Field Notes, First Drafts, & Foreign Correspondence
These are hysterical – at Danger Room, in response to Katie Drummond’s write-up on the NATO Second Life project (you know, the one that you heard about here first):
I’ll be giving a talk at the London School of Economics’ Crisis States Research Centre, on 28 October, at 16:00. The talk has been billed as “Pakistan and International Security”, which isn’t entirely accurate, since I’ll be discussing both Pakistan and Afghanistan, and focusing on militant sanctuary practices.
I didnt’ realize this was new, but OK…
Investigation of PTSD has been an important cause of new research into memory. And our understanding of memory is, in turn, propelling a debate about what is known as enhancement, or the boosting of human capacities beyond a normal level. The first issue to emerge was physical enhancement, such as doping in sports and mood enhancement with drugs like Prozac. Then came varieties of cognitive enhancement, as aids to concentration like Ritalin or newer “neuroenhancing” drugs like Adderall which are used by stressed students or harried office workers. Most contentiously, scientists now see possibilities to modify our moral character, using neurological techniques to make us ethically better—or perhaps worse. And the latest research holds out the promise of drugs to help forget traumatic memories, or even to stay devoted to our sexual partners. Many people—notably some religious leaders, doctors, scientists, politicians and philosophers—have misgivings about much of this. But when they spell out their qualms, their reasoning is often shakier than it first appears. Nonetheless, this is not a debate we can ignore. What scientists are now discovering about memory presents us with an interesting set of dilemmas.
Read the full article.
Thanks to Tim for flagging this juice in his latest Infobore. I’ve been tracking NATO’s public diplomacy engagement with social media for a couple of months (here, here, here, and here), and this is an interesting tweak in the program. Tateru Nino reports via Massively that NATO “is presently seeking tenders for the construction of a proof-of-concept site in a virtual environment.” From the call:
The first scenario is to replicate a generic headquarters compound for a NATO operation. … The second scenario will involve replicating the Headquarters Supreme Allied Command Transformation in Norfolk, USA. The only acceptable worlds that may provide a solution to this statement of work are Second Life by Linden Labs[sic], OLIVE by Forterra, or NEXUS by ECS.
Nino points out a few technical problems:
Actually, this part’s a little confusing, because of the three virtual environments specified as ‘acceptable’, only one (Forterra’s OLIVE) actually meets the minimum criteria given in the solicitation. NATO SHQACT acknowledges this in a subsequent clarification document, but is still seeking Second Life submissions anyway. As it stands, it doesn’t seem like any existing Second Life developer can actually meet the stringent Defense Contract requirements in any case, and submissions close on the 8th of this month.
It’s a curious situation, overall, and leaves us scratching our heads. SHQACT insists that it wants Second Life tenders, yet Second Life does not meet the minimum technical requirements, specifically:
- must run fully behind or through firewalls using a single open port of choice
- should be able to run SSL encryption if desired for increased security
Still, according to article VIII of the Paris Protocol (1952), all the goods and services are tax and duty free, and that’s got to be an attractive notion. We don’t see any platform winning this one other than OLIVE though.
Joshua Fouts (not Joshua Foust, that’s this guy), writes at DIP’s Dispatches From the Information Age:
NATO has been doing a number of creative public diplomacy outreach efforts to help make its identity more accessible to a contemporary audience and redefine the narrative around NATO. We blogged in March about NATO’s poster campaign in Washington, DC. They also produced a number of highly produced videos for NATO’s 60th anniversary to demonstrate the relevance of NATO’s work today.
More recently, I’d pointed out both SACEUR and SecGen attempts at social media engagement. The SHQACT that Nino refers to is Supreme Headquarters Allied Command Transformation. NATO’s command structure is pretty convoluted. There are two strategic commands in NATO that report to NATO HQ is in Brussels, which handles the political strategic stuff.
This sort of thing falls squarely within ACT’s remit, but insistence on Second Life despite real technical constraints smells suspiciously of three possibilities (not mutually exclusive): inept public affairs staff insufficiently cued in to the difficulties of technical development and acquisitions in NATO; NATO technocrats only too happy to oblige, regardless of whether the project has real operational merits; and Command interest in the platform. Something to watch for: NATO R&D moving to build an in-house sim platform from scratch, in order to get around the security issues. It’ll take years, cost millions, and benefit…. well, that’s the question, really. Who?
I have to wonder whether Second Life brand recognition and popularity have hooked the senior leadership. I also wonder what the troops on the ground (or the operations folks in ACO) might think about the NATOcracy fiddling around with the sort of time, effort, and funds needed to develop this kind of project, much less spending time within it. That’s not a fair or mature criticism – the organization, as harsh as it might sound, is about more than just Afghanistan, hence the whole public diplomacy thing. But still. I can’t see ISAF troops in the wilds of Nuristan, for example, being entirely even remotely sympathetic to this.
This, from the Washington Times:
Gen. David H. Petraeus plans to open an in-house intelligence organization at U.S. Central Command this week that will train military officers, covert agents and analysts who agree to focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan for up to a decade.
The organization, to be called the Center for Afghanistan Pakistan Excellence, will be led by Derek Harvey, a retired colonel in the Defense Intelligence Agency who became one of the Gen. Petraeus’ most trusted analysts during the 2007-08 counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq.
Hmmm. Expertise. Political expedience. Expertise. Political expedience. Say that combo ten times fast, and let me know which one you get tripped up on. The problem isn’t analysts and other dedicated folks staying focused on the subject at hand. Political masters and senior staff are notoriously, monstrously pragmatic, and will think absolutely nothing of assigning, say, the resident West Africa guy to go deep on South West Asia…. with a report back deadline of tomorrow morning. I have no doubt that the management will come up with some wonderful feat of time compression to abbreviate that decade-long commitment, when conditions demand it, and reassign folks whenever there’s a shortage of heavy lifters and thinkers somewhere else.
H/t DR
MICHAEL A. INNES 