25 June – 01 July – SHTF Indicators Tracker

25 June – 01 July – SHTF Indicators

(Updated 1800 on 29 JUN 2016 – 49 Data Points)

An indicator is an observable or potentially observable clue about capabilities, intent, or a future event.  Our mission is to identify indicators in order to provide early warning of future events, identify the likelihood of future events, or identify capabilities or intent that could cause an emergency or SHTF scenario.

This is the long-form intelligence reporting of our EXSUMs.  If you’d like a summary and analysis of the intelligence reporting, see our previous Executive Intelligence Summaries.

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Priority Intelligence Requirements:

PIR1: What are the current indicators of systems disruption that could lead to a SHTF event?

PIR2: What are the current indicators of an outbreak of global conflict? (Russia, China, Middle East)

PIR3: What are the current indicators of military, government, political, or social-related instability or violence that leads to domestic conflict?

PIR4: What are the current indicators of economic, financial, or monetary instability that leads to civil unrest?

PIR5: What are the current indicators of Islamic terrorism or the expansion of the Caliphate?

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PIR1: What are the current indicators of systems disruption that could lead to a SHTF event?

Critical Infrastructure

29 JUN: Researchers at Palo Alto Networks have managed to disrupt an Iran-linked cyberespionage campaign targeting governments and businesses from all around the world. (SecurityWeek)

28 JUN: Other family members and close contacts of those victims are “affected,” according to an updated OPM FAQ. Last summer, OPM announced attackers had opened files on 21.5 million national security personnel and their immediate dependents. (DefenseOne)

26 JUN: The US national security industry is planning for the impact of an unprecedented global food crisis lasting as long as a decade, according to reports by a government contractor. (Motherboard)

 

Government/Elections

29 JUN: Hillary Clinton has a nearly 80 percent chance of winning the White House in November, FiveThirtyEight polling guru Nate Silver predicted Wednesday. (Politico)

29 JUN: Gov. Scott Walker says “anything’s possible” at the GOP presidential convention next month in Cleveland.  Some Republicans remain unhappy with presumed GOP nominee Donald Trump and are calling for another candidate to be chosen, or for convention nomination rules to change. “There’s no script for what’s ahead,” Walker said. (WPR)

28 JUN: everal student groups from around the country are planning to join other socialist and progressive organizations to protest the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Cleveland later this month. (CampusReform)

28 JUN: For the GOP, however, the convention is shaping up to be a complete trainwreck. Nothing is working. (Salon)

 

Military

 

Espionage

29 JUN: U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said on Tuesday fighting economic espionage was a priority for the Department of Justice.  “When it comes to economic espionage, this is in fact a tremendous problem because … be they individuals or be they state actors … essentially they’re stealing from future generations also. We take these matters very seriously… It is a matter of priority for us.” (Reuters)

27 JUN: The Russian government is building an electronic intelligence-gathering facility in Nicaragua as part of Moscow’s efforts to increase military and intelligence activities in the Western Hemisphere. (FreeBeacon)

 

Terrorism

 

Civil Rights/Privacy

 

Secession/Balkanization

28 JUN: Texit isn’t happening, Gov. Greg Abbott has declared.   Abbott told radio host Sean Hannity on Friday that Texas wants to take a leadership role to make the rest of the country more like the Lone Star State. But what Abbott doesn’t see happening is a break with the U.S. the way Britain voted to leave the European Union last week. (Dallas News)

 

Organized Crime/Gangs

29 JUN: Washington Metro area officials are blaming illegal immigrants for a rise in gang related violence, and are imploring federal officials to enforce immigration laws and stymie the flow. “We warned two to three years ago that this influx over the border of illegal aliens was going to cause an increase in MS-13 and other gang-related crime. It’s happening. We are seeing it happen. It is not just in the border towns. It is happening all across America and we are seeing it especially here in Northern Virginia and the D.C. region.” (DailyCaller)

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PIR2: What are the current indicators of an outbreak of global conflict?

 

NATO

29 JUN: In the early morning of June 6, a uniformed Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) guard stationed outside the U.S. Embassy in Moscow attacked and beat up a U.S. diplomat who was trying to enter the compound, according to four U.S. officials who were briefed on the incident. (WaPo)

29 JUN: A Russian frigate the Kremlin claims was harassed by a U.S. guided missile destroyer was attempting to disrupt an aircraft carrier tasked with fighting ISIS, a U.S. official told USNI News on Tuesday afternoon. (USNI)

29 JUN: An annual NATO-led training exercise has kicked off in western Ukraine near the Polish border. The 16th edition of the “Rapid Trident” exercise brings together troops from 11 countries, including NATO members such as the United States, Canada, Britain, and Turkey. It also includes non-NATO countries in the alliance’s Partnership for Peace program, such as Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova. It will focus on “peacekeeping and stability operations. (RFE)

29 JUN:The US 2nd Cavalry Regiment’s passage through the sleepy Suwalki Gap earlier this month was the anticlimactic highlight of a 1,500-mile road march that would take the regiment’s Fourth Squadron from their base in southern Germany to the northern tip of Estonia. (VICE)

28 JUN: Germany has delivered the first two Panzerhaubitze 2000 (PzH 2000) 155 mm self-propelled howitzers (SPHs) to Lithuania, the Lithuanian Ministry of Defence (MoD) has announced. (Jane’s)

28 JUN: Seeking to reassure nervous allies, Secretary of State John Kerry said after hastily-arranged meetings in Brussels with NATO’s leadership that the U.S. commitment to the Europe “will not change one iota as a consequence of the vote that has taken place” in Britain last week to leave the European Union. (Military)

28 JUN: Britain’s departure from the European Union risks undermining Europe’s new defense strategy, days before NATO and EU governments sign a landmark pact to confront a range of threats from Russia to the Mediterranean, officials say. (Reuters)

28 JUN: After more than a decade of counterinsurgency warfare, the Army is now emphasizing major force-on-force mechanized warfare against “near-peer” adversaries such as Russia or China. (Scout)

27 JUN: Soon after Britain voted to leave the European Union (EU), its foreign affairs chief, Elmar Brok, urged the economic and political bloc to go ahead with plans to create an army. (Breitbart)

27 JUN: Members of the Senator Foreign Relations Committee from both parties are seeking to formally condemn Russia for a series of aggressive actions, including buzzing U.S. ships and aircraft and violating an arms control treaty. (TheHill)

27 JUN: NATO would currently be unable to protect the Baltics against a Russian attack, the commander of US ground forces in Europe, General Ben Hodges, said in a news report Wednesday. (Military)

 

Russia

29 JUN: Russia’s Foreign Ministry has launched a fresh volley in an increasingly ugly war of words with its U.S. counterparts, calling a former U.S. envoy incompetent and complaining that Washington was pressuring Russian diplomats. (RFE)

29 JUN:Russia is likely to deploy advanced nuclear-capable missiles in its European exclave of Kaliningrad by 2019, casting the move as a reply to a U.S.-backed missile shield, and may one day put them in Crimea too, sources close to its military predict. (Reuters)

28 JUN: Russia is well on its way to converting the Black Sea into a Russian lake, an outcome that endangers the security of all the states along the sea’s edges. Centuries of historical experience suggests that these threats will continue, along with increased efforts to intimidate these littoral states. (Atlantic Council)

28 JUN: Russia’s sole aircraft carrier The Admiral Kuznetsov must be permanently present in the Mediterranean Sea to protect Russia’s national interests in that region, the head of the State Duma’s defense committee, Admiral Vladimir Komoyedov, has said. (TASS)

28 JUN: More than 50 warplanes and helicopters of the Western military district have begun to redeploy to tactical airfields under the just-started exercise, the district’s spokesman Igor Muginov told the media. (TASS)

28 JUN:  By 2020, Russia is expected to develop 1,300 technology solutions for the defense industry needs, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Friday at a meeting on fulfilling the state defense order for the Far Eastern Federal District. (TASS)

28 JUN: Electronic warfare units of Russia’s Eastern Military District stationed in the trans-Baikal region of Buryatia begin a large-scale exercise focusing on combat employment of electronic warfare instruments, Alexander Gordeyev, the chief of the press service of the district said. (TASS) (Analyst Comment: The Trans-Baikal region of Russia is situated in the southeast, and is not near Europe.  Still, a Russian electronic warfare exercise is significant.)

28 JUN: Crimean resident Ernest Ablyazimov, who gave himself up to the authorities on Monday after several months in Ukraine’s paramilitary battalion, has confirmed Kiev has plans for a sea blockade of the peninsula in addition to the economic boycott on the ground. (TASS)

28 JUN:  The US guided missile destroyer Gravely moved dangerously close to the Russian warship Yaroslav Mudry in the Mediterranean Sea on June 17, violating the international rules for preventing collisions at sea, Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Tuesday. (TASS)

28 JUN: Russian harassment and surveillance of U.S. diplomats in Moscow has increased significantly and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry raised the issue recently with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the State Department said on Monday. (Reuters)

28 JUN: Stationing more U.S. and NATO troops in Southern and Eastern Europe and upping its naval presence in the Baltic and Black seas are important, but a new Atlantic Council report on the alliance’s purpose sees continued sanctions against Russia as an equally important tool of deterrence. (USNI)

27 JUN: Russian intelligence and security services have been waging a campaign of harassment and intimidation against U.S. diplomats, embassy staff and their families in Moscow and several other European capitals that has rattled ambassadors and prompted Secretary of State John F. Kerry to ask Vladimir Putin to put a stop to it. (WaPo)

27 JUN: Russia is pushing back against NATO calls for Canada to help lead a new military force in Eastern Europe, describing the measure as “a complete waste of money and resources.” (NationalPost)

27 JUN: President Vladimir Putin told Russia’s State Duma on June 22 that the country “must think about its own security” when confronted by what he called “NATO’s aggressive actions near Russia’s borders.” (RadioFreeEurope)

27 JUN: Moldova’s foreign ministry has called on Russia to stop recruiting Moldovan citizens to the Russian Army. (ABCNews)

China

29 JUN: small spacecraft sent into orbit by the Long March 7 rocket launched from Hainan in southern China on Saturday is tasked with cleaning up space junk, according to the government, but some analysts claim it may serve a military purpose. (BI)

28 JUN: Defending China’s firm opposition to letting India into the Nuclear Suppliers Group or NSG, its state-run media today described India as “a bit smug” in its dealing with the international community, a result of Delhi’s being “spoiled” by the West.  Last week, China succeeded in obstructing India’s membership of the 48-nation NSG, which controls the trade and transfer of nuclear technology and ensures against the proliferation of nuclear arms. (NDTV)

27 JUN: The United States warned China on Wednesday against taking “additional provocative actions” following an impending international court ruling on the South China Sea that is expected to largely reject Beijing’s broad territorial claims. (Reuters)

 

North Korea

 

Middle East

28 JUN: member of parliament from the political arm of Lebanese terror group Hezbollah called for Israeli communities to be captured and civilians taken hostage in any future war with Israel. (TimesofIsrael)

28 JUN: The White House urged Iran on Monday to stop giving financial support to Lebanon’s Shiite movement Hezbollah, warning of such continued backing won’t seep into “its interest.” (al Arabiya)

27 JUN: President Barack Obama is now looking to end this U.S. subsidy of Israel’s defense sector, according to U.S. and Israeli officials.  (Bloomberg)

27 JUN: As the war against the Islamic State in Iraq shows signs of fragile progress, U.S. military leaders there are preparing to ask President Obama for the one thing he is resisting above all else in his final months — the deployment of hundreds more U.S. troops. (WaPo)

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PIR3: What are the current indicators of military, government, political, or social-related instability or violence that leads to domestic conflict?

28 JUN: Thousands of lives might someday depend on this stockpile, which holds all kinds of medical supplies that the officials would need in the wake of a terrorist attack with a chemical, biological or nuclear weapon. (NPR)

27 JUN: Investigators quickly discovered that the Department of Homeland Security had been providing weapons designed for war to almost any police department, no matter how small, that wanted them. (CBS)

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PIR4: What are the current indicators of economic, financial, or monetary instability that leads to civil unrest?

27 JUN: Global investors are once again dusting off studies of the 1930s as fears of protectionism, nationalism and a retreat of globalization, sharpened by this week’s Brexit referendum, escalate anew. (Reuters)

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PIR5: What are the current indicators of Islamic terrorism or the expansion of the Caliphate?

North America

 

Europe

28 JUN: The German government voiced concern on Tuesday that Islamic State could step up attacks in Europe as it loses territory in Iraq and Syria, and said its domestic intelligence agency is training to respond to a large-scale assault. (Reuters)

28 JUN: A large arsenal of “weapons of war” was found near a radical mosque in Germany, adding to fears that terrorists are well equipped to carry out attacks across Europe. (DailyCaller)

Africa

 

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