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Trump’s Nuclear Deterrence Challenge America’s nuclear triad is sorely out of date, left to age by a president who saw it as a relic of the Cold War. By Franklin Miller and Keith B. Payne

By on November 20th, 2016

President-elect Donald Trump will soon be working with his national security team to establish priorities on security and defense policy. Two challenges will demand immediate and unrelenting attention.

Throughout the campaign Mr. Trump emphasized the need to destroy Islamic State, also known as ISIS, as a functioning terrorist organization. Since there is no way to negotiate with or reliably deter medieval zealots willing to murder and die for their misbegotten cause, military force is the only answer at this point. The next president also must keep the defense and intelligence communities focused on preventing the remnants of ISIS from obtaining weapons of mass destruction—particularly nuclear weapons.

But Mr. Trump has inherited the even greater threat of an increasingly precarious nuclear balance. All three elements of America’s nuclear triad—land-based and sea-based missiles, and bombers—are now approaching obsolescence. A hostile Russia that miscalculates U.S. will and deterrence capabilities poses a mortal nuclear threat to our existence.
President Vladimir Putin has set out to re-establish Russia’s domination of the lands previously under the Soviet Union, changing European borders by force and occupying neighboring territories militarily. Russia has also made explicit threats to initiate nuclear war against the U.S., our allies and even neutral European states.

Nuclear first-use—a policy that includes the threat of initiating a nuclear war and the option of doing so—is a key part of Mr. Putin’s expansionist political and military strategy. First-use is emphasized in open Russian military statements, at least as far back as the official 2003 Russian military doctrine. Backing up this doctrine, Russia is deploying new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles, ballistic-missile submarines and nuclear-tipped cruise missiles launched from the ground, sea and air.

Russia also is developing a new ICBM that will carry “no fewer than fifteen” nuclear warheads each, according to Russian descriptions. Its size and payload suggest the missile is specifically designed for nuclear first strikes. Mr. Putin has overseen “snap,” i.e., sudden, nuclear exercises to demonstrate the ability of his nuclear forces to strike instantly. Moscow has even begun to practice Cold War-style nuclear-survival drills on a massive scale.

Mr. Putin also has allowed his most-senior officials to issue threats of nuclear attack not heard since the days of Nikita Khrushchev. A chilling example came on March 16, 2014, two days before Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. Dmitry Kiselyov, the Putin-appointed head of the government’s international news agency, boasted on his TV show that “Russia is the only country in the world capable of turning the U.S. into radioactive ash.” Subtle.

Early this month, in response to the planned deployment in 2017 of 330 U.S. marines to Norway, Frants Klintsevitsj, a deputy chairman of Russia’s defense and security committee, said, “This is very dangerous for Norway and Norwegians. . . . We have never before had Norway on the list of targets for our strategic weapons. But if this develops, Norway’s population will suffer.”CONTINUE AT SITE

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Winning the Cyber-War Under Trump By Rachel Ehrenfeld

By on November 16th, 2016

An overflowing plate of urgently needed new policies to act upon will be waiting on President Donald J. Trump’s desk when he takes office on January 20, 2017. Few are as pressing as the need to lead a new national effort for strengthening our cyber-infrastructure resilience and toughening timing and location infrastructure.

President-elect Trump must make this a national priority and issue his new policy now. He should appoint a central authority that would report directly to him. It should direct, oversee and unite all U.S. efforts to develop, build and use new resilient capabilities and devices that would recognize the dependency of the cyber-infrastructure on accurate timing and location data delivered by the GPS. The Obama Administration’s mostly failed efforts focused on cyber, but paid little if any attention to timing and location services that are necessary for undisrupted cyber-activity.

We must now ensure that policies and definitions of cyber include timing and location services such as GPS. Such definition would help to coordinate the efforts to increase resiliency capabilities that could mitigate harmful effects to our cyber-infrastructure, and the ability to respond to them.

The Trump cyberspace security policy should look beyond just “space-based” assets and GPS. It should be looking at the larger cyber-infrastructure. It should be responsible for developing more resilient devices with access to multiple alternative sources for our nation’s cyber-infrastructure, which is dependent on GPS (Global Positioning System) for precise time and location-based services.

The growing dependency on wireless technology and services and lack of adequate security have led to an escalation in cyber-attacks. Substantial segments of the U.S. economy have already been harmed. State- sponsored hackers, as well as lone actors, were able to steal millions of documents detailing the country’s most critical national security and business secrets. Others have stolen untold amounts of money and disrupted out financial markets activities.

It seems that the rapid pace at which cyber-related architectures and wireless technologies are evolving have apparently presented an insurmountable barrier to most of our technologically challenged policymakers. During his two terms President Obama issued some executive orders on critical infrastructure and cyber-security.m But lacking direction, the executive branch, and its agencies have failed to secure the nation’s cyber-infrastructure. The czars and advisors he appointed to oversee different elements of cyber-security failed because of lack of leadership to coordinate the efforts. Thus the nation’s cyberspace security became increasingly vulnerable.

Only after Wikileaks began releasing the email correspondence between Hillary Clinton and her supporters, which were conducted on her private non-secure server, did Obama issue Presidential Policy Directive 41. Called the United States Cyber Incident Coordination, the directive put the FBI in charge of responding to all cyber-threats. This was necessary, said his homeland security adviser, Lisa Monaco, “because it’s not always clear whether those responsible for a hacking incident are other countries, terrorists or criminals.” The new directive identified the responsible federal agencies, to “help answer a question heard too often from corporations and citizens alike: In the wake of an attack, who do I call for help?” Ms. Monaco noted that “other agencies will also have significant roles in helping to prevent and mitigate the effect of cyber-intrusions.” These include the Department of Homeland Security and the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center. But this will do little to undo the huge damage that was already done to the U.S. economy, military, and its national security.

A cyber-attack or worse, activating an electromagnetic weapon (EMP), by exploding a nuclear device in the atmosphere above parts of the U.S., as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich described, “would totally devastate our entire electrical grid and cyber-communication networks and disable our critical infrastructure. Such an event would destroy our complex, delicate, high-tech society in an instant and throw all of our lives back to an existence equal to that of the Middle Ages. Millions would die in the first week one.” This very real threat of an EMP attack on the U.S. has been debated in Congress, discussed in the media and featured in film. Yet, the Obama Administration failed to prepare adequate measures to mitigate the threat.

To better protect our economy, society, and government, we must immediately expand the current policies into a broader “position, navigation and timing” policy with a central authority and holistic approach for:

(1) overseeing, managing, and prioritizing U.S. efforts, (2) centralizing all research and development of location services, and timing solutions and technology, (3) gathering, maintaining, and adapting, in near real-time, civil user-defined requirements, (4) clearly delineating between government and private sector capabilities and responsibilities for provisioning, (5) clearly placing all forms of harmful interference, data manipulation, equipment vulnerabilities, and capability disruption(s) into the cyber-response planning framework, and (6) leveraging cyber-reporting to include GPS and other forms interference and disruptions.

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ISIS suggests targeting Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade by ramming trucks into crowds by Lisa Daftari

By on November 13th, 2016

ISIS has called for jihadis in the U.S. to use trucks to kill as many attendees as possible at this year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.http://www.foreigndesknews.com/world/middle-east/isis-suggests-targeting-macys-thanksgiving-day-parade-ramming-trucks-crowds/

The terror group posted a new message to potential jihadis in the third issue of its Rumiyah (Rome) Magazine intended for its supporters in the West, suggesting that using cars in high-speed ram attacks are the easiest and most effective way to cause major carnage.

“Very few actually comprehend the deadly and destructive capability of the motor vehicle and its capacity of reaping large numbers of casualties if used in a premeditated manner,” the post states, emphasizing the success of the Bastille Day attack in Nice, France July 14 in which Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel’s killed 85 and injured 434 by intentionally ramming a cargo truck through a crowded promenade.

“The method of such an attack is that a vehicle is plunged at a high speed into a large congregation of kuffar, smashing their bodies…crushing their heads, torsos, and limbs under the vehicle’s wheels and chassis – and leaving behind a trail of carnage,” the post says.

And when a jihadi comes to choose a potential target, they advice, priority should be given to the accessibility of vehicles.

Practical locations to target include large outdoor gatherings, heavily congested streets, festivals, parades and political rallies.

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A photo of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade appears with the caption beneath: “An excellent target.”

“It has been shown that smaller vehicles are incapable of granting the level of carnage that is sought,” the author argues, citing that one of the central reasons for this is that smaller cars don’t have the weight and wheel span needed to cause a large number of casualties.

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ISIS Guide: Rent U-Haul as a Weapon, Target Thanksgiving Day Parade or Political Rallies By Bridget Johnson

By on November 13th, 2016

Following up on their October instructions for lone jihadists to conduct knife attacks, the Islamic State’s latest magazine offers tactical instructions on how to use a vehicle as a weapon to inflict the greatest damage.

Their muse, of course, is Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, who plowed a cargo truck through a crowd of Bastille Day revelers in Nice, France, this summer.

“Vehicles are like knives, as they are extremely easy to acquire. But unlike knives, which if found in one’s possession can be a cause for suspicion, vehicles arouse absolutely no doubts due to their widespread use throughout the world,” states the article in the third issue of Rumiyah, ISIS’ recently launched monthly English-language magazine, adding that cars are one of the “safest and easiest” weapons as well as “most successful in harvesting large numbers of the kuffar [disbelievers].”

ISIS encourages shying away from budget sedans and “off-roaders, SUVs, and four-wheel drive vehicles” that “lack the necessary attributes required for causing a blood bath” as “smaller vehicles lack the weight and wheel span required for crushing many victims.” They recommended trucks with double wheels for “giving victims less of a chance to escape being crushed by the vehicle’s tires.” Long semi trucks are discouraged because of the possibility of jack-knifing.

The article encourages jihadists to find a vehicle with a “metal outer frame which are usually found in older cars, as the stronger outer frame allows for more damage to be caused when the vehicle is slammed into crowds, contrary to newer cars that are usually made of plastics and other weaker materials.”

A picture of a U-Haul truck is shown with the caption “an affordable weapon.”

On the next page of the article, a picture of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade is shown with the words “an excellent target.”

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Unsolicited Advice for the Trump Transition Team on National Security Intelligence By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on November 11th, 2016

It was encouraging Wednesday to hear that President Obama intends to emulate President Bush, who generously provided Obama with a highly informative and smooth transition process.

Running the executive branch is a daunting task, so there is no aspect of the transition to a new administration that is unimportant. But obviously, the most crucial focus for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who is heading up President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team, must be national security.

That transition is going to be more complicated than it should be, but there are things Gov. Christie can do – better to say, people he ought to consult — to make sure his team is getting accurate information.

The Bush National Security Council was very good about putting together briefing books so their successors could hit the ground running. The problem now, however, is the trustworthiness of what is in those books.

As PJ Media has reported, a highly disturbing report by a congressional task force this summer found that the Obama administration had politicized its intelligence product.

Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS), who has been stellar on national security issues and was among the leaders of the task force (comprised of the Intelligence, Armed Services, and Appropriations Committees), put it this way when the report was issued:

After months of investigation, this much is very clear: from the middle of 2014 to the middle of 2015, the United States Central Command’s most senior intelligence leaders manipulated the command’s intelligence products to downplay the threat from ISIS in Iraq.

The result: consumers of those intelligence products were provided a consistently “rosy” view of U.S. operational success against ISIS. That may well have resulted in putting American troops at risk as policymakers relied on this intelligence when formulating policy and allocating resources for the fight.

The intelligence manipulation became a controversy in 2015, when 50 intelligence-community whistleblowers complained that their reports on the Islamic State and al-Qaeda terror networks were being altered.

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Hillary Clinton Gave Visa to Egyptian TERRORIST to Visit State Department, White House to Lobby for Blind Sheikh Release By Patrick Poole

By on November 3rd, 2016

In June 2012, Hillary Clinton’s State Department issued a visa to enter the United States to Hani Noor Eldin — an avowed member of the Egyptian terror group Gamaa Islamiya.

Gamaa Islamiya had been designated by the U.S. as a terror organization since October 1997 during the Clinton administration.

According to U.S. law, Eldin’s request for a visa must be denied.

But not only was Eldin allowed into the U.S., he was escorted into Hillary’s State Department where he met with Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and Under Secretary Robert Hormats. Eldin was then received at the White House by Denis McDonough, who was Obama’s deputy national security advisor at the time, and is currently the White House chief of staff.

According to published reports, Eldin used these meetings as an opportunity to press Obama administration officials to release from federal prison the leader of his terror group, the “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel Rahman. Rahman is serving a life sentence for his leadership role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the planned follow-up “Day of Terror” plot targeting New York landmarks.

(That case was prosecuted by my friend and PJ Media colleague, former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy.)

Those meetings resulted in serious Obama administration discussions about transferring the blind sheikh back to Egypt, then under control of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi. Morsi had vowed to pressure the U.S. for the blind sheikh’s release while Eldin was in Washington, D.C.

The blind sheikh’s transfer was only stopped when members of Congress began asking about the deal. The possibility of his transfer was publicly denounced by former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who presided over the blind sheikh’s trial as a federal district court judge.

When Congress asked about Eldin’s visit to the U.S., then-Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano vowed that more foreign terrorists would be allowed in for such situations.

Questions were initially raised about how Eldin was allowed in the country and the details of his visit to Washington, D.C. when the story broke from reporter Eli Lake, who interviewed the terror group member. Eldin had no problem admitting he was a member of the banned Gamaa Islamiya:

It was supposed to be a routine meeting for Egyptian legislators in Washington, an opportunity for senior Obama administration officials to meet with new members of Egypt’s parliament and exchange ideas on the future of relations between the two countries.

Instead, the visit this week looks like it’s turning into a political fiasco. Included in the delegation of Egyptian lawmakers was Hani Nour Eldin, who, in addition to being a newly elected member of parliament, is a member of the Gamaa Islamiya, or the Egyptian Islamic Group — a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. The group was banned under former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, and is now a recognized Islamist political party. Its spiritual leader, Omar Abdel Rahman — also known as the “blind sheik” — was convicted in 1995 of plotting attacks on New York City landmarks and transportation centers, and is serving a life sentence in a North Carolina federal prison.

Eldin, according to his Facebook page, was born in 1968 and resides in Suez, near the canal that unites the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea. He was arrested in 1993 on terrorism charges after members of Gamaa Islamiya got into a shoot out with Egyptian security officials at a mosque. He has proclaimed his innocence in the shooting and says he was arrested because of his political activism against Mubarak.

In an interview, Eldin confirmed he is a member of Gamaa Islamiya. By U.S. law, that means he would be denied a visa to enter the country. Nonetheless, he says, he got a visa from the State Department. A State Department spokesman said, “We have no information suggesting that he or anyone else in the delegation is a member of the Egyptian Islamic Group.”

The State Department blamed the visit on the U.S. government-funded Wilson Center, which then turned around and blamed the State Department:

While in Washington, Eldin also visited the Wilson Center, a think tank that specializes in foreign policy issues. A State Department spokesman said the delegation was “invited to Washington by the Wilson Center. I refer you to the Wilson Center for any additional information on their visit.”

A spokesman for the Wilson Center, however, said the delegation was selected by the State Department. “We can’t speak to the background of Eldin,” said Drew Sample the media relations coordinator for the Wilson Center. “The Wilson Center was one of the places on the delegation’s Washington visit. We did not invite these people, the State Department arranged the visit.”

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Cops and Islamists A federal judge makes it harder for the NYPD to deal with terror.

By on November 3rd, 2016

“With this ruling, Judge Haight contributes to the slander of one of the world’s most professional police forces and encourages anti-cop activists to escalate their demands—all while making it more difficult to keep New Yorkers safe from attack.”

This week a federal judge fed the myth of a New York City police department bent on violating the rights of innocent Muslims by unlawfully spying on them.

Senior District Judge Charles Haight did so in an extraordinary ruling rejecting a settlement that Mayor Bill de Blasio had reached with liberal activists and Muslim groups. Though the settlement was good enough for the progressives, somehow it wasn’t for Judge Haight. He’s ordered them to return with an agreement that would give the court and a civilian appointee more authority over how police operate.

Never mind that the judge’s decision is mostly based on a politicized inspector general’s report that never found evidence of the widespread spying on innocent Muslims that was alleged. Or that most of the “violations” in this same report had to do with timetables and deadlines, not spying. The judge nonetheless ruled the cops were guilty of “near-systemic violations” of the so-called Handschu guidelines—which date from a 1985 settlement approved by Judge Haight in a class-action suit originally involving the Black Panthers and Communists.

Lost in this legal fog is the truth that the program at issue was never about Muslim “surveillance.” This was about the police gathering intelligence that would help them identify places and neighborhoods where a terrorist might seek a job, a meal or a place to crash. Such information would have come in handy if, say, the Tsarnaev brothers, after bombing the 2013 Boston Marathon, had made their way to New York City to bomb Times Square as they’d planned.

It speaks to the real agenda that one of the activist demands included in the earlier settlement was that the NYPD would purge from its website a 2007 report called “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat.” The activists claimed the report was being used to justify discriminatory surveillance on Muslims. CONTINUE AT SITE

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How al-Qaeda and ISIS Have Been Weighing in on Our Presidential Election By Bridget Johnson

By on November 2nd, 2016

If some countries are taking a vested interest in tinkering with the U.S. presidential election, terror groups have been generally taking a hands-off approach to next week’s vote.

After all, al-Qaeda reasoned, the next occupant of the White House is six of one and half a dozen of the other to them.

In its mid-May issue of the English-language Inspire magazine, after Donald Trump had secured enough votes for the GOP nomination, editor-in-chief Yahya Ibrahim noted that “today America is in a season of presidential elections, which will define the winning party to the presidency.”

“This may cause a slight difference to the American citizens but for us it is still the same story; this is because between a foolish candidate that openly declare[s] his enmity towards Islam and a candidate pretending to be a friend of Islam, thousands of Muslims continue to die as a result of the inhuman American policies in Islamic lands,” Ibrahim wrote for the al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula publication.

“After America failed to impose its direct domination and rule under the excuse of countering terrorism. And after America was exhausted in fighting many wars with Islamic groups. And after realizing that it is losing a battle rather than winning, they began to think of making arrangements on how to retreat from our lands ‘safely.’ America found that the best way to achieve this is by igniting the region with sectarian wars.”

Ibrahim decried “the dirty politics of America, led by the Democratic Party under the leadership of Obama.”

“And on the other hand we have the Republicans, who openly kill, fight and declare enmity towards Islam under the banner of the crusade,” the editor continued. “The Democrats smile at the Muslims while stabbing them at their backs.”

In a separate article, former Guantanamo inmate Ibrahim al-Qosi, who was transferred back to his home country Sudan in 2012 and joined AQAP two years later, wrote that 9/11 changed American politics “with regards to strengthening the rightist, white, racial and widespread-armed militias who are weary of the federal government internal and external policies.”

“These militias who think that the federal government in Washington does not serve the interest of the general white Anglo-Saxon American community of the protestant Christianity denomination,” al-Qosi added. “In addition to that they see the federal government serve the interests of the Jews and other minorities whom, according to them, must be curbed and get rid from power.”

The rest of AQAP’s Inspire publications throughout campaign season have been guides with practical tips for jihadists after the Orlando and Nice attacks, as well as a special issue about France banning the burkini on beaches.

There was no October surprise from ISIS in an attempt to influence the election; the ground offensive by coalition forces to recapture Mosul began mid-month, which could spark global revenge attacks. But the terror group’s official communications are centered around Mosul right now.

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Former National Guardsman Pleads Guilty in ISIS Attack Plot By Bridget Johnson

By on November 1st, 2016

A former Army National Guardsman arrested in July on charges of assisting an ISIS plot to attack the United States pleaded guilty last week to attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

After Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, 27, of Sterling, Va., was taken into custody, his siblings accused the FBI of setting up the naturalized citizen from Sierra Leone.

“He is just another Mohamed that got set up,” his brother, Chernor Jalloh, told The Intercept in July. “He sympathizes with the oppressed abroad. … The FBI used his love for those being oppressed against him by inciting him in all manners that they deemed fit.”

Court documents said a member of ISIS who is now dead and was plotting an attack here introduced Jalloh and someone in the United States who was an informant for the FBI in March 2016. Jalloh had met the ISIS member and others during a six-month trip to Nigeria. Jalloh met twice with the informant and told this person that he’d decided not to re-enlist in the Virginia Army National Guard after hearing lectures from late star al-Qaeda recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki; he also told the informant that he’d frequently thought about conducting an attack in the U.S., according to the statement of facts filed with the plea agreement.

Jalloh said he was inspired by the July 2015 Chattanooga attack and the November 2009 Fort Hood attack.

Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office Paul M. Abbate said Jalloh “purchased a weapon following multiple attempts to procure assault rifles and handguns, believing they would be used in an ISIL-directed attack on U.S. soil.”

Jalloh bought an assault rifle from a Northern Virginia gun dealer on July 2; even though he test-fired the gun first, it was rendered inoperable before he took it home. He was arrested the next day.

“Jalloh also provided money on multiple occasions to support ISIL after attempting to join the terrorist group,” Abbate said. This included a $500 transfer that Jalloh thought was going to ISIS but went to an undercover FBI employee.

Jalloh faces up to 20 years in prison when he’s sentenced in February.

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Obama’s Cyber Negligence The president has failed to protect America’s security online. By Josh Gelernter

By on October 29th, 2016

There are four cyber-security stories that have cropped up recently to which everyone should be paying close attention:

This past week, DMV offices all over California had their computer systems shut down by what was apparently a hardware failure. There’s evidently no reason to suspect the DMV’s systems were attacked, but the incident shows off the frailty of government computer systems, the ease with which the whole edifice can collapse when a single brick is smashed (accidentally or intentionally).

The week before, websites all over the country were shut down when a major American Domain Name System host was attacked. DNS hosts handle the conversion of web addresses that make sense to men — say, NationalReview.com — into the universal system of numerical addresses that make sense to computers. Without the conversion of one to the other, the name you type into your browser’s address bar won’t connect you to that website’s servers; your internet provider won’t understand what you’re looking for. Unless you know your destination website’s IP address (National Review’s is, for instance, 104.16.126.47) and unless it allows direct IP access (National Review does not) the website becomes inaccessible.

That is exactly what happened to large swaths of the Internet two weeks ago, when Dyn, one of the U.S.’s major DNS hosts, was flooded by a tidal wave of artificial internet traffic. It tried to convert addresses for so many fake browsing requests that it was unable to respond to the real ones, like a bartender getting 10,000 orders for Banana Daiquiris just before you try to order a beer. With their DNS host overwhelmed, sites such as Twitter, CNN, Paypal, Reddit, Spotify, and Netflix stopped working.

One week before that, WikiLeaks began publishing John Podesta’s e-mails, and the Clinton campaign decided that it would try to redirect the story toward Russia, which they say is responsible for stealing Podesta’s email. That might not be true; it’s certainly possible that it is — various intelligence agencies seem to think so. There is no doubt that Russia would like to tamper with our elections, or, short of that, to appear to be tampering with them. Because the Obama administration has a more or less established policy of non-response to cyber-attacks — from Russia, from China, from North Korea, from Iran — the Kremlin no doubt felt comfortable giving it a try.

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