Announcements

Are you still debating whether a career in red teaming is right for you? The May Popular Mechanics article “Ten Careers for Right Now” features a short discussion of red teaming as a potential career. We are pleased to note that Mark Mateski, Red Team Journal‘s managing editor, is cited in the article, which is now available online at the Popular Mechanics site.

Over the next few weeks, we will be building an RTJ glossary to better serve the red teaming community. In it we will include terms and concepts relating to red teaming and alternative analysis. Throughout, we will emphasize applied knowledge. We encourage the members of the red teaming community to join in the effort. Watch for the first terms this week.

In a recent short post, we pointed RTJ readers to the Popular Mechanics article “Ten Careers for Right Now,” which features a brief discussion of red teaming as a potential career. If you’re still wondering what a red teaming job might look like, or if you’re interesting in pursuing a new opportunity, you should take a look at a current job posting at Sandia Labs. To find it, browse the career opportunities for reference 62513. On a related note, we are considering adding a job section on the Red Team Journal site. If you would like us to post your red teaming-related job opportunity, let us know.

We’ve added links on our resources page to two sources red teamers should find useful. The first is the FBI subject bibliography on red teaming. It cites two dozen papers, reports, and sites relevant to red teaming and provides a short description of each. The second is a May 2008 School of Advanced Military Studies monograph by Major David Longbine titled Red Teaming: Past and Present. Longbine highlights two case studies: T.E. Lawrence in Arabia and Field Marshal Slim in Burma.

Red Team Journal is pleased to announce that Dr. Randy Borum has joined the RTJ advisory board. Dr. Borum is a behavioral science consultant on counterintelligence and national security issues. He regularly teaches and consults with law enforcement agencies, the Intelligence Community, and the Department of Defense. As a Professor at the University of South Florida, he has taught courses on terrorism, custodial interrogation, intelligence analysis, and criminal psychology, and is author or co-author of more than 100 publications. In addition to having served as a sworn police officer for municipal departments in Maryland and Florida, he has been an instructor since 1999 with the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s State and Local Anti-Terrorism Training (SLATT) Program. Dr. Borum is a board-certified forensic psychologist who worked as a senior consultant to the U.S. Secret Service for more than a decade helping to develop, refine, and study behavior-based protocols for threat assessment and protective intelligence. He also serves on the Forensic Psychology Advisory Board for the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit and served on the Defense Science Board Task Force on Understanding Human Dynamics in Military Operations.

Red Team Journal is pleased to announce the addition of three contributing editors to the RTJ team:

• Mr. Adam Elkus,
• Mr. Michael McGannon, and
• Mr. Benjamin Miller.

Adam and Michael may be familiar to RTJ readers; both have written for us in the past. Each new contributing editor is an expert in his professional field, and we look forward to the additional insight they will bring to the red teaming community. [click to continue ...]

We are looking to extend RTJ’s reach by enlisting a core group of contributing editors. The role of a contributing editor will be to help inform RTJ readers of red team-related issues, news, books, and reports within the contributing editor’s area of expertise. We are specifically looking for editors in these topical areas:

• Future military operations and technologies,
• Homeland security,
• Law enforcement,
• Cybersecurity,
• Economics and national security,
• Psychology and cognitive science, and
• Business strategy.

A polymath could no doubt handle all these areas, but we expect that any given editor will be fluent in no more than two topics. While the role is unpaid, it is not altogether thankless. You will have the opportunity to participate in the effort to promote better analysis and decision making in a very challenging time. If you are interested, please send a note expressing your interest and detailing your qualifications to editor at redteamjournal dot com.

Red Team Journal is pleased to announce that Matthew G. Devost has joined the RTJ advisory board. Mr. Devost is a technologist, entrepreneur, and international security expert specializing in counterterrorism, critical infrastructure protection, intelligence, risk management, and cyber-security issues (cyberterrorism, information warfare, and network security). He is best known for having founded the Terrorism Research Center in 1996 where he served as President and CEO until November 2008. Mr. Devost has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews, NPR, CBS News, BBC television, NWCN, Australian television, and dozens of other domestic and international radio and television programs as an expert on terrorism and information warfare. In addition, he has lectured or published for the National Defense University; the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement Communities; the Swedish, Australian and New Zealand governments; Georgetown University; American University; and George Washington University. His work appears in a number of books, magazines, academic journals, and conference proceedings. You can read his blog and full bio at devost.net.

The National Intelligence Council’s report Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World is now available on the Director of National Intelligence’s Web site. In the report, the Council reviews and integrates an array of trends and forces that are likely to shape the future. The Council concludes, among other things, that “The whole international system—as constructed following WWII—will be revolutionized,” that wealth will continue to flow from West to East, and that resource constraints may “[raise] the specter of scarcities.” At times, the report sounds almost Malthusian.
      While the Council’s credentials are impeccable, the effort generally yields broad assertions framed by carefully phrased caveats. After digesting the report, a thoughtful reader should review the limitations of scenario planning and perhaps reconsider the Council’s assessment with a red teamer’s eye for the unlikely but irresistible twists of history that have led us to where we are today.