Arrogance, waste fraud and abuse and cronyism in national defense contracting, are putting our republic at severe risk.
Arrogance, waste fraud and abuse and cronyism in national defense contracting, are putting our republic at severe risk.
Not to mention... tossing away billions
TAT readers,
For your first essay of the week, I point an angry finger at my former community, within the US national security community. Those responsible for projecting American values, built on our founding principles and also for protecting us from foreign and domestic influence operations, are abject failures. I’ll discuss the reasons today but here’s the BLUF (old military expression for, Bottom Line Up Front): For at least four decades, the “influence” community has wasted billions of our hard-earned tax dollars, via nepotism in defense contracting, often to the same alleged experts that have failed us perpetually. Now, they hand out money endlessly, to the same fraudulent contractors and a bevy of new entities promising success, but that are just as dishonest about what they can provide. The end result, we are less safe and have wasted billions.
I am not pointing this out for the purpose of a job, contract or any other reason, than we are under a severe threat to our republic… again, because this community puts greed over substance and operates devoid of true experience. They love nothing better than a PhD with zero experience in the real-world and zero connectivity to operators, of which there are less than a couple of handfuls, with fingers left over. Yes, I am speaking up because as we approach a critical election, the nation is under constant assault from the same influence operations that nearly overturned our republic, in 2016. Now, nothing of substance has been done in the ensuing 8 years and this willfully ignorant community, is still fiddling while our republic burns. Yes, they are highly overpaid and dangerously under-performing.
How do I know all of this, you may ask? Well, it is because I am one of those true operators with mountains of real-world experience, in and outside of combat zones, that these arrogant experts and unethical defense contractors refuse to listen to. All of my successes in operations were learned the hard way, not from the BS that our national security community passes off as training and doctrine. The first lesson I learned, was never to put my faith in my community (with very few exceptions) to provide what they claim to be their expertise. Yes, we have had some niche community successes, but as a nation, as a NATO player and a global, once unilateral superpower with leadership responsibilities, we are a complete and utter failure. This is not only dangerous, as I will point out later in this essay, but is waste, fraud and abuse in government contracting.
As that I have written often on this acutely dangerous and fraudulently expensive issue in the past, I will also provide links to former deep dives. The facts are there, the sources are there, and should anyone take today’s full-throated accusation seriously, what you will find is intensely disgraceful, dishonest and fruitless abuse of the dollars, all of us pay in taxes. Along with the waste of our dollars, comes a lack of trust in the community that is well-deserved.
Background reading:
Combat ineffective, the rusted, broken hulk of US Influence Operations (truthaboutthreats.com)
On the battlefield of influence, the US is unarmed (truthaboutthreats.com)
The US National Security Community has left us a critical vulnerability in US national security. (truthaboutthreats.com)
The US always fights the "last war," instead of the one we're in. (truthaboutthreats.com)
The US National Security community is incapable of managing mis/ disinformation threats (truthaboutthreats.com)
A Five Point Strategy to Oppose Russian Narrative Warfare (truthaboutthreats.com)
We can't protect ourselves from mis/ disinformation, until we understand influence (truthaboutthreats.com)
Hey there FBI and DHS, this is for you - by Paul Cobaugh (truthaboutthreats.com)
The military calls this, M.O.E., an indicator of the success of Putin's propaganda against the US. (truthaboutthreats.com)
There are plenty of culprits and they include at a minimum, dishonest, highly paid contractors and their defense contracting firms and think tanks. Then there are the congressmen and senators who fail miserably to provide the oversight that their position requires. There’s the senior IC (Intelligence Community) and Pentagon decision-makers and their contracting offices who fail to do their due diligence. There are those with big names as alleged “experts” who make the cases for the fraudulent expenditures. Finally, there are voters who vote blindly addicted to party over country, that keep those unwilling to employ ethics in oversight, in office. This last sentence is the perfect segue into first describing the severe threat derived from these past forty years of failure.
The Threat
The Russian manipulation of our national election in 2016, very nearly cost Americans, our republic. This should have been a wake-up call for the national security community but no… the same alleged experts within the influence operations community, defaulted to nepotism, persistent, highly paid failure and to this day, we are unarmed against foreign and domestic malign influence. It very well could cost us our republic this November. Still, the community will keep sending BS projects up to the decision makers for big contracts. They apparently don’t give a damn about securing our nation. As harsh as this sounds, it is not only true, but overtly so.
America has been influenced into hyper partisanship for decades by malign influence actors. This includes foreign adversaries like Russia, China, Iran and far more. It also includes politicians serving the needs of big money political parties. In the years leading up to our 2016 election, the MAGA folks that control today’s GOP, also began working with a combination of US and foreign oligarchs, as well as foreign intelligence services to put Trump into the White House. The treasonous NRA supported Russia and was exposed for assisting in campaign funding from Russia to the GOP, especially the Trump campaign. In the SSCI report on Russian activities, VOL. 5, the Counterintelligence Report, related to the 2016 election, the NRA is noted 152 times for conspiring with Russian intelligence.
Russian intelligence and the infamous, IRA, Internet Research Agency, better known as Putin’s “Troll Factory” cooperated directly with GOP operatives. As late as just last year, FOX News was broadcasting Russian propaganda nearly verbatim, primarily via Tucker Carlson and other FOX “personalities.”
The above merely scratches the surface of the 2016 debacle and to this day, it has become much worse. In the ensuing eight years, the GOP has grown even closer to supporting Putin, hence the Speaker of the House stalling for nearly a year, before funding critical support for our allies in Ukraine, fighting for all of NATO and global democracy against a genocidal Putin, supported directly by genocidal Xi, Kim Jong Un and the theocratic terrorists in Tehran. The failure to support Ukraine won the approval of a large majority of the GOP. This should come as no surprise, after decades of conditioning by FOX and other extreme, right-wing media.
As an operative, mentor, teacher and expert on Narrative Warfare, I have told everyone for years, that Russian and MAGA influencers like Brad Parscale, have nearly complete, reflexive control over the GOP. Reflexive control in lay terms, is best described as brainwashing and having complete control over those brainwashed. As an indicator, after four years of Trumpism, that was supportive of Putin and other global fascists, as well as oligarchical White Christian Nationalist sycophants here in the US, he received roughly 4 million more votes in 2020, than he had in 2016. This number will not diminish in 2024 and may actually increase. The aforementioned, reflexive control or brainwashing is the reason why. Anyone telling you different, simply doesn’t understand influence operations. This includes the US national security community. The new GOP has nothing to do with conservatism, let alone principled conservatism.
Although I could care less about political parties, I am dead set against, allowing the fake patriots, worshippers of fascism or simply known as the MAGA GOP, winning anything, anywhere or for any reason. They are without a doubt, the most severe threat to our republic, since the Civil War. Their agenda is unconstitutional, their patriotism is based on the fake patriotism of God, guns and Trump and willing to support our most aggressive adversaries, such as Putin. There is no debate on this as that the facts have been as plain as our own face in the mirror, for nearly a decade.
It is quite clear, that the un-American ideology of MAGA is a threat to the republic, and that the only way to save it is for us to address the reason that they are a bloc of reliable voters for fascism. That is via undermining and eventually extinguishing, the combination of malign foreign and domestic influence. Herein lies the problem. The US national security community has no clue how and due to nepotism in defense contracting an entire community responsible for such things is still chasing the proverbial snipes of snipe hunting. They also refuse to listen to operators and experience, preferring exclusively, PhDs with zero experience and zero interaction with anyone, but defense contractors marketing road apples.
The waste, fraud and abuse within the influence community
In the mid 1990s, the last remnants of the old USIA or US Information Agency, which had been at the core of our influence battles with the old Soviet Union. In the waning years of the Soviet Union, it became apparent that they were heading for the trash heap of history and even the USIA began slowing down. They handled much of what needed to be done to project US and NATO democratic values in a contest against the Soviet influence operations selling communism. They also built resilience into the US and Western European citizenries. Today’s community responsible for the same, have no idea about how to do the same, and are unwilling to learn. They prefer absurd, high-tech answers that are incapable of providing any substantive role in these objectives. No one wants to hear the truth from experienced operators.
In those waning years, the experts and their expertise flowed out of US operations, only to be filled with newcomers, attempting to sell influence capabilities, to the US government. They arrogantly figured that with no Soviet Union and a still underdeveloped China, we no longer needed such operations. No one was buying what was being sold to them. So, what did they do? The sellers began to make up ideas and concepts that were attractive sales products. Some of this was well meaning but still, no one wanted to think ahead or dredge up the Cold War. Slowly, those made-up concepts gained traction and ever since, we’ve built doctrine on those early sales frauds. What these salesmen were selling, was a Rube Goldberg machine, not a working model for protecting our nation.
US Joint Doctrine (Joint means for all services) now reads like a foreign language. There is a common saying in military circles regarding what used to be called IO or Information Operations (the Pentagon is terrified of saying the word “influence) that goes something like this; “Every five years, we make up a new concept and sell it to the Pentagon. About the time they figure out it’s worthless, they change the name of the old concept and sell it again, as something new and dynamic.”
To this day, the gibberish doctrine has new names but now looks like the noted, Rube Goldberg machine; an overly complex machine, only capable of doing, a very simple job. Like all complex machinery, it requires specialists for every overly complex part of the machine and those specialists, rarely if ever talk to each other. Now, all we have is perpetual tinkering and making the machine, even more complex. It produces nothing.
To make matters worse, it has been a couple of decades or more, since I entered the profession of influence, in support of national security objectives. My experience though was in a small command, subordinate to the US Special Operations Command. My experiences, in and out of combat zones were productive, not because I had support from the Rube Goldberg disaster of doctrine, but because that once I had proved my worth, I was given a great deal of latitude to wield common sense, rather that doctrinal solutions.
Once I had divorced myself from doctrine, successes began to mount. My “boss” required but two things from me; that what I did was legal and that I could show success. As they say, “success breeds more success.” Since we deployed with our own JAG or military lawyer, I ensured that everything I did was legal and showing success. With the development of new concepts, tactics and collection, it became easier as we built on those successes. Still, higher commands often railed against those successes, because I had deviated from doctrine. I simply ignored this criticism. Success continued and my commander, provided the top cover from overbearing and doctrinal staffing.
The same wailing and shrieking from the doctrinal do-nothings, still exists and they still ignore both common sense, and experienced operators. The military does not train influence operators but relegates such activities to doctrine and the Rube Goldberg machines that fit into it. For a full education on just how devoid of effectiveness is, please see the following white paper I wrote a few years back, to explain in detail the disgrace called influence operations within the US national security community. It is appropriately named, the broken down, rusting hulk of former US influence operations.
In the forty years or so since the waning years of the Cold War, not one single thing of substance has come from the billions of our precious, hard-earned tax dollars, invested in the influence community. We are now weaker against malign influence than at any other time in our history, except maybe the Yellow Journalism era of the late nineteenth century. That period, in more ways than one, closely resembles this dangerous era of oligarchism, yellow journalism (fake news of olden days) and Christian Nationalism. We are treading on thin ice, in all respects. None of the traits represent the ideals, that our founders foresaw for our fledgling republic.
When it comes to pointing fingers for waste, fraud and abuse, I point them also at the agencies responsible for our protection, here in the US, DHS and the FBI. Both are as impotent as our community focused on foreign threats and tragically, just as focused on ignoring expertise. Like DoD and the IC, both DHS and the FBI, ignorantly believe exclusively, in a technology or AI silver bullet. They have been conned for so long, that they can’t even tell the difference between reality and truth.
The last topic for this already too long TAT essay, is that the recent announcement of the so-called, NCNI or National Center for Narrative Intelligence at Ole’ Miss, is about as absent of integrity and promise, as any other formerly invested in, waste, fraud and abuse boondoggle. I, along with an unnamed, global leader in Narrative Warfare talked with Ole’ Miss, prior to the announcement of the new NCNI. Ole’ Miss, knew full well prior to announcing this well-funded boondoggle, that it had nothing to do with narrative, a specialty the national security community claims to understand but is dishonest about too. They are clueless and yet, wasteful funding for the NCNI still spews from taxpayer coffers. Most teens with a cell phone can do much of what Edge Theory does at the NCNI. To ensure failure, they are also responsible for training. The rhetorical question is… how can they train something that they are clueless about?
Like the billions wasted for the past decades, this NCNI boondoggle really peaked my anger. It is a prime example of the ongoing, perpetual dishonesty in government contracting. Joe Stradinger of Edge Theory and Ole’ Miss, had been told the truth and still went forward, wasting taxpayer dollars.
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, boondoggle is:
an unnecessary and expensive piece of work, especially one that is paid for by the public:
They are far from alone. Think tanks and alleged experts as high-profile as RAND Corporation and Booz Allen, participate in the charade of being experts in influence operations too. They may be experts in certain areas but when it comes to understanding influence, think tanks like RAND are really only specialists in building Rube Goldberg machines. They are just examples with a long list of other piglets suckling at the teat of taxpayer funding. If only the Secretary of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence would just ask them to do what my former commanders did, show proof of their successes, we wouldn’t be defenseless today, at home and abroad. We also wouldn’t have wasted billions.
The last thing I’ll say, is that our election is only 5 and half months away, and we are defenseless on the battlefield of influence. Folks like Edge Theory, and the long list of others over the past decades who provided little or nothing for their collective billions, are the reason why. We had better remove our heads from where the sun doesn’t shine, or there will be no republic left by the time we have our next presidential election. My opinions expressed here today, are professional opinions based on decades of expertise, not some academic theory or made-up concept. If those named have issues, let’s get in front of senior leadership, contracting officers and congressional oversight and debate. In fact, I dare them to!
My very best for your week,
Paul