Why do political beings rush to spotlight reports of confirming information but smother those that fail to produce the smoking gun they made much of when parading their intention to get to the bottom of alleged improprieties? Perhaps an answer lurks not so much in the Memorial Day weekend release of the Guantanamo Review commissioned by a January 2009 presidential order. (See http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/pdf/GTMOtaskforcereport_052810.pdf?sid=ST2010052803890) Instead, the telltale insights come from the handling of the report.
Item 1: The report, completed in January 2010, was just released in May 2010, on a holiday weekend, on a Friday. None of the fanfare surrounding the announcement of the intention to get to the bottom of the Guantanamo situation and its implied, dire consequences for human rights accompanied the commissioned findings.
Item 2: Despite making the case that 95% of Guantanamo detainees are terrorists adversaries of the United States and, at most, 5% may be difficult to categorize in such a fashion, the administration's takeaway from this report drew little attention to the danger that the Guantanamo detainees pose for America and Americans. Instead, they emphasized that most detainees were low-level fighters. (See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/31/AR2010053101702.html?nav=hcmoduletmv, where a Washington Post columnist observes how his own newspaper characterized the report in a Saturday news article following the report's release.)
Lessons?
1. One need not lie to deceive. Delay works.
2. Control the spotlight, and facts need not intrude into one's agenda. The desired impact apparently came from announcing the Guantanamo review, hence no sense of urgency in tracking its progress, reporting its conclusion a year later, or questioning why something important enough for a presidentially decreed task force took almost half a year to see the light of day.
3. Whatever such proceedings communicate to those who would kill us, it is hardly a message of strength or deterrence. Instead, it calls to mind these words of Hilaire Belloc:
We sit by and watch the barbarian, we tolerate him; in the long stretches of peace we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed creeds refreshes us; we laugh. But as we laugh, we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond; and on these faces, there is no smile.
-- Nick Catrantzos
Monday, May 31, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Security for Artisans
Security is receptive to scientific advance, but is no field for scientists to dominate. The exigencies of protection are too fluid and the stakes too high for submitting one's livelihood, assets, or life to rigid metrics and laboratory-grade theories that fall apart on first contact with mortal hazard. On the other hand, security is no long-term home for artists, either. Not that the protective world need be inhospitable to creativity or innovation -- particularly if they produce desired protection on time and within ambient resource constraints. However, the artist's highest aspiration to be and do something unique will find a better home elsewhere. In the protection business, it is not only useful but necessary to be able to replicate and commoditize one's highest achievement, to spread it widely and often without taking credit for it. In this context, die-hard artists will surely look to greener pastures more befitting their egos and temperaments. Where does that leave us, then, if security is neither art nor science and if security welcomes visitors from both camps but offers neither a home?
Security at its best is a home for artisans. It is one of those hybrid disciplines whose highest expression derives from synthesis, from blending theory and innovation together and then applying the mixture with gusto and finesse to situations where success may occasionally surface but where failure is unmistakable and fatal to people, institutions, or careers. Security is no place for the faint of heart, for the indecisive, for the chronically risk averse. It can be a natural fit, however, for defenders, pragmatic idealists, and masters of the calculated risk.
A first-rate security practitioner takes the pains of a fine craftsman (without giving the pains of a technical expert or temperamental artist) and applies skills that require not only knowledge but some level of apprenticeship. This practitioner takes enough pride in mastery of the discipline to keep honing skills that improve the way he or she practices the craft. Security professionals at the top of their game do for colleagues and neophytes what others did for them: teach, share, question, explain, and improve. They resist the temptation to hoard knowledge or mask ignorance. Some are blunt. Others are tactful. Some are didactic and prolix. Others are laconic, only answering questions rather than volunteering information. All the pros have successes under their belt, as well as misfires it pains them to remember. The good ones will tell you about both. The great ones will have one or more whoppers in the failure column. When they talk about those, they remember what they learned from their mistakes, how they did better next time.
Security professionals are as frustrated or stymied as anyone else. They learn to make peace with an imperfect world and navigate the uncertain waters that raise them high one day, only to submerge them to the depths the next day. Over time, security professionals learn to take vicissitudes in graceful stride. They learn to anticipate adverse consequences, and this knowledge carries over into organizational life. They see it coming. Ideally, they dodge the blow. When dodging is no option, at least they brace for the punch.
Security professionals put some distance between themselves and others. It keeps them objective and creates more room for maneuver, more reaction time. Most of the time, Security is no one's best friend. Often, though, Security is their only friend. Security people know they get paid to try where others run or hide. Part of their job is not just what they do under routine conditions, but what they are prepared to do when things go bad.
Security people may have ambitions, but they learn to keep them in check. Crime pays better. So do the kinds of jobs that require more ethical flexibility. Organizational dynamics can put security practitioners at odds with some employee populations more than others. Fortunately, the world keeps serving up just enough danger to remind most organizations why they have and keep Security on the payroll.
Security at its best keeps spectacular losses from happening. This makes it unspectacular and its consummate practitioners relatively unheralded. Only the professionals know among their ranks or just within themselves. And when they craft a worthy defense or foil an otherwise devastating attack, they know. They look up. They smile. And maybe that's enough.
-- Nick Catrantzos
Security at its best is a home for artisans. It is one of those hybrid disciplines whose highest expression derives from synthesis, from blending theory and innovation together and then applying the mixture with gusto and finesse to situations where success may occasionally surface but where failure is unmistakable and fatal to people, institutions, or careers. Security is no place for the faint of heart, for the indecisive, for the chronically risk averse. It can be a natural fit, however, for defenders, pragmatic idealists, and masters of the calculated risk.
A first-rate security practitioner takes the pains of a fine craftsman (without giving the pains of a technical expert or temperamental artist) and applies skills that require not only knowledge but some level of apprenticeship. This practitioner takes enough pride in mastery of the discipline to keep honing skills that improve the way he or she practices the craft. Security professionals at the top of their game do for colleagues and neophytes what others did for them: teach, share, question, explain, and improve. They resist the temptation to hoard knowledge or mask ignorance. Some are blunt. Others are tactful. Some are didactic and prolix. Others are laconic, only answering questions rather than volunteering information. All the pros have successes under their belt, as well as misfires it pains them to remember. The good ones will tell you about both. The great ones will have one or more whoppers in the failure column. When they talk about those, they remember what they learned from their mistakes, how they did better next time.
Security professionals are as frustrated or stymied as anyone else. They learn to make peace with an imperfect world and navigate the uncertain waters that raise them high one day, only to submerge them to the depths the next day. Over time, security professionals learn to take vicissitudes in graceful stride. They learn to anticipate adverse consequences, and this knowledge carries over into organizational life. They see it coming. Ideally, they dodge the blow. When dodging is no option, at least they brace for the punch.
Security professionals put some distance between themselves and others. It keeps them objective and creates more room for maneuver, more reaction time. Most of the time, Security is no one's best friend. Often, though, Security is their only friend. Security people know they get paid to try where others run or hide. Part of their job is not just what they do under routine conditions, but what they are prepared to do when things go bad.
Security people may have ambitions, but they learn to keep them in check. Crime pays better. So do the kinds of jobs that require more ethical flexibility. Organizational dynamics can put security practitioners at odds with some employee populations more than others. Fortunately, the world keeps serving up just enough danger to remind most organizations why they have and keep Security on the payroll.
Security at its best keeps spectacular losses from happening. This makes it unspectacular and its consummate practitioners relatively unheralded. Only the professionals know among their ranks or just within themselves. And when they craft a worthy defense or foil an otherwise devastating attack, they know. They look up. They smile. And maybe that's enough.
-- Nick Catrantzos
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Terrorists and Kindergartners No Joke
In the wake of last weekend's failed attempt to launch Times Square night life into orbit, security and non-security practitioners alike are taking comfort in dismissing the threat of such amateur attacks. A Washington Post-affiliated blogger noted how boneheaded such attackers appear. True enough, until an attack succeeds. An alternative analysis, however, is accessible to anyone who examines such attacks through a management prism.
One such prism comes from trying to understand why our best and brightest consistently under perform in a management exercise sometimes called the marshmallow challenge. (If you want to see the details and exposition of these findings in a few minutes, see http://www.ted.com/talks/tom_wujec_build_a_tower.html ). The point of the exercise is for a team to make the tallest possible tower out of a marshmallow, some strands of uncooked spaghetti, duct tape, and string -- where the marshmallow must rest atop the structure that the team builds. There is a time limit imposed, too. MBAs consistently approach the challenge with highfalutin planning and theorizing. As a result, they talk themselves out of time and erect no tower, or put together an imposing structure that falls apart when they finally place the marshmallow on top. What group outpaces these people dramatically? You guessed it: kindergartners Why? Instead of planning and talking the problem to death, they start by putting the marshmallow on top of a spaghetti strand and then just keep trying until they land on what works.
So, here we are. Like the MBAs in this story, we sneer and cackle at the kindergarten-like lack of sophistication at attack attempts that just don't stop. And somewhere there are very focused and committed kindergartners affixing yet another explosive marshmallow onto a sturdier tower, learning by doing, oblivious to our derision. Still feeling comfortably superior?
-- Nick Catrantzos
One such prism comes from trying to understand why our best and brightest consistently under perform in a management exercise sometimes called the marshmallow challenge. (If you want to see the details and exposition of these findings in a few minutes, see http://www.ted.com/talks/tom_wujec_build_a_tower.html ). The point of the exercise is for a team to make the tallest possible tower out of a marshmallow, some strands of uncooked spaghetti, duct tape, and string -- where the marshmallow must rest atop the structure that the team builds. There is a time limit imposed, too. MBAs consistently approach the challenge with highfalutin planning and theorizing. As a result, they talk themselves out of time and erect no tower, or put together an imposing structure that falls apart when they finally place the marshmallow on top. What group outpaces these people dramatically? You guessed it: kindergartners Why? Instead of planning and talking the problem to death, they start by putting the marshmallow on top of a spaghetti strand and then just keep trying until they land on what works.
So, here we are. Like the MBAs in this story, we sneer and cackle at the kindergarten-like lack of sophistication at attack attempts that just don't stop. And somewhere there are very focused and committed kindergartners affixing yet another explosive marshmallow onto a sturdier tower, learning by doing, oblivious to our derision. Still feeling comfortably superior?
-- Nick Catrantzos
Friday, May 7, 2010
Times Square Bomber Craving Celebrity?
From today's Washington Post: "U.S. officials said Faisal Shahzad's radicalization was cumulative and largely self-contained -- meaning that it did not involve typical catalysts such as direct contact with a radical cleric, a visible conversion to militant Islam or a significant setback in life."
http://mobile.washingtonpost.com/c.jsp?item=http%3a%2f%2fwww.washingtonpost.com%2fwp-syndication%2farticle%2f2010%2f05%2f07%2fAR2010050700194_mobile.xml&cid=578815&spf=1
Self-contained or self-absorbed?
Media accounts of Shahzad's life before attaining notoriety for his failed attempt to blow up Saturday night revelers in Times Square point to an existence unburdened by achievement. If anything, this young man went through the mainstream of life without even making a ripple. Consider: Forgettable C student at college, over-leveraged first-time home owner, terminated junior employee without the talent, drive, or imagination to find productive work. He even failed to properly make and detonate the explosive whose intended impact would have launched him into a terrorist hall of fame. Now his only remaining supply of ego massage will hinge on how much air play American media bestow. He may not be bright, but this does not exclude the chance he has a certain low, animal cunning.
Look for him to say anything that gets a rise out of interviewers. Operant conditioning will be at play, with a court room or news magazine show appearance his ultimate goal. The more attention he receives, the less he will be encumbered by his towering insignificance.
Even a smarter malefactor craves attention. Witness Christopher Boyce, a young man from a different time who also turned on his country. As the brains behind the Falcon and the Snowman collaboration, Boyce amused himself by drawing attention even after convicted and jailed. How? He would periodically testify before Congress on the failings of the background investigation system that let him slide into highly classified work at a tender age based on character references that were mostly his father's peers with only superficial awareness of Boyce's proclivities. Only the clearance system benefitted from Boyce's revelations. What value the Times Square abortive bomber delivers will likely be more perishable and unaccompanied by insight. A young, malleable dolt digging himself from one hole into another will be hard pressed to appear smarter over time -- unless it is a slow news season and media handlers sculpt this lump into clay more imposing.
- Nick Catrantzos
http://mobile.washingtonpost.com/c.jsp?item=http%3a%2f%2fwww.washingtonpost.com%2fwp-syndication%2farticle%2f2010%2f05%2f07%2fAR2010050700194_mobile.xml&cid=578815&spf=1
Self-contained or self-absorbed?
Media accounts of Shahzad's life before attaining notoriety for his failed attempt to blow up Saturday night revelers in Times Square point to an existence unburdened by achievement. If anything, this young man went through the mainstream of life without even making a ripple. Consider: Forgettable C student at college, over-leveraged first-time home owner, terminated junior employee without the talent, drive, or imagination to find productive work. He even failed to properly make and detonate the explosive whose intended impact would have launched him into a terrorist hall of fame. Now his only remaining supply of ego massage will hinge on how much air play American media bestow. He may not be bright, but this does not exclude the chance he has a certain low, animal cunning.
Look for him to say anything that gets a rise out of interviewers. Operant conditioning will be at play, with a court room or news magazine show appearance his ultimate goal. The more attention he receives, the less he will be encumbered by his towering insignificance.
Even a smarter malefactor craves attention. Witness Christopher Boyce, a young man from a different time who also turned on his country. As the brains behind the Falcon and the Snowman collaboration, Boyce amused himself by drawing attention even after convicted and jailed. How? He would periodically testify before Congress on the failings of the background investigation system that let him slide into highly classified work at a tender age based on character references that were mostly his father's peers with only superficial awareness of Boyce's proclivities. Only the clearance system benefitted from Boyce's revelations. What value the Times Square abortive bomber delivers will likely be more perishable and unaccompanied by insight. A young, malleable dolt digging himself from one hole into another will be hard pressed to appear smarter over time -- unless it is a slow news season and media handlers sculpt this lump into clay more imposing.
- Nick Catrantzos
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