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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 19-Feb-2010
19-Feb-10 News - IEAA: Iran developing nuclear missile

Web Log - February, 2010

19-Feb-10 News - IEAA: Iran developing nuclear missile

US fails test in 'Cyber Shockwave' war game simulation

New UN report says that Iran may be developing a nuclear warhead

The IAEA, the United Nations agency responsible for monitoring nuclear weapon development around the world, has issued a new report that considerably raises the alarm level for Iran's possible nuclear weapons development program. Reuters quotes the report as follows:

"The information available to the Agency in connection with these outstanding issues is extensive and has been collected from a variety of sources over time. It is also broadly consistent and credible in terms of the technical detail, the time frame in which the activities were conducted and the people and organizations involved," the report said.

"Altogether, this raises concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile. These alleged activities consist of a number of projects and sub-projects, covering nuclear and missile-related aspects, run by military related organizations."

The report indicates, for the first time, that Iran has resumed working on nuclear missiles, or that Iran had never stopped doing so, although US intelligence had claimed they stopped in 2003.

This report will substantially raise the international heat over Iran's intentions, with the increased possibility that Israel will decide, of its own accord, to strike Iran's nuclear installations militarily. The range of a nuclear-tipped missile would include not only Israel, but parts of Europe and numerous other countries.

A Haaretz analysis by Israeli security journalists Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff summarizes the situation as follows:

"If the international community's collision course with Tehran leads to harsh sanctions meant to halt its nuclear program, the spring and summer months will be especially sensitive. It would be impossible to rule out a scenario in which the increasing tension leads to all-out open war. Tehran and Jerusalem regularly exchange threatening messages via various channels, but with Beirut, Gaza and Damascus in the middle, the situation is liable to get out of control."

The analysis adds that Israel will only attack as a last resort, but that because of Iran's continued nuclear activities, "the military option becomes more relevant."

As I've said many times in the past, part of Iran's international strategy is to provoke a military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. (See the analysis in "China 'betrays' Iran, as internal problems in both countries mount.")

The reason is that the hardline government is attempting a partial replay of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. At that time, the leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was successful in unifying the entire country behind the Revolution by blaming everything on imperialism by the US and the West. The hope, by an increasingly desperate hardline government, is that the best way to end the Green movement would be to provoke a military action by Israel that would unify the country again.

This is their strategy of increasing desperation, but from the point of view of Generational Dynamics, it has no chance at all of succeeding, even if they succeed in provoking an attack by Israel. In 1979, Iran was in a generational Crisis era, and the anxious population (like America's population today) were ready to unify behind a strong leader. Today, Iran is in a generational Awakening era (like 1960s America), and if there were an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, then the young people in the Green movement would blame it on Iran's government, not Israel's.

German anger grows at Greece and at Goldman Sachs

It's becoming increasingly clear that Goldman Sachs not only helped Greece hide its annual deficit from the EU, but also secretly profited from it.

According to French journalist Jean Quatremer, writing in Libération (translation), "The most shocking part of this affair is, without doubt, the role played by Goldman Sachs, which acted as advisor to the Greek government and, at the same time, in secret, took financial positions against Greece and the euro."

This appears to be a conflict of interest and securities fraud, though Goldman Sachs is saying that everything they did was legal. But as I'm always saying, what matters these days, as we go deeper and deeper into a generational Crisis era, are major political changes that are driven by large masses of anxious people, not by legalistic analyses. What appears to be increasingly the case is that many people are turning on Greece, and now increasingly on Goldman Sachs.

The narrative that Quatremer described fits perfectly into the view that big banks created the financial crisis, defrauded investors, paid themselves huge bonuses and fees, and are continuing to do so today. Quatremer's charges about Greece are that Goldman just did what it always does.

Thus, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is quoted as saying, "It would be a disgrace if it turned out to be true that banks that already pushed us to the edge of the abyss were also party to falsifying Greek statistics."

As I've reported in recent days, the German people are turning against Greece, to the extent that a recent poll says that two-thirds of the German people oppose any bailout of Greece, and 53% said that the Europe Union should, if necessary, expel Greece from the euro zone.

It would cost the EU $400 billion to bail out Greece and the other southern Europe PIIGS states, according to Bloomberg. This article has an interesting historical comparison between bailing out Greece today and saving East Germany after it was reunited with West Germany in 1991.

Merkel has made increasingly hostile statements about bailing out Greece, including the most recent one about Goldman Sachs. It's hard to see how she could ever reverse direction, assuming she ever wanted to.

US fails test in 'Cyber Shockwave' war game simulation

A large-scaled simulated cyberattack on the U.S. on Wednesday showed that the country is unprepared for a real attack. The "Cyber Shockwave" war game was organized by the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC). The participants were former government officials, led by Former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff,

The simulated attack takes place on a single day in July 2011, according to Dark Reading. 20 million of the nation's smartphones stop working immediately, and then the attack escalates, shutting down electrical power on the east coast. In the simulation, the participants were unable to prevent the attack from escalating further.

I'm not surprised that the U.S. is completely unprepared for such an attack, but I find myself a little relieved that at least there are people studying the problem, and hopefully the result will be some preparation. By contrast, the U.S. was totally unprepared for the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, leading to the greatest military disaster in the nation's history.

A new report by the NY Times says that last month's online attacks on Google and dozens of other American corporations apparently originated in two universities on China's east coast: Jiaotong University in Shanghai, which has one of China's top computer science programs, and Lanxiang Vocational School, a huge vocation schoil in China’s Shandong Province that trains computer scientists for the military. However, it has not been proven that the Chinese military itself is responsible for the attacks.

What is certain, however, is that cyberwar is going to be an important factor in the Clash of Civilizations world war, and that it would be worthwhile to prepare for it.

Ages of social network users

Social network users <font face=Arial size=-2>(Source: Royal Pingdom)</font>

Social network users (Source: Royal Pingdom)

According to a study by Royal Pingdom, the different social network services differ by age and generation. Here are some results:

The average social network user is 37 years old.
LinkedIn, with its business focus, has a predictably high average user age; 44.
The average Twitter user is 39 years old.
The average Facebook user is 38 years old.
The average MySpace user is 31 years old.
Bebo has by far the youngest users, as witnessed earlier, with an average age of 28.
Classmates.com has the oldest users, average age 44.9.

Another study shows that most social network users are female, presumably because women like to "share" more than men do. However, it's also possible that the higher female statistics occur because most phony "spam" accounts impersonate females.

Additional Links

According to WSJ, more cities are considering Chapter 9 bankruptcy. Chapter 9 was created in the Great Depression, and has been rarely used, but may be used a lot more now.

Muhammad Iqbal is a poet and is considered to be Pakistan's ideological founder. He worked with Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who led the movement to create Pakistan in 1947 for Muslims on the Indian subcontinent. MEMRI has translated one of his articles from Urdu. According to Iqbal, The highest goal of a Muslim is not to fight by the sword, but Longing for Martyrdom and a Quest for Jihad. This contrasts to al-Qaeda's philosophy, which uses the sword quite a bit.

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 19-Feb-10 News - IEAA: Iran developing nuclear missile thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (19-Feb-2010) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 19-Feb-2010 19-Feb-10 News - IEAA: Iran developing nuclear missile

New UN report says that Iran may be developing a nuclear warhead

German anger grows at Greece and at Goldman Sachs

US fails test in 'Cyber Shockwave' war game simulation

Ages of social network users

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 19-Feb-2010
19-Feb-10 News - IEAA: Iran developing nuclear missile