4 Problems of U.S. Intelligence

In the process of describing the directors responsible for leading the Central Intelligence Agency since its inception after World War II, The Spymasters by Chris Whipple lays bare at least four systemic problems that affect the intelligence that supports policy decisions affecting U.S.national security. 1) Conflicting attitudes toward analysts, covert operators, technology, a mole/spy (Rick Ames and earlier, James Jesus Angleton's search for spies within CIA) and women affect the agency's morale, hiring, firing and intelligence reports. President Nixon's CIA director, James Schlesinger, purged covert operators left over from the Vietnam era; President Reagan's CIA director, William Casey, himself a covert operator during World War II, hired 2000. Casey ended up in the scandalous plot, where contra guerrillas, funded from arms sales to Iran that were used to free U.S. hostages, fought to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Presudent Carter's CIA director, Stansfield Turner, favored using technology rather than human intelligence collection methods. James Woolsey, President Clinton's first CIA director, however, recognized the value of integrating technology and human intelligence. Until relatively recently, CIA was "white, male and Yale." Appointed by President Trump, Gina Haspel, the first female CIA director, came up through the covert Directorate of Operations. Jennifer Matthews, who joined the CIA in 1989, was one of the analysts in the secret unit, Alec Station, that had warned President George W. Bush's administration of an impending Al Qaeda attack on the United States. At age 45, Ms. Matthews told family and friends she needed an overseas covert assignment in order to progress professionaly. As chief of base in Khost, Afghanistan, she was killed in a suicide bombing in December, 2009. 2) Turf wars, at a time when available information abounds, prevent innovations capable of capturing, evaluating and distributing relevant information, the lack of which can have dire consequences. On paper, responsibilities of the CIA, FBI, other U.S. agencies and departments, embassies and foreign intelligence services seem clear. But in the U.S. alone, the CIA and FBI have conflicting responsibilities, and there are conflicts between the FBI's need to collect evidence to prosecute offenders in court cases and the CIA's need to take timely action on intelligence information. For example, the CIA's Jose Rodriguez justified use of waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation techniques" as the fastest way to get Al Qaeda terrorist, Abu Zubaydah, to disclose plans for additional attacks that required immediate prevention. He had no respect for the interrogation method of the FBI's Ali Soufan, who, as an Arabic-speaking Muslim, gained information by establishing personal rapport with terrorists. (See Lawrence Wright's very different positive profile of Ali Soufan in The Looming Tower). Both the CIA and FBI knew Al Qaeda was behind the October, 2000 attack on the USS Cole destroyer in Aden, Yemen, but the Clinton administration's failure to react emboldened Osama bin Laden's September 11, 2001 attacks. What surfaced as one of the consensus reasons for 9/11 in the postmortem was a lack of intelligence sharing. As a remedy, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was designed to integrate not only the CIA and FBI, but also the National Security Agency, Department of Energy and another 10 contributors to U.S. intelligence. Of course, even this cumbersome Office does not collect, evaluate and coordinate intelligence information supplied by other sources, such as NATO, the UK and Israel. A year before the August, 1998 Al Qaeda attacks on U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, for example, the FBI learned CIA discounted the warning of a bombing plot an Egyptian member of Al Qaeda provided at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi. In contrast, acting on a tip from Jordan's General Intelligence Directorate, CIA relied on a would-be double agent, Human Khalil al-Balawi, who presented a video showing he could get close to Al Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al Zawahiri. On December 30, 2009, Balawi, who turned out to be a suicide bomber and triple agent working for Al Qaeda, set off the explosion that killed Jennifer Matthews and her team in Khost, Afghanistan. 3) CIA and Presidents navigate a difficult relationship. Separating those who provide and those who use information is a mistake, when collaboration is likely to produce a much better conclusion. Within the administrations of U.S. Presidents, policy decisions are based on political calculations, incomplete intelligence information, the clash of personalities and opinions and often an attempt to provide deniability and avoid blame, if a decision launches an action that goes wrong. Political suspicions linger, for example, regarding President Clinton's reluctance to retaliate for Al Qaeda's attack on the USS Cole. Acknowledging Al Qaeda crippled a U.S. destroyer could have made Democrats look weak a month before the 2000 election. Plus, with President Clinton's Monica Lewinsky affair fresh in the minds of voters, a retalitory strike on Al Qaeda could look like an effort to distract from the affair, an imitation of the film plot in Wag the Dog. The experience of CIA directors and their staffs is too valuable to exclude from the policy-making loop. Consider the positions held by these CIA directors. James Schlesinger: Secretary of Defense George H. W. Bush: U.S. President William Webster: FBI director Robert Gates: Secretary of Defense John Deutch: Deputy Secretary of Defense George Tenet: Deputy CIA director Michael Hayden: National Security Agency director Leon Panetta: Member of Congress, President Clinton's White House Chief of Staff and OMB director, Secretary of Defense Mike Pompeo: Member of Congress, Secretary of State Yet, the principals in positions to take control during a new crisis may fail to give sufficient attention to a looming problem, if their attention is focused on erroneous information about a different threat and/or if they fail to understand the country or group involved. After George W. Bush won the 2000 presidential election, the CIA continued to voice grave concern about the growing Al Qaeda threat, but the president's advisors: Vice President Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz at the Defense Department and National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, were preoccupied with Iraq. Pretending Iraq's Saddam Husein was connected with Al Qaeda and had weapons of mass destruction led to a disasterous war. From their positions of power, Presidents often try to use the information and tools CIA can provide to implement their will. During the Vietnam war, Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon asked CIA director, Richard Helms, to violate the CIA's lack of authority to engage in domestic police activities by beginning a domestic surveillance program, MHCHAOS, designed to identify the communist connections of anti-war protest leaders in the United States. After I left CIA in 1967, I lived in Honolulu for a time. While I was on a date with a Hawaiian assistant attorney general, he asked if I were willing to compile a list of anti-war leaders at Hawaii's East-West University, if the government paid for my Ph.D. studies. I was unwilling. Just as CIA directors need to avoid being intimidated by Presidents, they need to be careful not to use their own power to intimidate their staffs. When a crisis erupts, the CIA hierarchy has a tendency to leave analysts who monitor a country or subject out in the cold, while over and over again the same top tier officials assemble to consider options. After Russia invaded the former Soviet Union's Republic of Georgia in August, 2008, CIA director, Michael Hayden, asked (I hope, in jest.), if CIA had an expert on Georgia. Clearly, the Georgia analyst who followed the country every day was not the first person asked for an assessment. John Brennan was an Irish Catholic and White House counterrorism advisor before he became the CIA director. To confine him to an information-only lane would not make sense. National security depends on a CIA that provides information it knows to be true(and legal), not to robotically go along with every request from Presidents and their administrations. 4) Just as political considerations play a role in the relationship between presidents and CIA directors, they also affect Congressional relations. The title, Playing to the Edge, of the book by George W. Bush's CIA director, Michael Hayden, captures the intelligence community's mindset. Compared to covert operators determined to stretch the legal limits to complete a mission, most legislators are attorneys schooled in a strict rule of law. Blame for poor CIA-Congressional relations, cannot be assigned to CIA alone, however. By August, 2016, Russian interference with the U.S. election process was clear. But when President Obama's CIA officials asked Congressional leaders to warn their State election commissions about foreign tampering, they were told to stop being played by Moscow. Wavering views on assassinations can serve as a proxy for understanding complex Congressional and CIA positions. In 1973, Congress looked at CIA's involvement in plots to assassinate four foreign leaders: Fidel Castro, Vietnam's Ngo Dinh Diem, the Congo's Patrice Lumumba and Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. As a result of these investigations, Congress established oversight by House and Senate Permanent Committees on Intelligence. In the 1980s, the Middle East's unsettled Israeli-Palestinian conflict and U.S. support for Iran's Shah inspired vengeance by Islamic fundamentalists. A CIA manhunt eventually killed an elusive terrorist leader of Iranian-backed Hezbollah, Imad Mughniyah, who promoted effective suicide bombings and the kidnapping and torture of U.S. citizens. When pressure against what was perceived as torture by CIA operatives gained public support after 9/11, Congress condemned the "enhanced interrogation techniques" used on Al Qaeda terrorists and passed the "Detainee Treatment Act" in 2005. But, even as early as 2001, assassinations began to go unchallenged, when they could be accomplished from afar by drones. And crowds gathered outside the White House to cheer the assassination of Osama bin Landen in May, 2011. The U.S. public and Congress agreed to take action for Saudi Arabia's role in the dismemberment of Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, in Iran's Saudi Arabian Embassy, but President Trump was reluctant to lose a $450 billion sale to the Saudis. Yet, President Trump authorized the murder of Iranian general, Qassim Suleimani, head of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Quds Force. How Congress and the public will view future assassinations remains unclear. Although eliminating a dangerous leader appears to accomplish a mission, such a short-term remedy often poses worse long-term consequences. President Clinton's first CIA director, James Woolsey, recognized the dilemma. He described how a giant, after slaying a dragon, suddenly can discover he is surrounded by poisonous snakes. The death of one kingpin does not prevent more than one from taking his place. Finally, no one book provides a complete review of the tools, procedures, limitations and capabilities the U.S. intelligence community uses to protect national security. As Chris Whipple surely knows, the CIA directors and others he interviewed for The Spymasters are motivated to protect their legacies and the integrity of the Central Intelligence Agency. Their perceptions also reflect their personalities and loyalty to and chemistry with associates. Predictably, CIA's current director, Gina Haspel, and Michael Pompeo, the current Secretary of State and Ms. Haspel's predecessor, declined to be interviewed, since anything they would say could have repercussions related to their ongoing responsibilities. It was unfortunate to see the good ol' white, male and Yale CIA boys use Ms. Haspel's lack of response to an interview request as an opportunity to take their long knives to her experience, decisions and behavior. In the final analysis, however, The Spymasters reminds citizens of democracies how free they are to discover the way their governments work and how free they are to correct what they dislike.

Examples of the Devil in the Details

In Indonesia, the Boeing 737 MAX's tragic loss of 189 lives illustrates how computerized directions prevented a pilot from executing the right decision. Pilots, unlike astronauts with access to mission control, apparently lack hotlines to aircraft manufacturers that could tell them to flip two switches when they experience the problem Indonesia's plane had. Already, suggestions note the missing detail of highlighting important information about new aircraft systems, such as the Boeing MAX has. These changes need to be written in the language most easily read by pilots, not always in English, and illustrated in a brochure or on a card separate from the aircraft's basic manual.

     Bill Gates observed the detail that new medicines and vaccines invented in the lab do nothing to eliminate human suffering, if  they lack a distribution system. I was reminded of the way I walked two blocks to a schoolyard where I received a drop of the polio vaccine on a sugar cube, a distribution system replaced by doctor's offices today. In Africa, where providing patients with medication that requires refrigeration was a problem, drones had to be enlisted to carry them to clinics in remote villages.

     If there is no use for recycled plastic bottles and containers, why bother with the details of collecting them? A TV segment showed what looked like bales of "dirty" plastic stacked ten feet high at a recycling center. Could dirty plastic items be melted for use in 3D printers to make insulation and furniture for the homes 3D printers now construct from concrete?

     China, once a customer for dirty plastic, now only buys pristine plastic with no labels or other irregularities such as moisture. Those requirements certainly leave out the plastic debris long boom arms collect from the ocean in what's known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch or "the blob" between California and Hawaii that forms the mass of warm water that seems to nourish the warm, dry winters that dehydrate forests along the northwest coast of North America.

     Then, there are the new members of the U.S. Congress who want to replace Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. First, they need to master the details of passing legislation..     

   

Time to Make Futuristic Travel Plans

Travel by air land, and water is being reimagined these days. Tesla is the well-known stock market darling of driverless cars, and Elon Musk also promises travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 30 minutes in his frictionless train. Later, on February 6, 2018, Musk successfully launched his
 SpaceX rocket to signal what could be the beginning of commercial space travel. Richard Branson also is in the commercial space travel mix with his plans to take us to Mars.

     We've heard about Amazon using drones to deliver our e-commerce orders. But, when it comes to delivering supplies in a medical emergency, drones can be life savers if they fly over traffic congestion, take the most direct route over lakes and hills, and avoid washed-out and impassable roads to reach rural areas. Yet, there are still challenges of battery life, bad weather, and urban neighbors disturbed by the oncoming buzzing sound.

     Matternet of California, Mercedes-Benz vans, and the Swiss firm Siroop are partners in a pilot project, approved by Switzerland's aviation authority, in which a drone successfully returned lab samples to the roof of a waiting van that delivered them to a hospital in heavily-populated Zurich, Switzerland. E-commerce firms could follow a similar procedure using UPS or other trucking services for the last leg in the delivery process.

     In Norway, Yara is investing in crewless, electric container ships that are expected to cost three times as much as conventional models but offer an operational savings of up to 90% over the costs of fuel and crews on comparable cargo ships. Since travel on autonomous ships in international waters could take until at least 2020 to gain approval by the International Maritime Organization, you're likely to be traveling on an autonomous ferry first.

   

Bucket List: Things I Want to Try

My father worked for a company than made point-of-purchase advertising. When you're in a business that looks for new ways to attract the attention of in-store shoppers, you work on the cutting edge of innovation and develop an eye for what's new in all aspects of life.

     At one point, we had a plastic form for displaying bras and motorized roses circling a bottle of liquor on our dining room table. Our dining room table took a beating, when Dad brought home one of the first ball point pens. It came on a pedestal in a see-through cylindrical display container. We immediately took it out to try and gouged our names right through paper into the dining room table.

     When President Eisenhower initiated the Interstate Highway System, Dad drew a picture (not with a ball point pen on the dining room table) of the new type of clover-leaf interchanges it would have. Then, there was his excitement when he told us we'd be taking one of the first passenger jets to see the new Disneyland in California.

     With this kind of background, I realized I had been making a mental bucket list that included the following: (It might be time to make your own and look for ideas from around the world.)

• Flying a dronw
• Using Virtual Reality glasses to see Victoria Falls
• Making something with a 3D printer
• Twirling one of those fidget widget things
• Programming a simple robot
• Seeing how intricate cut paper pop-ups are made for books and cards
• Trying various hearing aid devices
• Playing "The Settlers of Catan" game
• Seeing how a green screen works in movies
• Making all kinds of repairs
• Riding a Hoverboard
• Using all kinds of phones

As I hear about new things, I wish there were somewhere to go to try them. Maybe in abandoned shopping malls.

Modern Deterrents

Watching today's young Japanese students push their desks to the side of the room and hide under them, as teachers pull shades over the windows to deflect flying glass, only reminds us this was a procedure that couldn't protect populations from nuclear attacks in the 1950s. Strategies designed to protect a retaliatory second strike weapon system after an initial surprise bombing in the 1960s are out-of-date as well.

     Nuclear-equipped enemies in the 21st century include minor nations and possible terrorist groups that have nothing to lose. Major players have cyber soldiers that don't move on their stomachs. They keep coming without food or sleep. Not only nuclear fallout can contaminate an environment, but climate change and asteroid collisions with Earth also threaten the world's food supply.

     We are seeing people taking survival into their own hands. One of the characters on "Orange is the New Black" represents those families who prepare their own caves with guns and a stockpile of food and water. Refugees already begin walking or taking to the sea in leaking boats and rafts to escape war-torn areas. Farmers are developing cross-breeding for livestock and hydroponic and aquaponic growing methods to produce food in new ways.

     Computer hacking and nanotechnology offer new defensive options for compromising the performance of all sorts of enemy systems. Enemies know how each others guidance systems work. Besides shooting nuclear ICBMs out of the sky and scattering radioactive particles over the Earth, redirecting ICBMs (and any enemy weapons) to strike whoever launched them has the potential to transform MAD (mutually assured destruction) into SAD (self assured destruction) and cause the most fearsome tyrant to try to scamper for a submarine.

     Programmers already send drones to destroy targets as small as individuals. There are "Hurt Locker" experts who disable bombs on land. Could drones disable nuclear missiles in space? In films, astronauts also keep asteroids from hitting Earth, and furry little forest creatures cause oncoming cyber soldiers to crash by tangling their legs in vines. Meanwhile, high-tech Star Wars airmen penetrate fortresses through air supply vents.

      In the past, shields have blocked arrows, gun powder reduced castle walls to rubble, tanks swept around the Maginot Line, and an armada of fishing boats rescued an army, while prayer and repentance saved Nineveh from destruction. Alliances change from century to century, but the darkness of night, fog, snow, and a blinding sunrise still have the power to deter an effective military response.

     The wise expect an unending race between offense and defense and use their smarts to triumph.

Blind Trust in AI Is a Mistake

For better or worse, combining algorithms with images collected by drones, satellites, and video feeds from other monitors enhances aerial intelligence in a variety of fields.

     Overhead movie and TV shots already provide a different perspective, just as viewing the Earth or a rocket launch from a space craft or satellite does. These new perspectives offer advantages besides entertainment value and a chance to study the dwindling ice cap at the North Pole.

     Seen from above, data about landscapes has various applications. The famous Texas Gulf Sulphur Company case involving insider trading began with aerial geophysical surveys in eastern Canada. When pilots in planes scanning the ground saw the needles in their instruments going wild, they could pinpoint the possible location of electrically conductive sulphide deposits containing zinc and copper along with sulphur.

     When Argentina invaded Britain's Falkland Islands in April, 1982, it's been reported the only map the defenders possessed showed perfect picnic spots. Planes took to the air to locate the landing spot that enabled British troops to declare victory at Port Stanley in June, 1982.

     Nowadays, the aim is to write algorithms that look for certain activities among millions of images. A robber can program an algorithm to tell a drone's  camera to identify where delivery trucks leave packages. An algorithm can call attention to a large group of people and cars arriving at a North Korean missile testing site. Then, an analyst can figure out why, because, to date, artificial intelligence (AI) does not explain how and why it reaches a conclusion.

     Since artificial intelligence's algorithms operate in their own "black boxes," humans are unable to evaluate the process used to arrive at conclusions. Humans cannot replicate AI processes independently. And if an algorithm makes a mistake, AI provides no clues to the reasoning that went astray.

     In other words, robots without supervision can take actions based on conclusions dictated by faulty algorithms. An early attempt to treat patients based on a "machine model" provides a good example. Doctors treating pneumonia patients who also have asthma admit them to the hospital immediately, but the machine readout said to send them home. The "machine" saw pneumonia/asthma patients in the hospital recovered quickly and decided they had no reason to be admitted in the first place. The "machine" did not have the information that their rapid recovery occurred, because they were admitted to the hospital's intensive care unit.

     Google's top artificial intelligence expert, John Giannandrea, speaking at a conference on the relationship between humans and AI, emphasized the effect of bias in algorithms. Not only does it affect the news and ads social media allows us to see, but he also echoed the idea that AI bias can determine the kind of medical treatment a person receives and, based on AI's predictions about the likelihood of a convict committing future offenses, it can affect a judge's decision regarding parole.

     Joy Buolamwini's Algorithmic Justice League found facial-analysis software was prone to making mistakes recognizing the female gender, especially of darker-skinned women. AI is developed by and often tested primarily on light-skinned men, but recognition technology, for example, is promoted for hiring, policing, and military applications involving diverse populations. Since facial recognition screening fails to provide clear identifications of some populations, it also has the potential to be used to identify non-white suspects and to discriminate against hiring non-white employees.

     When humans know they are dealing with imperfect information, whether they are playing poker, treating cancer, choosing a stock, catching a criminal, or waging war, how can they have confidence in authorizing and repeating a "black box" solution that requires blind trust? Who would take moral and legal responsibility for a mistake. The human who authorized action based on AI, wrote the algorithm, or determined the data base the algorithm used to determine its conclusion? And then there is the question of the moral and legal responsibility for a robot that malfunctions while it is carrying out  the "right" conclusion.

     Research is trying to determine what elements are necessary to help AI reach the best conclusions. Statistics can't always be trusted. Numbers that show terrorists are Muslims or repeat criminals are African Americans do nothing to suggest how an individual Muslim or African American should be screened or treated.  AI research is further complicated by findings that also suggest the mind/intellect and will that control moral values and actions are separate from the physical brain that controls other human activities and diseases such as epilepsy and Parkinson's.

     Automated solutions require new safeguards: to defend against hacking that alters information, to eliminate bias,  to verify accuracy by checking multiple sources, and to determine accountability and responsibility for actions.

The Importance of Studying Literature in a Scientific Age

Just after I began reading Siddhartha Mukherjee's engaging and informative book, The Gene, I saw Julia, a new Muppet with autism, joined the characters on Sesame Street. Did a gene cause Julia's deviation from "normalcy" and could she be "fixed" by manipulating her genes? Quickly I realized my line of thinking was the dangerous conclusion Mukherjee warns us all to seriously consider.

     Taken together, the 21,000 to 23,000 genes that live in cells on a human's 46 chromosomes carry a set of genetic instructions that cause proteins to build, repair, and maintain our bodies. Once the particular function of a gene or set of genes is identified, genetic technologies can change a function and produce copies. Voila, genetically modified seeds, food, animals, and humans.

     Like a physicist working with atoms can develop a bomb or a hacker can use code to create fake news, a geneticist can manipulate genes to alter humans permanently. These masters will be able to control our bodies, to make what they consider perfect or imperfect humans. What do they do, when they find an unborn child has Down's syndrome or cystic fibrosis? Who will defend the innocent from the guilty and the guilty from the innocent? And who will define "innocent" and "guilty?"

     Science marches on taking us into an age of robots, artificial intelligence (AI), clones, drones, virtual reality, driverless cars, and more. Looking at the horse's name, "Cloud Computing," of the winner of the Preakness, the second race in the Triple Crown after the Kentucky Derby, you see how technology is reaching into all fields. Could Kellyanne Conway have described the Internet of Things (IoT) in a way that didn't suggest microwave ovens spy on us? Yes, but the ridicule that greeted Rachel Carson's expose of DDT in Silent Spring and the skepticism about the miracles at Fatima did not make the messages they delivered any less real.

     The University of Wisconsin-Madison described Matthew Aliota, one of its "Forward under 40" honorees, as "an expert on tropical mosquito-borne diseases" who believes "scientific communication is an important responsibility." To his way of thinking, research findings that are shared quickly with the public can improve public health. Mukherjee would add that shared research findings also would enable the public to understand and react to potential problems caused by these findings. Laughter, ridicule, and skepticism are hardly the right responses to important breakthroughs.

     Throughout the world, the public depends on communicators (authors, journalists, editors, film and TV directors, advertising copywriters, playwrights, social media content developers, artists, and the like)  to read about and understand the potential and problems of each new technology and to know how to provide an engaging presentation that informs us of our choices.

Soft Power

What changes minds, governments, behavior? The idea that a trainer can get a horse to do something by using a carrot that rewards or a stick that hurts translates into soft power and hard power. In international relations, hard power takes the form of tanks, bombs, drones, assassinations, prison sentences, torture, and economic sanctions. Soft power can defeat an enemy without firing a shot or sending anyone to a dungeon.

     Young men from Loyola University in Chicago, Illinois, began kicking a soccer ball around in Andahuaylillas, Peru. Children heard the familiar sound and joined them. Adults came to watch and some also joined the game. The Loyola students were in a program exploring the way sports can be used as a means of youth and community development. Communities determined to prevent gangs from destructive activity during summer vacations can beef up policing and arrests or they can work with businesses to provide summer jobs and with parks to leave the lights on for midnight basketball games.

     Why were a female music group, a Ukrainian filmmaker, and a blogger sent to Russian prisons and penal colonies? Why are Hong Kong book sellers in Chinese prisons? Authoritarian states recognize the soft power of music, film, social media, and books to overthrow repressive governments.

     Fashion, video games, educational systems like Montessori or Suzuki, and ethnic foods also spread values and cultural influence.

     Of the millions of people who have visited Disney theme parks, few have noticed the employees dressed as costumed characters when they enter or exit the park. The doors they used are in dim, uninviting alcoves away from the fun, excitement, and bright lights designed to entertain visitors.

     The bottom line is: recognize the impact, influence, and power of soft power.

(You can find additional information about the influence of films and soft power in the earlier posts: "You Oughta Be in Pictures" and "What Moscow Could Learn from History."

   

Games Techies Play

LEGOs, videogames, robots, and drones blur the line between play and war. Consider the 45 foot by 44 foot Star Wars X-wing fighters built from LEGOs (See the documentary film "A LEGO Brickumentary."), the "Battlezone" videogame that the U.S. Army has used as a simulator to train tank operators, wars between "BattleBots" on TV, and drone races in soccer fields on Saturday afternoons.

     With theatrical lighting, announcer commentary, and brackets worthy of college basketball's "March Madness" in the U.S., home made "BattleBots" fight robot wars on television. Some "BattleBots" are works of art, but other determined teams only create spinning, crushing, jabbing, remote-controlled machines in order to destroy their opponents.

     To navigate the cones and pylons that mark a drone race course, pilots wear first-person-view (FPV) video goggles, rely on a live camera feed, and use joy sticks that control the pitch, roll, yaw, and throttle of their tricky-to-fly, remote controlled quadcopters (four-propeller drones). A segment on the TODAY show June 1, 2016 claimed drone competitions are going to be the next big thing. Find out more at droneworlds.com and dronenationals.com.

     Where can techies learn to be "playful?" Try the maker spaces mentioned in the earlier blog posts, "I Made This Myself" and "Robots for Good."

   

Does the Technological Age Require Too Much Work?

We all know it's easier to take a selfie than to do math homework. Yet this age of rapid technological advances and big data requires close attention.

    But there is a temptation to blindly accept accelerated technological developments, because understanding the pros, and especially the cons, of vaccines, smartphones, and other scientific and engineering marvels is more difficult than doing math. It even is difficult for human subjects of a drug experiment to read, much less understand, things like the side effects they might develop.

     Blind acceptance is a major mistake, especially for kids around the world who have an aptitude and interest in asking questions to help them understand how things work and for kids who want to control what Wendell Wallach calls technology: A Dangerous Master.

     Even without reading Wallach's new book, parents, teachers, and young people can begin observing proposed and implemented new technological developments:

•  self-driving cars
• genetic engineering
• virtual reality
• 3D printers, some of which can create human tissue and bone 
• stem cells
• military robots
• drones
• nanomaterials

What are these gadgets and breakthroughs expected to do? How will they affect each of us? How will a complex sociotechnical system function successfully when it requires technological components to work together with people, institutions, environments, values, and existing social practices?

     Wallach points out how humans are responsible for making the correct responses when a piece of space junk is about to hit the International Space Station or when automated stock trading systems and safety controls for nuclear reactors fail. The trouble is: pressure to derive economic benefits from growth hormones or the desire for political, personal, and other payoffs can cause scientists and engineers to underestimate the probability of unanticipated events and even to have no idea of what the probability of something like an oil spill from drilling in the Arctic might be.

     Wallach stresses the necessity of creating a critical mass of informed citizens and scholars willing and able to raise concerns about technological developments, their impact on society, and the time needed to design adequate safety mechanisms. Informed young people are living at a time when they have opportunities to make their concerns known: in classrooms, at town meetings, through their social media networks, in contacts with political representatives, through call-in programs, in surveys and polls, by writing letters to editors, at science fairs, and by writing blogs.



     

     

 

Robots for Good

Where can techies around the world go to collaborate with other techies? One creative space is Wevolver.com, the web platform where co-founder, Richard Hulskes, offers open-source hardware technology and a way for people with project ideas to collaborate and build physical, tangible products at home. Pascal Jaussi, an engineer and Swiss Air Force military pilot, had a similar idea to make space accessible. His Swiss Space Systems in Payerne, canton Vaud, assembles existing components and uses proven technologies from the United States, Russia, Europe, and Asia to create sub-orbital reusable aircraft that can put commercial satellites into orbit.

      The forces that have come together in Hulskes' "Robots for Good" project illustrate just how powerful technological collaboration can be.

One project provides an example. By combining:

• an Ultimaker 3D printer
• the head and torso of the humanoid InMoov 3D printable robot
• the free, downloadable blueprint and materials for an Open Wheels segway
• Samsung's head-mounted, virtual display oculus rift
• software
• children working with Ultimaker personnel at MakerMovement spaces in London
• seriously ill children at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital

some hospitalized children are about to self-direct a virtual experience at the London Zoo.

     One team in London is using the 3D printer to assemble an InMoov robot and Open Wheels segway that can move. Another in the U.S. is working on software. Kids will drive the robot with a remote control. And, wearing an oculus rift, they will be able to move the robot's head by moving their heads and to see through the robot's eyes.

     Remote controlled drones also are being designed to fly over wildfires to relay information about  sources of water in ponds and wells and escape routes to firefighters on the ground. According to National Geographic Kids (May, 2015), roboticist Thomas Bewley at the University of California at San Diego is already developing a drone like this. Only a little larger than a postage stamp, his drone requires less energy than it takes to power a lightbulb.

(Also see related ideas in earlier blog posts, "Play, Computer Connections, and Pets Come to the Aid of Sick Kids," "I Made This Myself," "Transform Spaces into Creative Places," and "Robot Revolution.")


   

 

Problems Present Career Opportunities

Mobile phones, apps, and computer access are causing a boom in online shopping around the world. Where's the problem? Supply chain logistics. No wonder Amazon is experimenting with the use of drones to deliver goods. Could this system work in India?

E-commerce depends on logistics as India realized when its shipping and delivery network failed to handle the high volume of online purchases during this year's peak shopping season of Diwali, the festival of lights. With a warehouse shortage, only six dedicated cargo planes, and an average truck speed of 23 km per hour in intercity traffic, it was impossible to insure on-time delivery, especially in outlying smaller cities and towns where demand for goods not available locally was greatest. Further complicating the e-commerce business in India is the fact that credit cards are relatively new and as much as 70% of online purchases pay cash on delivery.

With online shopping expected to reach $10 billion in the next three years, India's e-commerce sector, like similar sectors around the world, presents a number of growth opportunities. Big Basket, an online grocery service in India now has operations in 15 major cities and 50 smaller towns. It also has competition from rapidly expanding Grofers and Pepper Tap, which deliver food from local stores rather than from their own inventories. Big Basket maintains its own inventory of fruits, vegetables, and packaged goods and also has added "Blue Apron" pre-packaged ingredients for ready-to-cook meals.

 Job estimates suggest India's e-commerce industry will need 100,000 to 150,000 employees compared to 25,000 today. Along with established logistics companies, such as GATI and DHL, GoJavas, Ecom Express, Delhivery, and other local and foreign start-ups see opportunity for expansion and growth. Instead of today's short term relationships that retailers have with carriers that offer the lowest bids, long term partnerships will enable carriers to stabilize prices at a higher level. Then, there is the opportunity for credit card companies to educate customers about the way they can facilitate merchandise purchases and returns. Judging from recent plans by mega online US retailer, Amazon, the price of e-commerce goods will be going up as costs for picking, packing, and transporting items increases.

(See additional information about careers in logistics at the earlier blog post, "What Do You Want to Be?")

On War

War is scary for everyone, but especially for children who grow up scurrying for shelter when they hear air raid sirens, seeing buildings collapse, and suffering the loss of their own legs or parents. It also is scary when children can't walk or take a bus to school, walk through their neighborhoods, use a washroom, take an elevator, or check the Internet without worrying that a bully will block their way, punch them, steal their possessions, abuse them in social media, or shoot them. As General Sherman observed during the War between the States, "War is hell."

Would that everyone would take to heart the line of a song that says, "Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me."

The Society of Friends, known as Quakers, does take this line seriously and members refuse to fight in any war. Others recognize a variety of motivations that justify war as a proportional response to injustice. A country invaded by another country needs to defend itself and protect its citizens. A race of people threatened with extinction should fight to survive. Less justifiable, a strongman decides to take what he wants from the weak. Believers in one religion or way of life seek converts by force.

The spectrum of conflict stretches from diplomacy to economic sanctions to nuclear war. Luke writes in the New Testament about a king who, before going to war against another king, sits down with his counselors and decides if he can defeat twenty thousand with his force of ten thousand. Deciding he can't, he sends a diplomat to offer terms of peace, while the enemy is "a great way off." Other strategists suggest offering an enemy a "golden bridge," a way to save face without going to war. Between World War I and World War II, some believed the pressure of public opinion could keep warmongers in check. Others argue that weakness creates a vacuum that the strong are eager to exploit. And still others observe that an arms race can set off a war not only by choice but even by chance.

We've seen a variety of conflict methods used against and by the United States in recent years.
There was the surprise attack on the Twin Towers in New York City. A diversion enabled troops to enter Osama bin Laden's compound and kill him. Informers were paid to lead the Special Forces that captured Saddam Hussein. Bombs have been carried on and brought down civil aircrafts. New weapons, drones, have been developed to target enemies.

Children think about war, as we know, when we ask them to draw pictures about their feelings. It's always time to talk to youngsters about the importance of respecting others the way they want to be respected, the importance of standing up for themselves, and the importance of praying for peace.

I'm A Little Airplane

Singing children running through fields with arms outstretched, kids flying kites, and youngsters folding paper airplanes all are following in the tradition of inventors around the world who looked up at birds and tried to imitate their ability to fly.

     We know the Greek myth of Icarus whose feather and wax wings melted when he flew too close to the sun. In Renaissance Italy, Leonardo da Vinci, who designed an airplane but lacked an engine to fly it, had such respect for the birds his design mimicked that he bought the caged birds he saw in Florence in order to set them free.

     Birds have inspired the realistic drawings of John James Audubon and the new stylized paintings of Dutch artist, Jeroen Allart. Gardeners plant a mix of trees, shrubs, grasses, vines, and flowers to attract a variety of bird species and to protect them while they feed. Guided by experts from World Birders (worldbirders.com) in the UK, bird watchers, known as birders, travel the globe to see as many species as possible, especially those that are endangered.

     Earthbound people have found ways for birds to help them. As far back as 2200 B.C. there is mention of the Chinese use of trained falcons. Marshaling their birds' speed to fly high, dive onto prey, and kill with beak and sharp talons, hunters have taken to the field with falcons and hawks to procure a wide variety of game birds, hares, and even small deer and wolves.

     During wars, soldiers have used the natural instinct of pigeons to return to a home loft to carry messages that deceived the enemy (Read Double Cross by Ben Macintyre). Today, drones (See The Art of Intelligence by Henry A. Crumpton) and the robotic spy drones that are shaped like hummingbirds seem somewhat like descendants of the homing pigeon.

     Nowadays, kids who send messages in helium-filled balloons follow in the tradition of the French Montgolfier brothers who showed people they could fly by filling a large silk bag with heated air in 1783. Flying balloons drifted at the mercy of wind and air currents until the Brazilian, Alberto Santos-Dumont, powered his dirigible, or airship, with a gasoline engine in 1898. Germans used dirigibles in World War I, and, when the war ended, airships began to carry passengers across the Atlantic Ocean. Famously, the Germans' hydrogen-filled Hindenburg burst into flames in 1937.

    The Pilot and the Little Prince by Peter Sis not only tells young readers 6 to 8 years old about the life of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author of The Little Prince, but also covers the early days of aviation. In the years following the brief flight of Orville and Wilbur Wright in 1903, military, passenger, mail, and freight use of airplanes and helicopters has expanded. There have been constant improvements in engines, pilot and flight attendant training, flame resistant plane interiors, safety regulations, and "black boxes" used to determine what went wrong in the case of crashes. All these areas present career opportunities for young people interested in aviation. (Those interested in a career in space, might enjoy my earlier post, "Space Explorers.")

     Understanding the broad appeal of flight, even to those whose career interests are not in aviation, filmmakers have tapped a variety of sources to make Superman movies, tie balloons to a chair to go Up, create a flying suit for Iron Man, and play on national stereotypes in Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. Disney/Pixar's film, Planes, has inspired a line of remote control planes, such as Mattel's Dusty Crophopper.