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Afghanistan Write-Up

2010-04-16T21:04:00.003-04:00

DREL has been working for more than two weeks on a comprehensive report about a recent trip to Afghanistan. The trip lasted two months. The lessons learned could fill a book.

The format of the report will narrow the scope to ten lessons learned with supporting evidence. The title of the report follows the format: Afghanistan, 10 Lessons in 2 Months

The majority of the objectives for the trip were achieved. The objectives not achieved were equally cataloged and will be incorporated into the report.

To request a PDF copy of Afghanistan, 10 Lessons in 2 Months email your request to research@drel.us.

NGA: Art in Diplomacy

2010-04-13T14:33:00.000-04:00

FULL EVENT TITLE: Panel Discussion, The Role of Art in Diplomacy

The event featured Artist Chuck Close, Ambassador Cynthia P. Schneider of George Town University and the Brookings Institution, and Dean Robert Storr, of the Yale School of Art and was moderated by Joseph J. Krakora. It occurred on April 12th at 13:00 in the National Gallery of Art’s East Building Auditorium.

Diplomacy is the hard work of individuals assigned to represent their country. Diplomacy usually occurs between highly effective communicators. Art complements communication, and therefore diplomacy, by saying what cannot be captured by words alone.

According to Robert Storr, art residing in U.S. Embassies around the world is not diplomacy in and of its self, but serves Ambassadors and their staff as aesthetic cultural context to perform their diplomatic duties. Robert Storr is a seemingly selfless promoter of American Artists and American Art History.

Ms. Schneider gave an excellent example of how sculpture has been used effectively to decorate a security perimeter around a U.S. Embassy. She also mentioned displaying American artists work inspired by Dutch Impressionists in her residence in the Netherlands when she served as the U.S. Ambassador there. She found it fascinating that the Dutch people were moved by their artist’s influence on American artists.

Chuck Close described artists’ creativity he personally witnessed during the Cold War behind the Iron Curtain, when Soviet Realism and American Abstract Expressionism were dueling for the people’s imagination and attention. Mr. Close is a fan of art that insights thought. In his career, he found that there is a near universal appreciation for freedom of expression among artists.

Art and artists contribute to national identity in ways that charismatic leaders cannot. The British and French cultural agencies were offered by Ms. Schneider as models American officials could and should emulate. A sharp distinction was made by the panelists between commercial art in American Popular Culture and art as the product of a dedicated community of producers who often financially supplement their own art careers.

Arguably, Ministries of Culture in Europe and the Middle East, for example, were established in part to prevent outsiders from corrupting or disrupting the cultural identity of the host nation. The United States of America does not have a Ministry of Culture, most likely because the U.S. Constitution formally institutionalizes a commitment to cultural diversity. The observable influence of guaranteeing and enforcing freedom of religion, speech and assembly is cultural progress.

Presumably, an American Ministry of Culture modeled on French or British ministries could celebrate American majority, minority and immigrant artists with equal zeal, and accept whatever global controversies that may result with pride. Indeed, the act of producing art has a therapeutic quality to it. Americans who have achieved their citizenship through political asylum should be encouraged to explore their freedom of expression in the United States by artistically describing the repression that instigated their exodus.

Whatever the future holds for art, artists and diplomacy; international relations will be complemented by art in the same way that art complements life.

DREL

Heritage: NATO and Afghanistan

2009-07-09T17:34:00.003-04:00

FULL TITLE: NATO and Afghanistan: Equitable Burden Sharing

The key note speaker at the event, General John Craddock, served as the NATO Supreme Allied Commander and the former Commander of U.S. European Command. Having worked closely with European Allies on some of the world’s most intractable problems, Craddock knows the tools required to succeed in Afghanistan. It was fortunate for those of us in the audience that he was willing to share some of his vast experience.

He shared the reality that democracies don’t always show up when their needed, nor do they necessarily agree with the mission, or do they easily agree with each other. NATO is a conglomeration of democracies working together to protect their dominion of political freedom and economic prosperity. Institutionalizing free will, as NATO does, puts systemic limits on the organization. In the Alliance, a member nation’s electorate may hold great sway over their country’s participation in NATO missions.

Although constructively critical of European members’ level of investment and effort, Craddock made clear the session was not about bashing Europeans for failing to live up to their own expectations. Instead, he made sure that we, the audience understood NATO strengths, and where NATO remains weak.

Craddock is an advocate of changing NATO’s mission to include nation building activities. NATO’s current mission is to provide security to enable nation builders, but not perform duties understood to be nation building. In the context of Afghanistan, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is an essential alliance. The democratic future of Afghanistan depends, in no small measure, on effective cooperation between the twenty-eight member states, other international organizations such as the European Union and the fledgling nation of Afghanistan.

The highlights of the event were Craddock’s suggestion that NATO would move on mandates only after being adequately funded. He also stated that NATO assembled a team of analysts to accumulate reliable performance metrics. In terms of trends bleeding focus away from Afghanistan, there is an increase in demand for Blue-Water Maritime Capability among NATO members. Anti-Piracy operations are important contributors to coordination between NATO and prospective NATO partners. In addition to that, the Russian-Georgian War reoriented NATO’s focus on territorial integrity, away from Out-of-Area operations such as Afghanistan.

The most salient point made today was the need for NATO members to drop their combat related caveats in Afghanistan. Additionally, NATO should make contributing specialized skill sets easier for the nation making the donation.

The most engaging question asked was about insurgents ballooning out of areas where the U.S. applies pressure, forcing them to move into regions less prepared for a fight. Craddock suggested that this was under close scrutiny and believed that the local forces would be prepared for any ballooning of insurgents into their area of operations. An important question about the problem of corruption within the Afghan National Police had Craddock harshly suggesting that in some areas, the Afghan police are feared more so than insurgents. However, the program in place to swap local police with federal police while the local forces are trained is an effective approach to the problem.

To conclude, NATO is operating under a strategic mandate formulated in 1999, according to Craddock. It needs to be reviewed. He said “NATO’s force pool is a puddle” which leads his audience to the conclusion that NATO members should indeed do more in terms of participation and investment in NATO operations.

It was an excellent event… Thank you Heritage Foundation.

Land Grab event Q&A

2009-05-05T17:02:00.003-04:00

I attended an event today at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars entitled "Land Grab: The Race for the World's Farmland". The entire event was excellent. I asked a question and transcribed the answer for my team here at DREL Solutions.

My question is about the [agricultural business investment] model happening in Afghanistan right now with the Taliban prepaying farmers to grow poppies. I am wondering if any of the panelists can offer insight into how investment might change the way they do business?

CHIDO MAKUNIKE: I am not familiar with that model and I can imagine the farmer being very happy about that but I don’t, from my experience and my perspective, see that catching on. There are too many things that can go wrong. Just like farmers, are used to traders who have taken advantage of them by taking their crops and promising to come and pay them when they haven’t been paid and disappearing. There have also been situations where farmers don’t do what they promised to do for their partners, [such as] the farmer has spent the money before they deliver the poppy, [such as] somebody comes along and offers a higher price than what you agreed on, and attempt to sell it because they are generally poor farmers. They are generally honorable people but there are some who are not. There are lots of cases in Africa and I am sure other places where traders have gotten burnt, not because they have given prepayment but because they have given other kinds of support with the understanding that it would be deducted from the price when they finish the deal and you never finish the deal because the farmers go and do something else either by unscrupulous other trader or some other kind of pressure. I don’t know any of the details but I don’t see it taking off very much.

CARL ATKIN: I don’t anything about poppy farming, I have to say but just to give you two general points I suppose: the first on risk management, agricultural and farming is inherently risky for all of the natural reasons such as weather and productivity as well as price, etcetera, so from a risk management point of view with my consultant cap on I would say it would be sensible to underpin a certain portion of revenues as far in advance as possible, however there are lots of practical problems with that; 1. In many of these transitioning and emerging economies we don’t have the same risk management tools that we have here in the West. Western Farmers can have contracts, futures and options; they can have fixed price contracts and these kinds of things, that is simply not available in these kinds of environments. The second issue is that in a relatively stable environment such as Western Europe, you can be pretty sure, within ten or twenty percent what your crop output is going to be. A disastrous crop output in Western Europe is 7tons per hectare and a good crop output is 10tons per hectare. In Eastern Europe the worst case scenario is no tons because it has died in the field. [] The volatility of operating from an investors point of view, an investors prospectus [] in a good year they may meet Western European expectations but in a bad year they will produce nothing at all.

CHIDO MAKUNIKE: I would just add one last thing, my experience in Africa in general, my own personal experience of studying these issues is that relations matter a lot more, or perhaps in a different way than they do here. Here the most important thing is for you to have a contract and therefore the protection of the law. But in many of these countries where the law is weak or very difficult to enforce I suggest and propose to these prospective investors, you do your investment in a way that you get the people on your side, not only the government. You cannot afford to have only the government on your side. The government is important obviously but you should get the people on your side rather than against you. A lot of that is building relationships. So I think a lot of the enforcement we have been talking about is seeing it in their own best interests to have good relations with these people. Do what they say they are going to do because it is in their own interests. They will protect your company because they will see how their livelihoods are improved by your investments but too often someone thinks they can pay off the minister, “we will get our title deeds” and I think that that is generally the way it works in most countries outside the Western World.

NOTES: 195 Cubic Kilometers?

2009-04-15T18:53:00.004-04:00

In 2006, estimated monthly changes in the mass of Greenland's ice sheet suggest that it is melting at a rate of about 239 cubic kilometres (57.3 cubic miles) per year. A more recent study, based on reprocessed and improved data between 2003 and 2008, reports an average trend of 195 cubic kilometres (46.7 cubic miles) per year.[6] These measurements came from the US space agency's Grace (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellite, launched in 2002, as reported by BBC.[7] Using data from two ground-observing satellites, ICESAT and ASTER, a study published in Geophysical Research Letters (September 2008) shows that nearly 75 percent of the loss of Greenland's ice can be traced back to small coastal glaciers.[8] EXCERPT

QUESTION: HOW MUCH ENERGY IN KILO JOULES DOES IT TAKE TO MELT 195 CUBIC KILOMETERS OF ICE PER YEAR?

I'll be back with an answer... I'm going for a short run outside.

According to my calculations, 1889GW Melting Greenland - Put that number in context… 1031GW Total U.S. Net Winter Capacity Electricity, EIA

NOTES: Global Warmer

2009-04-14T16:29:00.004-04:00

Global warming suggests earth’s atmosphere and oceans are accumulating thermal energy. The evidence appears to be the rapid loss of large sections of ice at the earth’s poles. In an earlier blog post, I had commented on an Antarctic Ice Bridge Collapse and wondered what kind of modeling was being done to estimate a critical point in time when the ice that remains is no longer enough to act as a thermal energy absorber. Considering the flow of thermal energy around the globe, and the tools we have to see these atmospheric mechanics in action, it appears as though the earth is behaving like a convection oven. Fortunately, that’s not difficult to model at all.

Again, this short essay is a starting point to begin discussions about global warming and the impact it is likely to have on the quality of life of earth’s human inhabitants. To reiterate my concern: Sea surface levels are not as problematic, in terms of quality of life on planet earth, as the overall temperature of the oceans and atmosphere. Presumably, there will be a point where the ice that is currently absorbing excess energy gained through global warming by changing its phase from ice to water will no longer be able to do so, causing significant increases in oceanic and atmospheric temperatures.

The molar heat of fusion of ice is 6 kJ/mol. That is to say that it takes 6kJ (Kilo Joules) to melt or freeze one mol of ice. A kilogram of ice has about 55.55 mol. Therefore it takes 6kJ/mol*55.55mol/kg to melt 1 kg of ice. [333.33kJ] So the question for our ocean and atmospheric modelers is, how much ice are we losing at the poles every year? That’s how much energy is going to go into raising atmospheric temperatures.

It requires 1,000 calories to raise the temperature of 1 kg of water 1 degree Celsius. A calorie represents 4.18 Joules. Therefore, it takes 4.18 kJ to increase the temperature of the ice we gave 333kJ to melt. That means, if we took the same amount of energy input per year to be 333kJ, and our system consists of 1kG of ice, the first year we would have 1kG of water. The next year our water would be at 80C. The next year our water would hit 100C… and phase change to water vapor as it boils, and so on.

The point is to show that the energy exchange is quantifiable in terms that an average person could understand, if they chose to.

More on this later

NOTES: Big Red Button - Google SketchUp

2009-04-08T16:06:00.003-04:00

Using Google SketchUp, I made a CAD version of the button we are considering using for the prototype of a product. CAD stands for Computer Aided Design and is extremely useful in terms of working up models before spending a dime on them. A good CAD model is going to catch mistakes before their born in your prototype and propagate into your product. This button is part of a multi-layer product model that we are looking at to determine where we want to go from here.

To push the big red button, or not push the big red button, now that is the question.

NOTES: Buttons for prototypes - and Secret Plots

2009-04-07T15:51:00.009-04:00

I found the button I was looking for... at least the closest type available, in Mouser's latest catalog (page 1571). It's not perfect, but prototypes aren't supposed to be perfect. We are working on a white paper here at DREL Solutions that describes the new product concept and detailed market research, but that isn't going to be a part of this blog until the product is in a store near you...

In the mean time, for semi-secret prototypes, check out http://www.mouser.com/ for their latest catalog. It will light your imagination on fire - if TV hasn't killed it already... just kidding of course. Imagination is what keeps civil society civil. Seriously though, if Hulu is really trying to take over the world... be very afraid.

Protect yourself and your family with complex and original ideas!!! Before it's too late!!!

NOTES: Antarctic Ice Bridge Collapse - Ocean and Atmospheric Modeling

2009-04-05T08:03:00.002-04:00

My question this morning is about the critical point in time where the oceans and atmosphere go from an ice bath to temperature increase. Imagine a pot of ice water on a stove top. The temperature of the water will remain the same until all of the ice has melted. At that critical point, the temperature of the water begins to rise.

The ice bath on a stove top is far too simple a model of heat exchange but it is a good starting point for discussions about climate change and its impact on local, national and global circumstances.

COMPANY: Introduction

2009-04-04T17:13:00.002-04:00

Hello World!

This is a first post for my company's blog, DREL Solutions LLC. DREL is an acronym that stands for Design, Research, Engineering and Logistics. We perform strategic analysis for a variety of customers. In the near future I will blog about the company's mission statement (that I will be posting) and discuss what we intend to achieve as a small business based in the United States.

Despite the economic down-turn, there are incredible opportunities for research firms who are demonstrating they can take a new approach and turn it into a profitable business model. What the down-turn actually means is that there is room for new business models, precisely because the old ones are no longer revealing the kind of profitability they previously made.

More on this later...

NOTES: Underwater Wireless Communications

2009-04-02T14:00:00.004-04:00

Engineer Explores Underwater Wireless Network
(PhysOrg.com) -- Milica Stojanovic says the best way to think about the need for better underwater communications is to consider the Titanic.

DREL: Excellent Article about underwater wireless networks.

Startup develops underwater acoustic modem
Amir Ben-Artzi
EE Times Europe
(01/24/2008 8:40 AM EST)

NETANYA, Israel — Sea-Eye Underwater Ltd. (Ashkelon, Israel) is developing an acoustic modem that it claims could transmit video images in real time wirelessly for underwater communication.

The technology is based on ultrasound and is intended to for the transmission of real-time data, video or sonar images via a modem attached to video cameras or sonar, to be used by both divers and unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs). The company is aiming to offer wireless real-time communication over a distance of 100 to 200 meters initially and then plans to optimize the technology for communications over 300 to 500 meters.

DREL: The data rate for real-time TV with useful pixel dimensions is very impressive.