NATO's Ring of Fire: The Western Flank and Russia

Topher Morrison

PurpleSerf.com

When it comes to the growth of domestic government it may be arguable that administrations of either Democrat or Republicans pursue different agendas, albeit usually revolving around the prevailing social issues of the day.  When it comes to foreign affairs, however, there is a seamless continuity of agenda aimed at maintaining and growing – American hegemony.

In foreign affairs at-large this American influence leads an Anglo-European coalition through its military arm – NATO.  It should be clear, however, that when NATO acts it is invariably at the behest of U.S. interests as it “contributes between one-fifth and one-quarter of NATO’s budget.  In FY2010 that contribution totaled $117.8 million…But that factors only direct payments, not deployments of personnel,” reported CBS News last year.  U.S. equity in NATO has been concentrated even more as European member nations’ contributions shrank by $45 billion over the past two years due to fiscal turmoil.

Nevertheless, NATO and its 28 member countries flexed their collective muscle last month during their summit in Chicago.  NATO announced its first step toward implementation of a ballistic missile shield, to be deployed in four phases by about 2020, sending clear signals to those not in the Club – namely China, Russia, Iran and North Korea – that amid growing security threats NATO is ready to counter any potential aggressor.  According to a statement released by NATO leaders:

"We have declared an interim ballistic missile defence capability as an initial step to establish NATO’s missile defence system, which will protect all NATO European territories, populations and forces against the increasing threats posed by the proliferation of ballistic missiles…”

Given the current threat of asymmetrical warfare from non-state actors it seems as though conventional confrontations may not be a thing of the past.

This is a layout of just some of the players involved in the Sino-Russian
containment zone NATO and the U.S. are attempting to install.
The real containment sphere, as it were, is 4-dimensional incorporating
land, sea, air, space, and the internet.

Western Flank, Europe

The U.S. and NATO now have bases and/or military operations in former Soviet spheres of influence: Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, Estonia are among those little known.  Moscow, understandably rejects the idea that the NATO missile shield in this area is merely for Iran.  Russia offered to operate the missile shield jointly with NATO, but was dismissed by the alliance revealing the ruse for what it is.  NATO’s secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen called Russian “concerns groundless.”

Before NATO leaders met last month Russia threatened to strike the NATO missile shield should progress continue.  Despite the threats, NATO’s deputy secretary general, Alexander Vershbow, told the conference last month the shield is "not and will not be directed against Russia" and that Russia's intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) are "too fast and too sophisticated" for the planned system to intercept.  If this is true, NATO countries will be even more vulnerable as Russia recently tested a new ICBM, which according to the Russian military improves its ability to overcome current or future missile defense systems.

Western Flank, The Middle East

It has been the plan since 1991, soon after the fall of the Soviet Union, to have the U.S. infiltrate – diplomatically or otherwise – its former client states right up to the Russian motherland.  The plan, referred to more appropriately as a “foreign policy coup,” was revealed by Gen. Wesley Clark to an audience in California in 2007.  He claims Paul Wolfowitz, then undersecretary of defense, told him that the U.S. has 5-10 years to "clean up those old Soviet client regimes, Syria, Iran, Iraq, before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us."

In 2001, the timetable was given an extension after the attacks of 9/11.  While visiting the Pentagon, a classified strategy was revealed to Gen. Clark that the U.S. planed to dismantle and replace the governments of seven nations: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.  Other than Iran of course, five of the seven governments have already been deposed.

Somalia remains in the throws; corrupt, occupied by a coalition of African armies, fending off fundamentalist factions and offering little more than 21^st century pirates.  Lebanon was coaxed into uprising in 2006 through a sophisticated “color revolution” strategy piloted successfully by the likes of the U.S. government funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) – a sort of social CIA.

And Syria as we have documented in detail is in the midst of a dangerous foreign backed insurgency focused on delegitimizing the Syrian government in the eyes of the rest of the world.  Should Syria fall, Russia will lose its only direct ports of access to the Mediterranean – Tartus and Latakia.  As late as 2007 it was revealed the Russians were to re-establish a permanent naval presence in the Mediterranean through access to these new ports.  Needless to say, this alarmed many in Washington and Tel Aviv.

A brief by Stratfor.com, a private U.S. intelligence firm, offered this analysis:

“A Russian naval presence off the Syrian coast could allow Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's regime to better inoculate itself against a potential attack by the US or Israel ... The Russians would be offering an attractive insurance policy."

Recognizing western efforts to deny Russia this access reveals that the Syrian “civil war” is really a microcosm – or if its allowed to succeed, a prelude – of World War III.  There are no less than seven countries involved in the hostilities in one way or the other and because of it Russia has recently buttressed the Assad government and Russian strategic interests with new attack helicopters, weapons and advisors.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Pentagon, least to say, have not welcomed the move.

Western Flank, Central Eurasia

The U.S. and NATO now have bases and/or military operations Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan among other Central Asian states including Georgia where U.S. forces are training their military.  While all these young, recently emancipated countries, are ostensibly democratic there has been evidence of rampant corruption, rigged elections and ethnic strife as can be expected from a region carved up quite arbitrarily.

The U.S. has nonetheless embraced whatever system these post-Communist orphans have come up with as long as they didn’t run back to a resurgent Russian Empire.  Afghanistan might also be included as one of these former Soviet states, but of course only for a brief period as the USSR was rebuffed and sent packing after its botched invasion during the 1980s.

The U.S. and NATO have been in Afghanistan for over ten years now.  Detractors scratch their heads and wonder why the U.S. would be sucked into another Vietnam, mired in scandal and setbacks.  Some call it a quagmire, however, a sober assessment might conclude we were never intended to leave.  Afghanistan, amidst this vast containment strategy is an ideal outpost.  It sits atop trillions of dollars of mineral reserves, a crossroads for oil essential oil pipelines and offers a perfect peak into Russia and China.

Since NATO hasn’t been the best houseguest, killing hundreds of civilians and military personnel in the most aggressive drone war to date, Pakistan is no longer willing to serve as a NATO supply conduit.  NATO and the U.S. military will now use a “reverse transit” through three former Soviet satellites (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan) to ship military equipment out of Afghanistan bypassing Pakistan altogether.  The move is purportedly six times more expensive.  Whether this is a bonafide exit route or merely a way of creating better partnerships closer to Russia remains to be seen.

What is clear is that Pakistan serves a similar role to China as Syria serves Russia – naval access.  While many are talking about Syria few are talking about the fact the Pentagon admits the U.S. is at war in Pakistan.  While the cover story is of course the favored fiction – Al-Qaeda reigns in Pakistan – groups, which are funded by staunch pro U.S. allies Saudi Arabia and UAE, the ultimate goal is denial of access as much as it is in Syria.

The Wall Street Journal reported last year that the Port of Gwadar, in coastal Balochistan region of Pakistan, is scheduled to be the latest in China’s “’String of Pearls’ wherein China has also funded construction or upgrades of ports in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmar,” a stratagem aimed at strengthening economic ties, securing access to crucial resources and projecting force into the Indian Ocean, Arabian Gulf and the African Continent.

As the U.S. exits (at least publicly) its relationship with Pakistan, China is taking over.  In addition to the Port of Gwadar China sees the Iran-Pakistan pipeline, the Turkmentistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline as vital to its economic health.  To this end China has delivery of 50 JF-17 fighter jets, a unspecified number of 4,400 ton frigates, submariner training and possibly China’s more advanced FC-20, also known as the J10, but details are thin.  In the final analysis Balochistan has been and will continue to be the victim (like Syria) of subversion, destabilization and political sabotage, "a nexus," writes Eric Draitser at Stop Imperialism, "the point at which diametrically opposing strategic interests converge."  These are the typical tools of the realist school of geopolitics.

Part II will cover the South China Sea, the South Pacific and India, the Asian linchpin.

Flame Virus and Blowback on the Digital Battlefield

Topher Morrison

PurpleSerf.com

The “Flame” virus is the atom bomb of 21^st century espionage, to date the largest and most elaborate computer bug ever discovered.  It has lived in the deep recesses of Iranian government computers for years, spying on everyone and everything it comes into contact with.

It is more than a mere surveillance virus, it’s an “entire” self-contained “cyber espionage operation” according to Roel Schouwenberg, a senior security researcher with Russian based Kaspersky Labs, one of the first security networks to analyze the malware.  While mostly infecting Iranian computer systems the virus has also been detected throughout the Middle East in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Sudan and even as far as Europe under the name sKyWIper or “Wiper,” this according to Hungarian based CrySyS Lab.  By their estimates Flame may have been active “for as long as five to eight years.”

Iran’s National Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) or MAHER Center, which initially discovered the worm working its way through their systems, reported it was undetectable by 43 known antivirus protocols and only discovered after several investigations.  The intruder has thus far been successful at not only remaining undetected until recently, but responsible for “mass data loss” according to MAHER officials.  Iranian agencies have since developed a removal tool to eliminate the threat.

At a whopping 20 megabytes Flame is 20 to 30 times larger than the infamous Stuxnet and Duqu viruses discovered in 2009 and 2010.  Stuxnet was used to attack Iran’s nuclear program, the ravenous bug caused centrifuges in a targeted facility to spin out of control, ultimately destroying it and setting back potential nuclear capability by years if new estimates by Israeli intelligence are correct.

Flame exceeds previous generations of malware.  It has the capability to collect lists of “vulnerable passwords”, “create series of user’s screen captures,” covertly send intelligence back to remote servers, link to discoverable Bluetooth devices and even act as a beacon for a Bluetooth device to link back.  It is quite versatile, capable of infecting Windows XP, Vista and 7 other common operating systems.

While Flame was created on a different platform than Duqu or Stuxnet, in fact utilizing a well known, easier to use “Lua” programming language, responsible for popular games like Angry Birds evidence seems to suggest that Flame is similar enough in that the previously “unassailable” Linux OS is also thought to be vulnerable.  The fact that Flame uses this unorthodox, albeit simpler code has been credited with its ability to outwit standard countermeasures even given its relatively colossal size.

One of the most interesting parts of Flame is its various permutations.  It has an ability to carry out very specific tasks each time it is recreated.  Besides the aforementioned it can also turn on microphones, potentially cameras and send back all relevant information through multiple domains to its command and control servers (C&C) located all over the world.  Moreover, as a veritable binary spy it has an exit strategy.  The controller can use the “browse32” function to create a digital LZ and pluck the virus out from behind enemy lines leaving not a trace.

The State-Sponsored Cyber War

There is little doubt in the cyber security realm that Flame is anything, but a state-sponsored operation.  The two other possible culprits – hacktivists and cybercriminals – don’t match Flame’s modus operandi.  Flame isn’t after bank accounts and it doesn’t resemble the rather simple tools known to be used by Anonymous, LulzSec and others.  Rather than targeting multilateral corporations or political institutions, the high concentration of attacks within Iran and throughout the Middle East suggests geopolitical objectives generally pursued by nation states.

Israel and the United States top the short list of likely culprits and for simplicity’s sake Israel has been more than happy to tacitly admit complicity – again.  According to Vice PM Moshe Yaalon Israel is “blessed as being a country rich with high-tech” and takes pride in the “opportunities” this has given them.  More specifically the likely source is Israel’s Unit 8200, equivalent to the United State’s National Security Agency (NSA) and in fact founded in 1952 off surplus American military equipment.  The unit has allegedly been responsible for using a secret “kill switch” to deactivate Syrian air defenses during Operation Orchard.  Moreover, alumni of the military intelligence branch have gone on to found leading Israeli IT companies.  Unit 8200 is shrouded in mystery including its commander a Brigadier-General whose identity remains classified.

Considering Israel and the U.S. have acknowledged conducting clandestine operations in Iran this is merely the next logical chapter after years of ongoing low intensity warfare.  No conventional troops, no sorties just faux color revolutions, Nevada trained proxy insurgencies a la Mujadahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), multi lateral sanctions and a cornucopia of sabotage or given recent events the newest tactic – cybertage.  The perfect strategy for the 21^st century, after all it’s discrete and politically correct.

The responsibility for conducting these offensive cyber operations in the new digital battlefield is likely the newest player on the military industrial complex’s bench, the Pentagon’s Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM), which virtually ties together the strategic mosaic of American global hegemony.

According to the U.S. officials USCYBERCOM is responsible for merely “defense” of military telecommunications infrastructure (.mil etc.), but recent reinterpretations of what the best defense actually is and broad mission statements make vividly clear its hegemonic intent:

“USCYBERCOM plans, coordinates, integrates, synchronizes and conducts activities to: direct the operations and defense of specified Department of Defense information networks and; prepare to, and when directed, conduct full spectrum military cyberspace operations in order to enable actions in all domains, ensure US/Allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to our adversaries.”

Domestic considerations are left to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its brand new baby the National Cybersecurity Center, a mini Pentagon, recently completed and based in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Ring leading the cyber security circus is undoubtedly the now nearly century old ultra secretive NSA no stranger to flouting international or U.S. law.  A fact well documented by James Bamford in his works Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets.

Digital attacks are nothing new to the U.S. strategy.  Preceding even Hollywood movies like War Games and Hackers the CIA was purportedly behind “the mother of all Scada attacks” 30 years ago when it used a “logic bomb” to blow up a Siberian gas pipeline.  The KGB was trying to steal pipeline control software and the CIA rigged the software to over pressurize the Soviet pipelines.  In a similar vein,  Flame has been found infecting the Iranian oil industry responsible for 80% of the country’s revenue.

Digital Blowback

Over and over again we hear from not only Iran’s leadership, but through our own intelligence services that Iran is demonstrably no closer to a nuclear weapon than they were almost 10 years ago.  That is precisely the need for an all encompassing super virus like Flame, a virus capable of telling us about literally every key stroke Iranian officials make.  Western nations have no evidence thus far of Iran’s nefarious intent merely hearsay, the opinion of “intelligence experts”, former “security chiefs” and crazy theocrats bent on Islamic empire.  Western and Israeli intelligence agencies are looking for a “smoking calutron,” thus far they have failed.

Nevertheless it is political gold to be tough on Persia with persistent little regard for how we arrived at this point of mistrust – meet our lingering Iranian war psychosis.  Probably the most disturbing part of it all is the obvious self-fulfilling prophecy and the clear opportunity for digital blowback and ultimately the validation of everything the government wishes to convince us is a real threat.

In March on “60 Minutes” retired U.S. Air Force General Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA and NSA, commented on the downside of the Stuxnet virus. “There are those out there who can take a look at this… and maybe even attempt to turn it to their own purposes,” Hayden said.  His opinion was backed up by Sean McGurk, a former cybersecurity official at DHS who noted the Stuxnet source code could be copied and used against new targets, possibly aimed back at the United States.  Whoever created Stuxnet or DuQu, “They opened the box. They demonstrated the capability… It’s not something that can be put back,” according to Mcgurk.

Flame opens the same Pandora’s Box.  As Thomas Friedman was famous for noting, the World is Flat – so is the digital battlefield.  “In warfare, when a bomb goes off it detonates; in cyberwarfare, malware keeps going and gets proliferated,” said Roger Cressey, senior vice president at security consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton, at a Bloomberg cybersecurity conference held in New York last month.  The idea that our own espionage malware will proliferate in our fruitless attempt the prevent the proliferation of other weapons of mass destruction (albeit physical in nature) will surely use up a life time supply of irony.

Alas, this is the sign of our times.  We end one war only to receive another in its stead.  The code wars of the future may be entirely of our own design and will make the asymmetrical warfare of the War on Terror seem like a brief and illequipping prologue as citizens and or terrorists with sophisticated knowledge of software coding could wreak crippling global havoc.  Perhaps if our own government’s malware doesn’t pervade every system on Earth an idealistic Luddite might send us all back to the Stone Age so that we might live history all over again.

Reset.

Purple Serf's Crystal Ball: Illiberal Revolutions Realized

Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com

Last Feburary, at the beginning of what would later be referred to as the Arab Spring, Purple Serf through our patented Crystal Ball technology, predicted it would not resemble a liberal revolution.  Whatever occurred would be defined locally and radicalized, especially if foreign hands where seen as intervening.  What we have now is Middle East democracy: rough, Islamic and most often - illiberal.  Perhaps Americans can finally see there is no inherent redemptive qualities to democracy as such, after all it still may be called democratic when two wolves and a sheep vote over what's for dinner.


          Today, much to the chagrin of the naive among us and those working for western powers and NGOs who have meddled in the Arab Spring, the fears of Sharia law and rabid Islamism are being realized.  As secular approaches to Middle East governance are being maligned by more fundamentalist victories, the Middle East truly has experienced a revolution - ending up right where they started, exchanging a single tyranny for the tyranny of the majority.  

From "End of History for the Middle East?" Posted Feburary 19th, 2011 at PurpleSerf.com:

"In Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Mauritius, Jordan, Tunisia, Algeria, Bahrain, Iran, we hope to see the liberal democratic domino effect we never saw [from] Communism, but it seems the wrong dominoes are falling [referring to secular, albeit authoritarian, leaders].  After decades of handpicking dictators and sending in troops to secure "freedom" foreign policy hawks are dreading democracy once again.  The successful ousting of Egypt’s Mubarak and Tunisia’s Zine el Abidine ben Ali leads to what exactly?  This isn’t a calculated ideological uprising based on the violation of inalienable rights and liberties, it is merely because food prices are soaring, jobs are hard to find, and the future is bleak!  

This area of the world is very much in the throws of history, rife with ethnic division, religious intolerance, playboy leadership, and rampant tyranny (both private and public), only now budding with trappings of consumerism and a myriad of ideas regarding the future of their society as people connect to each other via cell phones, email, Twitter, Facebook, You Tube, and Google. Liberalism plays no current role in the Middle East and never has.  If Egypt is the “trend setter” everyone claims it to be then the Middle East will remain right where it is in history stagnating among awkward opinions regarding gender segregation, stoning adulterers, cutting off thieves hands, and capital punishment for those whom convert out of Islam.

It is highly dubious to believe billions of dollars in economic and military aid will soon deliver the Egyptians or anyone in the Middle East for that matter out of these bizarre notions of ideal society.  If the Protestant Reformation and the American Revolution taught us anything it is that real change requires a perfect storm, sometimes doesn’t come for generations, but most assuredly doesn’t come from foreign intervention." 

          Today Tunisia, ground zero for the Arab Spring, successfully completed its first democratic election.  This, in and of itself, is a positive step, however, as time will show democracy is no panacea for Tunisia's ills.  Many of the factors that led to the lurid self immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi still persist.  In fact, if the fears of liberals and secularists are confirmed, the election of an Islamist majority will do much to undermine freedom in what is generally considered a more liberal and moderate Tunisia than the rest of North Africa and the Middle East.  Democracy in the end may lead, as it so often does, to demagogues more interested in enflaming the old passions and fears of the people than freeing them from tyranny and dogma.            


          A poignant example of these lupine decisions in Middle East democracy comes from Libya.  Recently dispatched dictator, Mohammar Ghaddafi and his son haven't been buried within the 24 hours dictated by Islamic law and Ghaddafi's wish, to be buried in his hometown of Sirte, are highly doubted to be honored.  In its first opportunity to follow the rule law (in this case Islamic law) Libyan leadership has proven inept, that is however if you consider Ghaddafi a muslim (or human for that matter); according to the Libyan office of fatwas (religious decrees) Ghaddafi is not.  In the end, NATO has along with its rag-tag band of Al-Qaeda fighters and Libyan revolutionaries successfully ushered in, not a liberal democratic revolution, but Sharia law and this fact is growing more evident by the day.


          In Egypt we have the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood under a military junta which as of yet has not set a date for elections. In Iraq an emboldened and strengthened Moqtada Al-Sader recently returned to Iraq from Iran and partially through his party's influence managed to force Obama's hand in removing US troops.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unconvincingly attempted to save face by claiming that the removal of troops did not signal diminished hegemony or commitment in the region.  On the way out Secretary of Defense Leon Penetta reminded the world and the Middle East the US still maintains "40,000 troops" in the region.  Iraq similar to Tunisia insofar as it is another more moderate and secular state looks as though, under the guidence of men like Al-Sadar, may be well on its way back to the fundamentals.