ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

By Barton Gellman and Ashkan Soltani - " WP "- The National Security Agency has built a surveillance system capable of recording “100 percent” of a foreign country’s telephone calls, enabling the agency to rewind and review conversations as long as a month after they take place, according to people with direct knowledge of the effort and documents supplied by former contractor Edward Snowden. A senior manager for the program compares it to a time machine — one that can replay the voices from any call without requiring that a person be identified in advance for surveillance. The voice interception program, called MYSTIC, began in 2009. Its RETRO tool, short for “retrospective retrieval,” and related projects reached full capacity against the first target nation in 2011. Planning documents two years later anticipated similar operations elsewhere. In the initial deployment, collection systems are recording “every single” conversation nationwide, storing billions of them in a 30-...

Since February 2013, so-called self-defense groups in Michoacan have expanded their armed campaign into areas of the state with a Knights Templar presence . Meanwhile, Mexico City expanded its own efforts targeting Knights Templar leaders and operations (efforts that are greatly aided by the self-defense groups). Such efforts have helped Mexico City effectively bring the self-defense groups into the fold through a Jan. 27 agreement between militia leaders and the federal government, providing for the integration of the militias into federal security forces. The now-coordinated efforts of the self-defense groups and the federal government have caused substantial leadership losses for the Knights Templar since December 2013, including most recently the death of top Knights Templar leader Nazario Moreno Gonzalez in a confrontation with Mexican authorities March 9 in Tumbiscatio, Michoacan state. This cooperation coupled with substantial progress in targeting the Knights Templar has giv...

Summary Algeria , a relative bastion of North African stability, has withstood the sweeping social unrest of 2011, the rise of regional militants in 2012 and a major terrorist attack on an energy installation born out of destabilizing security environments on its borders. Algerian President Abdel Aziz Bouteflika, in power since 1999, suffered a stroke in April 2013 that has created a new political perplexity and left serious doubts in many Algerians' minds about the ailing leader's ability to successfully oversee the country's looming political transition. In moving away from a tradition of strongly nationalistic and vigorous campaigning, the Bouteflika political machine has to contain backroom political struggles that are now regularly spilling over into public debate rather than focusing on the upcoming election and Bouteflika's transition strategy. Algeria's April 17 elections will not end the current political impasse and nagging concern regarding the country...

On Tuesday, the same day that Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Moscow's intent to annex Crimea , unmarked soldiers entered a military base in Simferopol, sparking a limited exchange of gunfire in spite of the standing cease-fire between Ukraine and Russia. The firefight reportedly left one Ukrainian soldier and one of the unmarked soldiers dead. Kiev responded quickly; the Defense Ministry authorized its troops to use deadly force in response to any more incursions on its bases. Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said the conflict had entered a "military phase." But there is very little Ukraine can do militarily . First, its geography works against it. Crimea is an isolated peninsula that connects to mainland Ukraine through a small and easily controllable land bridge. In earlier stages of the Ukraine crisis, Russian troops strategically moved to seize not only this land bridge but also all potential points of resistance within Crimea. Their maneuvering ...

Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the Russian parliament on March 18. (KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP/Getty Images) Analysis Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an accession treaty March 18 between Crimea and the Russian Federation, taking a vital next step toward the annexation of Crimea and further raising the stakes in the standoff between Russia and the West over Ukraine . There are still several steps for Russia's annexation of Crimea to become official. The Russian Constitutional Court must verify the treaty, and then both houses of the Russian parliament, the Duma and the Federation Council, must vote on it. Deliberations are currently scheduled for March 21. After the vote, a transitional period would be set for Crimea's integration into Russia's legal, economic and financial systems, including the incorporation of the ruble as Crimea's currency. But it appears probable that formal annexation will take place by the end of the week. The Strategic Importance...

By Reuters  " Reuters "- Ukraine's military says a base in Crimea has been stormed with one serviceman killed, following Russia's signing of a treaty to incorporate Crimea. The Ukrainian premier says the crisis has now become a military one. Troops stormed a Ukrainian base on the outskirts of Simferopol on Tuesday, according to a Ukrainian military spokesman. One Ukrainian officer was initially reported to have been wounded in the neck. The Interfax and Reuters news agencies reported that a soldier had been killed. Kyiv, which blamed Russia for the attack, authorized Ukrainian troops to use weapons if necessary to defend themselves. A reporter for the AFP news agency said a burst of gunfire had been heard from a Ukrainian military unit in a suburb northeast of Simferopol. Two ambulances were seen driving into the area. Immediately after the incident, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk said the conflict had moved from a political to a military stage. "Toda...

You know lithium as the stuff that powers your iPhone, but you may not know that the lightest solid element also powers atomic bombs. Ignorance of lithium’s true nature once sparked a nuclear disaster. In 1954, the U.S. tested its first hydrogen bomb fueled with a lithium compound. What the weaponeers didn’t know about lithium almost killed them. Although lithium is fairly abundant, you almost never see it in its raw form. The silvery, butter-soft metal is highly combustible and so light that it floats. It keeps best in sealed jars of petroleum jelly. Lithium’s reactivity makes it all kinds of useful. In addition to battery anodes and psychoactive medications, lithium compounds form the high-temperature greases and atmospheric scrubbers in submarines and spacecraft. But lithium’s place on the periodic table right next to hydrogen and helium fascinates nuclear weapons designers. Hydrogen is the simplest possible element, consisting of a single proton surrounded by a single electron clou...

The plane was first observed flying in grainy photographs in late 2010. China's new Chengdu J-20 jet fighter. Photos: Sina Weibo and other sources. (SALEM) - A new Chinese fighter jet with stealth capabilities, the Chengdu J-20, was observed conducting a successful test flight Saturday at noon. Photos and video of the flight were leaked on military forums like Sina Weibo , China's version of Twitter . But this is not some big secret, NATO and western nations are familiar with the new plane, however they don't necessarily like having their F-22 Raptor, which reportedly costs as much as $361 million per aircraft to build, (no one knows the exact figure, some place the cost of an F-22 at $130 million, being upstaged by Communist China. An even newer US plane is the F-35 Lightning II. Millions and millions of US taxpayer dollars are invested in these death machines that can crash with the flick of a pilot's wrist, and the actual cost will never be known sinc...