What’s the Difference Between ISIS, ISS, and ISI?

In honor of my favorite feature on Sunday morning radio, NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle hosted by Chief Puzzle Master Will Shortz*, here is a presidential foreign policy quiz.

Need a hint?

All three are foreign organizations outside United States, they all contribute to increasing the US national debt each year, and they all are worth billions of dollars.

Not sure yet? Here’s another hint.

The organizations wee established in 1948, 1999, and 1998, in no particular order.

Still Stumped? One more hint.

Their annual budgets are estimated to be $2.5 billion, $400 million, and $2 billion, again in no special order.

Complete answers are given later in this post. No peeking for now.

Besides the mental challenge of getting the answers right (which seems to be an inherent human impulse for most regular folks), there is a more serious purpose here.

Each of these three entities impacts significant U.S. world-wide interests in national security, diplomatic policy, and financial matters, including trade balances. An ordinary citizen might be a little hazy on the details of each organization, but we all should expect our President and Commander-in-Chief to be fully cognizant about their basic identity and structure and their role in current foreign affairs as they affect America.

A pretty smart 5th grader is likely to know the names of two of the three bodies in this week’s Presidential Puzzle. A curious and well informed high school graduate might be able to name all three.

Now the truth is that a typical middle-class American who has a job to go to and a family to take care of doesn’t have hours and hours to keep up with foreign national security affairs and is entitled to rely on our President to know about and take care of such matters.

Does Trump know about these three organizations without looking them up, glancing at a cheat sheet, or having an advisor whisper in his ear off stage? You may wonder, but I doubt it.

Of course, nearly everybody knows that the initials ISIS stands for a foreign terrorist organization causing turmoil and stress in the Middle East, particularly in Syria and IRAQ. Trump would undoubtedly get this one, even if his attention was elsewhere (say a very pretty girl on stage).

The second set of initials, ISS, stands for the International Space Station, which of course is not in the United States since it’s circling overhead about 15 times per day in low earth orbit (about 250 miles above the earth’s surface). ISS is an international collaboration with between the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada. We know by now that Trump is no science lover or serious student of the subject, so he would probably miss that one.

The third entity, ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence), is the commonly used English acronym for the Pakistani government’s premier internal intelligence service, roughly equivalent to our Central intelligence Agency. It’s likely Trump would not recognize this name in isolation, in a pop quiz like this. He might recover quickly in conversation if the term were repeated in context, and declare “Oh yes, I knew it all along. My earpiece malfunctioned and you mumbled the name. It’s a media conspiracy by the Clinton campaign”, or some such explanation.

Each of these organizations spends or controls billions of dollars each year. and the in United States provides huge amounts of money each year supporting ISS and ISI through our foreign aid to the Pakistani government, which may be a fitful and difficult ally but an ally nonetheless. Of course, America spends billions in military support and to conduct covert military operations and drone strikes to contain and defeat ISIS each year including the active military operation in Mosul in Iraq right now to help retake that city.

Don’t we all deserve a president who immediately recognizes the names and importance of significant multi-billion dollar international organizations and is able to properly interpret them in terms of foreign-policy and national security policies the President intends to prosecute on behalf of our country?

I certainly think so.

America faces a number of ongoing significant international crisis, and new ones can pop up without warning. The time frame of such important work does not respect a President’s preferred dinner time, or golf tee time, or a fixed determination to fly off and take a vacation at a luxurious home or resort. We don’t have time to waste for on the job training for our President.

Trump has already shown he has a very short attention span, even for critical matters. This trait has been evident since his childhood and now is confirmed habit. During the campaign, it has been noted numerous times that Trump has trouble sitting still and concentrating for more than 30 minutes to an hour at one time. He runs the room and when he gets bored or inconvenient for him, he just calls off a meeting and walks off and goes elsewhere. Unfortunately, this sort of conduct would be a major defect in presidential behavior during any significant policy crisis.

Tony Schwartz, co-author and biographer of Trump’s book, The Art of the Deal (1987), has said recently the Trump has an active vocabulary of around 200 words. Schwartz is exaggerating, no doubt to make a point. After all, Trump does have an Ivy League sheepskin.

But an analysis of Trump’s speech patterns at rallies and in the debates shows that he certainly practices word salad grammar, endlessly repeating simplistic phrases without nuance, and dumbs down the learning level of his remarks to his audience, thereby showing significant disrespect to them.

A person with a high school education and diploma should perform at about the 12th grade level for reading and understanding. A fifth grader should be able to perform at the level of a 10-11 year-old. A college graduate, like Trump, should be able to function at a grade 16 level. The very best American politicians produce public statements at around the 9th or 10th grade level to make communication with the vast majority of their fellow citizens easy and fluent.

Abraham Lincoln’s historic Gettysburg address, given almost exactly 153 years ago (November 19, 1863) during the middle of America’s Civil War, at the scene of the bloodiest military battle ever fought within our nation’s borders between our own citizens, though quite short in length, reflects an elegant and educated 19th century language that scores at about the 11th grade on the Flesch-Kincaid Scale (a standard measuring tool).

abraham-lincoln-the-great-emancipator

Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. President, The Great Emancipator

The Gettysburg Address:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

lincolns-gettysburg-address-november-19-1863

Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863

Trump routinely pitches his words at a 4th and 5th grade level, even when he delivers scripted speeches, but especially when he goes off on his impromptu remarks. That is Trump being the essential Trump. It is how he speaks, and reflects the mental process underlying how he thinks before he opens his mouth.

As for Trump’s actual vocabulary, clearly it is larger than 200 words. The problem author Schwartz is pointing out is that Trump uses and thanks in internally overly simplified word association patterns. Modern foreign policy and diplomatic affairs require a higher level of sophistication and mental activity.

There is little objective evidence that in private business meetings, Trump adopts a more learned or sophisticated verbal manner, consistent with his 16th grade education that he is always at pains to remind us about. His whole persona is that of a Bull in a China shop, the hyper-aggressive I’ve already made up my mind and I’m the Decider, so just do it philosophy which doesn’t mix well with volatile and dangerous international confrontations. Especially with foreign actors and adversaries who have troops on the ground, money in the bank, guns and ammunition in the vault, in some cases nuclear weapons at their disposal, and don’t give a Tinker’s damn about Trump Tower or the Celebrity Apprentice Nielsen Ratings.

Therefore, it’s likely that in a Trump presidential administration advisers would often have to communicate with Trump at a 10th or 11th grade level to allow effective back and forth spontaneous communication. This would inhibit rapid communication of essential intelligence and foreign-policy foreign policy matters. Add Trump’s lack of a substantial fundamental knowledge base, perhaps as evidenced by his unfamiliarity with the significance of the three sets of initials in our basic quiz for foreign-policy actors above, would only further slow down Trump’s comprehension of complex matters, and his ability to formulate his intended policies and convey them crisply to those responsible for carrying out presidential orders.

Any such delay when hours and minutes matter in an international crisis is not worthy of the America we all want to live in. It poses the additional risk of miscommunication and misunderstanding by his assistants, and thus leaving critical national security decisions subject to the immediate interpretation of advisors and go-betweens, who haven’t been elected by the American people to anything.

Do you really think America needs a president who has a flawed fundamental foreign policy knowledge base, doesn’t have the patience to concentrate on one problem for more than an hour at a time, and speaks in grammar school formulations on serious matters?

America deserves better, Trump is not up to do the job he wants us to give him today. If he would devote himself to serious study for three or four years, on a regular basis for several hours each day, he might pass muster for America. We don’t have time to spare now to give him a Golden Hall Pass to get ready to go on stage live in front of the World someday. Trump needs to be fully combat ready on Day One as our President. He is not.

Crude, simplistic bully boy tactics will make America less safe and raise tensions around the world. Trump’s fervent middle class supporters deserve to be secure in their homes at night, not worrying about how the latest verbal mistake by a careless President dropped the US into yet another hot international crisis.

Meanwhile, over in the corner, there is another candidate. She can already answer all three questions and describe how they interact with each other. She is ready to work to solve the problems they collectively pose for our precious country.

We all deserve a President who can sit down alone and concentrate for 3 or 4 hours at a stretch, reading and absorbing the contents of dense and demanding briefing books to get up to speed on all the crucial details of a situation before consulting and making decisions that may cost our country billions of dollars and put the lives of our soldiers, sailors and marines at deadly risk if a sloppy mistake is made.

Election Day is just 8 days from now. Please exercise your right to Vote. Vote early if you can. Convince your friends to Vote. America depends on you.

Answers to the Quiz

Some of you may have already figured out the answers to the quiz, and the bonus sections about dates and budgets. For others, here’s the tally.

ISIS:**    Islamic State of Iraq and Syria; established 1999; annual budget $2 billion

ISS:***      International Space Station; established 1998; annual budget about $2.5 billion

ISI:****      Directorate General of Inter-Services Intelligence; established 1948; annual budget estimated $400 million


*Enigmatologist Will Shortz, Crossword Puzzle Editor, New York Times

Will Shortz was born and raised on an Arabian horse farm in Crawfordsville, Indiana. From an early age he was drawn to wordplay, and at 13 wrote to Language on Vacation author Dmitri Borgmann for advice on how to pursue a career in puzzles. Graduating from Indiana University in 1974, he is the only person known to hold a college degree in enigmatology, the study of puzzles. Shortz achieved this feat by designing his own curriculum through Indiana University’s Individualized Major Program. He also earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Virginia School of Law (1977), though he forewent the bar exam and began a career in puzzles instead. He is a brother in Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.

Shortz began his career at Penny Press Magazines, then moved to Games magazine for 15 years, serving as its editor from 1989–1993. He has been the crossword puzzle editor for The New York Times since 1993 (the fourth in the paper’s history, following Eugene Thomas Maleska), and has been the puzzle master on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday since the program was started in 1987. He is the founder of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (1978), and has served as its director since that time. He founded the World Puzzle Championship in 1992 and is a director of the U.S. Puzzle Team.

Shortz is the author or editor of more than 100 books and owns over 20,000 puzzle books and magazines dating back to 1545, reportedly the world’s largest private library on the subject. Shortz is a member of the National Puzzlers’ League. He is currently the league historian.

Here is the 2-week home puzzle challenge from October 16th, which was solved in the latest episode broadcast on Sunday, October 30th:

SHORTZ: Yes, it’s actually a two-week challenge. Take the digits five, four, three, two and one in that order. Using those digits and the four arithmetic symbols – plus, minus, times and divided by – you can get one with the sequence five minus four plus three minus two minus one. You can get two with the sequence five minus four plus three minus two – put that in parentheses, all that times one.

And the question is how many numbers from 1 to 40 can you get using just the digits five, four, three, two and one in that order along with the four arithmetic symbols? You can group digits with parentheses, as in my example. There are no tricks to this. It’s a straightforward puzzle. How many numbers from 1 to 40 can you get? And specifically, what number or numbers can you not get? I’ll reveal my solution in two weeks.

The answer to this home challenge puzzle is 39, the only number not possible under the specified conditions is 39. A double twist ending. Most of the Sunday puzzles are verbal, and will surely enlarge a 200 word functional vocabulary. This puzzle is one of the fewer examples that requires some basic math reasoning. Though, truth be told, Trump is mentally challenged on the arithmetic front as well.

Think I’m being too hard on him? See the evidence for yourself in a YouTube videotape of a Howard Stern Interview with Trump and children Ivanka and Donald Jr. in 2006. Trump is asked to multiply !7 x 6 in his head, and pronounces that the correct answer is112 (sorry, wrong). Then Trump proceeds to insist his answer is right, even when the accurate answer of 102 is provided by the audio engineer working stiff.

Another vivid dose of Trump’s reality. Even 2 + 2 = 4 isn’t safe from his historical revisionism and reality distortion field, and proud of it is he to the end.

isis-propaganda-photo

ISIS Staged Propaganda Photo

**ISIS

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, IPA /ˈaɪsᵻl/), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS, /ˈaɪsᵻs/), Islamic State (IS), and by its Arabic language acronym Daesh (Arabic: داعش‎‎ dāʿish, IPA: [ˈdaːʕɪʃ]), is a Salafi jihadist militant group that follows a fundamentalist, Wahhabi doctrine of Sunni Islam. The group’s adoption of the name Islamic State and its idea of a caliphate have been widely criticised, with the United Nations, various governments, and mainstream Muslim groups rejecting its statehood.

The group has been designated a terrorist organisation by the United Nations and many individual countries. ISIL is widely known for its videos of beheadings of both soldiers and civilians, including journalists and aid workers, and its destruction of cultural heritage sites. The United Nations holds ISIL responsible for human rights abuses and war crimes, and Amnesty International has charged the group with ethnic cleansing on a “historic scale” in northern Iraq.

ISIL originated as Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad in 1999, which pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda and participated in the Iraqi insurgency following the March 2003 invasion of Iraq by Western forces. The group first proclaimed itself a worldwide caliphate and began referring to itself as Islamic State (الدولة الإسلامية ad-Dawlah al-Islāmiyah) or IS in June 2014. As a caliphate, it claims religious, political and military authority over all Muslims worldwide.

international-space-station-in-low-earth-orbit

International Space Station in Low Earth Orbit

***ISS

The International Space Station (ISS) is a space station, or a habitable artificial satellite, in low Earth orbit. Its first component launched into orbit in 1998, and the ISS is now the largest artificial body in orbit and can often be seen with the naked eye from Earth. The ISS consists of pressurised modules, external trusses, solar arrays, and other components. ISS components have been launched by Russian Proton and Soyuz rockets, and American Space Shuttles.

The ISS serves as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory in which crew members conduct experiments in biology, human biology, physics, astronomy, meteorology, and other fields. The station is suited for the testing of spacecraft systems and equipment required for missions to the Moon and Mars. The ISS maintains an orbit with an altitude of between 330 and 435 km (205 and 270 mi) by means of reboost manoeuvres using the engines of the Zvezda module or visiting spacecraft. It completes 15.54 orbits per day.

The ISS is arguably the most expensive single item ever constructed. In 2010 the cost was expected to be $150 billion. This includes NASA’s budget of $58.7 billion (inflation-unadjusted) for the station from 1985 to 2015 ($72.4 billion in 2010 dollars), Russia’s $12 billion, Europe’s $5 billion, Japan’s $5 billion, Canada’s $2 billion, and the cost of 36 shuttle flights to build the station; estimated at $1.4 billion each, or $50.4 billion in total. Assuming 20,000 person-days of use from 2000 to 2015 by two- to six-person crews, each person-day would cost $7.5 million, less than half the inflation-adjusted $19.6 million ($5.5 million before inflation) per person-day of Skylab.

pakistani-isi-logo

Logo of the Pakistani Directorate General for the Inter-Services Intelligence

****ISI

The Directorate General for Inter-Services Intelligence (Urdu: بین الخدماتی مخابرات) or Inter-Services Intelligence (abbreviated ISI, Urdu: آئی ایس آئی) is the premier intelligence service of Pakistan, operationally responsible for providing critical national security and intelligence assessment to the Government of Pakistan. The ISI is the largest of the five intelligence services of Pakistan, the others being the Intelligence Bureau (IB), Military Intelligence (MI), Naval Intelligence (NI) and Air Intelligence (AI). In the late 20th century, the ISI’s work and activities in relation to Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Afghan War in then-communist Afghanistan became quite famous. During this war, ISI worked in close coordination with the Central Intelligence Agency. The latter provided strategic and intelligence support to the Afghan Taliban against the Northern Alliance in the civil war in Afghanistan in the 1990s.

The ISI was established as an independent intelligence service in 1948 in order to strengthen the sharing of military intelligence between the three branches of Pakistan Armed Forces in the aftermath of the Indo-Pak War of 1947, which had exposed weaknesses in intelligence gathering, sharing and coordination between the Army, Air Force and Navy. After the 1971 Indo Pak war, the agency has been headed by a Gen officer three-star general officer of Pakistan Army, being the biggest segment of Pakistan armed forces. The agency includes officers from all three branches of the Pakistan Armed Forces; Pak Army, Pak Air force, Pak Navy and large number of Civilians officers.