I’ve got a new post up at Complex Terrain Lab:

On Wednesday 11 June 2008 the Frontline Club in London hosted a discussion evening, Media Talk: Assassination and Insurgency - Are the Taliban Winning? Moderated by Nazanine Moshiri of Al Jazeera, the panel brought together Alastair Leithead (BBC), James Fergusson (journalist and author), James Appathurai (NATO spokesman), John D. McHugh (photojournalist) and, via Skype from Kandahar, Mawlavi Abdulsalam Zaeef (ex-Taliban ambassador to Pakistan).

Read the full article here.

Kent Harris in Stars and Stripes, First Rock tries new intel approach in Afghanistan:

ORGUN-E, Afghanistan — Gathering intelligence about the enemy is good. Getting the time to analyze that information is even better.

That’s the basic concept of the 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment’s Battalion Intelligence Team.

First Rock has expanded the number of troops analyzing intelligence it picks up from various sources around Paktika province, according to Capt. Tim Culpepper, the team leader. Instead of having six or seven soldiers perform that task, the team has 42 analysts.

“We are gathering more information, but the real benefit is our ability to go through it all,” Culpepper said. “If I had a normal S2 (intelligence) shop, I wouldn’t get through 10 percent of what we’re getting.”

Read the rest here.

In the meantime, physics professor Faheem Hussain at Counterpunch asks What is NATO doing in Afghanistan? and concludes that it’s time for the evil empire to withdraw. Everyone’s an expert now.

An interesting graphic from Intelligence Online in a short article, How the Pentagon is Organizing its Cyber Warfare System (requires free registration), showing the command hierarchy of USSTRATCOM:

The NATO equivalent, the Cyber Defence Management Authority, is not yet up and running, despite its launch being expected at the Bucharest Summit last month. If anyone can point me to something concrete about its proposed organisational structure, I’d be most interested. NATO’s Centre of Excellence for Co-operative Cyber Defence in Tallinn, Estonia is also not operational yet.