https://osintelproject.org/ Recent content on OSINTEL Project Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Sun, 20 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-22/ Sun, 20 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-22/ JCPOA News Summary - These negotiations have been ongoing for 11 months. If you monitor the negotiators tweets there was an expectation prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for a finalized deal before the end of February. International sanctions against Russia has dramatically changed the diplomatic calculus for these discussions. I originally was going to focus a post on this issue two weeks ago but I was lazy.1 Since then, all parties have gotten back to the table and it looks like Russia’s demands and fears have been appeased. https://osintelproject.org/book-reviews/sinews-of-war-and-trade/ Sun, 13 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/book-reviews/sinews-of-war-and-trade/ Laleh Khalili is a Professor of INternational Politics at Queen Mary University of London and recently (2020) wrote this book. Familiar with her book Time in the Shadows: Confinement in Counterinsurgencies. Blurb This book provides a helpful introduction to the reshapping of global sea trade after decolonisation. I found this book interesting mainly due to my own ignorace of the global maritime industry and how this relates to the importance of the Gulf. https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-21/ Fri, 25 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-21/ Precursor - I have been aware of events between Ukraine and Russia for the past few months but do not have any real expertise in either country. I cannot offer any insight into what the goals of this invasion are or will be. Like most non-experts this is an exercise generating a more informed image of things (see this Irish Times article that has some helpful context). Even with my continued focus on JCPOA developments, I am quite in the dark on how things will play out even with that now. https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-20/ Sat, 12 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-20/ JCPOA News I keep reading that we’re reaching the end of the utility of JCPOA if nothing can be agreed upon soon. Unfortunately this has been repeated for months and these discussions continue into perpetuity. At some point this will all come to a head but I estimate we are a few weeks out until we will know for sure if an interim agreement can be reached. “In what was interpreted as a gesture to the final phase of talks, Washington earlier this week restored sanctions waivers for Iran that would allow international nuclear co-operation projects. https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-19/ Mon, 17 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-19/ WOD - Palimpsest 1: writing material (such as a parchment or tablet) used one or more times after earlier writing has been erased. 2: something having usually diverse layers or aspects apparent beneath the surface JCPOA News Some positive developments to start the new year. Current Status of Negotiations It looks like things are taking a U-Turn from my previous assessment of no agreement being reached between Iran and the United States. https://osintelproject.org/book-reviews/rise-and-kill-first/ Fri, 07 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/book-reviews/rise-and-kill-first/ Thoughts Well this book took forever to finish. At 631 pages it took some time to read and slog through. My understanding of Israel is limited so this was more of a starting text for shedding light on how it views assassinations. Israel also plays a factor in current JCPOA discussions which is why I was also interested in it. Also this book continues to make headlines in thinktank and academic circles. https://osintelproject.org/musings/new-year-and-welcome/ Tue, 04 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/musings/new-year-and-welcome/ Hello and Happy New Year I thought it might be nice to welcome any visitors that somehow come across this site. I have not been trying to really promote this site for any wide readership but if you do happen to find this site that’s great. Feel free to spread the word if so desired. Daily Rundown Since we are now in 2022 I thought it made sense to come up with a new goal for the 1 year anniversary of OSINTELProject. https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-18/ Tue, 04 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-18/ JCPOA News The 8th round of discussions resumed yesterday as informal meetings. Current Status of Sanction Negotiation Iran has walked back its demands for all sanctions to be removed. Instead it looks to be asking for its ability to sell oil on the global market (see last post). Turkish Lira at New Low The Lira reached an all time low to start the year. Tunisia’s Parliamental Woes *Preface-Not an expert on Tunisia in the slightest but I’ve been following (off and on) what’s been going on with its president (Kais Saied) abolishing parliament back on 26 July 2021. https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-17/ Thu, 23 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-17/ JCPOA News **So unfortunately I’m a bit out of touch with all of the nuance going on with these negotiations over the past two weeks. Some things I have read for following recent events I’ve relegated to tweeting out and others I have not been able to set aside the proper amount of time to provide any decent sort of synopsis of how things stand. See here for a brief summary of the past couple weeks from an Iranian source. https://osintelproject.org/musings/sourcing-philosphy/ Sat, 18 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/musings/sourcing-philosphy/ Philosophy and Disclaimer One of the intentions of this site is to merge sources from academia, Think Tanks, and journalists. In my estimation this is where OSINT is lacking. Typically I think of as OSINT as more for the cybersecurity nerd worried about exploitations of zero days and cyber ops. Much of that is done via Twitter analytics by looking at various topics and motioring their web traffic. That’s all well and good if you like that stuff but I believe this provides a skewed understanding of a topic. https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-16/ Fri, 10 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-16/ JCPOA 1. Not a great week by all accounts  Global media coverage of the first week has not been altogether positive. Diplomats reconvened yesterday 11/12/2021 for a resumption of talks, largely at the behest of China and Russia. 2. More US military and Israeli aggressive proclamations Yemen Follow Up The Sana’a Center has updated its Yemen Review publication with an update on the current Mar’ib offensive.1 From the looks of things the Saudi coalition has continued to be pushed back despite an earlier claim of killing aprox 200 enemy fighters. https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-15/ Sat, 04 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-15/ JCPOA Stuff Negotiations resumed between Iran and the P5+1 on 29 November in Vienna, but with the US in a hotel across the street and everyone else at the Palais Coburg hotel. (Other Coordinates: OpenStreetMap & HERE WeGo) An article by Vali Nasr https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/al-mayadeen:-jcpoa-negotiations-in-vienna-to-resume-next-wee Yemen https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/saudi-coalition-targets-hothis-sites-yemens-sanaa-state-tv-2021-11-30/ Houthi-Salafi Coexistence Agreements: Motives and Future Prospects https://sanaacenter.org/publications/analysis/15839 (Late Add) Carneigie ThinkTank Roundtable about GCC post Hydrocarborns. Some specific discussion about Yemen below. https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-14/ Sat, 20 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-14/ Negotiations in Vienna are set to resume on 29 November between Iran and Europe. There has been very little movement or progress with renegotiating the JCPOA. General arguments for the long delay cite Iranian elections at the end of June and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August but these are half truths at best for explaining this delay. A Business Insider article by Chatham House’s Sanam Vakil (Senior Research Fellow of MENA) provides a succinct summary of the past few months. https://osintelproject.org/musings/when-in-doubt-use-ai-and-ml/ Thu, 14 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/musings/when-in-doubt-use-ai-and-ml/ Anomalous Health Incidents (AHI), also known as Havana Syndrome. The US Intel Community has been baffled by the source of AHIs and a leaked report of the reported source of these ‘attacks’ has not happened. I.e., there is still conflicting evidence on what is causing this and if a human entity is responsible. One interesting theory is crickets causing the issue. Buzzfeed received a declassified State Department Report by the JASON board of scientists in November 2018. https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-13/ Wed, 13 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-13/ WOD Detente — The relaxation of strained relations or tensions (as between nations).[1] Interesting News and Articles Iraq Elections Iraq held its parliamentary elections on 10 October with Moqtada al-Sadr winning the largest bloc. · Notable for first general election since the Fall 2019 protests over corruption and lack of public services among others. · Election reforms passed on November 2020 created a new voting system called the: single non-transferable vote (SNTV). https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-12/ Fri, 16 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-12/ Interesting Iranian Op on US Soil So a few days ago the US DOJ just released an indictment of 4 Iranian individuals who conspired to kidnap or coerce Masih Alinejad an American-Iranian human rights activist to come back to Iran. The DOJ press release can be found here and the Masih’s account of the issue via the UAE news site The National is here. First case to my knowledge of something like this happening on US soil against a US citizen. https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-11/ Sun, 06 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-11/ Hmm, what’s been going on over the past month or so? Well, for the discussions not much has progressed over a continued belief of cautious optimism. There have been five rounds of discussions and this week there is a break before talks resume again. Overall stance of both parties has not changed. US- Iran remove nuclear stockpile before sanctions lifted. Iran- US remove sanctions and then rejoin JCPOA. There are a few notable events leading to this state of affairs. https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-10/ Tue, 20 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-10/ In the last post about these diplomatic talks, briefly mentioned was the Natanz blackout. The immediate sources claimed this was caused by a possible cyberattack by Israel. Since then the nature of the attack is much clearer and it was in fact an explosion on 10 April 2021. This explosion targeted the internal power supply of the enrichment facility and the Nytimes quoted US intelligence sources, which claimed that this explosion set back enrichment efforts 9 months and had Israeli involvement. https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-9/ Sun, 11 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-9/ Well that was quick. Just after updating the current diplomatic “shuttle diplomacy” (dumb term in my opinion. Also indirect talks among others) going on in Vienna, this Sunday an electric blackout occurred at Natanz, Iran. Iran labeled this a terrorist attack and journalists are calling this a cyberattack. Just yesterday Iran announced their use of 164 IR-6 centrifuges for uranium enrichment. AP’s version here, Guardian here, and AFP here and here. https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-8/ Fri, 09 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-8/ For the past year or so I’ve been paying attention to this whole fiasco of nuclear grandstanding between the United States and Iran. Basic preliminary instances that brought us to things today. 2018 • 8 MAY – United States withdraws from US led JCPOA nuclear agreement • NOVEMBER – Start of Maximum Pressure Campaign 2019 • 8 MAY – Iran officially announced abandoning some JCPOA elements. • 20 JUNE – US drone shot down over Iranian airspace https://osintelproject.org/book-reviews/well-do-it-ourselves/ Tue, 30 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/book-reviews/well-do-it-ourselves/ States they killed Abu Muhammad al-Masri in November of 2001. Pg 262-70. They really mean the military commander Abu Hafs al-Masri. (Atef) “ […] On the night of November 15, 2001 coalition missiles hit the home of al-Qa’ida’s military chief, Abu Hafs al-Masri, crumpling it into a pile of stones at the bottom of a deep crater. While most al-Qa’ida commanders had evacuated, Abu Hafs had been unable to do so because of a slipped disk in his back. https://osintelproject.org/musings/what-is-montogmery-mcfate-up-to-these-days/ Tue, 02 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/musings/what-is-montogmery-mcfate-up-to-these-days/ Background: Montgomery McFate is an anthropologist whose dissertation was on the case study of the British counterinsurgency of Northern Ireland (1969-1982). McFate then went on to RAND and the US Navy’s Office of Naval Research (ONR). This is all on her website. She was the co-creator of the Human Terrain System ,an outside fix of the United States military lack of cultural knowledge during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. https://osintelproject.org/musings/reflection-on-drone-strikes/ Mon, 25 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/musings/reflection-on-drone-strikes/ Most people go about their lives unaware of this policy. It’s out of sight, out of mind. There is also not much else to do besides monitoring if you are a civilian. Most people who do focus on the issue, decry drone strikes without actual information and simply see it as an extrajudicial killing or assassination and go about their lives. There is a very specific type of outlet which actually monitors these strikes, and much of it is done on Twitter. https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-7/ Wed, 20 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-7/ Rules of Thumb: Every source is suspect. No source will ever be completely factually correct no matter who its author. A great deal of skepticism is needed when analyzing and evaluating new information. What is the publishing history of the author of the source? What is the motive to release or publish this source? What platform is this source on? Are the sources named or unnamed? What does the bibliography look like? https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-6/ Sun, 17 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-6/ This is a the first test to try and reference the article I am responding to. I never trust the article to be available or viewable to everyone because of paywalls. There are a number of options for doing this and from my opinion the best would be the markdown or pdf approach. Relying on archive.org is also possible but from what I’ve seen that sometimes can fall through so in all possibilities I will try to provide the source I am referencing in the markdown format and at the bottom of the article is the web url. https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-5/ Mon, 11 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-5/ I’ve found something of interest to my studies of counterinsurgency and this is somewhat tangentially related. So Hubert Lyautey is the father of French counter-insurgency doctrine and practice today. Very checkered history that depends implicitly on the reader’s biases for understanding his impact today. More than just ‘bad’ as critics of imperialism will no doubt designate him but had interesting ideas of small wars and intelligence. With him you have to take the bad before you attempt to use him for today. https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-4/ Mon, 04 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-4/ Alright this is a test to see what its like to write in word and then copy over to markdown. Note this isn’t an export.[1] [1] Jessica Watkins, “Iran in Iraq: The Limits of ‘Smart Power’ amidst Public Protest,” Monograph (London, UK: LSE Middle East Centre, July 2020), http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/105768/. https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-3/ Sun, 03 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-3/ Iran is reportedly enriching their uranium yields back to 20% to its prior negotiating level before the JCPOA deal brought back their levels to internally agreed upon numbers. Reuters picked this up as well as the source seems to be coming from the Russian envoy (Mikhail Ulyanov) to IAEA. Now this information is interesting for a few reasons. Back in July 2019 it was reported that Iran was increasing its lowgrade stockpile and hedging its bets for Trump’s re-election. https://osintelproject.org/book-reviews/little-america/ Sat, 02 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/book-reviews/little-america/ Alright so this a new year and I’m going to try to become much more accountable towards my daily writing endeavors. I just finished Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s book Little America. I’ve previously read his Life in the Emerald City about his reporting in Iraq. There are few reporters in my opinion that can do what he can and the importance of both of these two books will stand the test of time to later be used by historians in the ensuing years. https://osintelproject.org/about/ Mon, 21 Dec 2020 21:48:51 -0700 https://osintelproject.org/about/ OSINTELProject was created to provide further context to global affairs. There are two gaps in OSINT reporting in my opinion, a good comprehensive list of trusted sources and a synthesis of various sources into a specific topic. Currently this gap has been channeled to focus on recent JCPOA developments. This is a static site blogdown package. The theme was forked from @jrutheiser/hugo-lithium-theme and modified by Yihui Xie. OSINTELProject then forked Yihui’s theme to suit their own purposes. https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-2/ Tue, 22 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-2/ So this year was a difficult year for all countries throughout the world dealing with covid and its socio-political implications. The issues in Ethiopia are much more complex than I can understand to any great degree. The one thing which is striking is how the international community view reformers to previous war-torn countries. They eat this up for breakfast. The new Ethiopian prime minister had a background in intelligence during the Eritrea-Ethiopian war. https://osintelproject.org/long-form/blog-2/ Mon, 21 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/long-form/blog-2/ Long Form https://osintelproject.org/musings/rblogdown-setup/ Mon, 21 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/musings/rblogdown-setup/ Alright I finally was able to setup Rblogdown with something resembling a type that I wanted. The biggest problem I had was the inability to figure out a decent workflow of things. RStudioHugoNetlify That’s the main way to get these things to all talk together. Here’s a helpful video tutorial of the setup. My biggest issue I had was with Hugo. They have a bunch of different themes but I didn’t like very many of them and I have no html, css, javascript or bootstrap experience. https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-1/ Mon, 21 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/daily-rundown/blog-1/ There is a new book out of on Qassam Soleimani by Arash Azizi. The Shadow Commander; Soleimani, the U.S., and Iran’s Global Ambitions I need to buy this and read it. Found interview here by Carnegie Okay this might be able to work okay, kinda sorta. Testing out the first post. https://osintelproject.org/long-form/blog-1/ Mon, 22 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://osintelproject.org/long-form/blog-1/ Emission Trading System Literature Review ​ What is the most effective policy measures for preventing climate change? This singular question has been in the back of leaders' minds ever since the first national UNFCC in 1992. By December 1997, in Kyoto, Japan, the market mechanism of cap-and-trade systems was conceived as the new pathway for reducing greenhouse gas emissions proposed by the United States. Since then, more national and subnational jurisdictions and private sector entities are adopting carbon pricing.