 2015 at 10:28 AM

WSJ.Com: World News

The approach of a one-year deadline of the Minsk accord will force the EU to make weighty decisions over Ukraine.

U.S. National Security and Military News Review

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Don't worry about the Middle East. Worry about China. The Middle East (unlike a large chunk of your portfolio) will still be around tomorrow.

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A federal judge in North Dakota appointed by George W. Bush blocked an Obama administration rule Thursday that would allow the federal government to regulate certain streams and other small waterways.

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28/08/15 08:59 from fbi - Google News
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28/08/15 08:34 from nato - Google News
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28/08/15 08:22 from CyberWar - Google News
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28/08/15 08:13 from Washington Free Beacon

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» Stock futures fall after two-day market rally
28/08/15 08:10 from Search Results
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» News Roundup and Notes: August 28, 2015
28/08/15 08:00 from Just Security
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28/08/15 07:45 from Washington Free Beacon

» Ashley Madison hacking scandal: four lessons to be learnt - Telegraph.co.uk
28/08/15 07:27 from Cyberwar - Google News
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» Scarborough Roasts Clinton for ‘Disgusting’ Terrorist Group Comparisons: ‘Gutter Politics’ At Its Worst
28/08/15 07:16 from Washington Free Beacon

» rugby world cup
28/08/15 07:13 from Drones | World news | The Guardian
rugby world cup This post has been generated by Page2RSS

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28/08/15 07:06 from CyberWar - Google News
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» Flexible Electronics Are the Goal of 1st Pentagon-Silicon Valley Partnership
28/08/15 06:14 from Defense One - All Content
Defense Secretary Ash Carter announces a five-year, $165 million effort to make and improve bendable circuitry.

» Flexible Electronics Are the Goal of Pentagon's First Silicon Valley Partnership
28/08/15 06:14 from Defense One - All Content
Defense Secretary Ash Carter announces a five-year, $165 million effort to make and improve bendable circuitry.

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28/08/15 06:01 from Nato Russia - Google News
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28/08/15 05:41 from fbi - Google News
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28/08/15 05:41 from fbi - Google News
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» Global cyber-security skills shortage leaves Australia open to attack - SC Magazine UK
28/08/15 05:23 from Cyberwarfare - Google News
Global cyber - security skills shortage leaves Australia open to attack SC Magazine UK The Commonwealth Bank warns that a global cyber - security skills shortage could pave the way for additional high-profile computer attacks in Australi...

» Japan launches flat-top destroyer, strengthening its fleet
28/08/15 05:12 from News - Stripes
Japan launches flat-top destroyer, strengthening its fleet DODEA students attend pre-school activities DODEA students attend pre-school activities August 28, 2015 Report says Mosul commander was on vacation despite warnings of attack Thi...

» 3 Financial Lessons Hacking Scandals Have Taught Us - DailyFinance
28/08/15 05:08 from Cyberwar - Google News
DailyFinance 3 Financial Lessons Hacking Scandals Have Taught Us DailyFinance This month's Ashley Madison hacking scandal may have been the butt of talk show jokes, but the incident exposed a lot of data. More than 30 million email a...

» Associated Press Files Suit; Demands FBI Arrest Records - NPR
28/08/15 05:07 from fbi - Google News
Associated Press Files Suit; Demands FBI Arrest Records NPR The Associated Press has filed suit against the Justice Department, accusing the FBI of creating fake news in order to entrap a criminal suspect. The AP is demanding more inform...

» ‘No Escape’ Review
28/08/15 05:01 from Washington Free Beacon
You’re unlikely to see an action-thriller this summer that is as intense as No Escape, a chilling examination of what happens to strangers in a strange land when the land turns into a hell-scape.

» Bye-Bye Ronald
28/08/15 05:00 from Washington Free Beacon
President Obama’s top labor arbiter dealt a blow to the franchise business model on Thursday.

» Obama’s Politicized Intelligence
28/08/15 05:00 from Washington Free Beacon
The anniversary of the U.S. war against the Islamic State passed with little notice. It was August 7 of last year that President Obama authorized the first airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq, a campaign he expanded a month later to include ...

» The Bearable Lightness of Michael Dirda
28/08/15 05:00 from Washington Free Beacon
I grew up with Michael Dirda. Not literally—he grew up in Lorain, Ohio, whereas I’m from the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. He is also 30 years older than I am, though in a coincidence, my father grew up in Lorain, a town that also...

» Nato ready to help EU navies on sea migrants - EUobserver
28/08/15 04:23 from nato - Google News
EUobserver Nato ready to help EU navies on sea migrants EUobserver Nato remains ready to help clamp down on migrant smugglers in the Mediterranean, as plans to expand the EU's naval military operation get under way. A Nato official t...

» Nato ready to help EU navies on sea migrants, if asked - EUobserver
28/08/15 04:23 from nato - Google News
EUobserver Nato ready to help EU navies on sea migrants, if asked EUobserver Nato remains ready to help clamp down on migrant smugglers in the Mediterranean, as plans to expand the EU's naval military operation get under way. A Nato ...

» Asia extends stocks rally as U.S. GDP data calms nerves
28/08/15 03:57 from Search Results
Asia extends stocks rally as U.S. GDP data calms nerves China jitters, globalization bode ill for Fed's inflation goal Oil prices extend gains after biggest daily climb in six years China stocks rise sharply on signs of fresh government ...

» Nato ready to help EU navies on Mediterranean migrants - EUobserver
28/08/15 03:24 from nato - Google News
EUobserver Nato ready to help EU navies on Mediterranean migrants EUobserver Nato remains ready to help clamp down on migrant smugglers in the Mediterranean, as plans to expand the EU's naval military operation get under way. A Nato ...

» Spooks, plod and security industry join to chase bank hacker - The Register
28/08/15 02:59 from Cyberwar - Google News
The Register Spooks, plod and security industry join to chase bank hacker The Register A group of security boffins have joined police and intelligence spooks in a clandestine mission to identify those behind distributed denial of service...

» Angus King backs CIA Director Brennan - Politico
28/08/15 02:29 from cia - Google News
Politico Angus King backs CIA Director Brennan Politico “He stepped up in my mind,” King said. “For years, we've been hearing 'it works, it works, it works.' We're still hearing it from the apologists. … John Brennan and ...

» IRA is still ‘broadly in place’, says Northern Ireland police chief
28/08/15 01:46 from intelNews.org
The Provisional Irish Republican Army, which fought British rule in Northern Ireland for decades, but officially disbanded in 2005, is still “broadly in place”, according to the head of the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

» Thune says cybersecurity is significant US concern - Sioux Falls Argus Leader
28/08/15 01:45 from Cyberwar - Google News
Sioux Falls Argus Leader Thune says cybersecurity is significant US concern Sioux Falls Argus Leader Industry leaders moving rapidly into a data-driven economy say cybersecurity is what keeps them awake at night — with good reason, Sen. ...

» 68476Search 68,476 Articles:
28/08/15 01:30 from United States Defense and Military Forces - News - Times Topics - The New York Times
68476 Search 68,476 Articles: Junaid Hussain, ISIS Recruiter, Reported Killed in Airstrike By KIMIKO DE FREYTAS-TAMURA Mr. Hussain, a 21-year-old Briton, hacked into American military networks and was a central figure in the Islamic Stat...

» SUDAN: The Best Peace Threats Can Buy
28/08/15 01:19 from StrategyPage.com

» MORALE: A Pie To Die For
28/08/15 01:18 from StrategyPage.com

» PROCUREMENT: Ukraine Refurbishes To Survive
28/08/15 01:18 from StrategyPage.com

» Journalist Brian Krebs 'has found a lead in finding the Ashley Madison hackers' - Daily Mail
28/08/15 01:15 from Cyberwarfare - Google News
Daily Mail Journalist Brian Krebs 'has found a lead in finding the Ashley Madison hackers' Daily Mail Krebs looked at all the tweets that user Thadeus Zu had ever posted and found that the account had previously referenced ACDC a...

» Newsletters
28/08/15 01:08 from News - Stripes
Newsletters Kim Jong Un fires some top officials after South Korea standoff eases The personnel changes suggest that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was holding the dismissed top officials responsible for allowing the recent confrontatio...

» Girls, drugs and cyber security: the strange life of John McAfee - Sydney Morning Herald
28/08/15 00:59 from Cyberwarfare - Google News
Sydney Morning Herald Girls, drugs and cyber security : the strange life of John McAfee Sydney Morning Herald He's been called everything from "charismatic" to "the paranoid wild man" of the computer security indu...

» Suspected Tehran Hacking Scam Targets Iranian Activists - RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty
28/08/15 00:33 from Cyberwar - Google News
Washington Times Suspected Tehran Hacking Scam Targets Iranian Activists RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty Iranian expatriates and activists are being targeted by an “elaborate phishing campaign” that enables hackers to take control of their ...

» US, NATO Forces Join Afghan Effort To Oust Taliban From Helmand - RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty
28/08/15 00:32 from nato - Google News
US, NATO Forces Join Afghan Effort To Oust Taliban From Helmand RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty NATO's Resolute Support coalition said U.S. aircraft had dropped bombs on Musa Qala nine times August 27, and that some foreign soldiers wer...

» Cyber security blogger thinks he has found a lead toward finding the hackers ... - Daily Mail
28/08/15 00:25 from Cyberwarfare - Google News
Daily Mail Cyber security blogger thinks he has found a lead toward finding the hackers ... Daily Mail The blogger who first reported that hackers had stolen users' data from cheating website AshleyMadison.com has pointed to a social...

» Junaid Hussain, ISIS Recruiter, Reported Killed in Airstrike
28/08/15 00:00 from NYT > Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)
Mr. Hussain, a 21-year-old Briton, hacked into American military networks and was a central figure in the Islamic State’s online recruitment campaign.

» ISIS Suicide Attack Kills 2 Iraqi Generals Near Ramadi
28/08/15 00:00 from NYT > Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)
The generals were killed by two explosives-rigged American-made Humvees, dealing another setback to the faltering campaign to retake Anbar Province.

» When ISIS Rapists Win
28/08/15 00:00 from NYT > Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)
A look at the shocking means the Islamic State uses to spread its ideas.

» Asia extends stocks rally as upbeat U.S. GDP calms nerves
27/08/15 23:56 from Search Results
Asia extends stocks rally as upbeat U.S. GDP calms nerves Oil markets extend gains after biggest daily climb in six years China July industrial profits slip 2.9 percent year on year Thousands march in Guatemala to pressure president to r...

» Sunken towboat lifted from Neches River
27/08/15 23:17 from Recent Updates for U.S. Coast Guard Digital Newsroom

» 2 men rob Oak Lawn bank, FBI says - WLS-TV
27/08/15 23:14 from fbi - Google News
WLS-TV 2 men rob Oak Lawn bank, FBI says WLS-TV The FBI is looking for two men who terrorized employees and customers at a U.S. Bank branch in suburban Oak Lawn Thursday morning. The men covered their faces with masks, but they were capt...

» Baby monitor hacker sends a frightening message to Indianapolis family - Fox 59
27/08/15 22:41 from Cyberwar - Google News
Fox 59 Baby monitor hacker sends a frightening message to Indianapolis family Fox 59 INDIANAPOLIS, Ind (Aug. 27, 2015)– An Indianapolis couple was violated in their own home after someone hacked into their baby monitoring system. The Den...

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The U.S. and Global Security Review - Blog by Michael Novakhov