Cold and Other War

Topics of national defense, history of war and warfare, military strategy, intelligence, the cold war.

First, lets begin with a post about what is really going on with Zero Dark Thirty:

The Repressed Lust of a CIA Analyst in ZDK

Americans have traditionally been very naive and badly informed about matters of intelligence and particularly counter-intelligence.  These issues are complicated by our view of ourselves in the world, our history, wars of the past and the present, how we see ourselves in the larger world and so forth.  To touch on any of these issues may be to touch on assumptions in the others and that can be a controversial and problematic thing to do.

For example, you may think that listening in on communications of friends is bad.   That may be.  But because Britain was listening in on a friend (the U.S.) they were able to intercept an encoded message from Germany to Mexico in a famous incident known as the Zimmerman Telegram.  Had they not been snooping around our telecommunications, they would not have been able to warn us.  Its a complicated story and no doubt that the UK did what it did for its own self-interested reasons, but that is what happened.   Therefore, be aware, nations listen in on friend's communications and not because they are not really friends, its more complicated then that.

Although no one would consider me an expert in these matters, I have indulged my wasted youth in reading a great deal on these topics, I have worked with entertaining individuals at the RAND Corporation, and believe that I can help interpret some of these issues in an entertaining way for my friends and also save them a fair amount of work in tracking down some of these issues.

One thing to keep in mind and which I will elaborate on in a post to come, almost everything that you care to know about intelligence and in some cases counter-intelligence can be read in the open press.  No, you will not know everything, and you will not know the details, and you may not know about certain things until long after the fact, but nearly all the broad themes do emerge in a public context if you care to pay attention.   That means that a great deal is discussed in public, but you have to pay attention and you have to know what the words mean.

There are already many posts on various topics in this area, and ultimately this page will be a catalog of these posts and try to put them in context.

Topics include

-- A discussion of signals intelligence and the role of an intelligence organization in a democracy

-- A discussion of issues brought up by the ongoing Snowden disaster and what they mean

-- A series of posts on mysterious noises and whether they signify a new reconnaissance aircraft

http://globalwahrman.blogspot.com/2013/07/introduction-to-course-on-civics-and.html
http://globalwahrman.blogspot.com/2013/07/civics-and-intelligence-does-us.html
http://globalwahrman.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-uses-of-snowden-passports-death.html
http://globalwahrman.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-uses-of-snowden-perception-of-death.html
http://globalwahrman.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-uses-of-snowden-un-universal.html