Avatar photoCrowdsourcing lessons from Tomnod

From Tomnod’s website: Examples of possible military buildings, crowds, landmarks and military vehicles in Damascus detected by Tomnod’s CrowdRank and derived from volunteer imagery insight. * * * DigitalGlobe announced today that it is acquiring Tomnod, a five-guy operation known for its pioneering work in the field of crowdsourced intelligence.  By combining satellite imagery and …

Avatar photoNorth Korean Targeting

Greetings from the old #nukefest2013. For my regular column at Foreign Policy last week, I pondered the meaning of Kim Jong Un’s Map of Death.  In that post, I made some simple estimates of the four targets: If one has but four targets to select, these four reflect a certain logic. North Korea is targeting …

Avatar photoMad Men

There’s a Mad Man Theory of Deterrence. Does it apply to arms control, too? Here’s the keeper Mad Man quote, found in Richard M. Nixon’s The Real War (1980): International relations are a lot like poker – stud poker with a hole card… Our only covered card is the will, nerve, and unpredictability of the …

Avatar photoSouth Korea’s Nuclear Defense

In a few weeks, South Korea’s newly-elected President, Park Geun-hye, will arrive in the United States on her first state visit. Between now and then, Washington and Seoul will be working on a diplomatic response to accompany their resolve not to blink should Kim Jong-un launch an attack, and they also want to wrap up two …