Drowning in Rhetoric....and Completely Missing the Learning Points from the Drone Plot

 

All American Boy Turned Jihadist:

Rezwan Ferdaus

Rezwan Ferdaus, a U.S. citizen from Ashland, Massachusetts with a degree in Physics, planned to use a remote controlled aircraft packed with 25 pound of C-4 plastic explosives to attack the Pentagon.  Following the attack, he was also planning to use six people armed with AK-47s to shoot into the panicked crowd in the aftermath. He acquired one of the aircraft through a Paypal account under a false name. The drone was 6 feet long and capable of flying up to 100 mph.While planning this attack, he rigged IED detonators and gave them to FBI agents who he believed were al Qaeda operatives who would deliver them downrange. He was pleased to learn that his first detonator killed American soldiers.  Make no mistake about it - Ferdaus was determined to kill Americans and attack what he called the "great Satan", which would be his own country of birth.

Upon his arrest last week, I've been in debates with colleagues regarding the following points

1)  He wasn't actually a Lone Wolf because he received help from other people.
2)  The plot wouldn't have worked anyhow based on the radio signal, weight of the C-4 load, detonator, etc.
3)  The FBI baited him into the plot and led him along. He might not have followed through otherwise.


We can't afford to get bogged down in definitions, details and the legalities of the case- instead, I propose we examine the revelations from this case:

-  There are radicalized American citizens sitting at home right now, in our neighborhoods, thinking of ways to attack our government and kill us.
-  The number of uncovered terrorists plots is on the rise, meaning there are potentially many other undetected would-be terrorists or terrorist cells operating in our country.
-  Radicalized Americans could be highly educated. We routinely underestimate the sophistication of terrorists.  Al Qaeda's leadership and operatives have always been highly educated - engineers, doctors, scientists. We should expect no less from American jihadists.
-  They will move quickly along the continuum from contemplating, to planning, to execution.
-  They are being creative - for instance, using drones w/ C4 and buying components via paypal.
-  They are looking at alternate staging venues like parks.  They will accomplish surveillance (similar to the Mumbai terrorists). 
- We need to understand how the switch is flipped from OFF to ON in the minds of Americans - how was Ferdaus radicalized?  How can we eliminate, or at least recognize and  mitigate these paths to radicalization? 

Now that the press has reported this tactic wouldn't have worked -- giving very specific reasons why, along with detailed commentary from our top engineers and scientists -- we are once again perfecting our enemy.   Feeding him valuable information that will likely be taken into account for the next plot.  

When the Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad left his vehicle with a smoking dud for a bomb, failing to stay and work on the device until it exploded, internal al Qaeda correspondence indicated this scenario would never happen again. Yet, on the 9/11 anniversary, when we were focused on the VBIED abandoned vehicle, it reminded me that we've learned very little. We keep expecting the last scenario. Do we really think the next attacker will run away from his vehicle without ensuring mission success like Faisal Shahzad?

The bottom line:  there is no such thing as a failed operation for al Qaeda or any terrorist group,  these are learning experiences to improve and perfect.  In fact, some recent events in our country sound very much like probes, including the suspicious package and its mailer in Alabama yesterday.  Our very public "celebration" over disrupting a plot should be tempered by the thought that the next bomber is American and in his/her home tonight, thinking of ways to kill us and destroy our way of life.

Although the American public should be educated on the threat, there is no reason to feed the public the amount of detailed information we have recently on operations abroad  (such as the tactics used to find and track Awlaki) and at home (the play-by-play on the disruption of home grown plots).  

We need to remember who may be reading...and learning.

Review of the New Book by Dr. Joel Brenner: America the Vulnerable

I was honored when asked to review Dr. Brenner's latest book, America the Vulnerable: Inside the New Threat Matrix of Digital Espionage, Crime and Warfare. Dr. Brenner was not only a top level official at the NSA, but the National Counterintelligence Executive for the Director of National Intelligence.   He was awarded a PhD from the London School of Economics and a JD from the Harvard Law school.  Dr. Brenner is one of those "deep thinking operators" that I attempt to cultivate while directing the Graduate Intelligence and National Security Studies program at American Military University.  His book offers us rare insight into the cyber threat...and we would be wise to listen to his warnings and advice.


The real world events and potential cyber scenarios covered by Dr. Brenner in his book are things that keep those in the security realm awake at night, such as a cyber attack on our electric grid by a rising superpower, in this case, China.  Last year, I wrote a blog about a Chinese graduate student who gathered information through open source data and, along with his professor, assessed the impact of an attack to the U.S grid.and published their findings. I am not sure a complimentary undertaking could be accomplished since China is a "closed" society that has resisted the proliferation and uncontrolled use of the Internet by its citizens.  What we view as a weakness, their resistance to the Internet, may in fact be a strength.

Dr. Brenner's book covers many vulnerabilities of the Internet and social networking such as identity theft.  I worked a very sensitive government identity theft case where we chased the IP address all over the globe, from country to country, then suddenly...a dead end.  It was the frustrating end of a long, arduous chase.  We had no idea why the information was taken, who was the perpetrator and whether we would find out in the future at a date and time of their choosing. Checkmate.

The book also covers topics from small scams that can empty bank accounts to potential attacks that could cripple Wall Street.  As he states, in terms of financial transactions over the Internet, we have come too far now to turn back and our entire financial system would be crippled if we tried to control the types, amounts and method of transaction.  I've written many magazine articles regarding the use of auction sites and "nonbanks" for criminal activities such as money laundering and fundraising.  Factoring in prepaid cards, throw away phones (and now computers) - the bad guys have an advantage.

I was pleased to see Dr. Brenner's discussion of how we field technology without security precautions.  I recently explained to a group of senior executives how the Kindle can be purchased and used anonymously to transmit documents and communicate through the internet.  I took them from step 1, which was the use of prepaid Amazon cards, purchased with "clean" cash, the entire way through the process of communication.  Our continual blind spot is that we assume the bad guys are unsophisticated.  In my research, I've found that if we use it, they use it. The Taliban tweet from the battlefield, the Mumbai terrorists used satellite phones.  The bottom line -- and I wonder if Dr. Brenner would agree -- is that technology must be fielded with the assumption that the bad guys will leverage/defeat it, and the government must get involved in the development and fielding of commercial technology to protect our national security.

I enjoyed Dr. Brenner's scenario entitled "June 2017" regarding a situation with Taiwan and a Chinese attack on our powergrid.  This vignette is written in a way that exposes how decisions made now, in 2011, will render us vulnerable to this type of massive and unopposed attack.  I also enjoy futurist work.  In one of my speeches, I laid out a scenario for a conflict with Mexico that stems from a mass migration of its starving populace to our southern border and our civilian revolt and government response.  During the question period, an audience member called me one of the "horsemen of the apocalypse",  and I thanked him for the compliment.  We need to plan now for what is next.

We don't have enough thinkers working in the realm of emergent threats.  We continually posture, train and organized to fight our last war. Dr. Brenner's book discusses the book "Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy America", written by Chinese authors.  China is studying 5th Generation Warfare and how to leverage technological advances such as cyber, along with conventional tactics, to win a war against a major superpower. At the 5th Generation Warfare Education Institute, founded to study the emergent warfare that is on our doorstep, we've found that very few strategic thinkers/doers in our country are schooled on this theory.  Some argue with us that we've had evolutions in warfare.  During all of this philosophical debate, a rising superpower and potential threat to our national security is becoming the sole expert on how the next war will be fought.  I hope that Dr. Brenner's book will result in some new activity to study emergent methods of warfare.  He also approaches the difficult question regarding cyber:  "When is it war?" and I agree that we've already been attacked, and need a line of demarcation that when crossed, results in nation state sanctions.

I very much enjoyed Dr. Brenner's discussion of how the Chinese watched Desert Storm 1 from afar and took notice of our technology and tactics.  It is important to remember that any time we engage in conflict, we peel the tent flap back for potential enemies.  Operations this year alone have exposed our drone technology as well as a high tech helicopter we had to leave behind at the bin Laden compound.  Since the bin Laden operation was covered in depth by the press, HUMINT tactics were exposed, as well as listening and tracking capabilities.  We should always remember the enemy is gathering, copying and countering.  The :"transparency in intel" topic is also covered by Dr. Brenner, when he discusses how technology makes the art and science of espionage more difficult not only for the bad guys, but the good guys, as well.

Finally, Dr. Brenner offers sage and informed advice for our government to mitigate the damage already done, and prevent future catastrophe.  I can only hope our top officials read this section of the book with an open mind, willing to avoid a "sunk cost" mentality that seems to permeate a bureaucracy.

I look forward to hearing Dr. Brenner's comments on my assessment of his work and I encourage all of my colleagues and students to order a copy of America The Vulnerable today from Penguin Press  or on your ebook.