The Insider

An international coalition of military officials is pushing for the adoption of an ambitious climate-change treaty to keep national security threats from impacting global warming, Defense Environment Alert reports this week.

The action could add new life to upcoming global talks amid waning expectations that an agreement can be reached this year.

While the group's argument is not new, it could also spur momentum for aggressive emission-reduction targets by demonstrating a growing international consensus on the security threats from climate change, an argument made by proponents of legislation about the rising costs of inaction on climate change, DEA reports.

Specifically:

The coalition, which includes both retired and active military officials as well as a U.S.-based national security think tank, is making its pitch as national delegations are preparing to meet in Copenhagen in December to negotiate a successor to the Kyoto climate treaty, and as the Senate begins to consider climate legislation -- with advocates of the bill similarly linking climate change to national security impacts.

The coalition’s Military Advisory Council (MAC), which comprises former and active general and flag officers from various countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, India and the Netherlands, issued a position statement Oct. 29 to parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), aimed at drawing support for a treaty based on the reasoning that global warming, left unchecked, poses national security threats.

The position statement also calls for countries to weave security impacts from climate change into individual defense strategies and to curb their militaries’ carbon emissions.

The Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), a prominent U.S-based think tank, is one of several research groups, including the Institute for Environmental Security, backing the effort by the MAC.

The MAC in its statement to the UNFCCC delegates says climate change will cause significant “human misery,” biodiversity loss and infrastructure damage with resulting security implications. It calls on delegates to the UNFCCC to develop “an ambitious and equitable” international treaty at Copenhagen. It also asks that all governments integrate the security implications of climate change into their respective military strategies, and that all militaries help resolve climate change by lowering their own carbon “bootprint.”

If the delegates fail to “deliver an effective and institutionally robust climate protection system, preserving security and stability even at current levels will become increasingly difficult,” the statement reads.

MAC members said at a follow-up press conference following release of the position statement that examples of ways in which governments can integrate security implications of climate change into their military strategies include the work the Defense Department is now doing to include climate effects in its Quadrennial Defense Review. Other measures that could be taken include predicting regional impacts of changes, assisting planning programs to avoid or mitigate climate change, and conducting disaster planning and training, members said.

The Missile Defense Agency's Airborne Laser program may be on life support in real life, but in the world of fiction, it's still on life support.

There's a new book due out in February 2010 titled "Able One" and written by prolific science fiction novelist Ben Bova. It chronicles the crew of the first ABL aircraft as they respond to the launch of a nuclear missile by a group of rogue North Koreans that explodes in space. The ensuing electromagnetic pulse fries most of the commercial satellites in orbit.

According to the back-cover blurb on the advance copy just received by InsideDefense.com today:

When a nuclear missile launched by a rogue North Korean faction explodes in space, the resulting shockwave destroys most of the world's satellites, throwing global communications into chaos. U.S. military satellites, designed to withstand such an assault, show that two more missiles are sitting on launch pads in North Korea, ready to be deployed. Faced with the threat of a thermonuclear attack, the United States has only one possible defense: Able One.

ABL-1, or Able One, is a modified 747 fitted with a high-powered laser able to knock out missiles in flight. But both the laser's technology and the jet's crew is untested. What was originally a training flight with a skeleton crew turns into a desperate race to destroy the two remaining nukes. Will Able One's experimental technology be enough to prevent World War III -- especially when it becomes clear that a saboteur is on board?

We won't spoil the ending for you -- you'll just have to get your own copy in February.

Defense Department officials today invited government and industry representatives to offer their view on conflicts of interest arising from certain contractor constellations in major defense programs.

The invitation comes as the deadline nears for a Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement revision mandated by the Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009. The legislation, enacted in May, requires DOD to "provide uniform guidance and tighten existing requirements for organizational conflicts of interest by contractors." The DFARS revision is due 270 days after enactment of the WSARA legislation, which puts the deadline sometime in February.

Pentagon officials want feedback on potential conflicts of interest as they relate to the use of lead system integrators and contractors with several business units working on the same project.

The public meeting is scheduled for Dec. 8 at the General Services Administration auditorium in Washington, according to a Federal Register notice posted today.

The Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan has a new member: Katherine Schinasi. Today's Congressional Record says Schinasi was appointed to the seat vacated by Linda Gustitus.

Schinasi, who spent five years as a managing director at the Government Accountability Office, joined The Conference Board as a senior adviser in March, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Meanwhile, four staffers from the commission are in Iraq and Kuwait this week conducting interviews and briefings on the challenge of managing the huge contractor workforce that supports U.S. operations in Southwest Asia.

“Managing the Iraq drawdown will involve many contractors in closing hundreds of bases and processing more than three million pieces of U.S. property,” Robert Dickson, the panel's executive director, said in a statement. “We are interested in the adequacy of the planning, management, and oversight of a major contractor effort. The welfare of the troops, the achievement of U.S. objectives, and good stewardship of taxpayers’ money require it.”

The likelihood of another catastrophic attack against the United States naturally is a big topic in defense circles these days. By extension, the issue has enormous defense budget implications. It is also provides a subtext for the question of what the Obama administration's strategy should be to combat terrorist safe havens worldwide, like in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

Earlier this year, Defense Science Board experts issued a report outlining steps the Defense Department should take to reduce the chance that adversaries could one day deal a surprising blow to America's security.

Today, the Federation of American Scientists' Secrecy News blog brings news of another DOD advisory panel, the JASONs, taking up the topic.

The October 2009 report, titled "Rare Events," examines how the chance of an attack with weapons of mass destruction against the United States could be determined -- if it can be predicted at all.

To find the answer, defense officials should stay away from strictly quantitative modeling schemes and instead turn to the scientific methods of the social sciences, the report states. After all, the issue has mostly to do with predicting the behaviour of humans, the authors argue.

The combined urgency of the rare event threat, the difficulty of evaluating rare event models, and the complexity of social sciences problems has led some to advocate the suspension of normal standards of scientific hypothesis testing, in order to press models quickly into operational service. While appreciating the urgency, JASON believes such advice to be misguided. The threat of “rare events” will be with us for a long time. Like finding a cure for cancer or predicting earthquakes, this is a difficult research area that will most likely make progress in many small steps.

And speaking of human behavior, JASON panelists urge defense officials to add "motivation" to the existing WMD threat evaluation scheme of "intent/capability/opportunity." Further studying the issue of terrorist attack motivation, and perhaps finding a way to eliminate it, could help anticipate "rare events," the authors argue.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates held a meeting this afternoon to bring together "all the disparate elements" of the Defense Department that seek to fight improvised explosive devices in an effort to address the IED problem in Afghanistan, DOD spokesman Geoff Morrell said today.

Morrell told reporters the meeting is "probably the biggest meeting of this kind" that he knows of.

The event was set to convene representatives from the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle task force; the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance task force; and the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization -- as well as those in theater using a secure video teleconference, according to Morrell.

"These are all individual groups that have done a tremendous amount of good in their respective areas," he told reporters. "But we need to make sure that we are bringing all of our resources to bear together and are collaborating effectively and providing our troops . . . with whatever they need: armored protection, ISR, new capabilities, authorities, better command and control, those kinds of things."

Morrell stressed that Gates remains "very concerned about" IEDs in Afghanistan but declined to say what today's discussion would produce. He left open the possibility that similar meetings would be convened in the future.

"((L))et's have the meeting and see what comes of it and see if more are required, as likely will be," Morrell said. "And we'll go from there. But this is something . . . that is clearly a priority for him."

Last Friday the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction issued his latest quarterly report on Iraq. The report takes a close look at what needs to be done as the U.S. military prepares to withdraw from the country it has occupied since March 2003.

In an overview of the report, the IG says the following:

In January 2010, Iraq will conduct its first parliamentary election in five years. The citizens of Iraq will seat a new Council of Representatives (CoR) and electorally judge Prime Minister al-Maliki’s performance for the first time since he took office in spring 2005. The new CoR will confront several key unresolved issues, including enhancing security, stabilizing relations with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), and developing Iraq’s economy.

The security picture in Iraq remains mixed. Although the number of attacks in August 2009 was down 85% from August 2007 levels, 456 Iraqis were killed during the month -- the highest total in more than a year. On August 19, terrorists displayed their continuing capacity to strike at the heart of Iraq’s government when they detonated two massive car bombs that partially destroyed the Ministries of Finance and Foreign Affairs.

In July, the Kurdistan Region conducted successful presidential and parliamentary elections that saw opposition parties make substantial inroads into the ruling coalition’s grip on KRG governance structures. The region’s new government is faced with the compelling need to reach an accord with the GOI on how to equitably share oil revenues and how to resolve the Kirkuk problem.