Power News

Know Thy Enemy:Profiles of Adversary Leadersand Their Strategic Cultures

Barry R. SchneiderJerrold M. PostEditors
July 2003(2nd Edition) USAF Counterproliferation Center Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama

Table of Contents
Front matter

Chapter 1 - Deterring International Rivals From War and Escalation
Barry R. Schneider
Chapter 2 - Killing In The Name Of God: Osama Bin Laden And Al Qaeda
Jerrold M. Post
Chapter 3 - The Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Radicalism
Gary M. Servold
Chapter 4 - Struggle for the Control of Pakistan: Musharraf Takes On the Islamist Radicals
Stephen F. Burgess
Chapter 5 - Kim Chong-il's Erratic Decision-Making and North Koreas Strategic Culture
Merrily Baird
Chapter 6 - The Crucible of Radical Islam: Irans Leaders and Strategic Culture
Gregory F. Giles
Chapter 7 - Saddam is Iraq: Iraq is Saddam�(Until Operation Iraqi Freedom)
Jerrold M. Post and Amatzia Baram
Chapter 8 - Syria Under Bashar al-Asad: Clinging To His Roots?
Christopher Hemmer
Chapter 9 - Muammar Qaddafi and Libya's Strategic Culture
Craig R. Black
Chapter 10 - The Need for Influence Theory and Actor-Specific Behavioral Models of Adversaries
Alexander L. George
Chapter 11 - Precise Assessments of Rivals: Vital in Asymmetric War Threat Environment
Jerrold M. Post and Barry R. Schneider
Contributors
(read more at http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/cpc-pubs/know_thy_enemy/index.htm )


Modeling Violent Non-State Actors:A Summary of Concepts and Methods
Captain Jason Bartolomei, USAFMajor William Casebeer, USAFMajor Troy Thomas, USAFNovember 2004Institute for Information Technology ApplicationsUnited States Air Force Academy, ColoradoIITA Research Publication 4 Information Series

Modeling Violent Non-State Actors:A Summary of Concepts and MethodsINTRODUCTION AND SUMMARYViolent non-state actors (VNSA), such as terrorist organizations, play an increasinglyimportant role in the international security environment. Effectively deterring, coercing,disrupting or destroying terrorist organizations requires a subtle understanding of the factorsthat influence their growth and formation. Here, we discuss the importance of formulatingsystems-level computer models that may enable us to forecast VNSA growth, and that also giveus leverage for effects-based operations and planning. We apply tools from systemsengineering to turn our qualitative systems-level mental models of VNSA into quantitativecomputer models. By using a systems engineering approach, policy-makers will be able toexpand the number and quality of their mental models surrounding reasoning about how VNSAdevelop in order to gain deeper insights. The methodologies used in this project will be usefulfor analyzing any complex system, not just terrorist organizations. (read more http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usafa/modeling_vnsa.pdf )



Summer bonuses for Japan national servants to be cut by 10% (AP)
Summer bonuses for national civil servants will be reduced by about 10 percent this year, as proposed by the National Personnel Authority, the government said Friday. The decision was made as summer bonuses in the private sector are projected to decline due to the fast-deteriorating Japanese economy.

US newspapers eye government support
By Kenneth Li in New York (FT)
Published: May 10 2009 23:31 Last updated: May 10 2009 23:31A tentative, eleventh-hour agreement struck between The New York Times and the Boston Globe’s labour unions has meant that Senator John Kerry’s hometown newspaper has been rescued.
The New York Times has been locked in dispute since early April with labour unions at its lossmaking Boston Globe over $20m in cuts that included the elimination of lifetime job guarantees, but reached a truce last week.

Fraud in Japan booming as economy flounders
JAPAN has become Asia's main hotbed of fraud, possibly hiding financial deceptions on the scale of the Bernard Madoff ponzi scheme. Senior lawyers warned that economic upheaval and desperation to recover investments were bringing to light a number of financial scams and frauds against foreign companies and funds. Some are said to be on what one government official called a “breathtaking scale” and many have clear links to yakuza organised crime syndicates.

Homeland Security preps flu quarantine guidelines
From Raw Story http://rawstory.com/blog/

The Department of Homeland Security is preparing to quarantine people with confirmed swine flu infections, according to a newly released memo obtained by CBS News.
From CBS:
[The memo] says: "The Department of Justice has established legal federal authorities pertaining to the implementation of a quarantine and enforcement. Under approval from HHS, the Surgeon General has the authority to issue quarantines."
McGaw appears to have been referring to the section of federal law that allows the Surgeon General to detain and quarantine Americans "reasonably believed to be infected" with a communicable disease. A Centers for Disease Control official said on Tuesday that swine flu deaths in the U.S. are likely.
Federal quarantine authority is limited to diseases listed in presidential executive orders; President Bush added "novel" forms of influenza with the potential to create pandemics in Executive Order 13375. Anyone violating a quarantine order can be punished by a $250,000 fine and a one-year prison term.