Optimizing ‘Internet of Things’ Security While Promoting Innovation

“C4ISRNET” By Gary Wang

“The private sector needs policy guidance, technical support, and credible accreditation for making products. On the other hand, the government needs the private sector’s input on innovations and product development to ensure it’s more effective in addressing emerging risks.”

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“The White House recently announced the U.S. Cyber Trust Mark program, a cybersecurity certification and labeling initiative to help consumers identify less vulnerable smart devices, effectively raising the bar for Internet of Things, or IoT, cybersecurity standards.

This initiative underscores the importance of public and private sector collaboration to effectively capitalize on cutting-edge technologies without compromising on safety and compliance.

IoT devices can include mundane items like home appliances and fitness trackers as well as more complex machines such as connected vehicles and medical devices. Consumer IoT devices may store personal, financial, or sensitive health information.

To effectively shore up defenses for all IoT, the Federal Communications Commission is seeking public comments on the proposed cybersecurity labeling program, which is expected to launch in 2024.

The FCC’s Fact Sheet on Securing Smart Devices states that “According to one third-party estimate, there were more than 1.5 billion attacks against smart devices in the first six months of 2021 alone. Meanwhile the number of smart devices is skyrocketing, with some estimating that there will be more than 25 billion connected devices in operation by 2030.”

As proposed, the program would use criteria developed by NIST to certify products, such as strong default passwords, data protection, software updates and incident detection capabilities.

While security is paramount, the data-driven insights generated by IoT devices have boundless potential to transform society for the better. Therefore, as security protocols are bolstered, organizations must strive to balance security and functionality.

Security by design

Building secure-by-design connected devices is no small task. Manufacturers will require significant guidance and assistance to create products with resilient security features, as well as to earn security accreditation outlined by the U.S. Cyber Trust Mark program.

Weak built-in security features are a primary IoT device security challenge. IoT devices are rarely designed by cybersecurity professionals leading to insufficient defense mechanisms. Moreover, many of these devices cannot be easily patched since software updates may change the functionality of the device or require regulatory review and assessment. Some IoT devices even come with legacy or proprietary operating systems that can be difficult to upgrade or secure.

Given the potential consequences of an IoT cyberattack, it’s imperative to hold manufacturers accountable for hardening their products and providing security guidance and support to consumers. Collaboration between IT professionals, manufacturers and public sector regulators is necessary to develop a security program that can respond to evolving security threats, develop patches, and support patch delivery.

Best practices for scalable IoT security

As identified by NIST, account and access takeover are prevalent risks to many IoT devices. Luckily, these risks can be mitigated with appropriate password management practices, including changing the default password, adequately managing the network configuration and password, and instituting proper access control protocols.

Other best practices include segmenting networks and devices to limit lateral movement, removing extraneous services to minimize potential threat vectors, and continually patching emergent security issues.

Powerful tools to protect the data transmitted by IoT devices include encryption and authentication methods. Perhaps most importantly, manufacturers should provide a “kill switch” in the device that allows for the manual shutdown of the entire system in case of an emergency.

Security is not a static issue — while a product may be secure today, it could easily become vulnerable in the future as hacking tactics advance. With continual collaboration between the public and private sectors, such as sharing threat intelligence and risk management best practices, all parties can securely benefit from the transformative potential of IoT.

Once security is strengthened, users can begin to reap the many benefits of smart devices such as convenience, efficiency, automation, situational awareness, and self-service. When used optimally, IoT devices can leverage cloud computing for effective data analytics and log processing. Artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions can even be implemented to identify risks, predict outcomes, improve decision making and enhance customer experiences.

Collaboration between the public and private sectors is key to a successful IoT cybersecurity labeling program such as the U.S. Cyber Trust Mark.”

Insights from leaders in both sectors will allow the nation to rise to meet the urgent need for enhanced IoT security.”

https://www.c4isrnet.com/opinion/2023/09/20/how-to-optimize-internet-of-things-security-while-promoting-innovation/

Gary Wang is Chief Technology Officer at DMI, a supplier of cybersecurity, cloud migration and other services to companies and governments.

Space Force Acquisition Czar To Enforce Program Management ‘Scorecard,’ Puts Floundering Contractors On Notice

PLEASE CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

BREAKING DEFENSE By Theresa Hitchens

“Looking at the data, there is more work to be done to meet the desired cost and schedule results, and we continue to drive program management discipline in line with my nine acquisition tenets and simple formula for going fast in space acquisition,” says Frank Calvelli, head of space acquisition for the Department of the Air Force.”

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“Frank Calvelli, the official in charge of herding space acquisition for the Department of the Air Force, has issued his first “scorecard” on program performance, Breaking Defense has learned — with five programs on the bottom rung and struggling to stay abreast of their requirements.

Calvelli “recently delivered an Annual Acquisitions Report” to Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall “with a summary of the cost, schedule, and technical performance of multiple Space Force acquisition programs,” a Space Force spokesperson said in an email.

The scorecard is an internal document, and will not be released to Congress or the public as it “contains assessments of the classic cost, schedule, and technical performance of programs,” the spokesperson added.

Calvelli, in his own statement, said, “The intent of the report was to provide a portfolio-level overview on Space Force programs and track year-over-year changes in the number of programs meeting their cost, schedule, and technical performance commitments. Looking at the data, there is more work to be done to meet the desired cost and schedule results, and we continue to drive program management discipline in line with my nine acquisition tenets and simple formula for going fast in space acquisition.”

Frank Calvelli, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration, speaks at the 2022 Air, Space & Cyber Conference. (Credit: AFA)

The report, one senior Space Force official told Breaking Defense, includes five programs in the “red” category on the card, signifying that they are floundering, though the official did not identify the specific programs. The scorecard concept, first reported by Breaking Defense last fall, uses a stoplight-type system for grading acquisition programs in hopes of pinpointing which ones need attention to get them back on track and encourage program executive officers to take remedial actions.

Ultimately, the report could trigger a decision by Calvelli to terminate a program or dump an underperforming contractor.

In a public report last October covering 2021 Air Force and Space Force acquisition performance issued by Andrew Hunter, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics, a handful of space programs were listed as failing to meet cost and/or schedule metrics. These included the Global Positioning System III satellites, and their long-troubled ground system called the Next Generation Operational Control System, or OCX for short, being developed by Raytheon Technologies.

As the assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisitions and integration, Calvelli serves as the first-ever Department of the Air Force space acquisition executive (SAE). His post was created by Congress in order to overhaul the sclerotic bureaucracy and processes that have been weighing down the acquisition of space systems for decades, resulting in massively expensive systems often plagued by cost and schedule overruns. As SAE, he controls the Pentagon’s key space acquisition agencies: Space Systems Command (SSC) and its five related “program executive offices” for various baskets of missions; the Space Rapid Capabilities Office; and the Space Development Agency.

Since he took up that position in March 2022, Calvelli has been warning his space acquisition community, including contractors, that a record of poor performance would lead to consequences — all the way up to terminating a program.

Speaking at a Space Force Association event on April 14, Calvelli explained that there is no reason why the Space force has to stick with failing contractors.

“If you hire a general contractor to come to your house and they do a bad job, typically you’re not going to hire them again… There’s lots of new companies coming online, lots of fantastic companies out there. So we shouldn’t keep going back and forth to poor performers.”

One of his nine tenets, issued last October, reads: “Hold industry accountable for results. Do not tolerate bad performance that we have seen in some traditional large satellite and ground systems cost-plus contracts. Take corrective action and consider all tools available for poor performers including loss of fee, use of the Contractor Responsibility Watch List, and if necessary, stopping programs. Industry works for you, so be a demanding customer.”

The Contractor Responsibility Watch List (CRWL) was pioneered by the National Reconnaissance Office that is responsible for building and operating US spy satellites. It sets out extra oversight measures for contractors with a track record of poor performance. According to a declassified NRO memo from October 2019 [PDF]: “This is not a ‘no-buy’ list, but rather an internal performance-based watch list. Additional processes are required for companies on the CRWL to be considered for other contracts.”

“Typically, at the NRO when somebody didn’t perform, we would put them on the [list] and we would notify Congress and all the committees that they weren’t performing as well. And we’re taking a similar approach in the department,” Calvelli, who served in senior roles at the NRO, told the National Security Space Association’s Defense and Intelligence Space Conference on Jan. 24. “I’m going to be honest, I don’t know how often we’ve used it in the past, but we’re stepping up our game now.”

Space Systems Command on March 8, 2022 issued its own, mandatory “instruction” document to program executive officers with their hands on the funding reins to implement the use of CRWL for its space acquisition programs [PDF]. Creation of a service CRWL was mandated in the fiscal 2018 National Defense Acquisition Act.

It includes, among other things, a provision that prohibits contracting officials to “solicit sole source offers from, award competitive or sole source contracts to, execute engineering change proposals with, or exercise options on any space program contract with a contractor included on the CRWL without prior approval” of SSC chief Lt. Gen. Michael Guetlein.

Further, the instructions explain, that contracting officers can decide not to make awards to a listed contractor, and any decision to proceed with an award must first be approved by Guetlein.

“All competitive solicitations shall include a requirement for each prospective contractor or subcontractor proposed for an applicable subcontract that is listed on the CRWL to submit documentation with their proposal to the Government describing how they have addressed the conditions that resulted in their inclusion on the CRWL and why those conditions will not impact performance on a resultant space program contract,” the instruction states.

In addition, prime contractors have to get SSC contracting office consent to subcontract with a CRWL-listed vendor prior to making any awards “valued in excess of $3,000,000 or five percent of the prime contract value, whichever is lesser.”

https://breakingdefense.com/2023/04/space-force-acquisition-czar-wraps-program-scorecard-puts-floundering-contractors-on-notice/

2023 Omnibus Appropriations Act Increases Funding For DOD Science And Technology Programs

“NATIONAL DEFENSE MAGAZINE” By Cari Shearer and Jacob Winn

“Science-and-technology programs received more than $22 billion in direct appropriations across the Defense Department — more than 18 percent above fiscal year 2022 funding, and nearly $6 billion more than what was requested for 2023.”

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“After a late budget request and multiple continuing resolutions, President Joe Biden signed into law a full-year omnibus appropriations act for the 2023 fiscal year — with increased funding for defense science and technology programs.

These additions — commonly referred to as congressional earmarks — when informed by industry or university technical and defense market expertise, and aligned with transition opportunities, can represent an expedited path through the otherwise cumbersome traditional programming and budgeting process.

This can make the programs funded by this year’s increases more responsive to threats, technological opportunity or program realities. That said, earmarks are still no substitute for well-planned budget requests and consistent levels of funding.

This year’s science-and-technology appropriations gave well-deserved focus to emerging technologies, especially those recognized by the Defense Department as critical technology areas that range from seed areas like quantum science, to effective adoption sectors like artificial intelligence and microelectronics, as well as defense-specific technologies like hypersonic and directed energy systems.

Taken together, these funding increases may go a long way toward helping the department develop and procure more systems. To understand these trends, the Emerging Technologies Institute is developing a capability to track budget and appropriations data to allow the National Defense Industrial Association and its members to better monitor these critical investments and the opportunities they represent to develop and deliver new defense technologies.

The S&T budget includes the funding provided to the services and defense agencies, including the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Missile Defense Agency, to support basic research, applied research and advanced technology development activities.

These research-and-development programs fund scientific inquiry and breakthroughs as well as engineering and early prototyping activities intended to transition into formal acquisition efforts and operational use. Breakthroughs stemming from defense research and development are rooted in defense needs but can have far-reaching impacts for the commercial world when they advance academia and industry’s knowledge in domains like materials science, biology or renewable energy.

Measuring the percentage of the defense budget’s topline that goes toward science and technology is a popular metric for defense analysts trying to determine whether the Defense Department is over- or under-investing in its future capabilities. Many say 3 percent of topline funding is the ideal goal. In 2023, S&T received just under 2.8 percent of the topline. While this still falls short of the ideal, it represents the most significant year since the funding last met the 3 percent target in 2007 — and much higher than 2022’s 2.16 percent.

On top of that, Congress allocated more than $150 million for military construction to modernize military lab and test center infrastructure.

Basic research activities, typically performed at universities, received nearly $3 billion, a 5.7 percent increase over fiscal year 2022 levels. Much of this extra funding was provided through grants for university research on priorities like artificial intelligence and material science, fields that are crucial to maintaining a technological edge over peer competitors.

Applied research activities fared even better. These programs received nearly $8 billion, an almost 13 percent increase over 2022. This includes added investments for projects related to offensive hypersonics, operational energy, biotechnology and additive manufacturing.

Of the three categories of defense S&T, advanced technology development activities received almost $11 billion, nearly 26 percent more than 2022. These programs typically fund industry technology demonstrations and early prototypes. While Congress is on the right track by funding more of these projects, there are still perceived gaps in the Pentagon’s ability to establish a predictable pathway into formal acquisition programs. The requirements-based, funding, contracting, market, organizational and cultural barriers to technology transition are commonly captured under the simple term: “valley of death.”

To help the department overcome these challenges and be more responsive to emerging technology opportunities, Congress did set aside some additional funding outside the S&T budget activities to transition successful projects into production. That included an approval of the administration’s request for a major investment in the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve Fund of more than $300 million.

Additionally, Congress provided the Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies program $150 million for procurement activities, a 50 percent increase over the request. This funding should be continued in future years as it will likely benefit contractors, especially small businesses, whose work on breakthrough technologies would otherwise not lead them to a military customer.

To maintain U.S. innovation, the Biden administration and Congress should continue to prioritize S&T funding next year. Additionally, the Defense Department should work to better plan the transition paths for high-priority science-and-technology efforts into prototyping and acquisition and build its budget accordingly.

Legislators should also consider making S&T goals and thresholds more explicit. They should explore the efficacy of requesting an annual list of underfunded areas from the department.

A regression to the mean in future years would lead to canceled or delayed research and development projects, fewer rapid developments, missed opportunities and more programs languishing in the valley of death.”

https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2023/3/13/new-budget-prioritizes-science-technology

Jacob Winn is an associate research fellow, and Cari Shearer is a research intern, at NDIA’s Emerging Technologies Institute.

Venture Capital Fund Focuses On Entrepreneurs In Dual-Use Commercial/Defense Technology

“C4ISRNET” By Courtney Albo

“A team of national security experts has launched a new venture capital fund targeting entrepreneurs developing critical dual-use commercial and defense technology.

Shield Capital announced the new fund, which exceeded its target capitalization of $120 million and is focused on four “high-growth” technology areas: artificial intelligence, space, autonomy and cybersecurity.”

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“Founders and managing partners Philip Bilden, a businessman and former military intelligence officer, and Raj Shah, a former director of the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit, told Defense News in an interview that Shield has been working with a number of companies across those areas of expertise and will announce one of the fund’s first investments in an artificial intelligence company in the next few weeks.

Shah said the firm differentiates itself by bringing together partners from a diverse range of companies with deep knowledge of the government procurement process.

“Inside a firm, we really haven’t seen that done in any venture fund, and it’s resonated with our limited partners and the companies that we’ve invested in so far,” Shah said.

Along with Shah and Bilden, Shield’s team includes former military officers, program managers, acquisition experts and industry executives. Its board of advisers is filled with former national security officials, including retired Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and past Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Letitia Long.

Bilden said having a team of experts who are engaged and know how to navigate DoD processes brings value to the companies Shield invests in.

“These are earlier stage businesses — they need all the help they can get,” he said. “And one of the ways that we can do that is to have our national security advisors support them by either serving on their boards or basically giving them counsel on how to approach working with the labyrinth that is the Department of Defense or the federal government.”

Bilden and Shah began planning for Shield Capital in 2015, originally focusing their seed investments on cybersecurity. In 2016, Shah went to lead DIU, where he worked to leverage commercial technology to address national security needs and help non-traditional companies work with the government. That experience helped shape Shield’s investment strategy and after Shah left, he and Bilden decided to institutionalize their investments and create a fund.

Bilden said Shield hopes to create more funds in the future, focused on the “very important challenges in our national security ecosystem.”

The firm’s investment in technologies that are needed by both commercial and national security customers is key, Shah said, noting that companies developing dual-use capabilities tend to outperform.

“Historically, companies that have successfully done these dual-use strategies have grown very, very quickly,” he said. “We also think that by doing so now, we help build and support entrepreneurs creating great companies.”

Shield’s early portfolio companies include Resilience Insurance, Hawkeye 360, Elroy Air, GoSecure, Authentic8 and Rebellion Defense.”

https://www.c4isrnet.com/industry/2022/03/15/new-venture-capital-fund-focused-on-high-need-dual-use-technology/

About Courtney Albon

Courtney Albon is C4ISRNET’s space and emerging technology reporter. She previously covered the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force for Inside Defense.

Pentagon Seeks Plane/Boat Hybrid For Sea Lift

An artist’s concept of a Soviet wing-in-ground effect vehicle from 1988. (Archive.gov)

“BREAKING DEFENSE”

“The Pentagon’s premiere research agency published a request for information eyeing a new class of aircraft capable of utilizing the “wing-in-ground” effect. A request for information, published by the agency’s Tactical Technology Office earlier this month, lays out the challenge: sealift ships can carry large payloads, but transit slowly and require well-developed ports to deliver materiel. 

Perhaps most importantly, given its sea and airlift missions, this new craft would have to support more than 100 tons of cargo and able to carry “multiple amphibious vehicles.However, one detail left out of DARPA’s solicitation is the range this new craft must travel.”

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 “Analysts tell Breaking Defense the military’s request, on a relatively short turnaround time, will be a difficult for the industrial base to oblige — and worry that the system might not be viable for more than short trips.

“This is a very hard ask,” Mark Montgomery, a retired rear admiral and now a senior fellow for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said of the request for information, which set a one-month turnaround time for industry to respond.

The WIG effect is a well-known aerodynamics principle: by flying at low altitudes just above the water’s surface, the friction of the air against the water helps the plane maintain lift and move efficiently.

WIG vehicles are largely emergent technologies and are far less common than conventional ships or planes. While designs can vary greatly by manufacturer, the vehicles tend to closely resemble traditional planes, with the lower half of the chassis built to allow the craft to float on the water’s surface. While a WIG vehicle’s characteristics are comparable to an aircraft, they are still required to operate as a waterborne vessel and comply with conventional shipping rules, according to the International Maritime Organization.

Now, it seems, DARPA wants to see if it can use the WIG effect to help with sealift requirements. A request for information, published by the agency’s Tactical Technology Office earlier this month, lays out the challenge: sealift ships can carry large payloads, but transit slowly and require well-developed ports to deliver materiel. In contrast, airlift platforms can move quickly, but due to their size and weight, require long runways for takeoff and landing and are of little use to forces underway at sea.

Wing-in-ground effect vehicles “achieve increased aerodynamic efficiencies and address many of the operational limitations of traditional sea and air lift platforms in maritime theaters, but they are unable to operate in high sea states and have limited capability to avoid collisions in congested environments,” according to DARPA’s solicitation.

Which is why the agency is seeking a much more capable platform than what existing WIG vehicles currently offer. Specifically, this platform needs to takeoff and land at up to sea state three and be capable of operating outside the ground effect zone to dodge obstacles and inclement weather. (Sea states are a widely recognized measurement of the ocean’s surface conditions, with sea state zero representing calm waters and nine indicating massive waves up to 50 feet high. Sea state three would consist of light waves up to four feet high.)

The problem with that requirement, Montgomery said, is two-fold. There is the obvious kinetic problem associated with a wave hitting the craft, but the more difficult challenge is that even small waves can disrupt the WIG effect and turn the craft’s ride turbulent — and less than fuel efficient.

A preliminary search of WIG craft will quickly bring up the Lun-class ekranoplan. Built by the Russians in the 1970s and employed until the late 1980s, Montgomery said that vehicle was tested mostly on the Caspian Sea, where the waters are usually much calmer than sea state 3.

A Realistic Capability?

As with all DARPA projects, the research is only as useful to the extent the military services are willing to transition it into programs of record.

The agency’s solicitation states that conversations with the services show this new aircraft would be useful for the Navy’s two keystone concepts of operation: Distributed Maritime Operations and Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations. The RFI also lists combat search and rescue, distributed logistics, unmanned vehicle operations and “low payload, long duration arctic patrol flights” as viable missions.

Chris Bassler, a senior fellow for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, told Breaking Defense the military has considered using WIG vehicles in the past, as have Russia and China for both civilian and military applications. The problem is those efforts have often resulted in “the worst of most design parameters.” The vehicles end up being slower than planes and less cost effective than ships, and, as DARPA’s solicitation explained, they cannot operate in even mildly rough sea state conditions.

“Various studies and technology development efforts have commenced over the decades to see if designs can be developed which can carry more, go faster, and increase the environmental conditions where it can operate,” Bassler said. “This is a good opportunity for a ‘DARPA-hard’ problem, to push some of the technologies which may also be used for unmanned systems, sealift, and tilt rotors.”

Bassler posited a fleet of these new WIG vehicles could prove particularly useful in the Indo-Pacific, where they could shuttle supplies to Marine Littoral Regiments and other special forces operating dispersed among the island chains.

The military’s struggles with a lack of sea and airlift have been surfacing in recent years with top officials monitoring the Pentagon’s lift capabilities offering warnings about an impending cliff in the mid-2020s. Gen. Stephen Lyons, US Transportation Command’s top officer, has characterized closing the sealift capability gap as the command’s top priority.”

https://breakingdefense.com/2021/08/darpa-hopes-a-plane-boat-hybrid-can-the-pentagons-sealift-challenge/

CMMC Assessor Training Expected In Late Summer

Image: How the DoD Plans on Training Professional Assessors: https://www.totem.tech/cmmc-assessor-training/

PLEASE CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE

“DEFENSE SYSTEMS”

“Professional training needed to carry out assessments for the Defense Department’s unified cybersecurity standard for contractors won’t kick off until later this summer, according to an official for the organization overseeing the process.”

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“I know many of you are eager to learn of when the CMMC ecosystem will kick into full operational gear. I will say this―we are getting close,” Matt Travis, the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification Accreditation Body’s CEO, wrote in a memo accompanying an an updated frequently-asked-questions document.

The much-needed training won’t be available until “mid-to-late summer,” when classes needed for the training are expected to be authorized.

The board confirmed in its update that only one organization that’s a candidate to be a certified third party assessment organization (C3PAO) was “successfully assessed” at Defense Industrial Base Cybersecurity Assessment Center’s maturity level 3 and that “several more are in process for being assessed.” Only 40% of C3PAO applications have been processed to date.

The new FAQs aim to dispel what it characterizes as misconceptions or rumors about issues from the organization’s funding to their application status to be a non-profit. But the standout updates revolve around timelines. For example, the CMMC’s licensed software provider program is in development and slated to roll out later this year.

The announcement also highlighted the governing body’s plans to become an International Standards Organization (ISO) accreditation body by the end of fiscal year 2022. This certification is a mandatory part of the organization’s contract with DOD.

The AB also noted that it would release a permanent marketplace portal later this year.

The announcement comes amid staff changes at the CMMC-AB surrounding its training leadership. Melanie Kyle Gingrich stepped into the role as the AB’s training and education lead, overseeing daily operations in early May.”

https://defensesystems.com/articles/2021/06/02/cmmc-assessor-training-update.aspx

World Trouble Spots- An Objective View of the Gap Between Those Who Have Made It and Those Left Behind

Editor’s Note:  Although published 5 years ago, this topic seems ever more pertinent today with pandemic and social unrest issues at the fore.  It is republished here for your  renewed consideration. 

Ken Larson 

“STRATFOR – GLOBAL AFFAIRS”

“MIND THE GAP” by Professor Jay Ogilvy

“The growing divide between those who have made it and those who are being left behind is happening globally, in each of the great civilizations, not just Islam.

The issue of the comparative advantages or disadvantages of different cultures is complicated and getting more so because with modernity and globalization, our lives are getting more complicated. We are all in each other’s faces today in a way that was simply not the case in earlier centuries.

Whether through travel or telecommunications or increasingly ubiquitous and inexpensive media, each and every one of us is more aware of the cultural other than in times past.”

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“The Charlie Hebdo attack and its aftermath in the streets and in the press tempt one to dust off Samuel Huntington‘s 1996 book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Despite the criticisms he provoked with that book and his earlier 1993 article in Foreign Affairs, recent events would seem to be proving him prescient.

Or was he?

While I am not about to deny the importance of religion and culture as drivers of geopolitical dynamics, I will argue that, more important than the clashes among the great civilizations, there is a clash within each of the great civilizations. This is the clash between those who have “made it” (in a sense yet to be defined) and those who have been “left behind” — a phrase that is rich with ironic resonance.

Before I make my argument, I warn that the point I’m trying to make is fairly subtle. So, in the interest of clarity, let me lay out what I’m not saying before I make that point. I am not saying that Islam as a whole is somehow retrograde. I am not agreeing with author Sam Harris’ October 2014 remark on “Real Time with Bill Maher” that “Islam is the mother lode of bad ideas.”

Nor am I saying that all religions are somehow equal, or that culture is unimportant. The essays in the book Culture Matters, which Huntington helped edit, argue that different cultures have different comparative advantages when it comes to economic competitiveness.

These essays build on the foundation laid down by Max Weber’s 1905 work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. It is only the “sulfuric odor of race,” as Harvard historian David Landes writes on the first page of the first essay in Culture Matters, that has kept scholars from exploring the under-researched linkages between culture and economic performance.

Making It in the Modern World

In the modern world, the development of the individual human, which is tied in part to culture, has become more and more important. If you think of a single human life as a kind of footrace — as if the developmental path from infancy to maturity were spanning a certain distance — then progress over the last several millennia has moved out the goal posts of maturity. It simply takes longer to learn the skills it takes to “make it” as an adult.

Surely there were skills our Stone Age ancestors had to acquire that we moderns lack, but they did not have to file income taxes or shop for insurance. Postmodern thinkers have critiqued the idea of progress and perhaps we do need a concept that is forgivingly pluralistic. Still, there have been indisputable improvements in many basic measures of human progress. This is borne out by improved demographic statistics such as birth weight, height and longevity, as well as declining poverty and illiteracy. To put it very simply, we humans have come a long way.

But these historic achievements have come at a price. It is not simple for individuals to master this elaborate structure we call modern civilization with its buildings and institutions and culture and history and science and law.

A child can’t do it. Babies born into this world are biologically very similar to babies born 10,000 years ago; biological evolution is simply too slow and cannot equip us to manage this structure. And childhood has gotten ever longer. “Neoteny” is the technical term for the prolongation of the period during which an offspring remains dependent on its parent.

In some species, such as fish or spiders, newborns can fend for themselves immediately. In other species — ducks, deer, dogs and cats — the young remain dependent on their mothers for a period of weeks. In humans, the period of dependency extends for years. And as the generations and centuries pass, especially recently, that period of dependency keeps getting longer.

As French historian Philippe Aries informed us in Centuries of Childhood, “in medieval society, the idea of childhood did not exist.” Prior to modernity, young people were adults in miniature, trying to fit in wherever they could. But then childhood got invented. Child labor laws kept children out of the factories and truancy laws kept them in public schools.

For a recent example of the statutory extension of childhood known as neoteny, consider U.S. President Barack Obama’s announcement that he intends to make community college available for free to any high school graduate, thus extending studenthood by two years.

The care and feeding and training of your average human cub have become far greater than the single season that bear cubs require. And it seems to be getting ever longer as more 20-somethings and even 30-somethings find it cheaper to live with mom and dad, whether or not they are enrolled in school or college.

The curriculum required to flourish as an adult seems to be getting ever longer, the goal posts of meaningful maturity ever further away from the “starting line,” which has not moved. Our biology has not changed at anywhere near the rate of our history. And this growing gap between infancy and modern maturity is true for every civilization, not just Islamic civilization.

The picture gets complicated, though, because the vexed history of the relationships among the world’s great civilizations leaves little doubt about different levels of development along any number of different scales of achievement. Christian democracies have outperformed the economies and cultures of the rest of the world. Is this an accident? Or is there something in the cultural software of the West that renders it better able to serve the needs of its people than does the cultural software called Islam?

Those Left Behind

Clearly there is a feeling among many in the Islamic world that they, as a civilization, have been “left behind” by history. Consider this passage from Snow, the novel by Nobel Prize-winning Turkish author Orhan Pamuk:

“We’re poor and insignificant,” said Fazul, with a strange fury in his voice. “Our wretched lives have no place in human history. One day all of us living now in Kars will be dead and gone. No one will remember us; no one will care what happened to us. We’ll spend the rest of our days arguing about what sort of scarf women should wrap around their heads, and no one will care in the slightest because we’re eaten up by our own petty, idiotic quarrels. When I see so many people around me leading such stupid lives and then vanishing without a trace, an anger runs through me…”

Earlier I mentioned the ironic resonance of this phrase, “left behind.” I think of two other recent uses: first, the education reform legislation in the United States known as the No Child Left Behind Act; the second, the best-selling series of 13 novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins in which true believers are taken up by the Rapture while the sinners are “left behind.” In both of these uses, it is clearly a bad thing to be left behind.

Culture is something we can change in response to circumstances rather than waiting, as other animals must, for our genes to evolve under the pressures of natural selection. As a result, though we are still basically the same animals that we were when we invented agriculture at the end of the ice age, our societies have evolved faster and faster and will continue to do so at an ever-increasing rate in the 21st century.

And because the fundamental dynamics of this divide are rooted in the mismatch between the pace of change of biological evolution on the one hand (very slow) and historical or technological change on the other (ever faster), it is hard to see how this gap can be closed. We don’t want to stop progress, and yet the more progress we make, the further out the goal posts of modern maturity recede and the more significant culture becomes.

There is a link between the “left behind” phenomenon and the rise of the ultra-right in Europe. As the number of unemployed, disaffected, hopeless youth grows, so also does the appeal of extremist rhetoric — to both sides. On the Muslim side, more talk from the Islamic State about slaying the infidels. On the ultra-right, more talk about Islamic extremists. Like a crowded restaurant, the louder the voices get, the louder the voices get.

I use this expression, those who have “made it,” because the gap in question is not simply between the rich and the poor. Accomplished intellectuals such as Pamuk feel it as well. The writer Pankaj Mishra, born in Uttar Pradesh, India, in 1969, is another rising star from the East who writes about the dilemma of Asian intellectuals, the Hobson’s choice they face between recoiling into the embrace of their ancient cultures or adopting Western ways precisely to gain the strength to resist the West.

This is their paradox: Either accept the Trojan horse of Western culture to master its “secrets” — technology, organization, bureaucracy and the power that accrues to a nation-state — or accept the role of underpaid extras in a movie, a very partial “universal” history, that stars the West. ”

About the Author:

“Jay Ogilvy joined Stratfor’s editorial board in January 2015. In 1979, he left a post as a professor of philosophy at Yale to join SRI, the former Stanford Research Institute, as director of research. Dr. Ogilvy co-founded the Global Business Network of scenario planners in 1987. He is the former dean and chief academic officer of San Francisco’s Presidio Graduate School. Dr. Ogilvy has published nine books, including Many Dimensional Man, Creating Better Futures and Living Without a Goal.”

New Cybersecurity Regulations ‘On Track’ Despite Virus

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  Image: Cmmcaudit.org

“NATIONAL DEFENSE MAGAZINE”

“Katie Arrington, chief information security officer at the office of the undersecretary of defense acquisition, said CMMC is still on track despite hurdles created by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that has roiled the world.

“We are on track, but we’re having to retool some of the training because the actual inspections … [do] have to happen,” she said. “The actual audit has to be done on site.”

_________________________________________________________________________

“Work on the Defense Department’s highly anticipated set of new cybersecurity standards — known as the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification version 1.0 — is still on track despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, said an official in charge of the effort April 22.

The new rules, which the Defense Department rolled out earlier this year, are meant to force the defense industrial base to better protect its networks and controlled unclassified information against cyberattacks and theft by competitors such as China. The rules will eventually be baked into contracts, and the Pentagon had targeted including them in requests for information as early as this summer on pathfinder programs.

Under the plan, CMMC third-party assessment organizations, known as C3PAOs, will be trained and approved by a new accreditation body. They will have to certify that a company has met the CMMC standards before it can win contracts. CMMC features different levels, with the level 1 standards being the least demanding and level 5 the most burdensome.

“We are on track, but we’re having to retool some of the training because the actual inspections … [do] have to happen,” she said. “The actual audit has to be done on site.”

The Pentagon is working on ways around that, she said during a webinar called “Protecting Small Business in a COVID-19 Environment” hosted by Project Spectrum, which is part of the Cyber Integrity Initiative and is supported by the Pentagon’s Office of Small Business Programs.

“We’re still on track,” she said. “We’re still doing the pathfinders. We’re working through those. We’re still on target to release some initial RFIs in June with the CMMC in it so we can all kind of get a feel for it.”

Additionally, the Pentagon still plans to get the first class of C3PAOs rolling out in late May or early June, she said.

The biggest sticking point will be conducting in person audits, as is required, Arrington said.

“Until we get the directive from the president and from Secretary [of Defense Mark] Esper with the DoD we have our stay-at-home orders,” she said. However, “the work hasn’t stopped and we’re still doing our absolute best to stay on track.”


Last week, speaking during a Bloomberg Government webinar, Arrington said potential delays of a couple of weeks would be insignificant to the overall program. 
“A two-week push on something is not going to … have a massive impact to our rollout of this,” she said. “I don’t think it’s going to be impactful to the schedule. I think maybe we’ll have a two, three week slip on actually doing the first audits, the pathfinders, but nothing of significance.” Auditors may have to wear masks or social distance while conducting their work, she said.


Meanwhile, Arrington noted that businesses should consider implementing the first level of the CMMC requirements now to protect themselves as more employees in the defense industrial base work from home.

“CMMC level one are 17 controls, no cost, that you can implement today that can help you be secure,” she said. “Waiting isn’t an option for any of us right now.”
 She also stressed the importance of good cyber hygiene, and recommended that employees frequently change their passwords and be mindful of spearphising attempts. 
“Do your best to be diligent and remember that … the weakest link is where the adversary will come in,” she said. “Don’t be the weakest link.”


Nathan Magniex, a senior cybersecurity expert at Project Spectrum, also noted during the webinar that contractors should be wary of conducting meetings on the popular video platform Zoom.

“I would not use it as a business owner,” Magniex said. “There are certain red flags. There are connections with China that are concerning especially for the defense industrial base.”

Project Spectrum recently released a white paper on potential security risks with Zoom which said, “Zoom’s numerous vulnerabilities are not unique to them because every software company and application has them. Zoom’s links to China, however, are particularly concerning because those links expose the DIB and its supply chain, thus jeopardizing American innovation, IP and proprietary information.”

Project Spectrum recommended Cisco Webex, Facebook Workplace, Google Hangouts, GoToMeeting and Microsoft Teams as potential alternatives.”

https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2020/4/22/new-cybersecurity-regulations-on-track-despite-virus

FREE SMALL BUSINESS GOVERNMENT CONTRACTING BOOKS AND SUPPLEMENTS

The table of contents below reflects free small business federal government contracting books and reference materials.   You may download the book, Small Business Federal Government Contracting and its supplement from the “Box” in the right margin of http://www.smalltofeds.com. Blue topic titles are the basic book and red topics are contained in the Supplement.

Use the links beneath the table to access more recent articles since the publication of the book and the supplement.

(Please click on image to enlarge)

RECENT MATERIAL LINKS (Not included in Above)

SMALL BUSINESS COMPANY TRAINING

MANAGING INDUSTRY TEAMING RELATIONSHIPS

UTILIZING THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA)

GOVERNMENT CONTRACT BID PROTESTS

UNSOLICITED GOVERNMENT CONTRACT PROPOSALS

VITAL TIPS FOR PROJECT MANAGEMENT

FIXED PRICE VS. COST PLUS IN CONTRACTING

MAKING AN ASUTE BID/NO BID DECISION

THE TRUTH IN NEGOTIATIONS ACT (TINA)

You may also benefit from the free “Reference Materials” in the second, vertical “Box” in the left margin of the site.   Contract agreements, incorporation instructions for all the US states, guidance on marketing and business planning are all included.

Other books by Ken available as free downloads in the “Box” include:

“A Veteran’s Photo/Poetry Journal of Recovery
From Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ” 

“Odyssey of Armaments” My Journey Through the Defense Industrial Complex”

Sole Source Contractor With Non-Competitive $16 Billion VA Records Integration Contract Calls It “Immense Challenge”

Image: FCW.com

“MILITARY.COM“

“This won’t be easy,” the prime contractor said Tuesday of the $16 billion effort to overcome decades of failure and finally make veteran and military health records compatible with a few computer clicks.

We must deploy to 117 sites, train over 300,000 VA employees, collaborate with DoD, interoperate with the community, aggregate decades of clinical data and update technology,” he told a hearing of the House Veterans Subcommittee on Technology. “

____________________________________________________________________________

“It carries risk, and we don’t take the challenges lightly” in implementing Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) programs across the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense”, said Travis Dalton, president of government services for Cerner Corp. of Kansas City.

In addition, the new system will have to link with additional community health care providers expected to come onboard with the June 6 rollout of the VA Mission Act, which will expand private health care options for veterans, said Rep. Jim Banks, R-Indiana, the ranking member of the subcommittee.

“Interoperability with the community providers is still the elephant in the room,” he said.

About 30% of veterans currently get health care at taxpayer expense in the private sector, and they “rightfully expect their records to follow them,” Banks said. He said his main concern is that a “half-baked system” will be rushed into use.

Rep. Susie Lee, D-Nevada, chairwoman of the subcommittee, said that Cerner and partners Leidos and Booz Allen Hamilton are attempting to create “one seamless lifetime record for our service members as they transition from military to veteran status,” but “this effort also has the potential to fail.”

“The VA unfortunately does not have a great track record when it comes to implementing information technology,” she said, “and it threatens EHRM.”

Previous attempts to mesh VA and DoD records have either failed or been abandoned, most recently in 2013 when then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and then-VA Secretary Eric Shinseki dropped an integration plan after a four-year effort and the expenditure of about $1 billion.

“This won’t be easy, but it is achievable and we are making progress” in the overall effort to let “providers have access to records wherever they deliver care,” Dalton said.

Jon Scholl, president of the Leidos Health Group and a Navy veteran, said the example to follow is the MHS Genesis system, the new electronic health record for the Military Health System. “MHS Genesis is the solution,” he said at the hearing.

However, Lee said that “a suitable single management structure has yet to emerge” for EHRM since then-Acting VA Secretary Robert Wilkie awarded a $10 billion, 10-year contract to Cerner in May 2018. The cost estimate for the contract has since risen to $16 billion.

At a hearing last month of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan was challenged on the DoD’s efforts to work with the VA on EHRM.

“I don’t ever recall being as outraged about an issue than I am about the electronic health record program,” Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, told him.

“Personally, I spend quite a bit of time on how do we merge together” with the VA on the records, Shanahan assured her.

He said pilot programs on making the records compatible are underway in Washington state at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Naval Base Kitsap, Naval Air Station Whidbey Island and Fairchild Air Force Base.

The “rollout and implementation” of the fix to the electronic health records has shown promise at those installations, Shanahan said, adding that the next step is to put the programs in place at California installations in the fall.”

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/06/05/making-va-dod-records-compatible-immense-challenge-prime-contractor.html