A medley of extemporanea

Open-source intel is gaining space in the government's agenda, rightly so, I think, as the trick is not only to collect information, but to make sense of it. Meanwhile, car-patrols aren't nearly as effective as foot-patrols, a fact that some in the US Army are beginning to understand and apply in Iraq, that -as all fourth generation conflicts- is neither war nor policing, but a mixture of both.

Oh, and Latin America is vulnerable to climate change, but we all knew that already. Considering that the region is pretty much near an energy crisis today, I don't think the prospect for the coming decades is very good, despite the relative wealth of natural resources.

The operative word being Yikes

When Bruce Schenier says that we don't know how to deal with a security threat, and that he's worried about what its creators are planning for Phase II, you know we are in trouble.

Not that the fact that there's a huge, sophisticated botnet out there isn't a fascinating reminder that we don't live in Kansas anymore...

Look! Up in the sky!

The skies are getting crowded (and smart): U.S. Special Operations Command wants long-lasting drones, and DARPA is looking for flexible ion engines for spy sats. Expect busy skies in the coming years, everybody competing against everybody else for information dominance.

In other news, yes, space is still mysterious. I get a thrill every time something like this happens.

From Danger Room: Armed Robots Go Into Action

The US is deploying tele-operated ground robots to Iraq, with an eye toward reducing casualties. This is in keeping with the overall theme -increased use of UAVs, tele-operated border stations, etc-, but I have to wonder about the effectiveness of these units for counterinsurgency, which depends on HUMINT.

If I were to ascribe an strategic signification to what is after all still a small-scale deployment, I'd have to note that this is a move that attempts to add to the political shelf life of the occupation by reducing casualties, while reducing at the same time its effectiveness. It's more consistent with a longer-term occupation than with an scenario of relatively quick success and withdrawal.

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