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My amigo, Adam Elkus has a short recap of Boyd 2010 at Rethinking Security:

Boyd Recap

So, my head is still spinning from Boyd 2010. I went with Alex of i-Con and a mutual friend, and met up with Fred Leland, Don Vandergriff, J. Scott Shipman, SAIC’s Isaac Russell, and Bruce I. Gudmunsson. In addition to the many great talks, we also had some sushi at Quantico and hit up the Officer’s Club. I also drained the Quantico bookstore, which has a much larger selection then the stuff I bought three years ago. A capsule account follows, for those who might have missed my Twitter updates.

Biographer Robert Coram opened up at 0915 with a short and touching introduction regarding Boyd’s life, with acolyte Ray Leopold telling some more amusing anecdotes. Don Vandergriff gave a great update about his progress in trying to alter the Army’s training and personnel system, and Jim Hasik looked at defense procurement. Paul van Riper gave the keynote speech. Riper gave a rather beautiful address about the philosophy of science, the military’s misunderstanding of complex systems, and the need for operational doctrine that fits better with human experience. As Shipman pointed out to me in an aside, van Riper’s points were very similar to those recently made by J.S. Storr in his book The Human Face of War.….

Read the rest here.

Interesting. I suggested something like this years ago.

….What the USG desperately needs is a national security equivalent to DARPA that can both engage in deep thinking and have the freedom to run pilot programs to enhance America’s strategic influence that can later be expanded by our traditional power bureaucracies. This would be far more than a just a federally funded think tank – RAND, Brookings, Hoover , Heritage, AEI, CATO, CFR, Carnegie, CSIS and others all do a fine job of policy analysis. They also give statesmen a productive place to hang their hat as an alternative to whoring themselves out as corporate or ideological lobbyists. Another one of those is not what the times require.

What I’m proposing is a lot closer to a cross between a soft-power version of the Institute for Advanced Studies and a clandestine service – one with the objective of developing innovative programs to maximize the influence of American values and promote “Connectivity ” in nations mired in the endemic, isolated, misery of the “Gap”. This is not what the USG normally does. The bias of State and Defense, State in particular, when dealing with foreign policy questions tend to be orientated toward day to day, tactical, crisis management….

Google appears to be trodding down that very path:

Google Grabs State Dept. Star Jared Cohen for Foreign Policy “Think/Do Tank”

Jared Cohen joined Google last week as the director of its newly created Google Ideas “think/do tank”-an entity whose objective is to dream up and try out ideas that address the challenges of counterterrorism, counterradicalism, and nonproliferation, as well as innovations for development and citizen empowerment. He has also landed a side gig as an adjunct fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, focusing on innovation, technology, and statecraft.

Google has now hired Cohen to set up Google Ideas, which will look for innovative approaches to some of the stickiest international issues of the day. Out of his New York office, Cohen will, he told Foreign Policy, seek to “[build] teams of stakeholders with different resources and perspectives to troubleshoot challenges.” As for why he decided to give this a shot in the private sector, rather than in the public sphere, to which these issues have traditionally belonged, Cohen says there are “things the private sector can do that the U.S. government can’t do.”

The big thing is the resources and the capabilities. There are not a couple hundred [computer] engineers in the State Department that can build things; that’s just not what government does. You don’t necessarily have some of the financial resources to put behind these things. It’s really hard to bring talented young people in; there are not a lot mechanisms to do it. [And] on some topics, it’s very sensitive for government to be the one doing this.

During the Cold War, DARPA was a great success, as government bureaucracies go, partly because secrecy freed it from the normal political and bean counting constraints. The other reason was that DARPA’s focus was primarily upon engineering types of problems. Technically difficult, innovative and exploratory problems to be certain, but generally not the sort of socially constructed or influenced “wicked problems“. Or “intractable ones” ( DARPA delved into technical problems that were, due to the technological level of that earlier era, also intractable, but that is still a different kettle of fish from socioeconomic, perceptually intractable, problems). It would seem that Google Ideas will be tackling the harder set of problems to solve.

Google Ideas is an entity to watch but all the observation will be detrimental to the accomplishment of it’s mission, as the nature of social wicked problems carry with them vested interests determined to defend the dysfunctional status quo from which they derive benefits. In some scenarios, with extreme violence. In others, with political pressure. There’s a reason these problems in the human realm go unsolved – sweet reason and pilot program rational incentives might not appeal to leaders of La Familia or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Google might also need a formidible Google PMC.

Hat tip to Larry Dunbar.

Charles Cameron is the regular guest-blogger at Zenpundit, and has also posted at Small Wars Journal, All Things Counterterrorism, for the Chicago Boyz Afghanistan 2050 roundtable and elsewhere.  Charles read Theology at Christ Church, Oxford, under AE Harvey, and was at one time a Principal Researcher with Boston University’s Center for Millennial Studies and the Senior Analyst with the Arlington Institute:

The Diplomacy of Caring

by Charles Cameron

It’s such a simple thing, a blog post with space for comments. And yet it is also a remarkable opportunity.

The blog post I’m thinking of today was made about three weeks ago by an American helicopter pilot, CWO John Bockmann, who has been flying relief missions in Pakistan as part of the US response to the terrible floods there.

A retired Pakistani officer, Brig. FB Ali, read it on Pakistan’s Express Tribune blog, and quoted from it in a guest post on Col. Pat Lang’s blog, Sic Semper Tyrannis, today. Both are worth reading – but what’s most wonderful, as Brig Ali notes, is the outpouring of love and appreciation in the Comments section, both from individual Pakistanis and from Bockmann’s own family.

Bockmann writes:

I have learned in my time here that Pakistani people are truly gracious. Strangers have invited me for chai and conversation. Almost anyone will shake my hand and ask my name, inquire about my health and how I am getting along. Instead of a handshake at our first meeting, I have sometimes been embraced. “Strangers shake hands,” my new friend Mahmood explained, “but brothers hug each other.” This warms my heart. My mission, our mission, is straightforward, noble, and good. I am deeply grateful to those who support us here, for we need all the help we can get in order to help those in need. I am honored to do this work. I feel at home here beyond anything I could have expected.

and

When I do return home, I will bring with me hundreds of pictures, dozens of journal entries, six duffel bags, and several recipes for local dishes that I have enjoyed, but I will also bring innumerable memories that I will treasure for life — memories of Pakistan and its people. They have surprised me with friendship. I hope that through our work of compassion we may surprise them with friendship as well.

I will let the comments of Abdullah and Mustafa stand for the many that were posted by Pakistanis in response:

God bless you and may you return home safe and sound . There is a lot in common and a lot to share between common people not only living in U.S and Pakistan but also between people living all over the world. — Abdullah

and:

John, I’d like to personally thank you for your efforts and for giving your time for this cause. May Allah reward you and bless your family. — Mustafa

Others wrote longer and more effusive comments, but in their simplicity those two capture the spirit of the whole.

And then John’s mother, deeply moved by the love shown her son by these people from a far-off country, wrote her own comment — which strikes closer to the heart than the best of diplomats easily can:

Thus shall it be between Christians and Muslims, your country and mine: despite the heartbreaking fractures, we shall become strong in all the weak places, and no government policies, no misguided violent people shall prevent it, because God wills it, whether we call him Allah or Jehovah, and we will it, with all our hearts. We shall support each other while respecting our differences.

I’m with FB Ali on this, and Pat Lang, and John Bockmann and his family, and all the many Pakistanis who responded. More recently, John Bockmann wrote this comment on the whole exchange:

Amazing. I know the hearts of many Pakistanis now, but I am still surprised by their outpouring of warmth — especially in such hard times. I read all of the comments — the stories, the blessings, the frustrations — and I am increasingly convinced that international relations are effected more by common people like you and me than by politicians who may never get a chance to have tea and real conversation with “the other side”. I am so privileged to be so well loved while I am so far from home. God’s blessings on Pakistan and her people.

If you want to see Bockmann, Cpl. Jenie Fisher interviewed him earlier in the mission, and you can find those videos here. I hope she does a follow-up. I hope the press picks up on this. This is what’s best in our common humanity — hearts and minds – they’re not won, they open. And this is what’s best about the internet — this possibility. I’ll close with the words of Engineer Syed, who writes:

Ten people like the pilot who is in the picture in worlds each decision making cabinet-agency-organization etc can change the total scenario of the world

Top Billing! The Daily Caller – TheDC OP-ED: One nation, under fraud

Tomorrow, a bank-not your bank, but any bank-could evict you from your home. Even if you didn’t know the bank was foreclosing. Even if your mortgage is paid off. Even if you never had a mortgage to begin with. Even if the bank doesn’t hold a single piece of paper that you signed. And major banks not only know this fact, but have spent millions of dollars to defend it in court. Why? The answer starts with a Jacksonville homeowner named Patrick Jeffs.

In 2007, Deutsche Bank sued Jeffs for his home, which is a necessary step in the process of foreclosing on a homeowner in the state of Florida. Curiously, despite the fact that he immediately hired a law firm to defend his property when he found out about the foreclosure, neither Jeffs nor his attorneys were at the trial. That’s because it had already happened. Deutsche won by default because Jeffs wasn’t able to travel backwards in time to attend, even though the trial featured a signed affidavit indicating that he had been served his court summons.

The only problem with the summons Jeffs supposedly received was that it had been conjured out of thin air.

In June of this year, a Florida court ruled that the document was fraudulent, as the person who was supposed to make sure Jeffs was served had mysteriously received a copy of the summons before the lawsuit had even been filed, and Jeffs never even saw the copy. The text of that ruling was posted on various financial news websites in September. The lawyers that Jeffs hired to defend his case say that fraud such as this is not uncommon. It’s a widespread problem, and it has cost countless families their homes.

“I think it’s safe to say that 95% of the foreclosure cases in Florida involve some form of fraud on the part of the bank,” David Goldman of Apple Law Firm, PLLC told The Daily Caller in a phone interview. “It’s probably closer to 99%. And the court system is helping them get away with it.”

Banksters should not only be going to prison for intentionally destroying the lives of people who are not only NOT in default on their mortgages, but have never transacted a mortgage with the institutions attempting to illegally seize their property, these guys should be made to face an angry mob composed of the people they have defrauded.

This is the Oligarchy in action. They intend to hollow this country out and move their loot offshore just like in Russia during the 1990’s

Hat tip to Ron Beasley at Newshoggers.com who also found this gem:

COUNTERPOINT ADDENDUM:

Blogfriend Fabius Maximus, who often blogs on economics, would like to offer a counterpoint and i have agreed to let him put up his perspective here and some excerpts:

  A briefing about the foreclosure fraud crisis: its origin and impacts.
 

….The real estate title system in the US is complex, with safeguards protecting debtor and creditor (for details see this by Barry Ritholz).  It’s also local (rules and data are not national).  This system worked well for generations, but collapsed during the housing boom.

• Loan volume accelerated, overloading key parts of the system.  Appraisals were often corrupted, as loan originators routed business to compliant appraisers.
• Massive securitization of mortgages ignored these constraints, and erected a pseudosystem on top of it that cheaply processed the high volume of both mortgage origination and securitization (e.g., the Mortgage Electronic Registration System – a faux version of security clearing corporations; see this explanation).  Securitization also broke the link between the originator and end owner, with many ill consequences.  Among other things, this put great pressures on the servicing firms to lower costs.
• During the RE boom years recoveries on foreclosed mortgages were zero or positive, which meant a low rate of foreclosures (homes could be sold by the owner rather than default on the mortgage).  So the institutional apparatus for foreclosures atrophied.

The the default bust hit.  Massive flow, overwhelming the system – which was never configured for such an event.  Remember, experts believed home prices never decline for more than a calendar year.  The worst scenario considered by the most experts was flat prices for 3 years.

The servicers (sometimes the bank originating the mortgage, often not) reacted by cutting corners (seethis Reuters story).  Finding the original loan documents was too expensive, so they used lost document procedures designed for extraordinary circumstances (e.g., fire, flood, or misfiling – see this at Calculated Risk and here at Reuters).  Some servicers hired law firms set up as foreclosure mills (e.g., FL), processing incredible numbers of foreclosures.  It’s not clear how, but clearly proper procedures were not followed.

As a result there have been many claims that foreclosure notices were never served (an easy way to make serving a high-margin profit center).  Employees have admitted under oath in depositions to fraudulently signing thousands of notarized affidavits.

This took place in the 23 states with judicial foreclosures only with the cooperation of Judges.  A few Judges protested when shown that their banks and their agents were committing perjury.  But the process ran smoothly for the past few years.  Now the wheels are coming off.  This might be difficult for the financial sector to conceal or mitigate, despite their de facto control over the government’s regulatory machinery.

A situation report about two headine issues – and a more serious problem

….Despite the oft-hysterical analysis, there is as yet insufficient public information about the scale of the problem.  Quite likely even key players (e.g., banks, their law firms, government regulators) lack the necessary information.  Deliberately, as all prefered to “see no evil.”  But now that the problem has erupted into the daylight, this leaves them ill-prepared to respond.  Especially as any adequate response will reveal their incompetence and malfeasance in creating the situation.  (Here are Wells Fargo’s procedures regarding creditors’ complaints; nothing available for their procedures to debtors’ complains).

Political factors, not legal or economic, probably will control the evolution of this crisis.  Hence the likelihood of modest impact to the national economy.  More than the small impact expected by Wall Street; less than expected by the increasingly rabid doomsters.   Over a longer horizon, a year or more, the economy will affect the political dynamics.  For a good analysis of the current political situation see “Congress Taking Cautious Approach with Foreclosure Mess“, American Banker, 14 October 2010.  The Republicans, as usual, eagerly support the banks – despite any violations of the law, despite the interests of the American people.

The economic impact looks to be minimal and probably less than the political effects.  New home sales are unaffected by this crisis.  The title problems are solvable.  New home finance is unaffected, and in any case are now 90% government financed or guaranteed.  Interruptions in sales of existing homes will have severe effects for those affected, but little for the overall economy (despite the massive attention to the volume of existing home sales, they have minimal economic effect).

What could change this forecast? A second dip would radically change the situation, as more links in US and global economy “unexpectedly” break.   As would a long foreclosure moratorium, although this is unlikely under the current political regime.  It could happen as part of system change, of such magnitude that the moratorium would be one of the lesser results.

Charles Cameron is the regular guest-blogger at Zenpundit, and has also posted at Small Wars Journal, All Things Counterterrorism, for the Chicago Boyz Afghanistan 2050 roundtable and elsewhere.  Charles read Theology at Christ Church, Oxford, under AE Harvey, and was at one time a Principal Researcher with Boston University’s Center for Millennial Studies and the Senior Analyst with the Arlington Institute:

Anecdote Before Statistic

by Charles Cameron

Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, one time commandant of the Army War College and author of books on strategy made one of those observations the other day that catch my attention out of the corner of my eye, and trigger a mini-avalanche of thought in response. What Scales said, in an interview with Government Executive, was:

Armies break anecdotally before they break statistically

Scales was discussing the dispiriting recent upwards trend in Army suicides, which has been discussed here and elsewhere – but that’s not what caught my eye or triggered the mini-avalanche.

What struck me was the pairing of the words “anecdote and “statistic”. Because that’s a pairing that’s already very prominent in my own thinking. So let me just say this:

When we think about “connecting the dots” and the intelligence community — whether it’s to discuss how the IC failed to notice this, or was overwhelmed with that excess of data, or might like the other form of massive data visualization tool — we generally think in terms of vast quantities of data, and technical means for making the appropriate connections.

My own focus is on anecdotes, not data points – on individuals and their thoughts, rather than on groups and their statistics – and on the human, pattern-recognizing brain, rather than on high tech tools and their associated budgets.

 Look: Gen. Scales is right, anecdotes come first. And whether we’re thinking about our own troops, or our involvements with others in Afghanistan, or Yemen, or wherever, let’s remember that anecdotes convey morale and context in a way that statistics never can.

So let’s begin to think a but more about our best human analysts, working with anecdotes rather than data points. The statistics and the data glut can follow later