Military & Defense

B1-B

The Air Force's B-1B "Lancer" multi-mission bomber is getting some notable upgrades in the next year, David Cenciotti at The Aviationist reports.

Known as "Bone" in aviation circles, the B-1B is capable of accommodating the largest payloads in the U.S. Air Force inventory – including the the 30,000 lb Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) that is now ready to bust bunkers 200 feet down and through 60 feet of reinforced concrete.

In June, Cenciotti reported that the B-1B will be "programmed for war" after receiving advanced hardware and software upgrades that will undergo operational testing in September 2013.

By then the B-1B will have the option of carrying up to 24 of the new AGM-158B Joint Air-Surface Stanfoff Extended Range (JASSM-ER)missiles – GPS-guided cruise missiles with 2,250-lbs warhead capable of reaching a target 600 miles away – that will be operational at the beginning of next year.

Cenciotti notes that the B-1 will be able to deploy these radar-evading, extremely jamming resistant missiles "against fortified, fixed and relocateable high-valuable targets, while remaining well clear of long-range surface-to-air missiles" that guard well-defended air spaces such as Syria and Iran.

Now: See what life is life for US Sailors and Marines aboard the USS Wasp >

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printable AR 15

One of the major possibilities in the future of gun control — and manufacturing in general — is the potential of 3D printers to build items from scratch.

That has led to at least one person designing and printing parts for an AR-15 rifle. He may be the first to test his work.

This morning Wired's Danger Room had a post about engineer Michael Guslick's effort to print an AR-15 from scratch. Using the schematics for the firearm, Guslick was able to digitally represent parts of the rifle and print them.

That data file is sent to the printer, which interprets it and "prints" a 3-D real world model of the file. The process is legitimately used in design when developing prototypes and models of engineering designs.

The gun is made of polymer plastic, but the technology behind 3D printing is progressing at a rate that could make inexpensive metal "ink" a possibility soon. Some companies already have prototype metal 3D printers.

The part of this story that nobody is covering is how Guslick's work can be spread around the internet. Moreover, it — or an imitator's work — already has.

3d printing There's a very active "Physible" community that spreads designs that contributors wrote up in code. By spreading this around, different people with 3D printers can collaborate and expand on their work. A lot of people use bittorrent sites to spread these around.

Bittorrent is a downloading system where a group of people who have a file each send a portion of the file to a downloader. This is coordinated by a downloadable .torrent file that links the group together. With standard downloading, the transaction is from one uploader to one downloader. With bittorrent, it's teamwork.

Quick heads-up: Due to their dubious legality, Torrent download sites may be considered not safe for work. They have racy advertisements too. So use judgement when clicking these links.

Here, for instance, is a downloadable file for a 3D print of Mark Zuckerburg's head. Innocent enough. Here's a file to print a model aircraft. Here's a videogame necklace.

Here is the data file to print an AR-15 rifle part. Here's the data file for the receiver and magazine.

Now, we haven't checked these files to make sure they're the real deal. But if they are, they introduce a whole mess of legal questions.

When guns can be downloaded and manufactured reliably, that's when gun control as it is currently understood goes completely out the window. It becomes obsolete.

In order to regulate, the government would have to contend with an assortment of free speech issues; would possession of the code for an illegal gun be a crime? Can writing that code be considered an expression of free speech? Can executing it?

Right now, the technology has not progressed to the point where an operational firearm can be printed and used. But it's getting there, and the designs are already becoming free to share and download.

Once the tech catches up, though, prepare for one of the first controversies involving both the first and second amendment.

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us army afghan army patrol afghanistan As defense budget wranglings continue on Capitol Hill, much of the debate about one of the Pentagon’s largest expenses – Afghanistan – centers around just how effective the decade-long fight has been. Put more sharply, what has America received for the $443 billion it has spent so far on the war? (That's the latest estimate from the Congressional Budget Office covering 2001-2011.)

At the Pentagon and in testimony on Capitol Hill, the US military is taking part in its own cost-benefit analysis. Here are three top lessons the US military has learned in Afghanistan.

1. Watch the money

Staggering corruption has consistently undermined the mission of US troops in Afghanistan, according to top US officials.

A new congressionally mandated report on Afghanistan released in late July paints a dismal picture of the scale: It finds that “a significant proportion” of the $400 million the US has invested in large-scale projects in 2011 has been “wasted, due to weaknesses in planning, coordination, and execution, raising sustainability concerns and risking adverse counterinsurgency effects.”

These are projects designed to win local support in areas where US troops are fighting.

Yet the money continues to flow. Already, the US has committed more than $90 billion in development dollars in 2013 – a tough sell for voters in a time of fiscal austerity, noted Sen. Robert Menendez (D) of New Jersey during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Tuesday.

“How do we justify and expect that we will effectively – if we were to commit to those funds – effectively use those funds toward the development of a sustainable economy in Afghanistan, something that I could go to taxpayers back in New Jersey and say, ‘Yeah, this is worthy of our support and it's going to be well spent based upon experience we've had so far?’ ” he said during the hearing.

It doesn’t help that the Afghan finance minister has come under investigation, after an Afghan television network turned up what may be payoffs from businesses deposited into his private bank accounts.

This does not serve to increase confidence among the Afghan citizenry ahead of 2014 elections, also the year US combat troops are set to leave the country.

“Ultimately, it is the political transition that will determine whether our military gains are sustainable, and the strength and quality of the Afghan state we leave behind,” noted Sen. John Kerry (D) of Massachusetts, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Yet corruption and graft make it difficult for both American voters and their Afghan counterparts to have any confidence in the political process.

2. Make it last: Build an Army Afghanistan can sustain after US troops leave

It has been a cornerstone of US military policy in Afghanistan: As Afghan soldiers and police stand up, US troops can stand down.

That has been happening more slowly than US officials had hoped, with an attrition rate of some 25 percent per year within the Afghan National Army (ANA), according to a seniorNATO official.

Brig. Gen. Thomas Putt, director of Afghan National Security Forces Development in Kabul, promised that NATO will meet its goals to build up the size of Afghan security forces to suitable levels by October.

Many new recruits have been attracted to the force by literacy programs sponsored by the US military. Most Afghans are illiterate, and teaching new recruits how to read “has become a real draw for the security forces as we move forward,” Putt said during a Pentagon briefing Aug. 1. “It is also, I think, a secret weapon that the insurgents can’t provide, and that’s one draw down the road that we think will pay huge dividends as we go forward.”

But the ongoing question will be how to sustain these forces long after US troops leave.

So far, very few Afghan units can operate “independently” of US advisers. This fact was brought into sharp relief with a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released in July that charged the Pentagon with being evasive when it comes to evaluating the capabilities of Afghan security forces. It found that the “tools used to assess the performance of the [Afghan military] units have changed several times.”

Indeed, the highest level of achievement for an ANA unit had previously been “independent.” As of August 2011, that top rating was changed to “independent with advisers.” The Pentagon made these changes, the GAO charged, to make it seem as if the ANA were making more progress than it actually has. The GAO investigation further found that these changes were "partly responsible for the increase in ANSF units rated at the highest level."

Much of the costs for standing up and even maintaining the Afghan Army will require US money for years to come. The United States is covering most of the costs of the ANA and, with an annual budget of $4.1 billion, “the Afghan government has limited ability to financially support its security forces,” the GAO reports.

The looming threat is that after US troops leave, ANA fighters might have to take their US-provided training and find work elsewhere if they want a steady paycheck. This, in turn, raises the specter of private militias.

The nominee to be the next US ambassador to Afghanistan, James Cunningham, addressed the threat in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on July 31. “I think the talk of rearming and of reforming of militias is overstated,” he said. “But the temptation is there, and the uncertainty about how various groups will advance their interests in the future is very much on the table.”

3. Pay attention to the neighbors

The US relationship with Pakistan, which shared a border with Afghanistan, has been an ongoing source of frustration for the US military.

It was only in June that Pakistan reopened its border after closing it in November 2011, when American forces accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers during an airstrike.

This was previously the crossing point for the vast majority of the Pentagon’s supplies for its troops in Afghanistan. Pakistani officials said they were waiting for the US to apologize for the deaths.

That this apology was long in coming speaks to the resentment that some Pentagon officials harbor for what they see as Pakistan's failure to earnestly crack down on Taliban insurgents that continue to launch crossborder attacks on US troops.

Pakistani officials have resentments of their own – specifically, US drone strikes targeting Al Qaeda militants hiding out in Pakistan's tribal regions, which in some cases have also killed Pakistani civilians.

American lawmakers for their part see a great deal of US aid to Pakistan expended without much US strategic gain. Sen. Bob Corker (R) of Tennessee described US-Pakistan ties as a "pay-for-play" relationship as he inquired about US strategy during a Senate Foreign Relations Committeehearing. "Since it is more of a transactional relationship – not one that is built on goodwill – how do we leverage the resources that we have to cause Pakistan to act in ways that we would like to see them act?"

This is the ongoing question within the halls of the Pentagon, as well as on Capitol Hill. “What happens in the region ... as a whole will do more to determine the outcome in Afghanistan than any shift in [US] strategy,” Senator Kerry noted in the same hearing. “And Pakistan, in particular, remains central to that effort.”

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"Hierarchy is a fundamental element of social life, one that emerges spontaneously and gives order and coordination to the dynamics within social collectives"

- Steven Blader, New York University, and Ya-Ru Chen, Cornell University, Differentiating the Effects of Status and Power: A Justice Perspective lloyd-blankfein lucas-van-praag

In every social system, there's an order. Some systems are more self-selecting and based on democracy, whereas others emerge through coercion or even luck. And whether or not the process of selection is based on free will has a huge effect on the psychology of those at the top.

NYU Stern professor Steven Blader and Cornell University professor Ya-Ru Chen dug into this topic in their latest research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. They wrote that there are "important conceptual differences between status and power," and defined them as:

"Status: prestige, respect and esteem that a party has in the eyes of others ... an index of the social worth that others ascribe to an individual or a group. Status originates externally and is rooted in the evaluations of others through status-conferral processes."

"Power is best conceptualized as control over critical resources — that is, outcome control."

And interestingly, "although power and status are often thought of as two sides of the same coin," says Blader, "they in fact have opposite effects on the fairness of people’s behavior."

Blader and Chen did a few experiments to test this hypothesis. In one, they asked 188 MBA students from an East Coast school to take part in a 25-minute negotiation exercise. Each person was assigned the role of a CFO of one of two pharmaceutical companies who were working out terms of a deal. Those assigned to the "status" condition were informed that:

You are quite well known in the industry as a high-status individual. You are one of the most respected people in the industry. People really hold you in high regard, and you have a great deal of esteem from others.

Those assigned to the "power" condition were told that:

You are quite well known in the industry as a powerful individual. Your company is one of the most profitable in the industry — and through your connections, you have access to a great deal of additional resources.

There was also a control group, which was not given specific qualities. The researchers found that those with "status" treated others much more fairly, and those with "power" were more dismissive. Those in the control group stood somewhere in the middle.

Blader says the results have major implications for workplaces, and within any organization. Put simply, leaders who are judged primarily on how they affect the rest of a company end up treating people better — and more justly — than those who are measured purely on financial goals.

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drug war

A high-ranking member of the Sinaloa drug cartel operative currently in U.S. custody alleges that Operation Fast and Furious was part of an agreement to finance and arm the Sinaloa cartel in exchange for information used to take down rival cartels, according to court documents.

The statement was made by Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla, the Sinaloa cartel’s “logistics coordinator” in charge of arranging massive drug shipments from Latin America to the United States as well as the son of cartel leader Ismael “Mayo” Zambada-Garcia and a close associate to kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

Zambada-Niebla was arrested by Mexican authorities in March 2009 and extradited to Chicago to face drug trafficking charges.

From the court document:

[T]he United States government at its highest levels entered into agreements with cartel leaders to act as informants against rival cartels and received benefits in return, including, but not limited to, access to thousands of weapons which helped them continue their business of smuggling drugs into Chicago and throughout the United States, and to continue wreaking havoc on the citizens and law enforcement in Mexico.

Zambada-Niebla believes that he, like the leadership of the Sinaloa cartel, was "immune from arrest or prosecution" because he also actively provided information to U.S. federal agents.

In its official response to the discovery motion, the government stated that there are “classified materials” regarding the case but argued they “do not support the defendant’s claim that he was promised immunity or public authority for his actions.”

Zambada-Niebla's lawyer is seeking government "documents, files, recordings, notes, and additional forms of evidence" that would support claims that federal agents personally assured Zambada-Niebla that "he would not be arrested, that the agents knew of his prior cooperation... that they just wanted to continue receiving information... [and] that the arrangements with him had been approved at the highest levels of the United States government."

Zambada-Niebla was allegedly arrested five hours after he met with the federal agents.

Jason Howerton of the Blaze reports that the documents detailing the relationship between the federal government and the Sinaloa Cartel "have still not been released or subjected to review — citing matters of national security."

The motion for discovery claims the agreement between the U.S. government and the Sinoloa cartel began sometime before 2004 and lasted at least until March 2009 as part of America's "Divide and Conquer" strategy against other cartels, in which the U.S. would use "one drug organization to help against others."

From the court document:

Under that agreement, the Sinaloa Cartel under the leadership of defendant’s father, Ismael Zambada-Niebla and “Chapo” Guzman, were given carte blanche to continue to smuggle tons of illicit drugs into Chicago and the rest of the United States and were also protected by the United States government from arrest and prosecution in return for providing information against rival cartels which helped Mexican and United States authorities capture or kill thousands of rival cartel members.

Zambada-Niebla's trial is scheduled to begin on October 9.

Howerton notes that while experts have doubted that Zambada-Niebla had an official agreement with the U.S. government, the defense wants to put the agents on the stand, under oath, to testify about the Sinaloa-U.S. relationship.

SEE ALSO: Mexican Official Accuses CIA Of 'Managing' Not 'Fighting' The Drug Trade >

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us army, soldiers, weapon, loading The House of Representatives approved in July a bill that’s likely to spark a showdown on military spending.

In the face of looming defense cuts and amped-up warnings on Capitol Hill, there are three things that experts wish every American – and politician, for that matter – knew about the Pentagon’s financial state of affairs.

1. America today spends more on defense (even adjusting for inflation) than it did during the Reagan buildup

Supporters of robust defense spending tend to justify these expenditures by claiming that the world is much more dangerous today.

“[T]he evidence for that is pretty thin,” says Christopher Preble, vice president for defense and policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. “The Soviet Union on its worst day was capable of ending life on this planet in a few minutes. It could do more damage in a few minutes than Al Qaeda has managed to inflict in over a decade.”

Still, the United States continues to spend some $520 billion every year – plus the costs of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars – for U.S. military operations. In an acknowledgement of this, Reps. Mick Mulvaney (R) of South Carolina and Barney Frank (D) of Massachusetts proposed an amendment to freeze Pentagon spending at current levels. It passed with support from 158 Democrats and 89 Republicans, and the House voted July 19 to give the Pentagon $607 billion in total this year. This is more than the Senate – which has yet to propose its own version of the defense bill – or the White House says it wants.

2. Most Americans, regardless of political party, support more defense cuts

A new study finds that Americans want more defense cuts than do the politicians who represent them. They are also willing to accept on the order of one-quarter more cuts in military spending than the Obama administration is proposing. The White House has been anxious to seem hawkish on defense, particularly in an election year.

Americans surveyed by the Stimson Center proposed the highest cuts for the Afghan war, where they would like spending to be $53 billion. Annual spending in Afghanistan currently totals $115 billion. The administration has proposed a drop to $89 billion.

Most interesting to Matthew Leatherman, a research analyst at Stimson, is that support for defense cuts is equally strong in congressional districts that would stand to lose the most from them – in other words, areas where big defense corporations and jobs are based.

Indeed, 75 percent of voters in the top 10 percent of districts that benefit the most from defense spending actually want more cuts than the average of voters in the survey.

There was a slight partisan divide, Mr. Leatherman says. Voters in Democratic districts would cut defense spending by 22 percent, while voters in Republican areas would cut defense spending by 18 percent.

Still, the difference is “statistically insignificant,” Leatherman says. “We’re hearing a lot of rhetoric right now on the Hill and on the campaign trail about this being a wedge issue. But in our survey, the wedge just wasn’t there.”

3. Automatic defense cuts won’t devastate the U.S. economy – and may even help it

The companies that make America’s fighter jets, drones, and big-ticket weapons items warned in a press conference this week that a series of forced budget cuts known as “sequestration” would cost America more than 2 million jobs if it goes into effect.

Among other things, sequestration involves some $55 billion worth of automatic cuts in the defense budget. It’s set to go into effect in January unless Congress and the Obama administration can agree on a plan to curb the nation’s deficit.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has warned that such cuts would have dire effects on U.S. national security.

Moreover, the cuts would reduce America’s gross domestic product by $215 billion, says Stephen Fuller, an economist at George Mason University who works with the Aerospace Industries Association. “The results are bleak but clear-cut,” he said. “The unemployment rate will climb above 9 percent, pushing the economy toward recession and reducing projected growth in 2013 by two-thirds.”

It’s not an uncommon view. Travis Sharp, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, which has close ties to the Obama administration, warns that sequestration will “most definitely have negative impacts on employment and on workers in the defense industrial base.”

He worries, too, about the impact on defense research-and-development dollars, something he fears will be disproportionately affected by sequestration cuts. “A lot of the things that people use every day started out as research projects at the DOD,” he says, citing, for example, the Internet.

Others, however, say it's a good idea to keep the budget cuts in perspective. The DOD base budget under sequestration would be $469 billion – about what the Pentagon spent in 2006, when it was in the middle of fighting wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan. It was “not exactly a lean year for the Pentagon,” Dr. Preble notes.

Indeed, many of the predictions are overly dire, says Preble, who has studied regions that have experienced reductions in military spending in the past. Cuts initiated after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 “were far deeper and faster than what we’re contemplating under sequestration,” he says.

Still, after an initial economic impact, those communities closely tied to the defense sector nonetheless “recovered quite quickly and prospered with a more diversified economy,” Preble says. “So the question really comes down to, How long is that economic adjustment process?” Research indicates that the effects are most dramatic the year they happen, then decline dramatically over time.

As for claims that defense cuts would mean millions of lost jobs? “That seems implausible considering that the cuts would amount to less than 3/10s of 1 percent of GDP,” Preble says. “More to the point, the defense budget should never be seen as a jobs program.”

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Ansar Dine

In the past two weeks in northern Mali, an unwed couple accused of of having children were stoned to death and a man accused of stealing had his hand chopped off, reports the NY Times.

These acts, both done in public, follow the capture of about 60% of Mali's overall territory, a region called Azawad, by a separatist movement with links to al-Qaeda. And to many, they're just getting started.

Early in the year, there was a coup of the Mali government by soldiers upset with its failure to control the rebellious north. By the time the coup relinquished power to an interim government though, the country was already split into two, Ansar Dine, an Islamist group, and MNLA (National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad), a more secular organization of indigenous ethnic Tuaregs, joining together to firmly seize control of the northern territories.

Before long, the MNLA and Ansar Dine found themselves at odds. Ansar Dine wanted strict, Islamic Sharia law while the MNLA wanted a more secularized rule. Fighting ensued and Ansar Dine prevailed, driving the MNLA out and taking control with the help of groups such as AQIM (Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) and MUJWA (Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa).

Now, much of northern Mali finds itself under the control of Ansar Dine and the rule of Sharia law. Their plan is to eventually turn Mali into an Islamic state. In cities including Timbuktu, there are reports of adulterers being stoned, thieves being mutilated, and women being forced to wear veils when in public. In addition, reports have surfaced of Ansar Dine members destroying World Heritage sites, according to AFP. More than 400,000 have already fled the area, forming camps in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mauritania, reports Al Jazeera.

Worse still, are reports that the area could become a safe haven for terrorism.

Reactions by the West have begun, President Obama halting all military and other assistance to the nation, amounting to about $140 million per year. Food aid, however, will continue. Condemnation by the UN has also followed, UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon calling for the Security Council to enact travel and financial sanctions against the rebels, reports Al Jazeera.

In addition, ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States, is waiting for UN backing before it deploys its 3,300 troops into the region. But before this can happen, the UN wants a formal request for said action from the interim government in the south, as well as information about the "size, means, and mandate of the proposed force", the AFP reports .

Concrete plans, and subsequent action, may come soon though. Today, the beginning of a five day meeting including representatives from ECOWAS, the EU, African Union, UN, and Malian government begins in Bamako, Mali's capital.

Meanwhile, Mali's government is watching the situation — and suggesting that military action is "inevitable".

"Every day, while efforts for a negotiated solution are increasing, the practices of terrorists and drug traffickers cloaked in a false religious veil lend weight to the inevitable nature of the military option," a statement released yesterday read.

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Westboro Baptist Church

Westboro Baptist Church has pushed back against a new law that prohibits protesting at military funerals.

The "Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012" act, which was signed by President Obama Monday, prohibits protests two hours before or after a funeral service, and requires that they occur at least 300 feet from the service itself, the Huffington Post reported.

“We have a moral sacred duty to our men and women in uniform,” Obama said before signing the bill, KMAS News reported. “The graves of our veterans are hallowed grounds.”

The law could result in fines of up to $50,000 as well as civil lawsuits, according to the Huffington Post.

Westboro Baptist Church is notorious for its anti-gay protests outside veteran's funerals, and Tweeted defiantly at Obama on Tuesday that "there's usually prime real estate at 301 feet."

dnu

The organization told CNN last week that it does not plan to stop its protests in light of the new law.

"That's really not going to change our plans at all," said Westboro Baptist Church spokesman Steve Drain. "We're going to continue to do that. We're also going to continue to obey all laws."

The Veterans Act goes against a 2011 Supreme Court ruling which said that such protests as those conducted by the church were protected by the First Amendment, the Examiner reported.

Here, Twitter reacts to the new law and Westboro Baptist's response:

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darpa blimp The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) gets a ton of funding to develop the science and technological future of the military.

This is the agency responsible for GPS, the internet and stealth planes. They're the real deal.

We looked at their active projects to find the ones that might have massive civilian implications if they eventually produce real-world tech.

The last few times we did this, we focused on the Defense Science Office, the Information Innovation Office and the Microsystems Technology Office. This time, we look at the Strategic Technologies Office, which is researching the weapons that will eventually define high-tech communications systems.

DARPA is more focused on biofuels than almost any other group

So far the federal government has shown that biofuel research is absolutely a political issue, suspect to wild sways in funding depending on who is in charge. Critics lambasted the biofuel program as speculative, implausible, and underdeveloped.

Conveniently, that's DARPA's specialty.

DARPA is researching the next phase of biofuel research. They're working with General Atomics and Logos Technologies to work on developing biofuels from algae and cellulose.

So far, they've made progress. They're aiming to develop a means of mass production, which could get difficult, but they're already making algae systems, ponds, fermented municipal solid waste (Yes, that's what you think it is), and alcohol into a gasoline equivalent.

A testing range, but for computers, not weapons.

The National Cyber Range is one of the cooler ideas that DARPA has come up with, even though it's conceptually somewhat simple.

Right now, it's not possible to replicate the complexity of a network of thousands and thousands of computers. There's (basically) only one internet. DARPA wants a testing range for cybersecurity solutions and offensive capabilities.

The idea is that, rather than merely releasing the test viruses onto the open web, this self contained network could be used to test the efficacy of defensive and offensive software. It should cut back significantly on the time spent testing new technologies.

One struggle is to make it so that a virulent piece of code can get on to the system without compromising the whole network.

Right now it's in beta testing.

The DARPA CORONET program takes a hard look at the future of the web

DARPA does an immense amount of research into Photonics, specifically fiber optics.

The CORONET program looks into ramping up internet speeds with the application of fiber optic cable technology as part of the core connecting hardware that makes up the physical "internet."

The idea is that a faster internet will expedite communications of military brass to forces on the ground. The civilian windfall, though, will be huge.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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Iran Missile

Iran's possible nuclear program is dominating news from the Middle-East because Israel knows if it perfects a thermonuclear device, Tehran likely has the ability to deliver it aboard some of its current missiles.

Israel thinks this is too great a threat for it to allow.

The Jewish state has worked with the U.S. over the years to develop a pretty comprehensive missile defense system and we've outlined a rough version of it here, along with Iran's biggest threats.

While Israel's system strives to be fully comprehensive in its defense, if any of Iran's rockets were strapped with a nuclear device — or if Iran could hand deliver a device into Israel — none of this preparation would mean much at all.

The homemade Qassam rocket has already been sent into Israel

The Qassam rocket is typically manufactured by Palestinian militants and fired into Israel without advanced guidance capabilities. They cost an estimated $800 each.

They're a very, very basic type of missile, propelled by a solid mixture of potassium nitrate fertilizer mixed with sugar. The warhead is typically scavenged TNT or urea nitrate. They have no guidance mechanism beyond aiming, and an estimated 2,048 were fired into Israel in 2008.

Grad missiles have killed 22 people since 2000

Since 2006, Hamas has been lobbing ex-Soviet 122mm Grad missile into Israel. The missiles are likely copies imported from Iran or China, brought into the Gaza strip from tunnels to Egypt.

These rockets have a range of 20 kilometers, but are typically fired from a moving launcher, greatly expanding their abilities.

The Grad rockets, with the improvised Qassam rockets, have caused some of the most pain in Israel, claiming the lives of 22 citizens since 2000.

The Sejjil missile is capable of striking Tel Aviv, Israel

Tel Aviv, Israel is roughly 1,600 kilometers from Tehran, Iran. That, for all intent and purposes, is the magic number here; a central point in Iran to a central point in Israel is roughly 1,600 km. These are the ballistic missiles that can allegedly make that trip.

The Sejjil missile is a solid-fueled Iranian surface-to-surface missile that is roughly 58 feet long and can travel between 2000 and 2500 kilometers, bringing Israel well within its range.

That missile is strikingly similar to the Iranian Ashoura missile, with an alleged range of 2,000 km. That medium ranged ballistic missile has been in service since November 1997.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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spy trenchcoat woman cigar

It's no secret the Central Intelligence Agency has an investment firm that funds startups that could have a big impact for the Agency.

If there is a company out there doing intelligence research, it's likely that In-Q-Tel, the CIA's personal investor, either looked them up or made a check out to them.

It's all to ensure that the Agency remains on the forefront of tech. Not long ago, In-Q-Tel invested heavily in a company called Keyhole. Never heard of them? Maybe you know their work, a little project eventually known as Google Maps.

So, want to know what's next for technology? Keep an eye on these 25 companies.

3VR is a video surveillance company that is changing the game

The company 3VR Inc develops software enabling organizations to mine data from video.

In-Q-Tel first invested in the company in 2005. 3VR works with leading banks, governments, law enforcement and retailers at the moment.

They also own CrimeDex, which is basically the place where loss prevention and law enforcement professionals hang out online.

Adaptx creates digital pens that speed up field data collection.

Of course the CIA invested in this company. They make pens with gadgets hidden in them.

Adaptx first received In-Q-Tel funding in 2008. They design special digital pens that expedite data entry. For instance, handwritten markup on maps would be automatically integrated into the CIA's system. Field journal notes can be automatically backed up digitally. That data can be sent over a cellphone connection.

This is on of many gadget companies the CIA has bought into.

Basis Technology synthesizes the foreign chatter

The CIA is obviously extremely interested in what is going on in the rest of the world.

They are one of the largest employers of talented linguists, but that gets very expensive. So it's no surprised they're interested in Basis Technology, which provides software for text analytics in over twenty languages.

They work primarily in applied natural language processing, deriving meaning from the ways people actually use language. In-Q-Tel has been invested in the firm since 2004.

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Lebanon The embassies of several Gulf states in Beirut, Lebanon, are telling their citizens to leave the country immediately as Syria's civil war spills over the border.

The UAE received information about its nationals being targeted "because of the difficult and sensitive circumstances in Lebanon."

Saudi Arabia cited "reported threats to kidnap Saudi citizens" in Lebanon, according to BBC News.

In May Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait (along with the UAE) issued similar travel warnings, urging their citizens to avoid traveling to Lebanon – which lies along the western border of Syria – and that those in the country leave immediately.

The evacuation orders come amid reports that armed Shiite clansmen in Lebanon kidnapped more than 20 Syrians "and will hold them until one of their relatives seized by rebels inside Syria is freed," according to AP.

The kidnappings (or associated threats) may be in response to a Syrian rebel strategy to abduct those perceived as supporters of the embattled Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, specifically Iranians and Lebanese Shiites.

In May the predominantly Sunni rebel force kidnapped 11 Lebanese Shiites as they crossed into Syria from Turkey and earlier this month rebels captured 48 Iranians near Damascus.

From AP:

Lebanon is deeply divided between supporters and opponents of President Bashar Assad's regime. The country, which was devastated by its own 15-year civil war that Syria was deeply involved in, has witnessed clashes between pro- and anti-Syrian groups over the past months, mostly in the northern city of Tripoli.

Assad's minority Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shiite Islam that is being actively supported by Shia-dominated Iran and its proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon while predominantly Sunni nations such as Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have strongly supported the rebels.

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