Kent's Imperative has a new post up, continuing the discussion on climate intelligence. This specific discussion started with Michael Tanji's post, leading to my response. Then Kent's Imperative (KI) jumped in, I responded, raised the issue again recently, and KI responded most recently. I think that with KI's latest post, we find common ground.
Essentially, KI argues that, with limited resources, priority goes to intelligence supporting the warfighter. It's hard to disagree with that. KI also mentions Google's 20% rule, where Google employees theoretically get 20% of their paid time to focus on their own projects. In the intelligence business, this could translate to the strategic intelligence that customers don't know they need/want yet, and therefore won't ask for. The problem with that, I suppose, is that you have no guarantee that anybody will read your '20% time' reports - then again, you can only lead a horse to water, you can't force it to drink.
I'm going to make at least one more climate intelligence post relatively soon, once I get around to reading this paper on the correlation between climate change and conflict frequency in China.
Showing posts with label weather intelligence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weather intelligence. Show all posts
Weather control
Following up on some of my previous posts on weather intelligence (Wx) and climate intelligence, Catholicgauze (now a professional geographer!) brings to attention that China employs 32,000 people whose job it is to change the weather. He brings up the point:
This brings up the idea of Wx and climate intelligence again. While Kent's Imperative would condescendingly insinuate that, due to my young age, I'm brainwashed [a mindset imprinted by the media-generated cognitive biases (the results of decades of politically correct environmentalism targeted at the younger generation in the schools)], and/or desire to change the definition of intelligence to create new jobs because I can't compete for existing ones [the desire to find new accounts not yet dominated by the gray beards and talking heads of the community], I still stubbornly think climate intel is important. The issue of weather control highlights three facets of weather/climate intelligence.
1) Those practicing weather control obviously need good intelligence on droughts, floods, etc., so that they know where to encourage rainfall and where to discourage it.
2) If someone upwind of you is seeding clouds to "steal your rain," what do you do about it? Like Catholicgauze implied, Korea, Japan, etc. should have intelligence on how China is controlling their weather due to the impact it will have on their own weather patterns. The inverse would also apply - if Laos and Vietnam are both flooded and Laos busts clouds so they dump their rain over Vietnam instead of Laos, that could create additional death and destruction in Vietnam.
3) Countries (or non-state actors) could use weather control systems to practice economic warfare. Without climate intelligence to tell you whether current weather patterns are normal or not, a victim country might never know whether they had bad luck with the weather, or were being actively sabotaged.
One final possibility is some form of weather trading system, like carbon credits. i.e., if Japan's economy doesn't depend on agriculture to the extent that China's does, then Japan could sell some "rights" to China to seed clouds that would otherwise rain over Japan. Then weather intelligence would be necessary to maintain adherence to the trading protocols.
An interesting question for the future is concerns the "right" of countries to make it rain. The moisture that is being prematurely forced into rain could have become rain for South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, etc. A whole slew of problems from water access to denying rain for political purposes to others are just some potential things which may lie in the future.The technology to seed rainclouds works thusly - silver-iodide pellets are shot in the air, around which moisture coalesces to help clouds form earlier than they otherwise would, creating rain. China is also working on "busting" clouds, to create clear skies for the Olympics, as well as other science-fictiony stuff.
This brings up the idea of Wx and climate intelligence again. While Kent's Imperative would condescendingly insinuate that, due to my young age, I'm brainwashed [a mindset imprinted by the media-generated cognitive biases (the results of decades of politically correct environmentalism targeted at the younger generation in the schools)], and/or desire to change the definition of intelligence to create new jobs because I can't compete for existing ones [the desire to find new accounts not yet dominated by the gray beards and talking heads of the community], I still stubbornly think climate intel is important. The issue of weather control highlights three facets of weather/climate intelligence.
1) Those practicing weather control obviously need good intelligence on droughts, floods, etc., so that they know where to encourage rainfall and where to discourage it.
2) If someone upwind of you is seeding clouds to "steal your rain," what do you do about it? Like Catholicgauze implied, Korea, Japan, etc. should have intelligence on how China is controlling their weather due to the impact it will have on their own weather patterns. The inverse would also apply - if Laos and Vietnam are both flooded and Laos busts clouds so they dump their rain over Vietnam instead of Laos, that could create additional death and destruction in Vietnam.
3) Countries (or non-state actors) could use weather control systems to practice economic warfare. Without climate intelligence to tell you whether current weather patterns are normal or not, a victim country might never know whether they had bad luck with the weather, or were being actively sabotaged.
One final possibility is some form of weather trading system, like carbon credits. i.e., if Japan's economy doesn't depend on agriculture to the extent that China's does, then Japan could sell some "rights" to China to seed clouds that would otherwise rain over Japan. Then weather intelligence would be necessary to maintain adherence to the trading protocols.
An NIE on climate change?
Recently Congress (including my Representative, Ed Markey) has directed the Intelligence Community (IC) to write up a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on global climate change. Michael Tanji, at Haft of the Spear, thinks this is a dumb idea for the following reasons:
1) His first concern, that the IC would be re-issuing the IPCC report, is off-base because, as the text of the law says, the NIE will focus not on climate change itself, but on the geopolitical effects of climate change. The IC will prepare the NIE "using the mid-range projections of the fourth assessment report of the [IPCC]." This wouldn't be reinventing the wheel, it'd be building on it (if that metaphor makes any sense).
2) While certainly climate change exists over a period longer than thirty years, I don't think it's really plausible to try to plan more than thirty years ahead. In the last thirty years, we had five different presidents and ten different Directors of National Intelligence (counting the DCI as a DNI before the latter position existed). Given the lack of continuity in our government, plus the difficulty of predicting the different ways climate change could pan out in the future, I'd say even thirty years is optimistic.
3) All NIEs on politically sensitive issues have the potential to become political footballs, such as the NIE on Iraq's WMD programs. This is inevitable, but in my opinion shouldn't be a reason against doing the NIE in the first place.
4) An NIE really isn't a tool of statecraft the way I see it. The NIE should instead help Congress improve it's decisions when it comes to issues relating to climate change, as well as helping other departments, such as Commerce, Agriculture, etc., achieve "decision advantage"* over their competitors abroad.
5) I agree that issues like climate change need to be considered as part of country studies, etc., but when Congress is drafting legislation on climate change, they don't want to go through every single report the IC has to find the relevant bits on climate change - they want it all in one document.
All in all, I guess I really don't see anything wrong with the IC helping the President and Congress make better decisions when it comes to foreign policy even if those decisions aren't directed against other states or hostile organizations. Some will always say that climate change issues aren't the IC's "core competencies", but that ignores two things - a) in a constantly changing world, the IC's core competency (as far as analysis goes) should be learning rather than specific technical or analytical areas of expertise, and b) when the world changes, the IC needs to keep up; when one of the biggest threats to peace and security might be climate change, the IC needs to develop expertise in that area rather than hyping Chinese fighters 30 years behind our own.
* "Decision advantage" comes from this idea:
"‘Intelligence’ is best understood as the collection, analysis and dissemination of information by parties in conflict or competition. What turns the simple pursuit of information into the business of intelligence is its purpose: gaining competitive advantage over adversaries. This goal fuels the desire for specific, urgent and often secret knowledge as well as a systematic way of obtaining it in time to win the contest. Given that the context is competition, such ‘decision advantages’ can be acquired in two ways: by getting better information for one’s strategy than one’s opponents gain for theirs, or by degrading the competitors’ decision-making through denial, disruption, deception, or surprise." Jennifer Sims. "Intelligence to counter terror: The importance of
all-source fusion."
Trackback to Haft of the Spear.
First, if you trust the science the IPCC has already provided everyone with a comprehensive study of what climate change is doing to the planet. This is wheel reinvention.I disagree with Michael - I think an NIE on climate change is overdue. I'll answer his concerns point by point.
Secondly, in 30 years the world’s oceans are supposed to rise what, an inch? Six? Sub-Saharan Africa gets two degrees hotter? Ten? The timeframe is too short to make effective strategic assessments (had there been an NIE from the 70s when we thought the planet was freezing that would be a nice lesson-learned to use).
Third, even if it ends up being the world’s best friggin’ study on climate change, totally free of bias and objective to a fault, someone isn’t going to like it, they’ll leak it, and it’ll become a political football that renders effective decision-making impossible.
Fourth, of all the tools of statecraft one could employ to address climate change, intel is the least effective of them all. Where is Commerce? Justice? Agriculture? HHS? HUD? These are the elements that should be working up plans to be employed (or not) by potential expeditionary forces (a’la Barnett’s Dept. of Everything Else).
Finally, we already have studies on every country, every political party, every sub-state group, every key individual in the world; we are better off injecting the impact of climate change into standing scenarios to determine how people will react/decisions will be made/events that will be spawned.
1) His first concern, that the IC would be re-issuing the IPCC report, is off-base because, as the text of the law says, the NIE will focus not on climate change itself, but on the geopolitical effects of climate change. The IC will prepare the NIE "using the mid-range projections of the fourth assessment report of the [IPCC]." This wouldn't be reinventing the wheel, it'd be building on it (if that metaphor makes any sense).
2) While certainly climate change exists over a period longer than thirty years, I don't think it's really plausible to try to plan more than thirty years ahead. In the last thirty years, we had five different presidents and ten different Directors of National Intelligence (counting the DCI as a DNI before the latter position existed). Given the lack of continuity in our government, plus the difficulty of predicting the different ways climate change could pan out in the future, I'd say even thirty years is optimistic.
3) All NIEs on politically sensitive issues have the potential to become political footballs, such as the NIE on Iraq's WMD programs. This is inevitable, but in my opinion shouldn't be a reason against doing the NIE in the first place.
4) An NIE really isn't a tool of statecraft the way I see it. The NIE should instead help Congress improve it's decisions when it comes to issues relating to climate change, as well as helping other departments, such as Commerce, Agriculture, etc., achieve "decision advantage"* over their competitors abroad.
5) I agree that issues like climate change need to be considered as part of country studies, etc., but when Congress is drafting legislation on climate change, they don't want to go through every single report the IC has to find the relevant bits on climate change - they want it all in one document.
All in all, I guess I really don't see anything wrong with the IC helping the President and Congress make better decisions when it comes to foreign policy even if those decisions aren't directed against other states or hostile organizations. Some will always say that climate change issues aren't the IC's "core competencies", but that ignores two things - a) in a constantly changing world, the IC's core competency (as far as analysis goes) should be learning rather than specific technical or analytical areas of expertise, and b) when the world changes, the IC needs to keep up; when one of the biggest threats to peace and security might be climate change, the IC needs to develop expertise in that area rather than hyping Chinese fighters 30 years behind our own.
* "Decision advantage" comes from this idea:
"‘Intelligence’ is best understood as the collection, analysis and dissemination of information by parties in conflict or competition. What turns the simple pursuit of information into the business of intelligence is its purpose: gaining competitive advantage over adversaries. This goal fuels the desire for specific, urgent and often secret knowledge as well as a systematic way of obtaining it in time to win the contest. Given that the context is competition, such ‘decision advantages’ can be acquired in two ways: by getting better information for one’s strategy than one’s opponents gain for theirs, or by degrading the competitors’ decision-making through denial, disruption, deception, or surprise." Jennifer Sims. "Intelligence to counter terror: The importance of
all-source fusion."
Trackback to Haft of the Spear.
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