Deputy Nuke Commander Suspended Amid Casino Probe

Philly.com offers a report on a Navy admiral being implicated in a NCIS investigation into  counterfeit casino gambling chips.  

WASHINGTON (AP) - The No. 2 officer at the military command in charge of all U.S. nuclear war-fighting forces is suspected in a case involving counterfeit gambling chips at a western Iowa casino and has been suspended from his duties, officials said.

Navy Vice Adm. Tim Giardina has not been arrested or charged, Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation special agent David Dales said Saturday. The state investigation is ongoing.

Giardina, deputy commander at U.S. Strategic Command, was suspended on Sept. 3 and is under investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, a Strategic Command spokeswoman said.
The highly unusual action against a high-ranking officer at Strategic Command was made more than three weeks ago but not publicly announced at that time. The command is located at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Neb.

Air Force Gen. Robert Kehler, who heads Strategic Command, suspended Giardina, according to the command's top spokeswoman, Navy Capt. Pamela Kunze. Giardina is still assigned to the command but is prohibited from performing duties related to nuclear weapons and other issues requiring a security clearance, she said.

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http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/20130928_ap_b46bcb10b3f54627a800c18fe2c21914.html

Note: The above photo of Admiral Giardina was released by the U.S. Navy.

U.S. Strategic Command Broadens Dialogue On Changing Nature Of Deterrence

 

Donna Miles at the American Force Press Service offers the below piece:

OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE, Neb., April 3, 2013 - No one can accuse Air Force Gen. C. Robert Kehler, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, of seeking out "yes men."

For the past four years, he has hosted an annual symposium near the Stratcom headquarters here to shed new light on the whole concept of deterrence -- and how the command strives to provide it on behalf of the Defense Department.


Getting those far-flung views was relatively easy during the Cold War, when the discourse filled lecture halls and library shelves around the world.

Deterrence was pretty straightforward at that time: attack the United States or its allies, and you risk a devastating counterattack. Recognition by both the United States and the Soviet Union of the consequences -- mutually assured destruction -- is considered a key factor in preventing the Cold War from escalating into an outright conflict.

But while nuclear deterrence remains vital to U.S. security today, Kehler said, it's not enough to protect the United States against the range of threats it now faces.

Stratcom's primary mission objective is "to deter strategic attack on the U.S., our allies and partners by making anyone who might contemplate such an attack recognize that they will not achieve their goals and will pay an extraordinary price if they try," he told Congress earlier this month.

Providing that deterrence is no longer a "one-size-fits-all" proposition, he explained, and has to be tailored to each individual threat and challenge.

"In practice, 21st-century deterrence encompasses a wider range of complementary tools"," the general said: nuclear, conventional and nonkinetic capabilities; limited missile defenses; and unfettered access and use of space and cyberspace. And reflective of the U.S. emphasis on "whole-of-government" approaches to national security challenges, he said, it also includes "soft power" contributions from across the interagency spectrum.

How to bring this all together is heady stuff, and opinions vary widely in how to provide this 21st-century form of deterrence.

It's a subject that Kehler and his Stratcom staff focus on every day, working in lock-step with their military and U.S. government partners to maintain strong deterrence that protects the United States and assures its allies and friends, Stratcom officials said. Yet ironically, officials here note a dearth of the kind of discussion that flowed freely when the challenge was so much less daunting.

So Stratcom is actively stirring up debate and soliciting diverse viewpoints as it strives to shape an approach to deterrence for now and into the future, Pat McKenna, Stratcom's plans evaluation and research division chief, told American Forces Press Service.

The command sponsors an annual symposium that brings together hundreds of experts from the military, government, industry and international realms and academic leaders to delve into the subject. Stratcom also sponsors an annual writing contest to encourage critical thinking among students and professors at senior military colleges, as well as civilian colleges and universities, on the theories of strategic deterrence and how it is applied.

The Gen. Larry D. Welch Writing Award is named to honor the former Strategic Air Command commander who went on to become the Air Force chief of staff and, after retirement, president of the Institute of Defense Analysis.

The goal of these efforts is to stimulate discussion that generates a deeper understanding of the issue, McKenna said.

The upcoming symposium, scheduled for July, will include several keynote speakers and panel discussions that highlight the full spectrum of viewpoints.

"What we strive to do is bring those alternative points of view together in a public forum and invigorate the debate," McKenna said. "We want this to be a catalyst to push that debate along and get a robust discussion going on so we can examine many of the issues."

Delving into the issue helps to provide insight into what promotes deterrence and what doesn't, and how seemingly positive approaches can backfire if not applied correctly, he said. The discussion enlightens leaders at Stratcom and across the Defense Department and U.S. government as they strive to achieve deterrence in a changing geopolitical environment, he added.

"The symposium engenders and reinvigorates the debate so we can understand those issues," McKenna said. "And understanding the diversity of opinion on the subject is important as not only Stratcom, but the U.S. government as a whole strives to implement policies and procedures to achieve their objectives."

Note: The above U.S. Navy photo by Chief Petty Officer Ahron Arendes shows the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine USS Alabama pulls into Naval Base Kitsap-Bremerton, Wash., after returning from a patrol.

U.S. Strategic Command General Cites Cyber Domain Challenges

By Cheryl Pellerin, American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19, 2011 - Space and cyberspace are growing in strategic importance as other nations increase their capabilities, the chief of U.S. Strategic Command told defense reporters here yesterday.

A recent example of cyber threats facing the Defense Department is a computer virus that affected a stand-alone ground control system for the nation's drone fleet based at Nevada's Creech Air Force Base, according to Stratcom commander Air Force Gen. C. Robert "Bob" Kehler.

The virus was not targeted at the drone fleet but entered "from the wild," Kehler said, adding the precise means of infection is still under investigation.

Stratcom systems detected the virus, quarantined it, and it had little to no impact on operations, he noted.

Both accidental and targeted attacks on DOD networks are on the rise, the general said.

"The trend is that we see multiple, deliberate attempts to try to get into our networks almost daily," he said.

Based at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Neb., Stratcom serves as U.S. Cyber Command's headquarters, and also oversees the nation's missile defense, and global strike and space operations, as well as combating weapons of mass destruction.

The Stratcom mission set touches that of every other combatant command, Kehler said, noting that there are vital linkages between military and commercial information networks in areas like transportation and logistics.

"The Internet is mostly in the commercial and civil domains ... but we use it," he said.

Perfect defense of all networks is probably not achievable, but "mission assurance is something that we must achieve," Kehler said.

The Defense Department has made great progress in cyber defense, but "sometimes ... the more you know, the worse you look," he said.

In the past, some attacks may have gone undetected, the general explained, but defense officials are "far more aware today of the things that are happening to us, and we are taking strides to deal with the realities of operating in cyberspace."

Robust protections are in place on the "dot mil" domain and defense officials have begun a pilot program that extends some of those safeguards to defense industries, he noted.

A fundamental issue in cyber domain operations is defining what an attack is, and developing a legal framework, doctrine and rules of engagement for those operations, Kehler said.

"In other domains ... rules of engagement are based on things like hostile intent," he said. "Much of what we see on our networks or at our boundaries, at our firewalls, I'm not sure you could describe as an attack."

Cyberspace threats include predators, vandals and spies, not all of whom are attackers by national security terms, Kehler said.

He noted much of the hostile activity on DOD's networks involves attempts to steal industrial or military secrets.

"The word 'attack' makes it sound as though people are trying to take our systems down every day, and that's not the case," the general said.

Attempts to exploit military information or disrupt network activities could evolve into destructive attacks, Kehler said.

The United States has a military edge in cyberspace, but other nations possess "very sophisticated" capabilities in that domain, he said.

An important question being asked inside the Defense Department, Kehler said, is how to retain that edge as the global population gets smarter in cyberspace.

"I think there's a great question for us that goes all the way into our education system [and] our university system," the general said. "Can we, as a nation, provide the wherewithal in the information age to maintain a national security advantage, like we did in the industrial age?"

"I don't know that we quite have the answer yet," he added.