LINKS: 12 NOV 09

Some items of interest:

• Vinay Gupta makes some interesting observations on how John Boyd's OODA loop applies to bureaucracy (more accurately, why it doesn't apply).
• CEPR:  Increased defense spending since 9/11 has cost the US the loss of two million jobs.  This is classic Paul Kennedy.
• Software for selecting systempunkts (the points in a complex network that, if attacked, would cause the greatest damage).  CARVER (offensive targeting system designed for the military) software.  Download it from the FDA (food and drug administration).   They've added SHOCK, which is aimed at measuring the health, psychological, and economic impact of systems disruption.  Here's a brochure on the software.  More on CARVER methodology per Janes.  It would be interesting to open source this software's development process, so rapid improvements and alterations could be made.
• SWJ (small wars journal):  Will Los Pepes emerge in Mexico?  Militia formation is inevitable.
• CFR's (council on foreign relations) Lydia Khalil writes a paper in favor of open source counter-insurgency in Afghanistan.  The Iraq Model.  LOL, I outlined this back in 2005 re: Iraq in my NYTimes OpEd and I didn't get an invite to the CFR.  ;-P
• Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop.  Looks like an interesting read.
• The dynamics of globalized feudal economics in Afghanistan.  Skip the political commentary and get to the good stuff.

Comments

[A.E.]

To some degree there were Mexican militias much earlier than this being created--it was just that they weren't significant enough to catch the eye of the American media.

It's a new dynamic for sure, though. Looking to see how it'll change the conflict.

[Steve Austin]

CEPR: I recognize Henry Hazlitt in the argument.

[Brother Mark]

CARVER? Is that a subconscious tell?

[esmoore5]

Here's an article that might interest you:

Tinkering Makes Comeback Amid Crisis:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125798004542744219.html

[Eminence Grise]

Regarding the very interesting link above, check out the graph comparing the decline in computer engineering enrollment with the increase in mechanical engineering enrollment. There's a leading indicator for you :)

[Duncan Kinder]

Militias also are developing in Rio de Janeiro.
http://www.brazzil.com/component/content/article/200-january-2009/10295-vigilante-groups-in-brazil-trump-drug-gangs-and-become-rios-new-authority.html

[Geary Sikich]

The ability to effectively respond to and manage the consequences of an event in a timely manner is essential to ensure an organization's survivability in today’s fast paced business environment. With the emergence of new threats, such as cyber-terrorism and bio-terrorism; and the increasing exposure of companies to traditional threats such as, fraud, systems failure, fire, explosions, spills, natural disasters, etc. an “integrated” approach to Business Continuity Planning is essential. The “integrated” approach, as presented in this article, is based on the concept of graceful degradation and agile restoration. “Graceful degradation” refers to the ability of an organization to identify the event, classify it into a level of severity, determine its consequences, establish minimal stable functionality, devolve to the most robust less functional configuration available and to begin to direct initial efforts for rapid restoration of services in a timely fashion. I have created a modified version of CARVER that is readily applied to business assessments. The following is a brief overview of the "Active Analysis" system employed by Logical Management Systems, Corp. Based on the LMSCARVERTM Analysis Elements, the system provides a flexible framework for the continuous accumulation and assessment of "detectors and indicators" of change. As defined below these are the key elements:

The form used is designed to facilitate the evaluation of risks, threats, hazards and vulnerabilities for your organization and to determine the consequences of Touchpoint degradation to your organization. It consists of eight parts.

Part 1: Touchpoint for analysis, the Essential Element of Analysis (EEA) for the assessment grouping.

Part 2: Components that make up measures of effectiveness for the EEA Touchpoint. Each is ranked using the number scale.

LMSCARVERTM Analysis Elements

“Critical”: Determine the criticality of the service, product, etc. that your organization utilizes. This may be supplied via your organization's value chain or an external entity.

“Accessible”: Determine “Accessibility” by ranking the element as to the ease with which one can access the element. One needs to assess the accessibility to the item, the accessibility to alternative items that can be substituted and the accessibility of the item to disruption.

“Recognizable”: Determine how readily recognizable the element is.

"Vulnerable": Determine the total loss and/or degree of degradation that the organization can sustain.

“Effect” Determine what impact the loss and/or degradation presents to your organization.

“Recovery” Determine what your organization's recovery ability is in terms of time and costs.

Recovery Time Objective (RTO): Anticipated time to recover operation.

Recovery Time Capabilities (RTC): Actual capabilities available to accomplish recovery operation

Recovery Point Objective (RPO): Amount of loss that can be sustained without impact to operation.

Recovery Point Capabilities (RPC): Actual capabilities that can be utilized for recovery.

Maximum Tolerable Outage (MTO): Amount of disruption that can be sustained by the operation over time including market share loss. Maximum Tolerable Outage is predicated on how long a customer can be without your service and/or product before they seek alternatives.

Customer Tolerance Level (CTL) = Customer Tolerance Level can be determined by how many delays, disruptions to service, etc. a customer is willing to put up with before changing (not being a customer anymore).

Cross Functional Touchpoint: A touchpoint of or relating to two or more functions where a dependency for output and/or input occurs.

Part 3: Consequence management significance to your organization for degradation or total loss of the EEA Touchpoint element and its constituent sub-elements.

Part 4: Business ramifications/significance to your organization for degradation or total loss of the EEA Touchpoint element and its constituent sub-elements.

Part 5: Quantitative analysis.

Part 6: Customer vulnerability/exposure index.

Part 7: Business case for addressing the potential impact to your organization for degradation or total loss of the EEA Touchpoint element and its constituent sub-elements.

Part 8: Business case for not addressing the potential impact to your organization for degradation or total loss of the EEA Touchpoint element and its constituent sub-elements.

For more information contact Geary Sikich (g.sikich@att.net)

[josegiles]

you can earn a degree in crime scene investigation through online college degree program and work as an crime scene investigator check http://bit.ly/3fyWG4

[kunkmiester]

Here's something to add to your next list of links: http://www.parade.com/news/intelligence-report/archive/091108-more-americans-bypass-banks.html