Reuters:  Exclusive: Indonesian militants planned ‘dirty bomb’ attack – sources.

The conclusion, that a “thorium bomb” is not very effective as a “dirty bomb”, is correct. Quoting,

But experts cast doubt on their expertise, equipment and chances of success.

This is more tentative than necessary, the normal reaction  towards information of an unfamiliar nature.  The word “doubt” can be replaced with “certain to fail.”

If the planned bomb had gone off in a busy public space, the area would be safe for transit as soon as a normal cleanup were completed, the same kind of cleanup required by any terror bombing. There is more thorium in the granite of many public buildings.

Quoting,

“It could burn anything and make it hard for people to breathe.”

Thorium shares a property of some other elements: a fine powder burns spontaneously in air. A dust cloud can explode  like flour. So the addition of thorium to the mix could increase the “bang”, with some of the properties of a very small  thermobaric weapon. But TATP is uniquely unsuitable for this combination.  There are easier ways. Let’s skip the details.

This misdirection of terrorists, apparently from the association of thorium with atomic energy,  keeps them from more serious mischief. The dirty bomb threat is real.

CNN: Was Cuban sonic attack a weapon, or an accident?

This is Bad Journalism. The three reporters reached out to individuals they describe as “experts”. But they aren’t experts. They are just people the three authors can talk to.

With the Information Explosion has come increasing specialization. A hundred years ago, a well-rounded liberal arts education implied that you would be able, in some minimal way, to grasp the fundamentals of our universe and society. If nothing else, your liberal arts heritage would make possible an unbroken chain of who-to-ask. If you didn’t understand something, you knew enough to find who would.

This fundamental ability, to “know who knows”, has become a casualty of the Information Explosion. Increasingly, people don’t know what they don’t know. This self-awareness deficit seeds a chain reaction, reaching out to people who don’t know either.

If it’s not your job to root out information, it’s just being dull and narrow. There have been ignoramuses  as long as people. But ignorance to the point of not knowing who to ask is fatal to the purpose of a reporter.

The first thing these reporters should have asked themselves, as a self-check is, “Do I know for sure what it means to be an expert on this subject?” Let’s put down the sterling definition first:

An expert on the subject of sonic harassment is someone whose job it is to design equipment, teach the operation of it, or to counteract the effects. Their job descriptions:

• Design: An engineering physicist, or applied physicist, engaging in the cross-discipline of physics and engineering used to design actual devices.
• Teach: A support specialist provided by the manufacturer to train clandestine operators. The operators themselves do not qualify as experts. They don’t know enough.
• Counteract: A person whose job it is to ferret out and nullify all manners of clandestine electronic attack.

How does this compare to the list of cited “experts”?

• Dr. Hung Jeffrey Kim, neurologist. The neurologist typically  has encyclopedic  knowledge of neurological problems and the relationship with pathology. He is expert at noninvasive diagnosis by clinical signs. Typically, he has little knowledge of physics. He knows little about acoustics beyond the basics of sound pressure level presented to the ear, and localization of sound. Mathematics:  undergraduate level. If I’m wrong, I’ll be happy to discuss with Dr. Kim.
• Dr. Scott Masten, toxicologist. Toxicology is about chemistry, not physics. Knowledge of this  subject is limited to generalities.
• Sharon Weinberger, journalist. The CNN journalists cite another journalist as an “expert”?   Technical knowledge: negligible.
• James Lewis, former foreign service officer. Technical knowledge: negligible. He may not know this.

What happened? Why did the CNN journalists reach out to people who are not experts, and anoint them as such?

• The CNN criteria is to bang out an article as fast as possible, without spending too much time on it. Make four phone calls, and you’re done.
• Unlike sometimes socially distant scientists and engineers, the CNN “experts” are socially approachable.
• Because their technical levels are little higher than the reporters, they won’t encounter the feared gobbledygook. CNN’s journalists can understand them easily, because they have the same limited vocabulary relevant to the subject.

Have people with expert backgrounds really become unapproachable? Or are we more impressed than we should be by  job titles, “Dr.”, “diplomat”, or “journalist”? Maybe a little more time with someone approaching the criteria of a real expert, coffee and doughnuts instead of the quickie phone call? CNN, try it.

Or has the Information Explosion deprived CNN’s journalists of the self-awareness of what they don’t know, and who to ask?

It would be interesting to compare the reasoning of the CNN article with the two I’ve written, Sonic Attacks on U.S. and Canadian Diplomats in Cuba; a Kremlin Op? and Havana Sonic Attacks — Addendum for techies only.

But it simply isn’t possible. It’s beyond the ken of the CNN reporters. Tragically, they don’t know how important their deficit is. If they did, it would become unimportant, because they would find the right people to ask.

CNN: know what you don’t know. Raise your standards.

For techies only. 

A paper of the Central Institute for Labor Protection, Poland, (pdf) “Effects of Ultrasonic Noise on the Human Body – A Bibliographic Review”, is so highly relevant, an addendum is required. In Sonic Attacks on U.S. and Canadian Diplomats in Cuba; a Kremlin Op?, I wrote,

But there are ways, in theory if not practice, to project a concussive beam….Simultaneous hearing loss and concussive damage do not correspond well with a single attack frequency. Concussive damage without direct contact with the skull requires very high power.

A directed energy sonic weapon could take the form of a wave packet projector, an array of broadband piezo transducers working off lookup tables and adaptive algorithms. The report of concussion-type symptoms suggests a  packet pulse rate at the resonance the cranial cavity.

The problem with the above is that because of impedance mismatch between air and human tissue, very little energy  of the beam would enter the skull, not nearly enough to produce observable changes in brain tissue. But reminding us that symptoms, functional change, and pathology are not the same thing, the above paper provides a loophole. Quoting,

Workers using ultrasonic devices suffered from functional changes such as neurastenia, cardiac neurosis, hypotension, heart rhythm disturbances (bradycardia) and adrenergic system disturbances [32]. Studies showed that exposure to sounds with a frequency of 21 kHz and level of 110 dB for 3 h daily for 10–15days caused functional changes in the cardiovascular and central nervous systems [35]. Workers exposed to noise emitted by ultrasound devices suffered from increased neural excitability, irritation, memory problems and difficulties with concentration and learning [34].

Roshchin and Dobroserdov indicated that lev-els of 90–110 dB within the range of lower frequencies (21kHz) and 110–115 dB within the range of higher frequencies (40kHz) constituted the limit of occurrence of functional changes [36].

35. Il’nitskaia AV, Pal’tsev IuP. [Combined
action of ultrasonics and noise of standard
parameters]. Gig Sanit. 1973;(5):50–3. In
Russian.

36. Roshchin AV, Dobroserdov VK. [Reactions
of the human auditory analysor to the effect
of high frequency acoustic oscillations].
Gig Tr Prof Zabol. 1971;15(12):3–7.

CNN: Sonic attacks in Cuba hit more diplomats than earlier reported, officials say.

My last stint as a Crimebuster, was with Mikhail Lesin, a Kremlin Hit, a Theory, Part 1, continued in Part 2, finishing with Mikhail Lesin Takeaway. The articles attracted more attention than you know. So let’s try again. The salient points of the CNN article are, quoting,

• “…Cuban officials have taken the attacks seriously, even saying that Cuba has a greater national interest in determining who was behind the incidents….This summer, Cuba took the unusual step of allowing FBI agents and members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to travel to Cuba to investigate the attacks, and Cuba has increased security around diplomats’ residences.”
• “Canada, which did not break relations with the Cuban government after the 1959 revolution, has deep commercial and diplomatic ties to the island.”
• “… ‘It’s more likely that people in the Cuban security forces might have done a favor for friendly intelligence services without having cleared it all the way up the chain of command.'”

This is very good analysis. To this can be added,

• The use of the weapon was unselective, The U.S. and Canada do not share a world identity. The harassment of Canadian targets weighs strongly against political purpose,because it dilutes dispute.
  
• It  strongly weighs towards a scientific experiment.

The perception of Canada tends much more towards neutrality, even among those nations to which the U.S. appears an implacable enemy. The distinction has become much sharper during the Trump Administration. Far sighted diplomats of adversary nations anticipate, with pleasure, the dissolution of NAFTA, with the prospect of a further untethered Canadian trade policy.

Quoting (CNN) US embassy employees in Cuba possibly subject to ‘acoustic attack’,

“The employees affected were not at the same place at the same time, but suffered a variety of physical symptoms since late 2016 which resembled concussions. “…

(CNN) “Investigators searched diplomats’ homes but did not find any devices capable of carrying out the acoustic attacks and are still puzzled by the source of the disturbances, US officials said.”

So it’s high power, can focus on small areas, and hard to find.  The inability to find a device suggests an external energy source, exciting a  gadget or structure inside the dwelling. For an early example of a Soviet bug (not a sound maker) that used this principle, see The Thing.  But there are ways, in theory if not practice, to project a concussive beam.

Simultaneous hearing loss and concussive damage do not correspond well with a single attack frequency. Concussive damage without direct contact with the skull requires very high power.  This is top-tier physics, not a Cuban creation.

• Cuba is a “green field” testing ground for futuristic weapons. Because Cuba is not a technically sophisticated nation, this unconventional weapon use is not anticipated. Objective effects are isolated.

This resembles a controlled medical experiment. In early testing of a vaccine, it is helpful  to have a test population that has never been exposed to the pathogen. This simplifies the test, because it removes subjects that have preexisting immunity to what the vaccine is supposed to protect from.

A sonic weapon is of interest to any state that desires a deniable method of harassment, either for social control of dissidents, or to impede operations of a foreign legation they consider challenging to control. The two obvious candidates are Russia and China. The CNN article also posits  North Korea, Venezuela, and Iran. Russia and Iran share the greatest history of extraterritorial “special action”, but Cuba is a long way for Iran to go for quality of science.

Cuba is devoid of natural resources coveted by China. During the Communist era, China did not project influence to the Western Hemisphere. There are no historical ties. North Korea lacks practical purpose  or capability for foreign use of a nonlethal weapon against a group.

But Cuba-Russia ties , though disrupted by the disintegration of the Soviet Union and Russia’s repudiation of communism, retain a personal connection between defense and security apparatchiks. Individuals on both sides, who were active then, are still available to make connections now. To preserve these aging connections, they must be used.

Until the pending expulsions are effective, the U.S. legation in Moscow has outnumbered the Russian legation in D.C. by about three-to-one.  The Russian point of view is: Most of them are spies. Of course, if you rent a car, drive around, look at things, and talk to people, even if you’re not wearing a rubber mask, you’re a spy. Perhaps in consequence, or perhaps inevitably, U.S. diplomats in Russia have been seriously harassed for a long time. See Moscow Rules: American Diplomat beaten in Moscow, Tit-for-Tat Expulsions., and Washington Post: Russia is harassing U.S. diplomats all over Europe. For psychological harassment of the type mentioned by the Post, see Fiona Hill, Putin’s Apology; Analysis Part 4; KGB Culture.

So why not test sonic harassment in Moscow? It’s not a green field. Diplomats in Moscow are on edge, hyper aware. Every form of harassment has both objective and subjective effects. In a Moscow test, it would be impossible to separate the two. Cuba tests offer quality of science.

The open source conclusion is that this was a controlled experiment by Russia. The primary intent was not to exacerbate Cuba-American relations. That would have been gravy.

This is not the first time acoustic weapons have figured in the dark world of Havana espionage. This has echoes of  the experience of British MI-6 agent James Wormold, who encountered a device that emitted a howl described as similar to a vacuum-cleaner. Wormold’s story, for which he deserves a star somewhere or other, is the subject of Graham Greene in Our Man in Havana.

“You Title It”,  36″x48″, acrylic on canvas.(click the image to enlarge)

The Russian  “Time of Troubles” lasted 15 years. Let’s hope ours is shorter. It has already created one hero of equality, Heather Heyer. Let’s hope that one is enough.

The original name was “Fish Eye”,  in reference to the curved perspective, reminiscent of the camera lens by that name.

Other tags could  be “The Dogs of War”, or “Naked Lunch”. Apparently, someone was having a nice sidewalk lunch when this happened. I haven’t managed to track the guy down.

The fish evoked my sympathies, so I made her beautiful. This may be the first application of lipstick to a fish.

It has no hidden message, only a sense of discord. Give it your own purpose.

A natural sequel to CNN: Trump’s biggest nightmare? China and Russia’s new friendship Part 1 and CNN: Trump’s biggest nightmare? China and Russia’s new friendship Part 2, would be a piece about balance of power.

Peace between nations has sometimes been associated with a world order of a time. Between 1815 and 1914, there was no general war in Europe, even though the foreign policies of the time were at best, self-serving and amoral.

Balance of power was displaced as a foreign policy option by the idealism of Woodrow Wilson. It has continued in disrepute to this day. It was central to Pax Americana that we would bring the world to a better place, devoid of such machinations.

As a world order, Pax Americana is in its twilight years. The replacement will be disorder, or another system. It might be time to take a fresh look at balance of power. But it cannot be a simple replication of the 19th century European system. The conditions  under which an adaptation might work would be very different,  specific to our time.

We do not want to abandon our values for the pure self-interest of the 19th century.  We may choose  to champion our values more by example than by transplantation. We  have to set a good example.

Against current events, this may seem a little dull. It’s a good subject when time permits quiet contemplation. It  has been the subject of many authors. The approach of Henry Kissinger’s Diplomacy is distinctively  functional, emphasizing the mechanisms over excruciating historical detail.

In a future article, I’ll attempt to  reduce it further, to something much less than a good history, to essential features, deliberately non-representative of the post-Napoleonic era itself. The result may something we can reconstruct in the present.

We are in a state of Koyaanisqatsi, the Hopi word for life out of balance. We must find a new balance, without abandoning the values of the old.

Let’s wait for a quiet moment.

Until then, have a look at the trailer for Koyaanisqatsi.

CNN: John McCain takes on H.R. McMaster critics. Quoting,

"The recent attacks upon (McMaster) from the so-called 'alt-right' are disgraceful. Since this fringe movement cannot attract the support of decent Americans, it resorts to impugning the character of a good man and outstanding soldier who has served honorably in uniform and sacrificed more for our country than any of his detractors ever have," McCain said in a statement Monday afternoon. "Such smear tactics should not be tolerated and deserve an emphatic response.""I hope the President will once again stand up for his national security adviser and denounce these repugnant attacks, which arise from the same purveyors of hatred and ignorance who precipitated the recent violence in Charlottesville," McCain added.

Senator McCain, you said it for both of us. It’s rare for me to step away from neutral analysis, but some things have to be said. It does fall in line with Trump Wants to Fire U.S. Commander in Afghanistan, for the following reason.

At this point in the development of the Trump Administration, there are exactly three wise heads who bear the wisdom of U.S. foreign policy since World War II: Generals McMaster, Kelly, and Mattis. Without them, we would be adrift in a dangerous world.

The rest of you are still learning. Please learn fast.

Reuters: Any new Korean war could quickly escalate to catastrophe.

Since “catastrophe” embraces everything from a plumbing break to the  Black Death plague, the word is reasonable. But the second paragraph is not good journalism:

Any new military conflict with North Korea would likely escalate quickly to the use of nuclear weapons…former U.S. defense officials and experts say.

Extensive analysis predicts all kinds of bad things. But by assertion of the specific of nuclear weapons use, Reuters leaps out in front of most of the models.

Ample material exists  in open source, for example, (CNN) The U.S. vs. North Korea: Inside a Pentagon war game. Reuters owes it to the public to do more work. In this case, there is every reason to use identified sources.

Usually, I criticize CNN for this kind of laxity. Now Reuters joins the club. Do the work. Plenty of information is to be had for a little digging.

We continue from  North Korea’s Miniaturized Nuke Part 1.

The Pakistan nuclear program had the benefit of many years of scientific exchange with the U.S. This created the intellectual depth required for design that, while not clean-sheet, was at least capable of some innovation. North Korea has not had this benefit. Open sources suggest that plans and parts were acquired directly from Abdul Qadeer Khan, “father” of the Pakistan program.

Since North Korea has had virtually no legitimate scientific contact with the outside world, the proliferation channel for miniaturized weapons may have been different. Khan’s transfer was many years ago. But the miniaturized warhead is new. This suggests another transfer source, with exploitation delayed relative to the transfers of Khan.

If you want to know a specific fact that happens to be hidden by an adversary, espionage and secret technical collections of the U.S. intelligence community are typically superior to open sources. We may not know for many years, if ever, how this presentation relates to the ultimate truth. Sometimes a phrase leaks here and there. Keep your eye out for “linear implosion.”

I’ve omitted the word “alleged” everywhere it should be used.

With the assumption that North Korea wanted the fastest path to a warhead, they chose replication, not independent design. Of the nuclear powers, the former Soviet Union was most accessible to illicit transfers. The easiest thing to transport is something with a handle on it.

Googling quickly leads to conspiracy theories and survivalist blogs. My contribution to the genre is North Korea’s Plutonium, Iran’s Uranium / Suitcase Nukes. The subject inspires so much fear that mainstream media recoils in the opposite direction. I’ve been searching for a quote of George Tenet,  in which he wonders why the mainstream dismisses the possibility. An example  is (ABC) Suitcase nukes closer to fiction than reality, It’s not deliberate manipulation, but contamination of objectivity by an attitude of denial. The alarmists take the most dire view, which is that the devices still exist, and still work.

Middlebury Institute offers a paper, “Suitcase Nukes:” A Reassessment. Quoting, “First, the probability that any portable nuclear devices were lost prior to or after the breakup of the Soviet Union appears low;…” A quick summary of the argument, which relies heavily on impugning  Alexander Lebedev and (NTI) Alexei Yablokov, the primary Russian sources:

• Lebedev and Yablokov have ulterior motives.
• The Russians can’t keep a secret. Existence  would have leaked.
• Never mind that Yablokov corroborates Lebedev.
• Never mind that the U.S. had the SADM.
• Ergo,  the claim that suitcase nukes exist is highly dubious.

The paper shows  that with a scholarly tone and a good bibliography, you can tilt the tables as much as a pinball player scrounging for nickels.

The one argument worth paying attention to is that they haven’t been used by terrorists, people with notorious inability to resist impulse. Now we can tighten the brackets formed by alarm and denial. They may exist, but don’t work anymore. A third source, Stanislav Lunev, is quoted (Wikipedia):

Stanislav Lunev, the highest-ranking GRU defector, claimed that such Russian-made devices exist and described them in more detail.[10] The devices, "identified as RA-115s (or RA-115-01s for submersible weapons)" weigh from fifty to sixty pounds. They can last for many years if wired to an electric source. In case there is a loss of power, there is a battery backup. If the battery runs low, the weapon has a transmitter that sends a coded message either by satellite or directly to a GRU post at a Russian embassy or consulate. According to Lunev, the number of "missing" nuclear devices (as found by General Lebed) "is almost identical to the number of strategic targets upon which those bombs would be used."[10]

Maybe you think these guys are a bunch of fakes. You have permission to dismiss one of the three. When asked about suitcases, a fourth,  retired General Vladimir Dvorkin, said (Frontline)

Not that I'm aware of. Both United States and Russia of course built tactical nuclear weapons that were quite small in size ... . We had, for example, what we called atomic demolition munitions, that were designed to be carried in a backpack. ... I doubt that there was ever anything that was specifically designed to be carried in something that looked like a suitcase, though I couldn't rule it out. 

Dvorkin’s denial that any military nukes are missing is quoted in (San Diego Union-Tribune) “How threat of loose Soviet nukes was avoided.” But his own reasons for certainty are weak. The article authors assert that if there were loose nukes, we would have seen some uses. But,

• Although Russian military nukes are not nearly as safe as ours, arranging for one to explode is not  trivial for a terrorist. And with a few years of waiting, the tritium goes stale.
• Nukes of all kinds would have been eagerly bought by Pakistan or North Korea, so the unaccounted would never reappear.
• The suitcase nukes were under the control of the KGB, not the military. With Soviet compartmentalization, Dvorkin might have not known.
• At the peak, in 1988. the Soviet Union had about 45,000 nuclear warheads.  It is down to about 7000. Not a single  RA-115 suitcase nuke has been volunteered by the Russians as having been destroyed. The Russian line is they never existed. So if they did exist, what happened to them?

So we’re down to the style of the style of luggage. This can be answered at the next Fashion Week. But can a roller-nuke outlast the zippers and wheels?

The statement has been made that the shelf life of Russian nukes is short compared to U.S. ones. This is not open source. But the basics are simple:

• Plutonium emits neutrons, which cause all kinds of materials to fall apart. Special materials, produced only by the U.S., can reduce this. Standard explosives are used, possibly with additive stabilizers.
• The plutonium itself tends to fall apart. Alloys help. Secret alloys may help more.
• Electronics  tends to fail. Spacing/shielding within the complete gadget is not adequate to prevent this.The problem extends to parts not normally thought of as sensitive. The U.S. makes rad-hard parts that others do not.
• The tritium in a boosted weapon, which these days means all of them, has to be periodically flushed and replaced.

But there are many ways to skin a cat. North Korea makes tritium. Lunev stated that the Soviet RA-115 could survive for many years. Semiconductors are not essential. Tubes have been used in the past, and some special types, like the sprytron, still are.

Suppose you have a few samples of a non-optimal, miniature implosion device, such as a Soviet RA-115. It’s non optimal because it uses linear implosion. But it gives you precise geometries, and you know that it worked. It may still work if  the tritium is flushed and the explosives are replaced. You might be able to scale it up a bit. Remember that everything about a North Korean rocket is a little shoddy. It’s heavier than it should be. The motor is not efficient. It’s not accurate. But it’s hardly the point to make a thing of beauty.

Is it?

(Reuters) Philippines’ Duterte to Tillerson: ‘I Am Your Humble Friend’.

Against the background of badmouthing the U.S., Duterte’s comment may have real meaning. It was accompanied by expressions of sympathy regarding Korea and China.

Previously, Duterte’s anti-Americanism seemed so set in his bones, he vowed to go it alone, even in the face of regional threats.  The official version is provided by The Diplomat:

…First, in an apparent reference to president’s speech in China, is the “seperat[ion] [of Philippine] foreign policy from the U.S.” Sta. Romana was quick to point out that it “does not mean that we totally cut off from the U.S.” Rather, it means lessening Manila’s dependence on Washington while maintaining the “historic alliance with the U.S.” Second, an independent foreign policy requires “improvement of relations with China.” Finally, Sta. Romana emphasized “the improvement of relations with non-traditional partners,” including Russia, Japan, and India.

But given Duterte’s actual tenor towards the U.S., the above is not accurate. In one month of continuous rage against the U.S. he ripped the country out of the U.S. orbit with a vengeance.   Perhaps he was inspired by the Nonaligned Movement, many members of which consistently sided with the Soviets.

Now the waters of the Pacific are cold. Duterte is challenged by the  twin challenges of ISIS and China. But he seems to be an incomplete authoritarian, blaming himself for the troubles of ISIS. If he is an authoritarian, he has a flip side, which he has just shown to Rex Tillerson.

Perhaps Duterte is simply being appreciative. But his dalliance with the Nonaligned may be over, and he may want to be a U.S. ally again. Geography makes the Philippines the crucial missing player in the western Pacific. But there is a problem.

In five years time, the military challenge of China will greater. At some point, the handicap of U.S. projection of power over long distances will become critical. An innovative, disseminated basing scheme is probably needed to provide survivable forward basing. The history of the closed base at Subic Bay suggests that local occasional friction, including occasional crimes by U.S. service personnel,  would be inevitable.  It was a major affront to dignity, significant to the closure.

In various posts, I’ve suggested that the U.S. is overextended in the China Sea. Much of this has to do with the absence of the Philippines.  Projection of power all the way to the western Pacific  is is currently within U.S. capability. But it has a time horizon. Five, ten, or twenty years hence, we may discover that China has played a waiting game.

We may not be able to negate the time horizon, but we can push it out, with secure and extensive basing arrangements in the Philippines and elsewhere. This is a hard sell. But the alternative is to ignore the contraction of a sphere of effectiveness as time passes.

The current U.S. approach to the nations in the western Pacific is a treaty without the paperwork. It fosters the illusion that Uncle Sam will come to the rescue, when nothing of the sort is possible. China just kicked Vietnam off the offshore drilling Block 136/3,  west of the Spratlys, a location far from what we thought was  China, and close to Vietnam.  How is a port call to Vietnam by a U.S. aircraft carrier going to change that?

Bases evoke colonial memories. An argument to which Duterte might be sympathetic would stress not unbeatable U.S. strength, but U.S. limitations. Putting  U.S. servicemen in harms way on Philippine lands should compensate for inevitable frictions.

This may not be enough. Power  projection without economic rationale is the eventual negative fate of all empires. A way to couple the two might actually be essential. But no voluntary client state has ever agreed to align its trade for that purpose.