Showing posts with label Warfare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Warfare. Show all posts

January 27, 2024

How to Get The Hostages Out Alive

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called "How to Get the Hostages Out Alive."

In my opinion, the only tactical way to rescue the hostages is to locate and map the tunnel they are hiding in and then gas them all to sleep. The gas would need to be carefully regulated so as not to alert the terrorists that it is being used and not to harm the hostages. The gas needs to be odorless and colorless (like nitrous oxide) to camouflage its use, and the Israeli commandos will need to be hairpin-ready to blow the blast doors and get in to rescue the hostages.

This alternative is far better than releasing 100 Palestinian prisoners (many “with blood on their hands”) for every 1 Israeli hostage like Hamas is demanding (or 10,000+ Palestinian prisoners), thereby creating the terror environment for yet another, and perhaps many, October 7-like attacks in the future that would put many more Israelis at risk. Unfortunately, this is what happened when Israel released Sinwar as part of the 1,000 for 1 deal in 2011 for Gilad Shalit, and look where it got us.

(AI generated image vis Craiyon)


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June 20, 2021

@Torpedo Factory



Some old but awesome torpedos 

You wouldn't want one of these big salamis hitting you in the head! 

Man oh man, these will do some serious damage.

Imagine what we got now-a-days for fun with our enemies.  ;-)

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)


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October 29, 2019

Robot Warriors Kick Human A*s


This is one incredible parody video of what robotic warriors of the future will be able to do. 

The robot takes an incredible beating and never misses a shot!

They even hit him numerous times with a battering ram for Pete's sake. 

Also, amazed that none of the actors in this video ended up taking a bullet or two. 

Wow, the future is going to be amazing. ;-)

(Thank you to my wonderful son-in-law for sending this to me)
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October 2, 2011

Robots Are Not Just For Fighting

"The AlphaDog Proto is a lab prototype for the Legged Squad Support System [LS3], a robot being developed by Boston Dynamics with funding from DARPA and the US Marine Corps. When fully developed the system will carry 400 lbs of payload on 20-mile missions in rough terrain. The first version of the complete robot will be completed in 2012."

According to Boston Dynamics, AlphaDog will follow a leader with computer vision or travel via GPS to designated locations.

The video shows a truly amazing display of the robot galloping, traversing obstacles, recovering from being pushed, and even rolling over and getting up from a supine position.

AlphaDog is designed as a true workhorse and resembles something more out of a Mad Max movie than what you would think of as supporting our next generation war fighters. Note: I'll take a flying hovercraft with pinpoint fire laser ray beams over a 4-legged robot workhorse any day! :-)

But with the array of sensors and weapons supported by drones flying overhead and robotics sentries on the ground, and 4-legged robots ferrying supplies to the front lines, the battlefield is quickly changing to man and machine fighting side by side, and maybe one day machines fighting in lieu of people.

While MIT Technology Review states "This is just what soldiers need," I'm interested in seeing future applications of these robots not just for the military, but also in terms of how they will change areas such as law enforcement, fire and rescue, construction, assembly-line production, transportation, medicine, service industries, and more.

Robots are not just for fighting, although it looks like AlphaDog could give anyone a good kick in the teeth and keep on lugging its load.

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August 19, 2011

Robot Fighters Coming Soon




I love keeping up with the latest in robotics, especially when it comes to battlefield versions.

The Wall Street Journal (19 August 2011) featured QinetiQ's Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System (MAARS) today as "America's Newest Soldiers."

MAARS features tank treads, days and night vision cameras, a 4-barrel 40mm high-explosive grenade launcher, and a M240B 7.62mm machine gun.

"It can stand sentry at a checkpoint and warn people away with a police style hailer, a nonblinding laser, tear gas or smoke grenades. As a last resort, it can fire lethal rounds."

Watching this thing, I imagine the D Day landings in Normandy would've looked a lot different with a swarm of these fellows landing on those bullet-riddled beaches.

The nature of the fight is changing and whoever stands in front of one of these armed robots (and even better next generation versions to come) better be prepared to say "bye bye, it was nice knowing you." ;-)

(Source Photo: here)

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July 24, 2011

SIMON Says Open


Discovery Channel has a series called Future Weapons.
This is part 1 from Israel and Richard (Mack) Mackowicz, a former Navy SEAL show us "The SIMON."
SIMON is a high-tech, advanced rifle grenade for breaching virtually any door in hostile environments.
It is made by Rafael, one of the largest and most innovative Israeli arms manufacturers.
SIMON is in use by both U.S. and Israel armed forces.
Essentially, a bullet-trap slides over the muzzle of a conventional assault rifle like an M-16.
A regular bullet propels a grenade up to 30 yards into a door, and the blast wave from the detonation breaches the door and any locking mechanisms--with minimum collateral damage and keeping troops out of harms way.
Breaching doors in urban warfare is one of the most dangerous tasks in any mission as troops may be walking into anything from the spray of gunfire to booby traps.
Well as Mack says: "SIMON says open door;" It is an "instantaneous key to any door."
What I like about SIMON is the combination of its simplicity and effectiveness.
On one hand, it works with conventional rifles and bullets and is light and compact to carry. It's as simple as slide, aim, and shoot--and the door is breached for troops to enter and either rescue hostages or get the bad guy.
With whatever technology we are building--whether computers or weapons--they need to be user-centric and mission focused.
Israel has a history of innovation--everything from defense to medicine and making the desert bloom--and I think this has to do with that their survival is constantly imperiled.
The lesson is that we ought to recognize the dangers out there and respond to them with immediacy and vigor, as if our lives depended on it--because in many cases, they really do.

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March 6, 2010

Overcoming the Obstacles to Cyber Security

There continues to be a significant shortfall in our cyber security capabilities, and this is something that needs our determined efforts to rectify.

Often I hear a refrain from IT specialists that we can’t wait with security until the end of a project, but rather we need to “bake it into it” from the beginning. And while this is good advice, it is not enough to address the second-class status that we hold for IT security versus other IT disciplines such as applications development or IT infrastructure provision. Cyber Security must be elevated to safeguard our national security interests.

Here are some recent statements from some our most respected leaders in our defense establishment demonstrating the dire strait of our IT security posture:

· “We’re the most vulnerable, we’re the most connected, we have the most to lose, so if we went to war today in a cyber war, we would lose.”- Retired Vice Admiral Mike Mullen (Federal Computer Week 24 February 2010)

· The United States is "under cyber-attack virtually all the time, every day” - Defense Secretary Robert Gates: (CBS, 21 April 2009)

· “The globally-interconnected digital information and communications infrastructure known as “cyberspace” underpins almost every facet of modern society and provides critical support for the U.S. economy, civil infrastructure, public safety, and national security. This technology has transformed the global economy and connected people in ways never imagined. Yet, cybersecurity risks pose some of the most serious economic and national security challenges of the 21st Century.” (White House CyberSpace Policy Review, 2009)

Further, the number of attacks is increasing; for example, SC Magazine 20 November 2009 reported that the number of cyber attacks against the Department of Defense was increasing year-over-year 2009 to 2008 by some 60%!

And the penetration of our critical systems spans our industrial, civilian, and defense establishment and even crosses international boundaries. Most recently reported, these included the following:

· F-35 Joint Strike Fighter $300B program at Lockheed Martin,

· The Space Shuttle designs at NASA

· The joint U.S. South Korean defense strategy

· The Predator feeds from Iraq and Afghanistan and more.

Thankfully, these events have not translated down en-masse and with great pain to the individuals in the public domain. However this is a double-edged sword, because on one had, as citizens we are not yet really “feeling the pain” from these cyber attacks. On the other hand, the issue is not taking center stage to prevent further and future damage.

This past week, I had the honor to hear Mr. James Gossler, a security expert from Sandia National Labs speak about the significant cyber security threats that we face at MeriTalk Innovation Nation 2010 on the Edge Computing panel that I was moderating.

For example, Mr. Gossler spoke about how our adversaries were circumventing our efforts to secure our critical cyber security infrastructure by being adept and agile at:

· Playing strength to weakness

· Developing surprising partners (in crime/terror)

· Changing the rules (“of the game”)

· Attacking against our defenses that are “naïve or challenged”

In short, Mr. Gossler stated that “the current state-of-the-art in information assurance [today] is significantly outmatched” by our adversaries.

And with all the capabilities that we have riding on and depending on the Internet now a days from financial services to health and transportation to defense, we do not want to be outgunned by cyber criminals, terrorists, or hostile nation states threatening and acting in ways to send us back to the proverbial “stone-age.”

Unfortunately, as a nation we are not moving quickly enough to address these concerns as retired Navy vice admiral Mike McConnell was quoted in Federal Computer Week: “We’re not going to do what we need to do; we’re going to have a catastrophic event [and] the government’s role is going to change dramatically and then we’re going to go to a new infrastructure.”

Why wait for a cyber Pearl Harbor to act? We stand forewarned by our experts, so let us act now as a nation to defend cyber space as a free and safe domain for us to live and thrive in.

There are a number of critical obstacles that we need to overcome:

1) Culture of CYA—we wait for disaster, because no one wants to come out first—it’s too difficult to justify.

2) Security is seen as an impediment, rather than a facilitator—security is often viewed by some as annoying and expensive with a undefined payback, and that it “gets in our way” of delivering for our customers, rather than as a necessity for our system to work

3) We’ve become immune from being in a state of perpetual bombardment—similar to after 9-11, we tire as human beings to living in a state of fear and maintaining a constant state of vigilance.

Moreover, to increase our cyber security capabilities, we need to elevate the role of cyber security by increasing our commitment to it, funding for it, staffing of it, training in it, tools to support it, and establishing aggressive, but achievable goals to advance our capabilities and conducting ongoing performance measurement on our initiatives to drive results.


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September 29, 2009

Turning the Tables on Terrorists

Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md) said that an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP)—“it would bring down the whole [electrical] grid and cost between $1 trillion to $2 trillion” to repair with full recovery taking up to 10 years!

“It sounds like a science-fiction disaster: A nuclear weapon is detonated miles above the Earth’s atmosphere and knocks out power from New York City to Chicago for weeks, maybe months. Experts and lawmakers are increasing warning that terrorists or enemy nation state could wage that exact type of attack, idling electricity grids and disrupting everything from communications networks to military defenses…such an attack would halt banking, transportation, food, water, and emergency services and might result in the defeat of our military forces.” (Federal Times—September 21, 2009)

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) says “the U.S. is ill-prepared to prevent or recover from an EMP”—they are asking Congress for authority to require power companies to take protective steps to build metal shields around sensitive computer equipment.

It is imperative for us to protect our critical infrastructure so that we are not vulnerable to the devastating effects of a potential EMP blast. We must think beyond simple guns and bullets and realize that our technological progress is on one hand a great advantage to our society, but on the other hand, can be a huge liability if our technical nerve centers are “taken out”. Our technology is a great strategic advantage for us, but also it is our soft underbelly, and whether, we are surprised by an EMP or some hard-hitting cyber warfare, we are back to the stone age and it will hurt.

It also occurs to me that the same tools terrorists use against others can also be used against them.


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June 27, 2009

Now We All Have Skin In The Game

It used to be that cybersecurity was something we talked about, but took for granted. Now, we’re seeing so many articles and warnings these days about cybersecurity. I think this is more than just hype. We are at a precipice, where cyberspace is essential to each and every one of us.

Here are some recent examples of major reviews in this area:

  • The White House released its 60-days Cyberspace Policy Review on May 29, conducted under the auspices of Melissa Hathaway, the Cybersecurity Chief at the National Security Council; and the reports states: “Cybersecurity risks pose some of the most serious economic and national security challenges of the 21st century…the nation’s approach to cybersecurity over the past 15 years has failed to keep pace with the threat."
  • The Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th President wrote in a December 2008 report: “America’s failure to protect cyberspace is one of the most urgent national security problems facing the new administration…It is a battle we are losing.”

Cyberspace is becoming a more dangerous place as the attacks against it are growing. Federal Computer Week, June 2009, summarized the threat this way:

“Nation states are stealing terabytes of sensitive military data, including some of the most advanced technology. Cybercrime groups are taking hundreds of millions of dollars from bank accounts and using some of that money to buy weapons that target U.S. soldiers. The attacks are gaining in sophistication and the U.S. defenses are not keeping up.

Reviewing the possibilities as to why this is happening: Have we dropped our guard or diverted resources or knowhow away from cybersecurity in a tight budgetary environment and now have to course correct? Or, have our adversaries become more threatening and more dangerous to us?

I believe that the answer is neither. While our enemies continue to gain in sophistication, they have always been tenacious against us and our determination has never wavered to overcome those who would threaten our freedoms and nation. So what has happened?

In my view the shift has to do with our realization that technology and cyberspace have become more and more vital to us and underpins everything we do--so that we would be devastated by any serious disruption. As the Cyberspace Policy Review states definitively: “The globally-interconnected digital information and communications infrastructure known as “cyberspace” underpins almost every facet of modern society and provides critical support for the U.S economy, civil infrastructure, public safety, and national security.”

We rely on cyberspace in every facet of our lives, and quite honestly, most would be lost without the connectivity, communications, commerce, productivity, and pleasure we derive from it each and every day.

The result is that we now have some serious “skin in the game”. We have something to lose--things that we deeply care about. Thus, we fear for our safety and survival should something bad happen. We think consciously or subconsciously how would we survive without the technology, Internet, and global communications that we have come to depend upon.

Let’s think for a second:

What if cyberspace was taken down or otherwise manipulated or controlled by hostile nation states, terrorists, or criminals?

Would there be a breakdown in our ability to communicate, share information, and learn? Would there be interruptions to daily life activities, disruptions to commerce, finance, medicine and so forth, concerns about physical safety or “accidents”, risks to critical infrastructure, and jeopardy to our ability to effectively protect ourselves and country?

The point here is not to scare, but to awaken to the new realities of cyberspace and technology dependence.

Safeguarding cyberspace isn’t a virtual reality game. Cyberspace has physical reality and implications for all of us if we don’t protect it. Cyberspace if a critical national asset, and we had better start treating it as such if we don’t want our fear to materialize.


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October 19, 2008

Net-centricity and Enterprise Architecture

See video on Department of Defense (DoD) vision for Net-Centricity:



Source: Department of Defense
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October 13, 2008

Brand and The Total CIO

David F. D’Allesandro, the CEO of John Hancock insurance group has a bunch of wonderful books on building brand and career, such as “Brand Warfare”, “Career Warfare” and “Executive Warfare”.

All the books have three things in common. One, they are about the importance of brand. Two, they are about moving ahead in the corporate world. And three, they all end in “warfare.”

Brand is critical for building value. Brand is our reputation. It’s how we are known to others. It’s what people think and say about us. It’s a representation of our values and integrity.

We all know corporate brands such as those from consumer product companies and fashion designers. Those that have a “good” brand, tend to convey a higher status and cost a premium. We trust those brands and many people wear the brand labels as a status symbol.

We all carry a brand. Like a mark of “Grade A” or “Prime Beef” seared on a side of a hide of cattle, a brand is mark of distinction for us.

At work, we are branded as honest or not, fair or not, hard working or not, team players or not and so on and so forth.

As the CIO, it is imperative to have a brand that synthesizes the best of business and technology for the organization.

On one hand, many view the CIO as the technical leader for the organization; the wang-bang guru that leads the enterprise through the often confusing and fast-changing technology landscape. In this role, the CIO can make or break the future of the organization with wise or poor technical decisions that can put the enterprise on the cutting-edge, build competitive advantage, and increase revenue/profits, market share, and customer satisfaction. Or the CIO can lead the organization down a technical sinkhole with failed IT projects that jeopardize mission, alienate customers, drive out good employees out, and waste millions of dollars.

On the other hand, many like to say that the CIO is not and should not be tech-focused, but should be about the business—understanding the business strategy, operations, and requirements and then driving an IT organization that is responsive to it. Taken to an extreme, the CIO may not be required to have a technology background, an IT degree or even a technical certificate. This person may be from the business side of the house and could almost alien to the CIO organization and therefore, may not easily garner the respect of his more technical people.

The true successful CIO melds business and technology together. Their brand is one where business drives technology and where strategy is paramount, but operations is a given! This CIO is someone who can be relied on to make wise technical decisions today that will enhance the strategic success of the organization tomorrow. The CIO is a leader who manages not only upward, but who reaches across the organization to build partnership and understanding; who inspires, motivates, trains, recognizes, and rewards his people; and who conducts outreach and brings in best practices from beyond the strict organizational boundaries. This CIO is loyal, dedicated, hard-working, smart, and has the trust and confidence to get the job done!

So what with the “warfare” part in the books?

Well, unfortunately not everyone wants us to succeed. So, we must work on our brand to build it and make it shine, but at the same time, there are others inside and outside the organization who for various reasons would like to tarnish our brand: perhaps, they are jealous, competitive, nay-sayers, change resistant, oppositional, confrontational, troubled, or just plain crooked.

What D’Allesandro says is that to be successful, what sets us apart, is our ability to build relationship with others, even when it is challenging.

To be a successful CIO, we need a terrific personal brand, but more than that we need to have courage and conviction to stand by our beliefs and the vision and the ability to articulate it to guide and influence others to advance the organization’s long-term business and technical success.
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