• Terror attacks in Paris and California expose modern society’s lack of resilience

    Our complex global society lacks resilience. The root cause of our vulnerability is the structure of the global economy: highly interconnected, complex, and filled with turbulence. Major disasters can occur unexpectedly, and even minor incidents can cascade into significant human and financial losses. Emerging pressures such as climate change and urbanization will only intensify the potential for extreme events and severe disruptions. Risk management makes sense in a stable environment with predictable events, but in today’s more complex risk landscape — the new normal — it is inadequate for dealing with fast-moving, unfamiliar threats that may cascade into disasters. The good news is that brittleness is not inevitable. It is a fundamental design flaw. Resilience — the capacity to survive, adapt, and flourish in the face of disruptive change — is a basic characteristic of all living systems, from individual creatures to entire ecosystems. In this age of turbulence, resilience has become a prerequisite for continued prosperity.

  • FBI unable to break 109 encrypted messages Texas terror attack suspect sent ahead of attack

    FBI director James Comey told lawmakers this week that one of the suspects in the foiled terror attack in Garland, Texas, in May had exchanged 109 messages with sources in a “terrorist location” overseas ahead of the attack. U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies, however, have not been able to break into and read those messages because they were exchanged on devices equipped with end-to-end encryption software which, security services in the United States and Europe argue, make it impossible to monitor and track terrorists and criminals.

  • Assad’s future; Israel’s missile defense; U.S. overseas bases

    Israel’s chief-of staff said that the likelihood of the Assad-Hezbollah-Iran axis winning the war in Syria is “zero” (his words). The Alawite community is too small to continue and provide soldiers to Syria’s army; both Iran and Hezbollah appear to have concluded that the cost of maintaining Assad in power is just too high; and Russia has decided against sending ground troops. Israel has successfully tested the Arrow-3, its anti-ballistic system designed to intercept long-range missiles. The Pentagon proposes creating an architecture of hub-and-spokes military bases overseas to fight terrorists.

  • WH finalizing executive order tightening background checks of gun buyers

    Sources say that the White House is about to announce a new executive order to expand background checks of individuals wishing to purchase guns. One proposal being considered would designate more sellers as high-volume dealers, closing a legal loophole which allows many sales conducted online or at gun shows to escape existing background check provisions. Two other developments on the gun front: On Thursday, Connecticut governor Dan Malloy said he would sign an executive order which would bar people on the government’s terrorism watch lists from buying guns in Connecticut; in the House, Democrats demand that a 17-year ban on government-funded research into violence involving firearms be ended.

  • U.K. arrests record number of terrorism suspects, especially women, teenagers

    According to the U.K. Home Office quarterly bulletin, 315 terror suspects – a record — have been arrested in the United Kingdom in the past year, with a sharp increases in arrests of women and teenagers. Therise in the number of terrorism-related suspects arrested is a reflection of the determined effort by the police and security services to address the ISIS threat and stem the flow of Britons to, and from, Syria.

  • U.K. university suspends Islamic society over hosting hate speakers

    Queen Mary University of London has suspended the Islamic society at the university after the students’ union has launched an investigation into possible violations of protocols and procedures by the society. the society has been accused in the past of hosting events in which radical Islamist speakers, including speakers associated with Islamist fundamentalist groups. The U.K. government said that at least seventy events featuring hate speakers were held on U.K. campuses last year.

  • Loretta Lynch: No evidence San Bernardino shooters part of a cell

    Some U.S. media reports said one of the San Bernardino shooters, Syed Rizwan Farook, may have been plotting an earlier attack in California with someone else, possibly as early as 2012. U.S. attorney general, Loretta Lynch, on a visit to London today (Wednesday), said, however, that there is no evidence yet that Farook and his wife had planned any other attacks or were part of a wider conspiracy.

  • Paris attacks expose weaknesses in Europe’s security structure

    The 13 November attacks in Paris offered a painful demonstration of Europe’s security loopholes which the terrorists exploited to their advantage. The attacks should serve as a wake-up call to Europeans that the continental security structure, built in another era, is no longer sufficient and needs to be adapted to new circumstances. Whether or not such adaptations can be made, and made in time before the terrorists decide to launch another attack, is an open question.

  • Improving police responses to mass shootings

    Before Columbine, law enforcement acted on the assumption that mass casualty incidents would involve a barricaded lone shooter who could be isolated, or a hostage situation in which the attackers would engage in negotiation before they killed more people. Thus, protocols established after the 1966 sniper attack at the University of Texas, called for first responders in the United States to set up a perimeter around the site of the shooting, gather as much information as possible, and then wait for specially trained assault teams, hostage negotiators, medics, and other specialists to arrive. “The assumption,” one expert said, “was that time was on their side.” Police forces arriving on the scene of a shooting no longer entertain this assumption.

  • Refugee system “vulnerable to exploitation from extremist groups”: U.S. intelligence

    On Monday, in his inaugural State of Homeland Security Address, House Homeland Security Committee chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) highlighted new concerns regarding refugees with ties to terrorist groups in Syria who might try to enter the United States. He revealed that a letter sent to him earlier this year by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence stated that “The refugee system, like all immigration programs, is vulnerable to exploitation from extremist groups seeking to send operatives to the West.”

  • French regional elections: No one can dismiss Le Pen as an also-ran now

    Marine Le Pen probably won’t be the next president of France, but the regional elections are proving that her Front National has truly become a major player. Le Pen’s party has taken 28 percent of the vote in the first of two rounds to elect regional assemblies. The right-wing Republicans, led by former president Nicolas Sarkozy, came a close second, with a shade under 27 percent. The ruling Socialist Party trailed, with just 23 percent of the vote. There is one week to go until the decisive second round, but even if the left and right somehow manage to block their path, the FN has already struck a major blow ahead of the presidential election in 2017.

  • Trump Calls for preventing all Muslims, including immigrants and tourists, from entering U.S.

    In what must be seen as an extraordinary rhetorical escalation even for a presidential candidate not known for nuance and subtlety, Donald J. Trump on Monday called for the United States to prevent all Muslims, without exception, from entering the United States until the country’s leaders and security agencies can “figure out what is going on.” Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told the Associated Press that the ban would apply to “everybody,” including both immigrants and tourists.

  • Obama: Current strategy to defeat ISIS more likely to succeed than alternatives

    President Barack Obama, in a rare prime-time address from the White House – the third such appearance in his seven years as president — described the current U.S. strategy against ISIS as more likely to succeed, and more acceptable to the American people, than alternatives such as large increase in U.S. ground forces in Syria and Iraq. Describing those who perpetrated the Sam Bernardino attack as individuals who had “gone down the dark path of radicalization,” he reassured the American people that the United States has faced, and has overcome, more daunting challenges than terrorism. He said that the best strategy to defeat ISIS without further radicalizing Muslims who live in the West is the current mix of airstrikes, support for local allies, diplomacy to end the Syrian war, and a measured increase in the number of U.S. Special Forces.

  • Obama’s address on countering ISIS: The missing context

    Yesterday, President Barack Obama delivered a prime time address on his administration’s policy to defeat ISIS. Obama offered no new initiatives or ideas, but the address still mentioned all the right things: No one wants to send tens of thousands of American troops to the Middle Eat; no one wants the United States to invade and occupy another country; we should not equate Islam with terrorism; we should guard against anti-Muslim backlash; the United States has faced daunting challenges in the past, and came out victorious. What was missing from the address was the same thing which has been missing from the Obama’ administration’s Middle East policies and its approach to fighting ISIS: Context.

  • Western intelligence agencies a step behind ISIS operations in the West

    A former U.S. intelligence officer says the intelligence community had not fully grasped the menace ISIS posed, and fully appreciate the organization’s mode of operation. As a result, intelligence agencies in the United States and Europe have been playing catch up in a desperate effort to try and check the terrorist organisation.