Note: this is a weekly column I am toying with. It will have a limited distribution. A shorter version goes out to my cyber clients who also have a role in military applications and I thought to expand it.
“Situational awareness” or “situation awareness” is the perception of environmental elements and events with respect to time or space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their status after a variable or any variable has changed, or might change, such as time, or some other variable, such as a predetermined event, and understanding the threat potential.
It has always been used by the military but gained higher status by the U.S. military in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in the context of military command and control applications and … quoting from the handbook given to all U.S. military personnel posted in the Middle East … to be a:
“product of applying analysis and judgment to the unit’s situation awareness to determine the relationships of the factors present and form logical conclusions concerning threats to the force or mission accomplishment, given such negative threats of force are always present and very often in subterfuge”
It probably reached its most absurd use last October 2017 when a gunman opened fire on a crowd of concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada, leaving 58 people dead and 851 injured. A military officer interviewed on local Las Vegas TV said the concertgoers were probably partly to blame because they lacked “situational awareness” by failing to realise that in the United States you can be shot almost anywhere by anybody so must remain vigilant at all times.
This all reflects another part of my life which had its beginning a number of few years ago when I began doing e-discovery work in war crimes investigations, and then accelerated over the last few years when I began to do more cybersecurity reporting and also began covering the Munich Security Conference. I have included a number of you who follow my work, plus a few others who I thought might have an interest.
But … I know we all receive a tsunami of emails. So if you want off this list just hit your “REPLY” button and say “not interested”, and/or feel free to comment, make suggestions.
22 February 2018 (Kiev, Ukraine) – After covering the Munich Security Conference last weekend, I returned to Kiev (my third trip) to follow-up on some military-based invitations. One was a rather spirited discussion on the Middle East so I thought I’d share just a few points:
- This actually came out during the Munich conference last weekend and I will have a longer post on it tomorrow. Artificial intelligence is being incorporated into a growing range of cyber security products, and the technology has now introduced a whole new level of threats that cybersecurity tech hands had not anticipated.
- Stealth fighters are in the Middle East and they aren’t American as suggested in recent photos. It seems Russia has deployed its latest-generation Su-57 to Syria. Some analysts are worried this may prove Russia is preparing for a wider regional conflict there. It may also be to test their capabilities in a live war lab like the U.S. has done in Afghanistan by bombing drug laboratories with stealth F-22s.
- The Syrian government is killing people by the hundreds in a Damascus suburb including women, children, and aid workers. The Syrian government has vowed “no quarter” in the rebel-held area. Civilians were never allowed to evacuate. The Syrian government is targeting civilian populations and hospitals. One video uploaded to Twitter showed a now common “double tap” tactic, where an air strike is followed by a second after rescue workers respond to the scene.
- Yes, I keep writing about the devastating violence and there’s not much left to say. The United Nations recently delivered a blank statement as a symbol for the horror there that left them speechless. I am not including in this post the photos of the senseless and total destruction. I am just sick by it.
- A Yugoslav veteran attacked the U.S. embassy in Montenegro then blew himself up. The man served as an anti-air gunner during the NATO bombing of then-Yugoslavia. Montenegro joined NATO last year. Reports say it was actually the 3rd such incident but the U.S. State Department tries to keep these stories under wraps.
- The Taliban overran three checkpoints in Western Afghanistan killing 20 police officers. Yes, I know. Familiar news. But the fighters were wearing night vision goggles. This is the second attack in the area by Taliban fighters wearing night vision devices. The police officers do not have night vision devices themselves. There is no budget for them. This tactical advantage was once enjoyed only by American forces over its enemies in Afghanistan and elsewhere. No longer. And the goggles are of Russian origin.
- Oh, what a cesspool. Turkey and Iran-backed pro-Assad forces clashed in Northern Syria in a new twist in the competition between regional powers waging war there. Keeping the alliances and conflicts straight between the Syrian government, Iran, Russia, Turkey, the Gulf States, and the rebel militias has never been easy, but alliances are being strained as the interests of regional powers compete. I spent 3 hours in a session … beyond the scope of Powerpoints.
- More than 90 schoolgirls in Nigeria are missing after a Boko Haram attack. “I saw girls crying and wailing in three Tata vehicles and they were crying for help,” said a witness. This is the largest abduction of schoolgirls in Nigeria by Boko Haram since 270 went missing in 2014, sparking the #bringbackourgirls social media movement amplified by First Lady Michelle Obama.
- The latest Pentagon budget does not including salaries for Iraqi Kurdish militias. The fighters, collectively known as the Peshmerga and long-time U.S. allies, stopped receiving salaries from the U.S. government when the Kurdistan Regional Government held an independence referendum against American wishes in September. The latest budget hints the temporary halt in payments may be permanent.
- In Kabul, suicide attacks occur monthly. Street cleaners have to deal with the aftermath. “We found hands, feet – even a head. All weeks after the event. I couldn’t eat for the next two days. I was horrified,” says one in a newspaper report.
Yes, all gruesome stuff. As I have noted before, I live a good chunk of my life in an ethos seemingly corralled by algorithms. So when I travel to the Middle East or attend these events in Kiev and Munich and elsewhere I must bring to my soul an element of chaos to cultures that seem to continually play their deadly, dystopic sameness.