The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Panetta to Offer Budget Strategy Cutting Military,” describes some momentous decisions our new Defense Secretary will have to make about the future of our country.

Chief among them is the military doctrine that we will maintain the capability to fight two sustained ground wars at the same time. This proved to be impractical with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and there is a debate about how much nation-building the army should be responsible for in any case.

Both Republicans and Democrats agree that cuts of about $450 billion are sustainable, but that represents only eight percent of the military budget, and steeper draw downs occurred after the end of the wars in Korea, Vietnam and the Cold War. Most importantly, the debate over what areas to reduce is a critical one.

Military personnel costs account for about a third of the budget, and many are focusing on this area, especially the generous retirement benefits. On the other hand, we maintain a lot of personnel at bases overseas, and even a conservative such as Tom Coburn noted we could still maintain our capabilities if we just left air bases and naval ports open as logistical links.

Two other large strategic items include the order of 2,500 F-35 stealth jets and the amount needed for replacement costs for our nuclear delivery triad, systems that are nearing the end of their useful service. The size for both of them is predicated on the likelihood of fighting an army with an advanced military capability.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “FBI Agents Get Leeway to Push Privacy Bounds,” provides powerful new evidence on the potential for misuse of FBI powers based on new changes to its agents’ manual.

The manual, called the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, put limits on the investigations of U.S. citizens based on several tiers of observation. A large number of activities were prevented unless the Agency opened “an assessment,” thus preserving a permanent record of their actions, potentially avoiding misuse of powers for personal or political reasons. According to the new changes, agents can search law enforcement and commercial databases without opening an assessment, and this new rule allows exploitation of these databases.

The next level of FBI activity, called a preliminary investigation, is also the subject of new rule changes. This level requires a factual basis to suspect wrongdoing, and it had been previously required before searching a person’s trash or administering lie detector tests. No longer.

Several other restrictions were relaxed as well, and they provide concern for centralization of power in this security-conscious post-9/11 era. One wonders if they will generate a split in the House of Representatives between establishment Republicans and the Tea Party on this basis.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Ex-N.S.A. Official Takes Plea Deal; Setback for U.S.,” explores the continuing tension between the need for secrecy and the primacy of the public interest in democratic societies.

The case involves an NSA employee — the National Security Agency is considered so secret that its employees joke that the acronym stands for “No Such Agency” — who leaked information about the organization’s rejection of a $3 million in-house computer technology program in favor of one proposed by a government contractor for $1 billion. Ostensibly, he was a whistleblower trying to save the taxpayers’ money.

The judge, Richard Bennett, ruled that the NSA would need to expose confidential documents to the jury if they wished to win the case, and there ensued a series of plea deals with the accused, Thomas Drake, who eventually agreed to one that didn’t convict him of any crime.

The tension between secrecy and the public interest is a perpetual one in democracies, and President Obama has been particularly insistent on the secrecy side despite promising greater transparency during his campaign. The government has taken a series of unprecedented steps including the purchasing of the entire first print of one book to destroy all the copies.

The upcoming trial of Bradley Manning for the leaking of diplomatic cables to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks will be the next chapter in this continuing conflict.

The lead story in today’s New York Times, titled “U.S. Said to Order an Expanded Use of Secret Action,” describes an order issued by General Petraeus in September to expand the use of special operations forces from the Pentagon for operations beyond combat zones into a number of countries in the Middle East region including Iran.

The order seemingly bypasses the C.I.A., traditionally in charge of clandestine activities, despite the attempts by sources in the article to vow cooperation and stating that “there’s enough work to go around.” More significantly, this expansion of Pentagon activities is largely shielded from oversight by the Congress and impacts relations among traditionally friendly countries in the region such as Saudi Arabia.

The directive still seems largely mysterious, and it largely seems to give the Pentagon a free hand to do whatever it wants, wherever it wants. Military sources seem to be cloaking it in the context of 9/11 and the need to combat militants around the globe, but the article reflects on a possible boomerang effect on the safety of U.S. soldiers.

The idea seems to be that spies are not shielded by the Geneva Convention, and if American military forces are blended with spies, their protection will evaporate also. It certainly does not do wonders in combating the image of an American empire promulgated by our adversaries.

This story has legs, and I expect to see follow up articles in the future.

The lead article in today’s New York Times is titled, “U.S. and Britain Close Embassies in Yemen Capital.” It describes the decision to close these buildings based on new information regarding a possible Al Qaeda attack.

The focus on Yemen has grown since the backing of the Al Qaeda group there, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, for the failed Christmas Day terror attack on a plane flying from Amsterdam to Detroit. The decision to close the embassies was based on a credible threat and occurred after a private meeting between General Petraeus, now responsible for the entire Middle East, and the President of Yemen.

In my opinion, the current reaction is purely defensive in nature. The United States must avoid “fighting the last war” because the next attack will come from a different country in a different way. Al Qaeda learns and adapts, and they will avoid attacking us where we expect it. Human intelligence is far more important than responding to past weaknesses.

For human intelligence, you need to start to infiltrate terrorists groups. And this will only occur if we provide a crash course in the Arab language and Arab customs for our operatives. We can’t anticipate the next terrorist attack through improving security measures or fiddling around with the terrorist watch list. With millions of bits of information, more than the Library of Congress every day, we simply don’t have the manpower to review them all, never mind trying to connect the dots.

We need to get men in the inside of Al Qaeda to anticipate their next move.  This should be the main focus of all our intelligence agencies moving forward.

The lead article in The New York Times today is titled, “U.S. Can’t Trace Foreign Visitors on Expired Visas.” It describes the failure of the U.S. government to effectively monitor immigrants with a temporary visa to ensure they don’t overstay the legal limits of their visit. Apparently, there is no organized system for visitors to check out of the country, and they are able to easily blend into U.S. society without creating any alarm among law enforcement officials.

The lack of an effective checkout system was highlighted by the recent arrest of a Jordanian immigrant who entered the country legally but then failed to depart. The immigrant, Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, was plotting to blow up a skyscraper in Dallas when he was arrested. Before that, he was able to obtain jobs, a California identification car, rent apartments and even get married without raising any alarms. It was only his postings on Jihadist web sites that alerted U.S. officials to his presence.

It’s amazing the gaps the Bush administration has left in our security structure. Despite all their bluster about 9/11, and their continuing efforts to instill fear among the American people (read Dick Cheney’s continuing campaign and vendetta), the most basic steps to protect this country remain unexecuted. It makes you wonder what their real agenda was while they held the reins of power.

A new military command for cyberspace was described in the lead story in today’s New York Times. It comes not a moment to soon. This country has lagged in its response to cyber attacks and security, and the prospect of an attempt to shut down computer systems controlling everything from energy to water to communications satellites is chilling.

The new cyber effort, originally designed primarily for defensive purposes, will have a multi-billion dollar budget and a cyber czar with an office in the White House. It remains to be determined whether the cyber division will fall under the umbrella of the National Security Council or the Defense Department.

The very real prospect of an enemy power attempting to influence our computer networks during hostilities, and the impact of a successful attempt to do so, clearly led to today’s action. The Internet is a wonderful thing, but as we come to rely on it more and more, it means increased vulnerability as well. They may be used to living in caves in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but in advanced civilizations, this is not an option.

Government inevitably lags a few steps behind the rest of society, so this new cyber office provides a chance for it to catch up.